Mika Elo

°1966
affiliation: University of the Arts Helsinki
en

 

Since 2015 I work as professor of artistic research and as the head of the doctoral program in Fine Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki. My research interests include theory of photographic media, philosophical media theory, and epistemology of artistic research. I am participating in discussions in these areas in the capacity of curator, visual artist and researcher. In 2009–2011 I worked as postdoctoral researcher in the research project Figures of Touch. In 2012–2013 I co-curated the Finnish exhibition Falling Trees at the Biennale Arte 2013 in Venice. During 2018–2019 I was working as co-convenor of the Research Pavilion #3. Currently I am the PI of one of the research projects in the consortium Post-digital Epistemologies of the Photographic Image. I have also been a member of the editorial board of RUUKKU (2012– ) and JAR (2010–2019) over many years.

 

research

research expositions

  • What calls for thinking? (2014) author(s): Mika Elo published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
    My video "Mitä ajattelu kutsuu?" exposed here, audiovisually mimics, translates, challenges and transposes Martin Heidegger's essay "Was heißt Denken?". A compilation of passages of Heidegger's essay, which I have translated into Finnish for this purpose, makes up the voice-over accompanying the images in the video. The exposition also includes these passages in Finnish and German writing. The visual language of the video, in turn, edges Heidegger's pondering out of its focus by turning itself towards a series of questions deriving from the margins and lacunae of the essay. In its own peculiar way, the video is a call for thinking. Further, a text, entitled "conversation" in the menu, addresses some aspects of Heidegger's essay as if seen through the video. The conversation revolves around the questions of language and translation. Its form reflects the density and multifaceted character of the audiovisual material. Finally, "epilogue" attempts at unfolding a question concerning "intelligent design" that arises from the material. Here, my main point of reference is Jean-Luc Nancy's notion of struction.
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  • Some works and their afterlife (2018) author(s): Mika Elo published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
    In this exposition I present a cluster of works with regard to their subtle interconnections, often not consciously constructed or intended in any particular ways at the time of their conception. The afterlife of these works, however, enact aesthetic intra-actions of their ensemble. Shedding light on some parts of this cavernous network of pressing matters I make an attempt of explicating the ways in which artistic thinking might get "diffracted" into many part-processes that are both divergent and entangled. In the course of my presentation, I try to be sensitive towards the fact that these strings of thinking are distributed in a complex manner across the divide of sensibility and intelligibility. In terms of the chosen approach this implies avoiding the use of discursive explanations as the main medium of explication. This "method", if it can be formalized as one, involves priorizing the material circumstances of particular articulations, both verbal and non-verbal, over content-oriented gestures of translation.
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  • Lektio: Henna-Riikka Halonen (last edited: 2020) author(s): RUUKKU This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
    In this Lektio-series RUUKKU publishes selected introductory talks given by the doctoral candidates in the public examination of their doctoral thesis in artistic research.
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  • KuvA Research Days 2020 (last edited: 2021) author(s): KuvA Research Days This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
    Taideyliopiston Kuvataideakatemian Tutkimuspäivillä 7.-9.12.2020 kokoonnutiin keskustelemaan taiteellisen tutkimuksen ajankohtaisista kysymyksistä. Tähän expositioon kootaan kolmipäiväisen tapahtuman dokumentaatiot. At KuvA Research Days 7-9 Dec 2020 at the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki we incited discussions concerning topical issues of artistic research. In this exposition we will collect the documentations of the three-day event.
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  • Encore (2021) author(s): Mika Elo published in: Journal for Artistic Research
    The exposition presents two installations—Mitä uutta kivistä?/Anything new about stones? (2017) and LAB-O(U)RATORY (2019)—and enfolds them in a series of repetitive gestures that stage their methodical entanglement. Both of the installations explore and articulate the research potential of expanded writing. At stake is the ecology of attention in a setting that thematises the co-existence of different modes of articulation, interlinked spatial and temporal arrangements as well as their associative mechanisms. What happens when a spatial constellation is presented on a medially formatted time line? How to focus one’s attention in an associatively saturated literary space? Rather than attaching itself to an already existing theoretical framework or meta-discussions on artistic research, the exposition aims at explicating a singular artistic framework and its constellated structure.
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  • Postdigital Epistemologies of the Photographic Image (PEPI) (last edited: 2023) author(s): PEPI This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
    Postdigital Epistemologies of the Photographic Image (PEPI 2019-2022) is a multidisciplinary research consortium funded by the Academy of Findland. The consortium combines psychology (Helsinki University) , visual studies (Tampere Univesity) and artistic research (Uniarts Helsinki, Academy of Fine Arts). This exposition dcuments the research activities of the part-project at Uniarts Helsinki.
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Selected publications

