Third Space Video Art / Short Film Screening with the theme of CONTROL
18.10.2019, 16:30 - 20:00 / STOA Music Hall
We are excited to welcome you to the Third Space Video Art / Short Film Screening with the theme of CONTROL. This is the first event in a series of screenings that are part of the Third Space 6-years anniversary program.
The screening features 23 video works & short films by 29 artists and filmmakers based in Finland and abroad:
Nils Agdler & Timo Menke (SE) / Joacelio Batista (BR) / Laura Benavides (EE) / Khalil Charif (BR) / Shia Conlon (FI) / Igor Furtado (BR) / Đejmi Hadrović (AU) / Kalle Hamm & Olli Aarni & Lauri Ainala & Hermanni Keko (FI) / Edna Pulla (Edna Huotari) (FI) / Alisa Javits (FI) / John C. Kelley (US) / Nina Lassila (FI/BE) / Veera Launonen & Ilkka Martti Kivelä (FI) / Dagobert Macib (NL) / Mirjami Nyman (FI) / Jean-Michel Rolland (FR) / Jaakko Ruuska & Juha Salminen (FI) / Paula Saraste (FI/DE) / Vidha Saumya (FI) / Sara Não Tem Nome (BR) / Charlotte Thiis-Evensen (NO) / Balázs Varju Tóth (HU) / Maria Valkeavuolle (FI)
The event is curated and produced by the Third Space collective members Elina Nissinen and Sepideh Rahaa in collaboration with the Finnish Media Art Association MUU ry and Sanna Nuutinen / Helsinki City Cultural Centre STOA.
The screenings are kindly supported by the center for the promotion of audiovisual culture AVEK.
*** Trigger warning ***
Recommended age limit K16
The screening features 23 video works & short films by 29 artists and filmmakers based in Finland and abroad:
Nils Agdler & Timo Menke (SE) / Joacelio Batista (BR) / Laura Benavides (EE) / Khalil Charif (BR) / Shia Conlon (FI) / Igor Furtado (BR) / Đejmi Hadrović (AU) / Kalle Hamm & Olli Aarni & Lauri Ainala & Hermanni Keko (FI) / Edna Pulla (Edna Huotari) (FI) / Alisa Javits (FI) / John C. Kelley (US) / Nina Lassila (FI/BE) / Veera Launonen & Ilkka Martti Kivelä (FI) / Dagobert Macib (NL) / Mirjami Nyman (FI) / Jean-Michel Rolland (FR) / Jaakko Ruuska & Juha Salminen (FI) / Paula Saraste (FI/DE) / Vidha Saumya (FI) / Sara Não Tem Nome (BR) / Charlotte Thiis-Evensen (NO) / Balázs Varju Tóth (HU) / Maria Valkeavuolle (FI)
The event is curated and produced by the Third Space collective members Elina Nissinen and Sepideh Rahaa in collaboration with the Finnish Media Art Association MUU ry and Sanna Nuutinen / Helsinki City Cultural Centre STOA.
The screenings are kindly supported by the center for the promotion of audiovisual culture AVEK.
