Mari Keski

SELECTION OF
WORKS
Mari Keski-Korsu
Mari Keski-Korsu (mkk) is an interdisciplinary artist. She explores causalities of eco-social and
structural changes in people’s everyday life and her works often have a societal or political nature.
The basis of the work is in location, a place and people’s relations to it. Could microcosms be
macrocosms?
She started her artistic career with photography but then moved to working with internet live
streaming in the 1990’. This lead her to work with live video visualisations as well as net and video
art, documentary, installations and especially location based art.
The works has been exhibited in Europe and in several other countries around the world. She holds a
MA from University of Arts and Design Helsinki (Medialab) and BA in visual arts from Polytechnic of
Western Lapland.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
I want to practice critical curiosity. I challenge myself to look at the world from perspectives I didn’t
know to exist. My works are political as personal is political, but my questions are asked in everyday
level. Also, many good things happen out of accidence if I’m open to them.
Art is a selfish act to me. It gives me a reason to reach the people and the world: an attempt to belong.
I work with sense of twisted humor, because when dealing with serious or overwhelming subject
matter, it is good to be able to laugh trough the tears.
My techniques vary according to the subject matter and theme I work with. I mostly use digital
media, but I work with physical materials like plants and recycled stuff etc., too. The sustainability is
important trough the whole process.
mkk ( at ) katastro ( dot ) fi / www.artsufartsu.net
video / public intervention/ installation
ALBEDO DREAMS
Albedo Logger, video, dur 00:06:03, 2013
Albedo shields in action, photograph series, 2013
Albedo Shields, installation, 2012
Albedo suits, reindeer suit on a stuffed reindeer, 2012
Albedo shields and suits are designed to increase the
sunlight reflectivity, albedo value in the forests this way
cooling the climate and mitigating the climate change. The
work plays with the notion of geoengineering and forest
management as a geoengineering project.
Geoengineering = deliberate large-scale intervention in
the Earth’s climate system, in order to moderate global
warming.
DIY geoengineering
Albedo shields are for different locations in forests. They
are geotagged and carefully designed to fit perfectly in
their place. Preferably the shields could be used outside
growing season and when there’s no snow. Natural
materials are used to blend the shield better to its’
surroundings. For demonstrating purposes, the image of
the actual location is projected on the shield. One shield is
1m² in size and it should then add 2W of lightness.
Albedo suits are for humans and animals. The suit
prototypes are for a logger and a semi-domestic forest
animal reindeer.
The project is a collaboration with Forest Research
Department - Helsinki University Centre for Environmental
Research and Finnish Bioart Society. In 2013, Albedo
Dreams project continues in urban environments in
Reykjavik, Iceland and Kuopio, Finland.
Albedo shields installation. 2012.
Albedo logger, still image from the video. 2013.
Detail from the installation, surface image on/off with Arduino run blink box. 2012.
documentary / video / mapping / photography
HAPPINESS AND DEGROWTH
Glad with less
Installation, 2011
Kohtuus / Degrowth, video, dur 00:08:31, 2012
Onni / Happiness, video, dur 00:07:27, 2012
What makes you happy in your life? What does degrowth or downshifting mean in
everyday life? Can we live with less material? How could the economy of a place
like Salo (FI) look like in the future when Nokia has left the town on its own? Could
econimical turmoil be a positive possibility towards sustainable lifestyle?
Me and sustainable consumption researcher Satu Lähteenoja invited a group of artists
and researchers to explore these questions in Salo during summer 2011. This lead to a
performative happiness testing with rocking chairs in the Salo market place as well as
many interviews. The end result is a video and sound installation with a map to Salo’s
local economy – an existing sufficient lifestyle.
The installation has three rocking
chairs with different sound (themed
Happines, Relaxed and Degrowth).
The video projection introduces many
types of degrowth ideas.
The project was premiered in Salo Art
Museum in Halikonlahti Green Art III
in 2011.
