Research Catalogue

This exposition documents my explorations of pondering with pine trees. Tämä ekspositio dokumentoi yritykseni miettiä mäntyjen kanssa. Den här ekspositionen dokumenterar mina försök att fundera med furor.

Today's situation can be characterised as the result of growing entanglement, simultaneity and proximity within a networked world. At the same time, global instabilities demand new practices of sharing responsibilities. While the data economy stresses the need to interface, to connect, to make compatible, as artists-researchers we look for a new mode of working-together and thinking-with that resists becoming compatible. Individuals should take a respectful and careful distance to one another, and develop a common movement that results in artefacts and propositions that reflect this work process and can coexist in a simultaneous aesthetic experience. The idea of simultaneously relaying as the foundation of a new type of collaborative practice in artistic research for us is captured by the combination of a transformative practice of relaying as described by Isabelle Stengers, and a singularly plural conception of being devised by Jean-Luc Nancy. Relaying then is not seen as a succession of states, as a temporal transition from one to the other, but as suspended in a space of simultaneity, as an ongoing circulation. Presened at SAR Conference 2021.

Through Segments is a sound installation in an unusual interstitial space—the staircase of the Kunsthaus’ Iron House that connects to the “Friendly Alien”. Four artists listen into the storeys using real-time computer algorithms, taking an acoustical image of the visitors’ movements, forming four individual reactions. It is a poetic attempt to think about the distributed, the fragmented, the parallel. During the development phase, the artists work independently, but at the same time they observe and interrogate each other, performing the gesture of a “simultaneous arrival” (Sara Ahmed). They enact a human algorithm, informed by reiteration and duplication but never being identical. The aim is not one “of all converging towards the same, but circulating, making common relaying, relaying back, being relayed” (Isabelle Stengers).

Your morning routine probably consists of waking up, heading to the loo, washing your hands, face, and teeth, then proceeding to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. You’ll repeat this routine tomorrow but this time, I invite you to perform blindfolded.

Unearthing means to dig something up, to uncover it and bring it to light. It is a transitive verb, an archaeological action onto an object, often from the past; clearly, a method of artistic research. Through archival, fictional and performative examples, I propose Un·Earthing as a complimentary interpretation in relation to future life in outer space, akin to notions of un-learning or de-colonizing. Un·Earthing, used intransitive, is the transformational process humans have been starting to undergo since the Space Age by leaving Earth and at the same time, realizing our own planet’s importance for life, both human and non-human. Un·Earthing is triggered by the unknown, unprecedented distance & isolation, at same time it creates a new consciousness for caring and sharing.

Mapping the Unseen investigated unseen, undiscussed topics - topics that are absent from public discourse, because of their implicit social taboo potential. The artistic research was carried out by means of mapping, encompassing performative interventions and an interactive archive. It was realised with artists and art groups in four countries: Croatia, Iran, Bangladesh and Austria. The research method was interwoven with transdisciplinary methods. Enabling a visualisation of the respective topics and generating dialogue through participatory processes were at the core of this project.