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The Environmental Audiotour at the Helsinki Biennial
Helsinki Biennial 2023 is now open and our Aarhus based research group was happy to be involved in the team of curators led by Joasia Krysa.
As part of our work, we also wrote the Environmental Audiotour that can be heard in specific locations in Helsinki and also online. Below a short introduction text to the tour that you can listen to both in English and in Finnish as “Ääniopastus kaupungin luontoon”.
Imagine immersing yourself in data as you discover the intricate architectures of environmental sensing that surround us.
The Environmental Audiotour takes us through different spaces and sites of Helsinki and Vallisaari, their past and future. Real and speculative stories unfold together with elemental forces in the extended urban environment, from water to air and from land to energy. The stories draw our attention to the ecological landscapes as we move through different ’islands’ in the city.
Written by Jussi Parikka, Paolo Patelli, and May Ee Wong, The Environmental Audiotour consists of six audiostories that can be experienced in the South Harbour near the Lyypekinlaituri (1st), in Vallisaari at the ruins of the old Weather Station (2nd), in Hietalahti (3rd), in the Kaisaniemi Botanical Garden (4th and 5th) and in Sörnäinen near the Uniarts Academy of Fine Arts – as well as online.
https://helsinkibiennaali.fi/en/event/critical-environmental-data-the-environmental-audiotour/
References
Samir Bhowmik, “From Nature to Infrastructure: Vallisaari Island in the Helsinki Archipelago.” Environment & Society Portal, Arcadia (Summer 2020), no. 28. https://doi.org/10.5282/rcc/9062.
J.R. Carpenter, This is a Picture of Wind. Longbarrow Press, 2020.
Lorraine Daston, Rules: A Short History of What We Live By. Princeton University Press, 2022.
Gary Genosko,”Four Elements” in: Posthuman Glossary, edited by Rosi Braidotti and Maria Hlavajova. Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.
Heikki Nevanlinna, Ilmatieteiden vaiheita ja vaikuttajia Suomessa. Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2021
Dietmar Offenhuber, “Data by Proxy — Material Traces as Autographic Visualizations” arXiv:1907.05454, 2019.
Yoko Ono, “Painting for the Wind”, 1961.
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton University Press, 2015.
The project was realised with support from the Helsinki Biennial and the Design and Aesthetics for Environmental Data project (AUFF, Aarhus University, 2022-2024) and the Weather Reports project (AHRC and DFG, 2022-2024).
Environment, Data, Contamination – Helsinki Biennial 2023
With the University of Arts (Helsinki) and the Uniarts Research Pavilion, we (at Aarhus University) started an artistic research studio on the topic of Environment, Data, Contamination. The collaboration is part of the run-up to the Helsinki Biennial 2023 where our Critical Environmental Data research group is also part of the curatorial team.
After our first semester with the studio, the first texts are out in the form of blog posts that outline some of the approaches the participants are developing (and will continue to develop).
Read the entries online: the rich and inspiring takes deal with mining industries and land art, Baltic sea pollution and other watery bodies, anatomies of deforestation, weathering, materials, and of course artistic methodologies and approaches.
Helsinki Biennial 2023 title is “New Directions May Emerge” and you can read more about the general curatorial line here.
Lost Islands at the Helsinki Biennial: a conversation with Samir Bhowmik
I had the pleasure to be an advisor for Samir Bhowmik’s art and performance project Lost Islands (2021) that was commissioned by the Helsinki Biennial. Here’s a talk/conversation we did with Samir as part of the public talks program of the Biennial – we discussed the Anthropocene, performance arts, the island and infrastructure, and other themes stemming from the Lost Islands (as well as Samir’s own art-research work).
Lost Islands
Lost Islands, a performance project by Samir Bhowmik (and co-choreography by Esete Sutinen) is on now at the Helsinki Biennial. Book your place if in Helsinki, but have a look at the trailer video for a glimpse of the themes: anthropocene, infrastructure, architecture, etc.
“Lost Islands is a series of expeditions tracing the route of an imaginary subterranean and underwater cable through the island of Vallisaari, with the artist serving as tour guide and narrator. The expeditions venture into the island’s topography, forested pathways, waterways, historical buildings, ruins and bunkers. Along the way, visitors are engaged and immersed in installations, film, theatre, contemporary dance, song, and experimental music. The expeditions will take place as a series of events staged on the island from June to August.”
For more info on the work and credits, see also https://helsinkibiennaali.fi/en/artist/samir-bhowmik/ .
Library’s Other Intelligences videos
Our show Library’s Other Intelligences is on at Oodi in Helsinki until March 10th and we have now our videos of the three featured pieces! Please find links below:
Jenna Sutela: nimiia ïzinibimi
Jenna Sutela’s nimiia ïzinibimi is a unique book based on an invented new language representing those who lack first-hand access to, or the ability to produce, “natural” language.
Samir Bhowmik & 00100 ENSEMBLE: Memory Machines
Samir Bhowmik’s and 00100 ENSEMBLE’s Memory Machines is a performative art project that explores the infrastructure of the Central Library Oodi
Tuomas A. Laitinen: Swarm Chorus
Tuomas A. Laitinen presents Swarm Chorus. He composed a performative installation and a sound piece with generative tools that are interpreting the construction of medieval musical canons. The work as a whole is likened to an ecosystem of circulating substances, with its words, inspired by ecological science fiction, functioning as fictional recipe poems describing and decoding an alchemistic combination of matter and meaning.
