Projects & Artworks
AETHER9
Aether9 is a group of media and video artists from all over the world working together with streaming performances. I got involved in 2009 after a break in net streaming.
I stream from South Savo in Finland, from a small village called Tunnila. My aim is to make ordinary, traditional works of the countryside. So far, my streams have included planting vegetables and building a shed. I’m in a search for lost old skills, necessary for survival in eco-catastrophe and useful in everyday life (or so called homing?). My stream is broadcasted with very low bandwidth, but Aether’s interface enables me to do this. There are simultaneously nine or six live streams viewable. The performances are exhibited in festivals, events, art museums and galleries in real time.
Related links:
http://1904.cc/aether/
ILLUSION OF SAFETY & SECGEIST
2009
Even though my works are exhibited in museums and galleries, more often, my main media is virtual and public space. But when I was offered a possibility, I decided to create two private gallery exhibitions in Helsinki, Finland in 2009. Illusion of Safety and SECGEIST where sister shows that explored sense of safety that can be disturbed with very small nuances, fear, the other, concepts of inside and outside as well as perishability. These themes have been in the body of my work for quite some time already. Both exhibitions consisted of video works, photography and installations.
Illusion of Safety, Lasipalatsi Gallery, Jan - Feb 2009
SECGEIST, 00130Gallery, Nov - Dec 2009
Related links:
http://www.vimeo.com/3482717 (IOS video)
http://tinyurl.com/cl8ff5 (IOS photographs)
http://www.vimeo.com/8077104 (SECGEIST video)
http://tinyurl.com/yb2d8he (SECGEIST photographs)
CANARY COFFEE
Performance documentation, 3-channel video installation, 4 min 10 s, 2009
Also available as a single channel
Canary Coffee III, dur 4 min 31 s, 2009
Canary Coffee is a series of friendly coffee drinking rituals. I started them in Cran Canaria, Canary Islands.
The Finns are the number two in coffee drinking statistics in the world (2008) and it is said coffee tells about the mentality of Finland. This I don’t know, but I do know that coffee is a way of reaching to people, of socialising and an ”excuse” to pay a visit. People discuss over a cup of coffee.
A cup of coffee carries quite a heavy ecological backpack. Due to e.g. cultivation, erosion and long transportation distances, each cup of coffee consumes 300g of natural resources. I try to limit my coffee drinking to one cup per day. I waited someone to join me to have a cup of coffee, but no one came.
Related links:
http://www.vimeo.com/4075313 (CC I)
http://www.vimeo.com/4102939 (CC II)
http://www.vimeo.com/9165960 (CC III)
http://tinyurl.com/y9b6jcf (CC in FixC Open)
PIMP MY PASSPORT
2008 - present
Pimp My Passport workshops are open to everyone to make RFID reading proof passport covers to protect ones privacy. The project examines DIY and hacking prospects as well as control and privacy issues of the RFID (Radio frequency identification) passports being rolled out throughout the European Union. It also plays around with the notion of nationality and its symbols - seeking new ways to signal identity by “pimping” personal travel documents.
Although dealing with heavy subject matter like electronic privacy, big brother and nationality, Pimp My Passport is a playful, hands-on project that anyone can take part of. The artists Mari Keski-Korsu and Mika Meskanen organised the first ever Pimp My Passport workshop in Art&Communication:SPECTROPIA, Riga, Latvia, 2008. The next one followed in Jyväskylä, Finland, produced by Live Herring group in May 2009.
Related links:
http://tinyurl.com/77rkkv (Photos of passport covers)
MEGA
Mega is situated in Berlin, Germany (52°33.483N, 013°36.750E). It is mentioned in Falk Berlin -map from year 2003, but it has disappeared from later editions. Mega is a mistake on a map and loophole in the system of political, cultural, functional, social and historical locations. It is a non-place that questions land owning and borders - as well as the whole global economical system related to them. Maps are political playgrounds and they should be hacked, indeed.
Mysterious Mega website is a collection point of Mega materials. I built a clay house in Mega in April 2008 and documented its life. The work took shape as video art piece Mega, Museum of Mega installation and numerous photographs and video.
Also, the Falk map researchers told me that Mega is “a commercial remark placed wrongly in the map” and so I started to photograph some other commercial Mega remarks. Or at last, what I thought they could be.
