Research Catalogue

I would like to present my inter-textual reading of some theories concerning the nature of space and my reflections upon the materiality of it. I aim to open an alternative way to think about scenography. I would like to expose the theoretical process, the visual documentation and the artistic outcomes of a particular scenic event. So far, I have used my artistic practice as a method of inquiry and it is not my interest to offer an objective approach to the knowledge of space. In my process, I have found that reflective practice has been a central productive mode for my creativity. I intend to evaluate the unintended and unexpected findings in my work, and make them available for other practitioners. New interpretations of visual culture may contribute to the generation of extended knowledge. New insights about well-known concepts may provoke different outcomes, some of which may go beyond the basic concepts of the discipline of origin. I am interested in sensuality as an object of analysis and reconsideration of human experience. I am excited to engage with the visual, not simply as a mode of recording data or illustrating texts, but ‘as a medium through which new knowledge and critiques may be created’ (Pink 2007, 13). I propose to connect various sources of knowledge in a way that brings alternatives to think as an architect, as a scenographer, as performance designer and as a teacher. As much as I would like to situate the outcomes of my artistic research in the field of performance design, I hope my reflections may cross several disciplines.

This exposition explores the specific materiality that a Witches’ Broom offers for performance-based artworks, referring to ideas on plant-thinking by Michael Marder (2013) and on vibrant matter by Jane Bennett (2010). A witches’ broom, Taphrina betulina, is a fungus that afflicts certain birch trees and causes outgrowths of small twigs. With such a bunch of sticks I performed for camera and live on several occasions during the years 2006-2008 creating variations with only a few elements. Working with various materials – organic matter, digital moving images and recorded speech – and the various combinations of them, including the versions discarded during the process, provides a starting point for looking at the small transformations that produce difference and for proposing variation as one of the basic methods for artistic research.

Sure a photograph can be divided in its mental image and its image-object. These kind of duals follow our tradition, our metaphysics. When we rather think our corporeality as becoming to or becoming of the corpus instead of the separation of the mind and the body, we can or we even have to think the same way with photography, which traditionally has been located in-between of the nature and the culture. This essay aims at figuring out the question of the materiality of a photograph when we have to think otherwise than with the difference between mind and body, inside and outside etc. The text argues that the ”material core” is not the origin of the materiality of the photograph, but that the essential center appears only as a trace. Instead of referring to a distant object or a distant instant the trace is the distance itself, its differing and deferring. The materiality of the photograph consists of its materialities. In a way it is like our bodies are – actual and real, partly serving us, yet also mute and unresponsive, giving the possibility of being. Being itself, becoming.

The working title of my doctoral research is Relation Between Idea, Means and End in Three-dimensional Art Making. By making art, I study how a three-dimensional artwork evolves. I employ a phenomenological research approach in my practice-led, artistic research. In this exposition, I present one of the case studies of my dissertation, a sculpture called From A Container to A Room for A Female Elk (2011, porcelain, glazed stoneware, rutile and Ikea table, 70 x 50 x 50 cm). I describe in detail the process of creating this artwork, for it discloses the potential of materiality and spatiality in artistic research: the experience of resistance (Biesta 2012). This phenomenon occurs in my art practice, and I study it from within the same activity. While pursuing three-dimensional artworks, I move both the materials and my own body. In my research, I analyze this aspect of three-dimensional art practice through the phenomenological theory of embodiment. In order to stay close to the experiential, I integrate academic research with the art practice. Only the confrontation with the evolving artwork may reveal the material resistance in this art practice.

Kun esiintyjä esiintyy hänen ruumiinsa käy läpi tietynlaisen transformaation. Tuo transformaatio ei koske vain hänen ulkomuotoaan vaan myös hänen ruumiinsa sisäisyyttä. Ilmiö on sinänsä tuttu kaikille esiintyjille, mutta asiaa ei yleensä tavata tarkastella tähän tapaan. Esiintymisen kokemusta hallitsevat joko erilaiset psykologiset tai tekniset kategoriat, ”psykofyysiikka”. Ekspositio kohdentaa huomion ruumiillisen esillä olemisen kokemukseen sen molemmilta puolilta ja johdattaa havainnoimaan sitä kuinka virtuaalinen materiaalisuus voi ilmetä eri yhteyksissä. Tarkoituksena on etsiä esiintymisen tekniikkaa, joka ei ole enää valjastettu palvelemaan ihmisyksilön selviämistä taidemaailmassa ja yhteiskunnassa.