*** Trigger warning ***
Recommended age limit K16
Made in Denmark Nils Agdler & Timo Menke / Sweden HD / 2013 A donation is often regarded as a selfless good deed and is expected to be voluntary, free and anonymous, although it may raise sensitive ethical questions. The short film “Made in Denmark” is a cinematic study focusing on the commercially organized distribution of sperm in Denmark, from the anonymous donor's perspective and point-of-view. Danish legislation (unlike most European countries) allows for anonymous sperm donations, leading to an increasing fertility tourism. Sperm Banks operate in a complex gray area on several levels, marketing human sperm as a processed product. Special focus was given to issues related to masculinity and fatherhood, and how masculinity is manifested at the clinics. Nils Agdler is a visual artist/filmmaker interested in contemporary social and visual phenomena, and he has primarily been working on issues that concern men and masculinities during the last ten years. Timo Menke’s practice is research-based and his work examines how cultural identities, social relations and biopolitical issues are charged with concepts of desire, power and history. In their artistic practice Nils Agdler and Timo Menke both share a common interest for contemporary social phenomena, storytelling and history. Based on a previous collaboration on electricity and electrical hypersensitivity (Fugitives from the Fields), they have developed a project dealing with anonymous sperm donors. 4:48
Laura Benavides / Estonia Animation / 2016 Based on the play written by Sarah Kane 4:48. This video recreates sensations of psychosis through the black and white drawing showing the physical and mental impairment of a body and its relation to space. Laura Benavides is a Kuir artist, animation filmmaker. She is interested in the poetic experimentation taken to the animation format in order to question concepts of sexual identity, corporeality, intimacy and memory. There's No Sin To The South of Ecuador
Igor Furtado / Brazil HD / 2019 Two boys meet during the festivities of Círio de Nazaré, the largest procession in Latin America, gathering more than 3 million pilgrims in Belém do Pará, Amazon, Brasil. // The construction of hegemonic masculinity is intrinsically linked to a colonizing and violent inheritance. The sadistic and erotic nuances present in Christianity are fundamental for the strengthening and maintenance of social normativity. We explore the potential of the body as a catalyst for sensitive and transcendental experiences, in contact with others, with nature, but mainly with the individual construction of spirituality and sexuality. We hope to stimulate discussion about the future possibilities of being a man, that do not go through the same compulsory paths, and to re-signify the sexual policies that inhabit us, in search of another geography of feeling and expression. Igor Furtado (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1996). As an artist my proposals come in mixed mediums to document and explore the potential of movements and individuals that are pushing the boundaries of sexuality/gender through art, expression and behavior in Brazil. Like a Polar Bear
Band of Weeds: Kalle Hamm, Olli Aarni, Lauri Ainala, Hermanni Keko / Finland HD / 2019 Glacier buttercup (Ranunculus glacialis) is the polar bear of the plant kingdom – it is the world’s northernmost flowering vascular plant. If mountain and Arctic glaciers melt, the glacier buttercup will no longer be able to retreat to higher or more northerly habitats. This is particularly obvious for species living in the mountains and fells. Suitable habitats for them will simply disappear. All of the sounds on the film were produced from biodata recorded from the glacier buttercup in the plants’ natural habitat in Norway on the Mugnetinden mountain slopes. Kalle Hamm was born in 1969 in Rauma, Finland. He graduated in Lahti Fine Art Institute 1994 and made his MA in the University of the Art and Industrial Design in Helsinki 2002. His works of art examine cultural encounters and their impacts both in historical and contemporary contexts. SEEING
Alisa Javits / Finland HD / 2018 Seeing speaks about aging, revealing the person under the wrinkled, old skin. It can be hard to see the human behind it, because age is such a strong category. How to see the kid, the young, the adult hiding beneath? They are never gone, just often so invisible. The work is a combination of different memories, separate images, flashbacks and the voice-over. It is not a pure portrait of one person, rather a thought about looking, seeing and identification. Alisa Javits works with video, installation and VJing. The main theme of the works is the contradiction between the inner and the outer in people. The purpose is to build emotions rather than clear stories, and appeal to people’s associations, rather than reason. Woman