In addition, the Code, Craft, and Catalogues: Arts in the Libraries-seminar will take place in New York on March 9th. It is also part of the Mobius fellowship program.
Library’s Other Intelligences opens
I am happy to share that our joint project with Shannon Mattern, Library’s Other Intelligences, opens in the new Oodi library in Helsinki in January!
Digital cultures of alternative intelligence, library architectures as a stage for performance and imaginary languages, and memory machines tours that take you through the library as a living organism of infrastructure are some of the themes the works by Jenna Sutela, Samir Bhowmik and Tuomas A. Laitinen address!
The opening takes place on January 11th including a small symposium on January 12th. There is also a press tour on Wednesday 9th of January – please be in touch if you want to attend.
Warm welcome to all! A brief blurb below including a link to the Memory Machines tours.
Memory Machines tours: January 11, 12 &13 at 18:30. Sign up here.
The Library’s Other Intelligences, an art project organized by the MOBIUS Fellowship Program of the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York in collaboration with the Helsinki Public Library, will open at the new Central Library Oodi in January 2019. The project features newly commissioned artworks, original research and a series of events, including an opening celebration on Friday, January 11, and a symposium on Saturday, January 12.
MOBIUS fellows Jussi Parikka (University of Southampton, Winchester School of Art, UK) and Shannon Mattern (The New School, US) have commissioned Finnish artists Samir Bhowmik, Tuomas A. Laitinen, and Jenna Sutela to create works that examine the new intelligences represented in our evolving knowledge institutions. These artworks reveal the alien logics of neural nets, give voice to machinic and speculative languages, and make visible the material infrastructures that allow intelligence to circulate. The exhibition’s featured artists are known for work that engages with AI, biological intelligence, digital culture, and the infrastructures of modern societies.
Visitors to the library will be invited to engage with the works – and with the new building – by attending live performances, embarking on expeditions, and reimagining how we will read, listen, and learn in a new techno-cultural future. The opening celebration will take place at Oodi on Friday, January 11, from 7 to 10pm; and the curators and artists will host a symposium about the exhibition on Saturday, January 12, from 2 to 4pm.
Image: Jenna Sutela: nimiia ïzinibimi, 2019
Oodi Art Project: AI and Other Intelligences
As part of our curatorial project on Library’s Other Intelligences we received an exclusive sneak preview of the new Helsinki Central Library, Oodi. With Shannon Mattern, Ilari Laamanen (Finnish Cultural Institute New York) and our artists we were able to see how the insides are shaping up. The aesthetically and architecturally stunning building is also such an interesting cluster of spaces that one could write about them much more extensively than just a this short posting. That longer piece might follow later, but already now I personally was struck how they deal with media in its multiple forms from analog to digital, from projection to making. From a cinema theatre equipped with also 35 and 70 mm projecting opportunities to a bespoke space for an analog synthesiser, the library offers an amazing platform for a public engagement with media which also includes recording studio space and a maker space – and yes, even a kitchen. The library is catered as a space of media transformations. At the moment the building exposed its multiple wires, cables, ducts and work – the labour of construction as well as cleaning that is already going on for the launch in December.
The top floor is reserved for what one would imagine as the “traditional” library, a space for books and reading, which also opens up to a terrace overlooking the Finnish parliament building. The roof wave is pretty stunning.
I wanted to include some of the visual impressions from the space that shows its infrastructure being built up, a theme that is present in some of the works from the artists Samir Bhowmik, Jenna Sutela and Tuomas A. Laitinen. In general, a key theme of our project concerns architectures and infrastructures of intelligence – both engaging with AI but as an expanded set of intelligences from architectural intelligence to ambient intelligence, from acoustics to amoebas and others layers of an ecology of a library that is a life support system – biologically, intellectually and culturally. It’s these multiple AIs that define the generative forms of languages, materials, and new publics that are present in how we want the space to be perceived. The exhibition opens in January 2019. Updates on social media will use the hashtag #OodiIntel.
MUU/Other
I am very excited to announce that I have been awarded Honorary membership of the MUU media artists’ association (Finland). Celebrating its 30th anniversary, MUU (Finnish for “other”) has become renowned for its pioneering work in supporting media and experimental arts in Finland. Needless to say, it is a big honour for me to be included in their roster of honorary members. Here’s the picture of my head receiving the award today.
The Library’s Other Intelligences
We are happy to publicly announce our art and curatorial project The Library’s Other Intelligences! Together with Shannon Mattern we are curating a show in Helsinki that includes three inspiring artists Jenna Sutela, Tuomas Laitinen and Samir Bhowmik who all engage in their work with the ecologies intelligence – artificial, artistic, ambient, architectural – that define the library as a cultural institution of knowledge. A key aspect of the project is that it is set as part of the new Helsinki Central Library Oodi – opening its doors in December.
The show opens in January and you can read more information here and if in Helsinki next week, please attend our event Alternative AI’s!
The project is realized through the Mobius Fellowship program of the Finnish Cultural Institute New York (and with the collaboration of Ilari Laamanen).
Machinology 