Up: Happiness testing, still image. 2011.
Left: Happiness distributor, still image. 2011.
Happiness and degrowth installation. 2011
documentary / video / text / photography
GREENER GRASS
Greener Grass, video, dur 00:18:18, 2011
Stories of immigration for today
Greener Grass is a documentary of a cross-Atlantic sea travel following the historical
Finnish immigration routes to US and interviews of Finnish-Americans in many
generations. Can we learn from history to meet the challenges of today’s immigration?
My family is from the part of Finland (Northern Ostrobothnia) from where many left
to North America in hope for better life. Immigration was very common in the end
of 19th century and the beginning of 20th century, about 300 000 Finnish people
emigrated. People went to work in mines, established farms, some were ashamed
about their immigrant background and some kept the “old culture” alive. I travelled by
cargo ship to United States and followed the footsteps of my ancestors. My ancestors
were looking for good life. They were environmental refugees (hunger due to small
crops, lack of farming land) and political refugees (Russia wanted to Russianise
Finland). What has happened to them and their offspring? How they integrated? What
does their offspring think about immigration? And how does a location shape one’s
identity?
http://www.greenergrass.info
Betty, still image. 2010.
Eric, still image. 2010.
Sea travel, still image. 2010.
performance / video
BIODIVERSITY KIT
Yesterday’s future
Stellers’ stand. Biodiversity Kit: DNA bank (left) and cloning machine for the samples. 2010.
Performance, 2010
Video, 2013 (under production)
Stellers’ representative. 2010.
Biodiversity Kit is a DNA-sample bank of extinct flora and fauna as well a cloning
machine for these samples. The Kit is developed by Stellers Ltd operating in 19th
century. Mari Keski-Korsu is the main representative of the company and it made
its first appearance in Palfucon confrence - Paleofuturistic trade show in Helsinki,
2010.
DNA-sample bank. 2010.
Name of the company comes from Steller’s Sea Cow. Steller’s Sea Cow is is
extincted, but luckily can be restored by Biodiversity Kit. Steller’s Sea Cow was
living in North Pacific and was a close relative to manatees and dugongs. The
biggest population of Steller’s Sea Cows were living in Commander Islands in 1741
when it was found by Georg Wilhelm Steller. It took only 27 years until the Steller’s
Sea Cows were hunted to extinction, because they were so easy to catch.
CLEAR-CUT
PRESERVATION
video / conceptual
Clear-cut Preservation, 4-channel video installation with
thoughts from forest owners, 2010 - 2080
Website (in production)
I have declared one hectare of clear-cutted forest to be a Clearcut Preservation for the next 70 years. This is the time a tree
grows to be big enough to be cutted in intensive forestry. The
area is located in Tunnila village, Finland. Planting, thinning and
timbering of the trees is forbidden. So far there have been one
illegal thinning in the preservation.
As slow as the tree grows
I have a camera in the forest to record tree growth. It takes
still images in one hour intervals.
See the video of tree growth in 2010 - 2011 at:
www.vimeo.com/mkk/ 23311229
Tree growth camera on location. 2010.
Winter view, still image from the timelaps. 2011.
Summer view, still image from the timelaps. 2011.
realtime streaming / internet art / performance / video
AETHER9
Remote realtime storytelling
Screen capture of the live output, Museum of Modern Art Medellín, Colombia. 2009.
Aether9 is a group of media and video artists from all over the world working
together with net streaming performances. I got involved in 2009 after a break in
net streaming.
