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20161004

Grey Cube Gallery documentations are completed! Fixed the Italian-to-Finnish translations with Viivi yesterday and send my final invoice to the Union for Rural Culture and Education. My favorite artist presentations was by Päivi Allonen and I also enjoyed taking with the Helsinki Zoo staff. During the summer Honkasalo-Niemi-Virtanen collectives residency documentations were cancelled but I’m overall satisfied with the project.

A lot of interesting ideas concerning the relations of animals and public institutions came up during the Zoo staff interviews but these complex talks didn’t make the final cut. I’ve written some down under the tag “Animals in the City“. The idea that the sites primarily goal is to build awareness of animals as individuals was build up through director Sanna Hellström interview. The Bear Castles that hosted the art exhibitions and events are now left unused and if someone is interested in presenting stuff there they should contact Katri Houtbeckers from the Zoo.

Artist presentations:

Helsinki Zoo staff and festival documentations:

I’ll meet up with the Union for Rural Culture and Education on the 26th for the “Paikan tuntu” book launch at the movie theater Orion. I was interviewed for the book by Antti Möller.

Visited “Suburbia – Lähiöperformansseja” exhibition by Antti Ahonen and Katri Kainulainen over the weekend. Came too late for Siiri Nevalaises after party piece but got to hear KOELSE drone noises. Many of the exhibition pieces were faux performance documentations and there was a tad too much repetition (Some photos from the exhibition available online). The photos mimicked street fashion looks and presented a hardcore-nostalgic view to the suburbs. Katri and her friend posed semi-nude in rough concrete surroundings. Unfortunately the contemporary fashion industry produces heaps of similar (and even more disturbing) imagery and styles present in the exhibition came off as rip-off’s of Vice magazine covers.

The fashion industry has appropriated the visual cues of performance art! The disturbing documentations such as Carolee Schneemann’s “Interior Scroll” (1975) has been normalized trough Vice magazines commercial interests in the niche and the perv’s. The best way to rebel against these processes is to produce documentations which look boring!

Had an interesting chat concerning photography workflow with Antti. His archive on flickr is packed with performance art, street art etc. event documentations and artworks. The huge cultural heritage collection he has build has been made intuitively. He does not “waste time” with color correction (he’s colorblind) and he trusts the camera’s/computers automatic sensory. This approach alleviates stress and enables him to take on performance documentation gigs rapidly.

Sometimes the winning move is to renouce the fight. #ॐ

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20160525

Editing the first interview of Honkasalo-Niemi-Virtanen for Grey Cube Gallery / Helsinki Zoo residency project. Hard work. Majority of artists I’ve interviewed over the years have refused to provide clear answers. I remember working on “The Second Forest Team” interviews back in 2010. The 5 min video required nearly 2 hours of footage and a week’s worth of editing. Artists seem to fear that they’ll lose something when they provide simplified answers about their work. Perhaps they see interviews as magical rituals which set a course for their processes.

Ironically the more obscure answers artists give the more power is passed to the editor, who is left to craft senseful statements from partially answered questions. When artists work obscurely they empower art institutions. The more complex an artist presents him/herself is the more staff is needed to build sense (Similarly, the less organized and offbeat an artist is the more legitimate professional art institutions appear). When an artist and a group become self organized, the economic balance shifts and they possibly begin to compete for the same funding.

Getting funds for making both art and sense about the art should be set as a goal for counter culture projects. Often organizations work with either art or sense but both remain victims.

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20160512

In the future we can borrow clothing from the libraries.

Got a job working for the Grey Cube Galleries! I’ll be in charge of documenting their summer events at the Helsinki Zoo. Discussed the gig with Päivi Raivio and as requested I’ll make 4-6 short documentaries of various events and projects. I’ll get to interview Katrin Caspar & Eeva-Liisa Puhakka, Päivi Allonen and artist of the Honkasalo-Niemi-Virtanen group. These artist talks will be backed with interviews of various animal caretakers and zoo personel. I worked for the Grey Cube Galleries last summer too. I build the Zoovision reality-headset during my residency. This gig is a interesting continuation of last years work and offers a new view to the zoo institution.