  • Kosketuksen figuureja (02/09/2014)
    Publication: Book, Tutkijaliitto, Helsinki, artist(s)/author(s): Mika Elo (ed.), Laura Gröndahl, Marja-Liisa Honkasalo, Juho Hotanen, Esa Kirkkopelto, Harri Laakso, Maiju Loukola, Sami Santanen, Mika Elo
    Kosketuksen figuureja Toim. Mika Elo Kosketus vaikuttaa heti kättelyssä tutulta teemalta. Kenelläpä ei olisi omakohtaista tuntumaa kosketukseen? Kosketuksen kouriintuntuvuus kuuluu kokonaisvaltaisesti ruumiilliseen olemiseen, ja se palvelee intuitiota, ymmärrystä, käsittämistä ja sosiaalista kanssakäymistä monin tavoin. Lähemmin pohdittaessa tämä tuttuuden pintavaikutelma kuitenkin syvenee, sillä kosketus on viime kädessä aina toisen varassa. Se mikä meitä koskettaa, on käsillä ja lähellä, mutta vain osana maailmaa, johon kuuluu myös etäisyys. Kosketuksen kohdalla ajattelu kohtaakin ehkä hieman yllättäen konkreettisuuden paradoksaalin haasteen: kouriintuntuvinta on juuri vieraus tuttuuden ytimessä. Kosketuksen figuureja ottaa tämän haasteen lähtökohdakseen ja tarkastelee kosketuksen kulttuurista asemaa ja siinä tapahtuvia muutoksia filosofian, mediateorian, antropologian ja taiteellisen tutkimuksen konteksteissa. Artikkelikokoelman kirjoituksia yhdistää paattinen lähestymistapa, jossa kosketuksen eri ulottuvuuksia punnitaan alttiina olemisen, toisenvaraisuuden ja tahdikkuuden kysymysten valossa. Taustalla on kreikan sana pathos, joka viittaa herkkyyteen, tuntokykyisyyteen ja altistumiseen. Tarkasteltavaksi asettuu erilaisten tuntumien monitahoinen maasto, jossa kosketusta ei voi pelkistää yhdeksi aistimodaliteetiksi muiden joukossa. Kokoelman kirjoittajat tarkastelevat kukin tavallaan fyysisen kosketuksen näennäisen välittömyyden murtumakohtia ja niitä tapoja, joilla kosketus ylittää taktiilisen maailman. Uudelleen arvioitavana ovat vakiintuneiden tietorakenteiden perusteet, kuten mieli/ruumis, järjellinen/aistinen, oma/vieras ja abstrakti/konkreettinen -erottelut sekä medioiden ja aistien suhteet. Jaetun viitepisteen kokoelman kirjoittajille muodostavat fenomenologinen kosketuksen ajattelu sekä tämän dekonstruktio.
  • "Digital finger: beyond phenomenological figures of touch" (17/02/2012)
    Publication: Article, Journal of Aesthetics and Culture, artist(s)/author(s): Mika Elo
    DOI: 10.3402/jac.v4i0.14982 The article reflects on digitality and interface design in terms of the multiple senses of touch. Touching is presented as a “pathic” sense of being exposed, which implies that touching exceeds the tactile and even the phenomenal world. A particular focus is set on Aristotle's and Husserl's ways of thematizing the sense of touch. In this way, two extremes of the phenomenological thinking of touching are articulated: touching as an indistinct and heterogeneous constituent of sensitivity and touching as the guarantor of immediacy of the sense experience. Referring to Derrida's critical notes concerning haptocentrism, the article attempts to problematize the hand and the finger as phenomenological figures of touch and as holds of haptic realism. The article concludes that insofar as digital interface design aims at haptic realism it conceives of the sense of touch in terms of narcissistic feedback and thus tends to conceal the pathic moment of touching.
  • Valokuvan medium (16/06/2005)
    Publication: Book, Tutkijaliitto, Helsinki, artist(s)/author(s): Mika Elo
    ISBN/ISSN: 952-5169-34-0

Lectures

Past events

research expositions (collaborated)