I stream from South Savo in Finland, from a small village called Tunnila. My aim
is to make ordinary, traditional works of the countryside. So far, my streams have
included planting vegetables and building a shed. I’m in a search for lost old
skills, necessary for survival in eco-catastrophe and useful in everyday life (or so
called homing?). My stream is broadcasted with very low bandwidth, but Aether’s
interface enables me to do this. There are simultaneously nine or six live streams
viewable. The performances are exhibited in festivals, events, art museums and
galleries in real time.
http://1904.cc/aether
My bean harvestings, 2009.
exhibition / video / installation / photography
ILLUSION OF SAFETY &
SECGEIST
Two private exhibitions
Even though my works are exhibited in museums and galleries, I
often consider my main media to be virtual and public space. But
when I was offered a possibility, I decided to create two private
gallery exhibitions in Helsinki, Finland in 2009. Illusion of Safety
and SECGEIST where sister shows that explored sense of safety that
can be disturbed with very small nuances, fear, the other, concepts
of inside and outside as well as perishability. These themes have
been in the body of my work for quite some time already. Both
exhibitions consisted of video works, photography and installations.
Illusion of Safety, Lasipalatsi Gallery, Jan - Feb 2009
SECGEIST, 00130Gallery, Nov - Dec 2009
Exhibition documentations of all the art works
www.flickr.com/photos/artsufartsu (images)
www.vimeo.com/3482717 and /8077104 (video)
A Tourist and a Patrol boat, digital colour print, 2009.
public intervention / internet art / performance / video
CANARY COFFEE
Friendly coffee drinking rituals
Canary Coffee, performance documentation,
3-channel video installation, 00:04:10, 2009
Also available as a single channel
Canary Coffee III, dur 00:04:31, 2009
Canary Coffee is a series of friendly coffee
drinking rituals. I started them in Cran Canaria,
Canary Islands. The location, where the coffee is
drank, has a significant meaning in the videos.
The Finns are the number two in coffee drinking
statistics in the world (2008) and it is said
coffee tells about the mentality of Finland. This
I don’t know, but I do know that coffee is a way
of reaching to people, of socialising and an
”excuse” to pay a visit. People discuss over a cup
of coffee.
Having a cup of coffee at a beach which
was a destination for a small wooden boat
carrying 77 African refugees two months
ago. Three of the refugees were already
dead when the boat was found.
Canary Coffee III, still shots from the video.
A cup of coffee carries quite a heavy ecological
backpack. Due to e.g. cultivation, erosion and
long transportation distances, each cup of coffee
consumes 300g of natural resources. I try to limit
my coffee drinking to one cup per day. I waited
someone to join me to have a cup of coffee, but
no one came.
See all the videos at
www.vimeo.com/mkk
Canary Coffee I: Having a cup
of coffee in an abandoned dog
race track that is a home for a
homeless. You can hear dogs
barking inside a small, hot,
windowless hut close by.
Canary Coffee II: Having a cup of coffee at the mall owned
by the tenth richest person in the world.
public intervention / surveillance / video / installation
Bird house security cameras. 2009.
Screen capture from the video installation. 2009.
Watch, documentation of silent public intervention, video installation with bird
house security cameras, dur 59 min., loop, 2007
Changing of the guard in every 15 min.
Watch is an action of staring a security camera (CCTV) in public place. It discusses
themes of security, privacy, gaze and fear. Watch -intervention took place in Berlin,
Germany 26.6.2007 in the corner of Wilhelmstrasse and Niederkirchnerstrasse. The
security camera of Bundesministerium der Finanzen (Finance Ministry) captured
the starers. I tried to get the security cam footage from the ministry as it is my legal
right, but they refused to give it to me.
Watch was premiered in Illusion of Safety -exhibition in 2009.
WATCH
Looking back to you
Bundesministerium der Finanzen, Deltlev-Rohwedder-Haus as it is called, is
the only major surviving public building from the Nazi era in the central Berlin.
It used to house Reich Air Ministry of Nazis. Close to the building, there were
the central institutions responsible for the repressive and criminal policies of
National Socialism as well as the era of DDR. There is no other site where
control of people, terror and murder were planned and organised on the same
scale.