Related links:
http://www.mysteriousmega.net/
http://www.vimeo.com/912305 (Mega stop motion)
http://www.tinyurl.com/ydx5jut (Mega photos)
http://www.vimeo.com/195875 (Mega video by Little Finnish Reindeer)
LEAVE FACEBOOK DAY
18.2.2008
Facebook “friend network” had been around for a while in year 2008. I was a member, too: spending my precious time there but not really understanding what I was getting out of it. I realised how disturbing FB really was when I read Tom Hodkingson’s article about it in Guardian: business angels and hazy privacy policies. I was surprised how lavishly me and millions of others were giving away personal information.
I decided to leave FB for good and organise official Leave Facebook day. Slowly people started to take part and nice discussions raised. Like myself, people are worried about privacy and advertising. FB is of course advertisers' heaven, but on the other hand, to what else this information can be used in the future? Only thing certain is change in this world and trough history people tend to forget that. When I left FB, there was 24 confirmed guests, over 50 maybes and about 150 declined. I can't be sure how many really left, though.
Related links:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/artsufartsu/2262618577/
WATCH
Documentation of silent public intervention, video installation with bird house security cameras, 59 min., loop, 2007
Changing of the guard in every 15 min.
Watch is an action of staring a security camera (CCTV) in public place. It discusses themes of security, privacy, gaze and fear. Watch -intervention took place in Berlin, Germany 26.6.2007 in the corner of Wilhelmstrasse and Niederkirchnerstrasse. The security camera of Bundesministerium der Finanzen (Finance Ministry) captured the starers. I tried to get the security cam footage from the ministry as it is my legal right, but they refused to give it to me.
Watch was premiered in Illusion of Safety -exhibition in 2009. Please contact me for more info, images and video.
MIKROPALISKUNTA
2006 - 2010
mikroPaliskunta is a series of art expeditions made in a sustainable way. It started as an expedition through Finland from the Northest Nuorgam to the Southest Hanko studying contemporary image of Finland in 2006. Who is Finnish? What are the symbols of Finland? How has the image of Finland changed? Does it really exist? The expedition travelled by a biodiesel car that was packed with five artists and protagonist of the project; a stuffed reindeer that is searching for new members to its herd.
There was a camera attached to the reindeer’s horn that took pictures trough the whole trip for image line with GPS-coordinates in each individual picture. This image line reaches trough the whole country and functions as an interface to all the materials collected form the trip.
The next mikroPaliskunta expedition was by bicycles in summer 2007: mikroPaliskunta Berlin Round Tour 2007. This time there was an aim to explore nations from point of view of an foreign country. Berlin Round Tour 2007 events and findings were shared again online. The first trip was documented on a single website, organised around themes and locations. The second one spread across existing blogging, placemarking and bookmarking services, photo and video sharing websites (i.e. Jaiku, Blogspot, Flickr, Vimeo, Tagzania). Unique tag “mikropaliskunta” acts as a label for relevant content on and between different online spaces. This also facilitates anyone to take part in the “movement”, because tagging is open by nature.
The newest project of mikroPaliskunta is a serie of expeditions in hell triangle of tourism: Canary Islands, skiing centre Ylläs and Sokos Hotel Vantaa (party ferry on land) in 2009 - 2010. The theme of the expeditions is The Finnish on holiday. For the series, a new web site of mikroPaliskunta was launched.
mikroPaliskunta's manifestation is not only in imagined nationality or nationalism, but it makes a statement about art making and documentation. They can be created in a sustainable way and it is not enough to just comment on ecocatasthrophies with art.
Some of my mikroPaliskunta related shortfilms:
Mysterious Mega, 2006
Reindeer Paavo’s travels in Finnish national sceneries: Koli and Imatra, 2006
Reindeer’s urban visit, 2008
See them in mikroPaliskunta channel at Vimeo.
Related
links:
http://www.mikropaliskunta.net
http://www.flickr.com/photos/artsufartsu/2262618577/
http://www.vimeo.com/mikropaliskunta (Videos)
ELEPHANT PATHS
2003 - present
Elephant Paths is a project that explores a geographical and social space with mapping foot paths. I started the project in 2003-04. It reveals a point of view to a space, telling a short story of a moment via video triptychs and people’s descriptions of pathways’ functions. It links paths together with social relations. Altogether it creates a spatial map that can be experienced on location (also spotted with GPS –devices) and the Internet (the website). I've also organised workshops related to Elephant Paths in Macedonia, documentations of these can be found at Elephant Paths website.