Nina Lassila / Belgium 2009 Declaration of the real woman. Supposedly a wish to be a "fucking" real woman, in the most beautiful city of the world, Paris. Nina Lassila is a visual artist born 1974 in Helsinki, Finland currently living and working in Belgium. Nina Lassila is a visual artist working mainly with video and performance. In many of her works she deals with questions of identity – specifically identity affected by social barriers, conventions based on gender and upbringing and cultural differences. Day 34
Dagobert Macib / Netherlands Full HD / 2017 Crack the whip crack the pack crack the cat, spill the guts and let’s get fat. Nearly missed now lost the kiss, guns keep toting, young men start smoking. As long as there’s a toothbrush let's keep the bluff. As long as there are engines let's catch the train. Referral unnecessary. Dagobert Macib is an American-Norwegian artist who graduated from the HKU in 2019 with a bachelor in fine arts. His practice revolves around the habits and the structures we fall into, enacting and reforming them while doing. Acommunication
Jean-Michel Rolland / France HD / 2011 Five arms are struggling to silence three telephones, an alarm clock and a timer without success. This rejection of communication and more generally of what connects us to time is a pretext for a new experimentation where you "hear what you see" and vice versa.These simple gestures, intended to break an unwanted process, are repeated in a quasi-schizophrenic way.The result is a choreographic and musical fight that will end with some effort. Jean-Michel Rolland is a French artist born in 1972. A long time a musician and a painter, he brings together his two passions - the sound and the image - in digital arts since 2010. Through video art works, generative art, audio-visual performances and interactive installations, he questions the temporality, a genuine fourth dimension inherent to moving image, as well as the duality between his two favourite mediums, the sound and the visual. The sleeping man
Paula Saraste / Finland and Germany HD / 2014 The sleeping man is a narrative short film, a parable in pictures that takes place in a world where dream and reality intersect. It tells the story of melancholy that is actively striven after yet out of control. The protagonist finds an almost dead, shipwrecked man that delivers him a huge perfect pearl in the end. But now, possessing something precious: it all has no meaning anymore. Paula Saraste (b. 1981) is a visual artist and filmmaker living and working in Helsinki and Berlin. She works with digital film, photography and performance and she is interested in narratives with a psychological starting point. She received her MfA Degree from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2016 and she has taken part in exhibitions in Finland and abroad. I robot
Sara Não Tem Nome / Brazil HD / 2017 In the video performance 'I Robot', Sara Não Tem Nome performs actions that deconstruct and resignify her daily life, discussing issues such as the objectification of the female body and the body-machine relationship. The performances are based on poems from her eponymous book, in which a software reconfigures the writings that Sara published on her Facebook. The book discusses authorship and algorithm, with a facet of dadaist nonsense poetry. Sara Não Tem Nome, born in 1992, lives and works in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. She is bachelor of Visual Arts at the School of Fine Arts of UFMG. In her multimedia practice she brings different areas together, such as the visual arts, performance art, music, cinema and poetry. http://saranaotemnome.com/ Untitled (Manus Manum Quatit)
Balázs Varju Tóth / Hungary Full HD video / 2018 The handshake is one of the most ancient but also one of the most ordinary human gestures. We shake hands to welcome somebody, to introduce our- selves, to congratulate, or to express our gratitude. And yet, the handshake for the photo, for the tv-camera, for the infinity, the still image for the reader is frightening, because it makes the illusion that we know what they know, while it is only a front for macho cinisim, an act only for the pretence, the metaphor of the secret. Balázs Varju Tóth (1990) is a media artist, living and working in Budapest, Hungary. His main interest is how different power structures affect our lives on both individual and social level. His medium of choice always depends on the particular project but video usually takes a great part. Right now he is working on a new project, dealing with how 'work' influences our lives, and what kind of strategies do we have to escape from our socially predetermined ways of urban living in the western world and the semi-peripheries. |
If I surrender, why do I keep my head against the wall?