In the beginning of 1990’, it was a headquarters of Treuhand which was
responsible of selling the state owned property of the DDR. The building is
named after Detlev Karsten Rohwedder, the assassinated head of the Treuhand.
workshop / DIY / teaching
PIMP MY PASSPORT
RFID proof passport cover workshops
My own passport covers in an art exhibition. 2009.
Pimp My Passport workshops are open to everyone to make RFID reading proof
passport covers to protect ones privacy. The project examines DIY prospects as
well as and privacy issues of the RFID (Radio frequency identification) passports
being rolled out throughout the European Union. It also plays around with the
notion of nationality and its symbols - seeking new ways to signal identity by
“pimping” personal travel documents. When the passport is needed in airports,
harbours etc. it can be easily taken away from the cover and the passport can be
read normally by the officials.
Although dealing with heavy subject matter like electronic privacy and
nationality, Pimp My Passport is a playful, hands-on project that anyone can
take part of. It was first introduced in Art&Communication:SPECTROPIA, Riga,
Latvia, 2008. The next workshop followed in Jyväskylä, Finland, produced by
Live Herring group in May 2009. The workshop seems to be very successful
when organised in co-operation with a festival or an event. For example, there
were about 50 passport covers made by the participants in Jyväskylä.
Pimp My Passport is a collaboration in between myself and media artist/designer
Mika Meskanen.
www.pimpmypassport.net
Workshop participants cover in Jyväskylä. 2009.
locative media / internet art / mapping / installation
Mega, website, 7 days stay in Mega, 2008.
Mega, stop motion animation, loop, 2008.
Museum of Mega, installation, clay house and growing grass, 2008.
Commercial Remarks – Other Megas, photo serie, 6 pieces, 2008.
Mysterious Mega, documentation video about Mega, 2007.
MEGA
From virtual to reality and back
Mega is situated close to Ahrensfelde in Germany. I noticed it on Falk Berlin -map from
year 2003, but it has disappeared from later editions. I asked the map makers what Mega
means, but they said it is a mistake on the map - there’s nothing but field in the location.
I think Mega is a loophole. It is a non-place that questions land owning and borders - as
well as the whole global economical and political systems related to them. I built the
first building of Mega, a clay house and made a stop motion animation of it. Later, I had
to remove the house from the field and I made a museum out of it, Museum of Mega.
www.mysteriousmega.net
Mega on Falk map. 2003.
Museum of Mega, 2008. Grass not grown around it yet. Field gallery, Berlin
Still from Mega stop motion animation, loop. 2008.
locative media / internet art / documentary / public intervention
MIKROPALISKUNTA
Reindeer on the road
mikroPaliskunta website. 2009.
mikroPaliskunta is a series of art expeditions made in a sustainable way. It started
as an expedition through Finland from the Northest Nuorgam to the Southest
Hanko studying contemporary image of Finland in 2006. Who is Finnish? What
are the symbols of Finland? How has the image of Finland changed? Does it really
exist? The expedition travelled by a biodiesel car that was packed with five artists
and protagonist of the project; a stuffed reindeer that is searching for new members
to its herd.
There was a camera attached to the reindeer’s horn that took pictures trough the
whole trip for image line with GPS-coordinates in each individual picture. This
image line reaches trough the whole country and functions as an interface to all the
materials collected form the trip.
mikroPaliskunta website. 2006.
The next mikroPaliskunta expedition was by bicycles in summer 2007:
mikroPaliskunta Berlin Round Tour 2007. This time there was an aim to explore
nations from point of view of an foreign country. Berlin Round Tour 2007 events
and findings were shared again online. The first trip was documented on a single
website, organised around themes and locations. The second one spread across
existing blogging, placemarking and bookmarking services, photo and video sharing
websites (i.e. Jaiku, Blogspot, Flickr, Vimeo, Tagzania). Unique tag “mikropaliskunta”
acts as a label for relevant content on and between different online spaces. This
also facilitates anyone to take part in the “movement”, because tagging is open by
nature.