Related links:
http://www.elephantpaths.net
http://www.vimeo.com/175458 (Trilogy of a Moment I)
http://www.vimeo.com/175472 (Trilogy of a Moment II)
SIGMA
2004
Sigma is an ambient duo Mauno Tuominen and Petri Frestadius. I collaborated with them and Ville Ojajärvi creating live video improvisations for the concerts. We arranged a happening in Koetila, Helsinki in May 2004 and played through a whole week-end. People came and went, enjoyed the music, visuals and maybe even some cup of tea. The next concerts followed in Kontufestari, Helsinki August 2004 and in Kanneltalo, Helsinki, October 2004 (Kantsun Elektroillat).
Related links:
Pictures
from Koetila
http://www.studiomanus.com
NAZCA
2003 - 2004
A rock band Nazca invited me and Mika Meskanen to do live video visuals for their concert in Sibelius Academy Chamber Hall, Helsinki in 2003. The concert was very experimental with video mixings on screen and ten TV’s on stage with the band. The touching moment was when the whole audience was sitting in total silence during one minute silent moment with TV’s glowing and showing news footage from Iraq war.
This gig was followed by numerous concerts (Club Semifinal, Tarmo, Factory, Lume Mediacenter etc.).
Related links:
http://www.songsfornazca.com
SINGING
BRIDGES
2002 - present
Jodi Rose is a sound artist working with Singing Bridges project. She travels around the world recording bridge cables and making music out of them. For the first time, I collaborated with her in Expand’s Shadow happening for Di-Fusion in Helsinki working with visuals in 2002. We also had a concert in PixelAche Festival 2004 and 2005. PixelACHE Club 2004 in Helsinki featured a performance based on the Singing Bridges material, created in collaboration with myself (live video improvisation), Lasse Kaikkonen (live improvisation on atonal kantele), Jussi Lehtipuu (cello) and bridge sounds by Jodi Rose.
PixelAche 2005 performance was in Sibelius Academy Chamber Music Hall. There was a new bridge recorded in Tikkurila, Vantaa. We tested live streaming from the bridge as well as from the concert and collaborated with Particle/Wave workshop.
We also travelled to Thailand to record a bridge construction site in Bangkok. I made videos about the bridge builders: they were very hard working in difficult conditions. Radio Aporee hosted a Singing Bridges Thailand concert in February 2008 in Berlin where the footage and sounds were brought to public.
Related links:
http://www.vimeo.com/405137 (7 minutes video piece)
http://www.singinbridges.net
CAFÉ NOWHERE
- Interactive soap opera
Media Lab, University of Arts and Design, 2003
Aim of Café Nowhere was to create cinematic style, interactive program for digital television that promotes viewer participation through real-time viewer interaction using an engaging linear soap opera narrative. I worked as a concept designer and scriptwriter for Cafe Nowhere. It was a student project in Media Lab at University of Arts and Design Helsinki in 2003.
Related links:
http://www.mlab.uiah.fi/cafenowhere
XXX – One
handed media shenanigans
Katastro.fi, 2002 -
XXX is a Katastro.fi project. It is a web magazine format designed to
be open for all the people to submit their texts, articles, images or
whatever they want in the framework of the theme of each issue. XXX is
an ongoing project and at the moment there are two issues published and
the third one is coming up before the end of the year 2004.
I work as a concept designer and submit comics etc.
for XXX.
Related links:
http://www.katastro.fi
DOUBLE LIFE- Interactive animation serie
Saraxa Media, 2001-2003
Published in England, Holland and Finland
Double Life is a cross media concept that allows users to explore the
digital contents with their own created personal animation characters.
Double Life community works as an interactive avatar animation
series on TV and as a virtual avatar-world on web. Double Life offers
thoroughbred interactivity for it's users and allows them to create content
on their own conditions, to have visible virtual identities and meet
other members of the community as digital beings within three mediums
(TV, mobile and Internet). I
worked as a concept designer and a scriptwriter for Double Life. It was
my graduation work from Medialaboratory in University of Arts and Design,
Helsinki.
Related links:
Screenshots
of Double Life
http://www.mlab.uiah.fi
DObject
Chris Hales Workshop, 2002
DObject is a a interactive video experiment. It plays with objects and
actions people have on these certain objects.