Se me rendo, por quê sigo com a cabeça em direção ao muro? (Original Portuguese title) Joacélio Batista / Brazil Full HD / 2019 Presented the question, man will always speculate answers. Joacélio Batista lives and works in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Master in Contemporary Artistic Creation at the University of Aveiro, Portugal. Degree at the School of Fine Arts of the Federal University of Minas Gerais - UFMG. Acts as a Visual Artist, filmmaker and videomaker. His artistic research is done in the noise that emerges from translation attempts that seek to understand the other. An aesthetic that emerges in this place, of encounters and disencounters, where you can view all the understanding attempts limited by the individuality of every being. Celebrity
Khalil Charif / Brazil 2017 Experimental work that presents an environment where a crowd of people are pointing their cameras at the viewer – the celebrity – and are continually taking flash photos. Khalil Charif is an artist born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He works with issues related to art-philosophy, socio-political and behavioural relations. Among his exhibitions are: Triennale of Contemporary Art, Czech Rep. (2008); Bienal de Cerveira, Portugal (2017); BienalSur, Argentina (2019). Exalted
Shia Conlon / Finland HD / 2019 Exalted is an attempt at exploring the power structures that intersect with gender conditioning: the family, the church, class, sexuality. Working with my hometown and family history within a very Catholic, and therefore, patriarchal country I am trying to realize a conversation between two bodies: the bodies that have left and the bodies that stay. What does trauma look like carried to another space? What does a liberated body look like? Is there such thing? How does class affect the body? How do trauma and hope co-exist, if at all? Sam Conlon is a non binary artist working with lens based media, particularly focusing on ideas of queer visibility and representation. SILENT OBSERVER
Đejmi Hadrović / Austria HD / 2017 Video performance is conducted as a monologue confession of a woman in the early ’30s and obstacles she is dealing with. It is touching problematics such as gender, identity, migration, and ethnicity. Performance is not only personal; it is sharing common threads of nowadays world and is appealing public to identify with the performer and vice versa. Đejmi Hadrović is a visual artist. Currently, she is a PhD scholar at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Đejmi tries to elaborate on defining feminism, sexuality and gender in post-Yugoslav space. She has been exhibiting internationally and was awarded several times. An effective Workout for Body and Mind
Edna Huotari / Edna Pulla / Finland Full HD / 2019 An effective Workout for Body and Mind is a closer look to the reasons why we want to stay in control, and also why we have to. It tries to ask us what are the effects of being always efficient and describes a situation where the aspects of body and mind overlap. Can this division of body and mind also be a form of control that we put on ourselves? What would happen if we would let go? Edna Huotari is an artist currently studying at Art School MAA. She is interested in finding out why we categorize things the way we do and what it says about us. She also loves video games, pottery videos on YouTube and french fries. Guster
John C. Kelley / USA HD / 2019 Through brief conversations with an adaptive chatbot, a professor sees more clearly his own creativity and depression in this animated short. "GUSTER" is based on actual messages and poetry written by the app John C Kelley is an award-winning artist and musician living and working in Knoxville, Tennessee in the United States. OLD SCHOOL
Veera Launonen and Ilkka Martti Kivelä / Finland HD-video / 2019 The video deals with humiliation, punishing methods and explores what is like to have an objectionable experience. Launonen & Kivelä are a Kuopio based artist collaboration. They work with moving image and sound. Their collaborations have been exhibited in several solo and group exhibitions, as well as festivals in Finland and abroad. Ctrl+Delete
Mirjami Nyman / Finland Video / 2019 In the video I am exploring the relations between control and losing it from a personal perspective. The material was filmed by attaching the camera and the flash in front of my eyes, so that they were partially blocking my vision but releasing both of my hands free for my use. This way the viewer gets to see the events through my eyes. Attaching these electronics as a part of my body I do not look or feel as human anymore. Google translator is trying to interpret my thoughts by reading them out loud as everything is spilling on the ground and falling apart. Does the humans need to have control create chaos? Mirjami Nyman is a graduating fashion student who currently works with combining trash to office aesthetics. Obsessed in the relationship between control and chaos she is finding new ways to embody her ideas beside fashion. My name is Laura Viljander