The newest project of mikroPaliskunta is a serie of expeditions in hell triangle of
tourism: Canary Islands, skiing centre Ylläs and Sokos Hotel Vantaa (party ferry on
land) in 2009 - 2010. The theme of the expeditions is The Finnish on holiday. For
the series, a new web site of mikroPaliskunta was launched.
I am an initiator, artist and executive producer for mikroPaliskunta. My personal
interests are nationalism, imagined nation, communities, tourism and (global) ecostructural change in the society.
Some of my mikroPaliskunta related shortfilms:
Mysterious Mega, 2006
Reindeer Paavo’s travels in Finnish national sceneries: Koli and Imatra, 2006
Reindeer’s urban visit, 2008
Canary Coffee I, II and III, 2009
www.vimeo.com/channels/mikropaliskunta
www.mikropaliskunta.net
Reindeer rider in Nurmes, mikroPaliskunta I. 2006.
Little Finnish Reindeer spying swans.
“Berlin Round Tour”. 2007.
Reindeer parked. “The Finnish on Holiday” Vantaa. 2009.
Buss driver. “The Finnish on Holiday” Canary Islands. 2009.
ELEPHANT
PATHS
locative media / mapping / internet art / workshop
Mapping the spatial anarchy
TAG your place! flyer. 2006.
Elephant Paths website. 2004.
Elephant Paths is a project that explores a geographical and social space with
mapping foot paths. I started the project in 2003-04. It reveals a point of view to a
space, telling a short story of a moment via video triptychs and people’s descriptions
of pathways’ functions. It links paths together with social relations. Altogether it
creates a spatial map that can be experienced on location (also spotted with GPS
–devices) and the Internet (the website).
Elephant Paths goal is to reveal cultural similarities and differences. There is
a common humanity everywhere that can be connected to paths’ functions.
Naturally the habits, the believes, the religions etc. change. My aim is not to find a
monotonous image of the world, but to find humanity that we could all relate to.
Elephant Paths website. 2008.
I organised the first Location Based Storytelling workshop in the context of
Elephant Paths in Bitola, Macedonia 2005. The second workshop was called
TAG your place, also in Bitola in 2006. These workshops where created together
with art and youth organisations in the area and were aimed for youngsters
coming from all the Balkan countries. With tools like video, photography and
installations we were learning to see a location from different points of views,
share ideas, opinions and experiences - namely to be a part of the community.
The workshops are documented on Elephant Paths website.
Shortfilm compositions of the path videos (see preview in vimeo.com/mkk):
Trilogy of a Moment I, 2003 and Trilogy of a Moment II, 2005
www.elephantpaths.net
www.tagzania.com/bigmap/user/mkk/elephantpaths
activism / internet
LEAVE FACEBOOK ZOO
Leave Facebook partying in Radio Aporee, Berlin. 2008.
Facebook “a friend network” had been around for a while in year 2008. and I
also spent my time there. I realised how disturbing FB really was when I read Tom
Hodkingson’s article about it in Guardian: business angels and hazy privacy policies.
I was surprised how lavishly me and millions of others were giving away personal
information.
I decided to leave FB for good and organise official Leave Facebook day. Slowly
people started to take part and nice discussions raised. Like myself, people are worried
about privacy and advertising. FB is of course advertisers’ heaven, but on the other
hand, to what else this information can be used in the future? When I left FB, there
was 24 confirmed guests in the event, over 50 maybes and about 150 declined. I can’t
be sure how many really left, though.
activism / video / documentary
Screen capture from video, a bird dying in Bitola zoo. 2005.
Zoo is a short video documentary about suffering animals in Bitola city zoo in
Macedonia. I have visited the zoo two times (2005/06). Over the years, I’ve been trying
to find help for these animals and provided documentations of the zoo’s conditions.
There have been numerous interesting discussions with other worried individuals
and organisations (Born Free, EAZA, WWF, other zoos etc.), but the situation with the
animals have remained the same.