A viewer can change the object of a character posses in the movie. The
action remains the same. This means that if a person is eating porrige
and the object is changed to a newspaper, the person continues eating
the newspaper.
I worked as a concept designer and designer for DObject.
Related links:
Screenshot of DObject
EXPAND AND NET STREAMING
2001 - 2003
I have worked with live broadcastings or as I call them net streaming happenings since 1998. Cameras and live net streaming techniques had become more available, so basically it was about bringing together creative people in different virtual or physical places, playing together and streaming the live video input over to net to everyone. For example, I live dupped the iconic Finnish movie The Unknowns Soldier in one of the happenings. The basic communication around the globe was done via IRC.
In 2001, when I started my MA studies in Medialab, I initiated and organised the biggest streaming happening ever in Finland: EXPAND. Expand happened in Meteori Cafe in Helsinki which was a collection point of streams coming from various artists and performers around the world. There were several musicians and video artists performing also physically in Meteori. After Expand, numerous other streaming events followed including also a workshop for youngsters in collaboration with Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma.
Related links:
Pictures from Expand happening in Meteori
Expand site
TRAM’N’BUS
Netcult, 2001
Tram’N’Bus is about recording sounds of public transportation and making music out of it. The collection point of these sounds and music is situated in the Internet. Public transportation system is the bloodstream of the city. When people flow smoothly from place to another, the city feels healthy and active. Each city’s bloodstream has its own genuine mix of tram models and buses, and in their opening doors can be heard the personal voice of the city.
I worked as an initiator and concept designer of Tram’N’Bus. Later, an UNESCO funded Media Lab project wanted to replicate the TNB-website. The content of new site was based on sounds of water.
Related links:
http://tram-n-bus.uiah.fi
http://unesco.uiah.fi/water/about
A
DIVE INTO AVANTO - Digital Glitch, Traditional Noise and Other User
Experiences
2001
Avanto Festival in Helsinki is the only Nordic festival on experimental film
and music. Avanto is a puzzling mixture of art, techno criticism, concerts
oozing holy atmosphere, and club gigs displaying arctic hysteria. In the feature
spiced up with image and sound, myself, Hanna Harris and Mika Meskanen
describe the festival experience.
I
worked as a concept designer, director of photography/film and writer for Avanto
-feature.
Related links:
Screenshot of Avanto feature
INSECT
CITY
2000
Insect City is an interactive multimedia. The idea was to create an infrastructure that compares humans and insects.
The project
was initiated by me and developed together with Satu Lavinen, Susanna Ruohonen,
Antti Sinnemaa and Tommi Tienhaara in Medialab.
Related links:
Screenshot of Incect City
REAKTIO AND PHOTOGRAPHY
My roots are very much in photography. That I was mainly doing when I started my studies - and I still photograph a lot. I had my first solo show in 1995 and I have also photographed for newspapers. I formed a photography group reAktio with my fellow students in Tornio College of Art and Media in 1998. Our aim was to improve the cultural atmosphere in North Finland. The group members were Tiina Ekosaari, Eija Mäkivuoti and Jukka Ritola. We also had visiting artists like for example Julian Hughes from UK. ReAktio had many exhibitions in North Finland as well as in Sweden. We took over formal gallery spaces as well as unused buildings and city walls.
Related links:
Pictures of my works
ONNELLINEN
Polytech of Western Lapland, 2000
Onnellinen (Happy) is a hypertext writing and reading area. It is community
based narrative where everybody can add their own paths of text.
Sceleton for
the story was written by me.
Onnellinen was
my graduation work from Polytech
of Western Lapland. PHP-code was done by Joona Järvelä.
Related links:
Screenshot of Onnellinen
OPPOSITE
1998
Opposite is one of the first experiments I have done with hypertext and participatory net art. It is a collection of thoughts and opinions about opposite sex. It questions stereotypes of what it means to be a man or a woman.
The space is divided to three parts: in general, sex and outlook. People were able to input texts under these themes. I also created photographs that were mixing the gender signs.
Related links:
Screenshot of Opposite
SOME OLD PHOTOS AND STUFF
Photos from England
Photos from Helsinki
Photos of BATW
Timeless
Muskrat's Diary
Funny
Received SMS's in autumn 2000
Pumppu
Don't break