Spring Semester 2020 Events

06–07.02.2020 Art Incubators: Craftsmanship in the Ecology of Knowledge Production
Two-day workshop for researchers in art, art research, and artistic research
Venue: Sofia Future Farm co-working space, Sofiankatu 4 C, Helsinki

The two-day workshop focuses on the role and place of craftsmanship in research as knowledge production. The topic arises from the observation that craftsmanship is often a ‘given’ in the cultural discourse. We are interested in craftsmanship (a) in the context of research in the arts, as well as (b) within the dynamics of knowledge production. Questions may include (but are not limited to):

• How does craftsmanship participate in the varied stages of knowledge production including the research design, implementation, and dissemination?
• What is the liminal space between art and craft in the context of knowledge production?
• What kind of craftsmanship do we look for in different research fields?

12.02.2020 PostDocArt event
Artistic and Scholarly Ponderings on Breath
Venue: Theatre Academy, Room 523, Staircase A, Uniarts Helsinki (Haapaniemenkatu 6, Helsinki)
Time: 17:00-20:00
Host: Jana Unmüßig (CfAR Postdoctoral Researcher)
Guests: Petri Berndtson, Leena Rouhiainen, Denise Ziegler

When we live in political peace and in good health, we tend not to be aware of our breath. We might notice it after running for the bus or going on a good jog, but if there is no good reason, it scarcely warrants our attention. Beginning with the understanding that breathing is an existential process of life and living, Jana Unmüßig invites us to spend time with the phenomenon of breath through the particular standpoints of four researchers concerned with breath.

Petri Berndtson will discuss breathing as respiratory openness to the world in the context of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's idea of "Immense Exterior Lung" as the elemental depth-dimension of the world. Leena Rouhiainen introduces her artistic research collaboration with choreographer and videographer Riikka Theresa Innanen and sound artist Antti Nykyri that addresses environmental and embodied inter-relatedness through air and breath. Denise Ziegler ponders on how the artwork is an experimental site in which mechanisms of the respirating apparatus of temporary routines are tested.

27.2.2020 PostDocArt event
Asking for Advice: Artistic Research in YouTube
Home videos and conversation
Venue: Theatre Academy, Auditorium 3, Uniarts Helsinki (Haapaniemenkatu 6, Helsinki)
Time: 17:30
Host: Pekka Kantonen

I´m starting an internet research project Three Times a Decade that is supposed to last ten years. In middle March, when the video diary of my family turns 30, I´ll start as a video blogger. I will download daily diary videos from the 1990s, 2000s, and 2020s. Three parallel timelines will be created. Before entering the unknown territory, I want to ask advice from my colleagues. Asking for Advice is an artistic method, that was the base for my doctoral work, Generational filming – Video diary as experimental and participatory research. 

Following the method, I ask the participants the permission to film the event for research purposes. The event will be informal with a snack. First, I will open the proof version of my YouTube channel showing some diary days. Instead of the clips of 2020 I will show corresponding clips from 2018. I have asked some colleagues to comment issues concerning artistic activities in YouTube and in social media in general.

Has YouTube any real alternatives for video bloggers? What ethical issues should be considered when producing material in YouTube? What kind of solutions we have in these ethical questions? What kind of opportunities does social media offer for artistic research?

18.03.2020 PostDocArt event
Taiteellisen tutkijan hyvä / The Good of the Artistic Researcher
Venue: Theatre Academy, Auditorium 1, Uniarts Helsinki (Haapaniemenkatu 6, Helsinki)
Time: 16:00–19:00
Host: Jenni Lättilä (CfAR Postdoctoral Researcher)
Guests: Isto Turpeinen, Theatre Academy and Arts Equal; and Anu Koskinen, CERADA, Uniarts Helsinki

In this PDA event we explore what artistic research can provide in relation to the well-being of the artists, as well as whole artistic field in question.

05.05.2020 Niinku mun asioista (Kind of about my own Issues)
Venue: Sonore-Hall, The Helsinki Music Center (Mannerheimintie 13 A, Helsinki)
Time: 15:00-18:00

CfAR Visiting Researcher Satu Olkkonen present Niinku mun Asioista (Kind of about my own Issues), performed by school children, on an original story from their contemporary children under the Finnish Red Cross Youth Shelter program. The musical is an interpretation of the life at the Finnish Red Cross Metropolitan Youth Shelters, the inhabitants of which have opened their life experiences to their fellow youngsters. It is a documentary that charts the way from problems in life to hope. The performance is part of the 30th anniversary celebration of the Youth Shelter program by the Finnish Red Cross.

See the performance from spring 2019

13.05.2020 PostDocArt event
WANDERING ECHOES, a walking seminar
Venue: Exhibition Laboratory Gallery (Merimiehenkatu 36, Helsinki)
Time: 16:00–20:00

Host: Luis Guerra (CfAR Postdoctoral Researcher)
Guests: Brandon LaBelle, Professor in New Media, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen; Marlon Miquel, Postdoctoral Researcher at ICI Berlin, PhD in Philosophy and Arts

Deligny's philosophy and pedagogy are suspended from that which cannot be domiciled in language, from that which exceeds without possible inscription, with the exception of its echoic reconstitution. Echoicity is the name we give to the appearing phenomenon of a disappeared event through a sustained reverberation between various fragile bodies. The act of drawing wandering line maps was at the core of Deligny’s last attempt. The main idea behind the production of these maps was really to see, to see a “common territory without subjects or language”, for seeing what happens to be invisible to language.

But what about the wandering in itself, as an operative loss mechanism which, in its declination, occurrence, forces the given context by enacting a possibility of an uninscribed phenomenon? In what sense the act of wandering could be seen as an echoic embodiment of something lost? Could be possible to think the wandering action as an uninscribed methodology of visibilization of that which doesn't have visibility? As example of cultural wanderings we have the Situationists' dérive, the actions Adrian Piper did in the ’70s, the acts of Jiri Kovanda, Oskar Nikolai Hansen’s pedagogical practices or the poetic acts developed at the School and Institute of Architecture of the Catholic University of Valparaíso in the '60s. And we also have, of course, the wandering of nomads, the wandering of children, the wandering around of tourists. This walking seminar aims to explore a physical and philosophical approach to the mechanism of wandering and its capacity for building echoic networks by its operative loss.

The seminar is a joint event between CfAR, the Academy of Fine Arts, Uniarts Helsinki and the Saastamoinen Foundation.