See video at
www.vimeo.com/165482
VJaying / performance / video
SINGING BRIDGES
Symphony of the cables
Photo from the performance, PixelACHE Club. 2004.
Screen capture from video, Bangkok bridge. 2006.
Screen capture from video, Tikkurila bridge. 2005.
Jodi Rose is a sound artist working with Singing Bridges project. She travels around the world recording
bridge cables and making music out of them. For the first time, I collaborated with her in Expand’s
Shadow happening for Di-Fusion in Helsinki working with visuals in 2002. We also had a concert in
PixelAche Festival 2004 and 2005. PixelACHE Club 2004 in Helsinki featured a performance based
on the Singing Bridges material, created in collaboration with myself (live video improvisation), Lasse
Kaikkonen (live improvisation on atonal kantele), Jussi Lehtipuu (cello) and bridge sounds by Jodi Rose.
PixelAche 2005 performance was in Sibelius Academy Chamber Music Hall. There was a new bridge
recorded in Tikkurila, Vantaa. We tested live streaming from the bridge as well as from the concert and
collaborated with Particle/Wave workshop.
We also travelled to Thailand to record a bridge construction site in Bangkok. I made videos about the
bridge builders: they were very hard working in difficult conditions. Radio Aporee hosted a Singing
Bridges Thailand concert in February 2008 in Berlin where the footage and sounds were brought to
public.
Screen capture from video, Bangkok bridge. 2006.
VJaying / performance / video
SIGMA NAZCA
Screen capture from video improvisation. 2004.
Sigma is an ambient duo Mauno Tuominen and Petri Frestadius. I collaborated with
them and Ville Ojajärvi creating live video improvisations for the concerts. We
arranged a happening in Koetila, Helsinki in May 2004 and played through a whole
week-end. People came and went, enjoyed the music, visuals and maybe even some
cup of tea. The next concerts followed in Kontufestari, Helsinki August 2004 and in
Kanneltalo, Helsinki, October 2004 (Kantsun Elektroillat).
www.studiomanus.com
VJaying / performance / video
Screen capture from video improvisation. 2003.
A rock band Nazca invited me and Mika Meskanen to do live video visuals for their
concert in Sibelius Academy Chamber Hall, Helsinki in 2003. The concert was very
experimental with video mixings on screen and ten TV’s on stage with the band. The
touching moment was when the whole audience was sitting in total silence during one
minute silent moment with TV’s glowing and showing news footage from Iraq war.
This gig was followed by numerous concerts together (Club Semifinal, Tarmo, Factory,
Lume Mediacenter etc.).
realtime streaming / internet art / performance / video
I have worked with live broadcastings or as I call them net streaming happenings since 1998.
Cameras and live net streaming techniques had become more available, so basically it was about
bringing together creative people in different virtual or physical places, playing together and
streaming the live video input over to net to everyone. For example, I live dupped the iconic Finnish
movie The Unknowns Soldier in one of the happenings. The basic communication around the globe
was done via IRC.
STREAM
Your mind
In 2001, when I started my MA studies in Medialab, I initiated and organised the biggest streaming
happening ever in Finland: EXPAND. Expand happened in Meteori Cafe in Helsinki which was a
collection point of streams coming from various artists and performers around the world. There
were several musicians and video artists performing also physically in Meteori.
After Expand, many other streaming happening kicked off. We participated with Aleksi Nuuja and
Mika Meskanen to Fusion ‘01 - Translocal Streaming Party presenting the Finnish time zone in
Sydney, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Weimar (June 2001). I worked with Mika and Aleksi also in VideA
Festival in Barcelona (October 2001). Me and Mika took care of creating the videos and Aleksi
composed the music. The festival didn’t have very good Internet access, but we were still able to
connect the festival to Rovaniemi with 56kb modem and PingFM server in Germany. Ceniq band
from Rovaniemi was heard live in Barcelona while we were doing live visual mixing.