Jaakko Ruuska & Juha Salminen / Finland HD / 2018 In the end of the Finnish Civil War in 1918 the White Terror wiped off more than 18000 victims. These war crimes were soon systematically silenced from the public memory. One of the hotspots of the mass executions was the factory site of Kuusankoski, where more than 270 victims were shot. Along with 12 others, Laura Viljander was executed in the 10th of May in 1918 in Stöörinkangas, Kuusankoski. On the 3 kilometers’ walk to the place of their execution, a prisoner called Werner Granqvist escaped. His testimony of the event is the only known evidence of the killing of those 13 victims. Jaakko Ruuska is a doctoral student in the Academy of Arts of the University of the Arts in Helsinki. He holds a Master of Arts in Documentary Filmmaking (Aalto-university, 2012), but works also in the fields of Media Art and Live Arts. Since 2009 Ruuska has been a member of the live arts collective: Other spaces. Juha Salminen is a theater dramaturgist, who has studied in his numerous plays the life and experience of the factory workers in the Kymmene factory. His community-oriented works are played by amateurs, actors from within the community that they represent. Soyabean Biryani (for Junaid)
Vidha Saumya / Finland HD / 2019 On June 22, 2017, 15 years old, Junaid Khan was stabbed to death on a Delhi-Mathura train after an argument over seats turned ugly. Junaid was returning home from Eid shopping with his cousin Hashim and two of his friends Moin and Mohsin. In 2019, two years after his death, the video reflects on the political debate around beef-eating, what it means to be visibly Muslim in India and the current hostility of the state towards the ‘other’. The video pieces together a recipe laced with development claims and false calls for togetherness, amidst a poignant remembrance of Junaid Khan whose favourite food was Soyabean Biryani. While amnesia grips the Secular Democratic Republic of India, this video makes a case to pause, reflect and take note. Vidha Saumya is a drawer, poet, cook and book maker. She seeks visual interest in congregating bodies, popular cultures and notions of deformity. She is a founding member of the Museum of Impossible Forms, Helsinki and is currently working on the project, ‘Monumentless Moments: Utopia of Figureless Plinths’ supported by the Kone Foundation, Finland. The moment of truth
Charlotte Thiis-Evensen / Norway HD / 2004 The woman Astri, has had the same long, curly hair for fifty years, old-fashioned style like in the 1890’s. After her mother died she decided to finally get rid of it. The short film is trying to ask some questions about the possibility of freeing oneself from the past and the ties to the family. Charlotte Thiis-Evensen is born 1968 in Nyköping, Sweden, and lives and works in Oslo. She has an MA of Literary Science from the University of Oslo, has studied art at the National Academy of the Arts, and currently I am working as a journalist at the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. As an artist she is working with documentarism in video, photo and installations. S E O M / I W N M
Maria Valkeavuolle / Finland HD / 2019 A poem for the broken and to those who find order in disarray. S E O M / I W N M is an experimental video work about shame and control. Runoteos runnelluille ja niille, jotka löytävät järjettömyydestä järjestyksen. S E O M / I W N M on kokeellinen videoteos häpeästä ja kontrollista. Maria Valkeavuolle (b.1985, Karstula, Finland) is an emerging media-artist from Helsinki. At the moment she is finalizing her MFA studies at the Academy of Fine Arts. Her works have been seen in multiple group exhibitions in Finland, Germany and Sweden. She has so far had two solo exhibitions and her works have also been included in screenings in Helsinki, Finland. Valkeavuolle works mainly with moving image, text and sound, but her background is in printmaking. Her artistic methods often include collecting masses of material, and a long process that goes into extreme detail. The importance of text and spoken language in human communication, and the use of words in defining reality have lately been at the center of her practice. Maria Valkeavuolle (s.1985, Karstula) on helsinkiläinen mediataiteilija. Hän viimeistelee parhaillaan kuvataiteen maisterin tutkintoaan Taideyliopiston Kuvataideakatemiassa. Hänen teoksiaan on ollut esillä useissa ryhmänäyttelyissä Suomessa, Saksassa sekä Ruotsissa. Hänellä on ollut kaksi yksityisnäyttelyä Helsingissä ja hänen teoksiaan on ollut mukana lyhytelokuvanäytöksissä. Valkeavuolteen pääasialliset työskentelyvälineet ovat liikkuva kuva, teksti ja ääni, mutta hänen taustansa on taidegrafiikassa. Hänen työskentelylleen ominaista on suuren materiaalimäärän keruu, aikaa vievä prosessi ja äärimmäinen yksityiskohtiin uppoutuminen. Teksti ja puhuttu kieli ihmistenvälisen kommunikaation välineenä, sekä tapamme käyttää sanoja ympäröivän todellisuuden määrittelyyn ovat viime aikoina nousseet Valkeavuolteen praktiikan keskiöön. |