Playing with crowds in VimeA. 2001.
Di-Fusion was a 24 hour live and on-line open platform happening organised in Colorado (April
2002). We contributed the happening live stream with Jodi Rose’s singing bridges, O Samuli A’s
and Aleksi Nuuja’s music from Katastro.fi headquarters in Helsinki. I collaborated with Jodi Rose’s
Singing Bridges project for the first time in this happening called Shadow Party.
In May 2002, Kiasma invited Mika Meskanen and me to organise a workshop about live streaming.
This was part of Kiasma’s Urb project and we had a very nice workshop with youngsters in Vesala
Art Corner in Helsinki that after learning the basic techniques and creating content ended to a
streaming happening.
After that, there have been some smaller scale streaming experiments such as trying to live
broadcast my Lappish drumming from a forest to US via mobile phone. At that time, the mobile
phones weren’t as evolved as they are today...
Receiving stream from Cipher in Expand. 2001.
internet art / music / sound
TRAM’N’BUS CAFE NOWHERE
Tram’N’Bus -website. 2001.
Tram’N’Bus is about recording sounds of public transportation and making music out
of it. The collection point of these sounds and music is situated in the Internet. Public
transportation system is the bloodstream of the city. When people flow smoothly from
place to another, the city feels healthy and active. Each city’s bloodstream has its own
genuine mix of tram models and buses, and in their opening doors can be heard the
personal voice of the city.
I worked as an initiator and concept designer of Tram’N’Bus. Later, an UNESCO
funded Media Lab project wanted to replicate the TNB-website. The content of new
site was based on sounds of water.
http:// tram-n-bus.uiah.fi
interactive television / video
Café Nowhere title. 2003.
Aim of Café Nowhere was to create cinematic style, interactive program for digital
television that promotes viewer participation through real-time viewer interaction
using an engaging linear soap opera narrative. I worked as a concept designer and
scriptwriter of Cafe Nowhere. It was a student project in Media Lab at University of
Arts and Design Helsinki in 2003.
The game-like interaction provided the viewers various ways of playing with narrative.
The interaction supports the story and emphasizes the primitive feelings of the
characters.
www.mlab.uiah.fi/cafenowhere
internet art / hypertext
ONNELLINEN OPPOSITE
Screenshot of Onnellinen. 2000.
internet art / hypertext / photography
Screenshot of Opposite. 1998.
Onnellinen (Happy) is a hypertext writing and reading area. It is community based
narrative where everybody can add their own paths of text. Sceleton for the story was
written by me.
Opposite is one of the first experiments I have done with hypertext and participatory
net art. It is a collection of thoughts and opinions about opposite sex. It questions
stereotypes of what it means to be a man or a woman.
Onnellinen was my graduation work from Polytech of Western Lapland. PHP-code
was written by Joona Järvelä.
The space is divided to three parts: in general, sex and outlook. People were able to
input texts under these themes. I also created photographs that were mixing the gender
signs.
photography / exhibition / installation
PHOTOGRAPHY
Somewhat roots
My roots are very much in photography. That I was mainly doing when I started my studies and I still photograph a lot. I had my first solo show in 1995 and I have also photographed for
newspapers.
I formed a photography group reAktio with my fellow students in Tornio College of Art and
Media in 1998. Our aim was to improve the cultural atmosphere in North Finland. The group
members were Tiina Ekosaari, Eija Mäkivuoti and Jukka Ritola. We also had visiting artists like for
example Julian Hughes from UK. ReAktio had many exhibitions in North Finland as well as in
Sweden. We took over formal gallery spaces as well as unused buildings and city walls.
Mind Field. 2002. (installation, coloured water and sculpture)
From series Memory of the Walls. 1999.
Detail from Kuuppa. 1999.
(photography installation, recycled
materials)
Greetings from the Beach. 2001. (old scanned postcards and melted snow from around Finland)