Voyager / 2023
Single channel work, 11:46
Synopsis: Voyager as a wish and demand. Voyager as projecting voice and body.
Longer statement:
The video starts with a short clip from Jupiter's Magnetosphere produced by the NASA/JPL Computer Graphics Laboratory in 1983 (no copyright) overlaid with a few audios sent on the Voyager 1 and 2 launched in 1977 (for data collection on Jupiter and Saturn) that as a collection have been titled as Sounds Of Earth. The collection includes sounds of animals, volcanoes, wind, trains, a baby laughing and crying, and more.
Then, for the majority of the video, there are shots of a boat sailing, body parts, (dry, shiny, hairy, with an open wound) skin, and rotating scenes from the sauna (and sauna bucket). As described by Foucault, the boat is the ideal heterotopia or othered space, and the sauna is also another othered space as it requires a form of “purification” ritual and practice to enter the space. Outer space could be considered a placeless place versus heterotopias that still have place but are othered in their nature. This then offers an interesting paradox of the spaceship, the ship as the most "excellent" heterotopia, in an entirely placeless, othered, nomadic vacuum of outer space. Voice is then projected via the voyager into this paradoxical othered space.
I was thinking about how we relate to our bodies and how we historicize ourselves. How do we use our bodies and voices similarly to the voyager? To be remembered for generations from now, what would we project to them of our lives? What and how is our voyager? Heterotopias can also be spaces of crises, so how are our bodies affected by crises as a form of othering? How do we enter othered spaces, such as the local sauna where you may meet strangers, or even a local politician, or your home sauna with your family, or when you go to the sauna by yourself and you are alone and bare at that moment? How do we send and feel our voyagers in these spaces?
It was also in part about how we remember our bodies as we age, how we remember and archive scars, freckles, and skin textures that may change over our lifetimes. It is also a struggle with social media and the accessibility of photo and video cameras now - how will I remember how I lived and who will know I was here? Is my voyager videos of my fucked up blisters?
There is also a paradox on these vessels of human exploration, for example, the ship as an instrument of genocide or space colonization, so how is this reflection also felt in the way we voyage...
Time / 2023
Single channel work, 04:02, iPhone
Filmed and edited in a single day, Time (2023) is a work inspired by one's body. The artist began to think about how much time it takes to groom and care for one's body and how much time it has taken to grow and maintain it. The work focuses primarily on close shots of the body, showing scars, stretch marks, calluses, hair, etc.
Hair can also be perceived as quite gendered and feminine which involves another layer; what does my hair mean to me? How do others perceive my hair and my person (i.e. is my hair the reason people continue to see me as a woman?)? And does the discomfort that results from others' perception of me matter more than the time and energy spent maintaining this organ and body?
Mother / 2023
Single channel work, 04:16, iPhone
Sound re-edited.
Imagines the concept of motherhood, queerly imagining what is motherhood (in contrast to parenthood), raising a child, family, and kinship. Something very close as I am very close with my immediate family and yet so distant in my life; being so far away from even considering having a child. What is motherhood without a childhood? The audio is sourced from family, my cousin, and my grandmother talking to them, which also links this larger line of motherhood.
Mother / 2022 / Single channel work, 04:16, iPhone
Featuring Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting by Elton John..
Heterotopia / 2022
Single and/or two-channel moving image, 9:43
The work is inspired by Foucault’s concept of heterochronies (othered times) & heterotopias (othered spaces) which are often in between utopias and dystopias and mirroring or disturbing/deconstructing the surrounding spaces. The interest was in exploring some of these heterotopic spaces and what makes them othered in an attempt to further explore spatiality and schizophrenic politics described by Deleuze & Guatarri. The work was filmed in Paimio, Espoo, and Helsinki, Finland as well as Madeira, Portugal.
The places that have been described as heterotopias by Foucault have been saunas, cemeteries, honeymoon hotel rooms, libraries, movie theaters, museums, gardens, psychiatric hospitals, boats, and many more. Each is under the label according to a specific set of characteristics. Such as; a ritualistic process to enter or become the space, having heterochronies, a space that juxtaposes many spaces, places of deviation or for behavior outside the norm, and spaces for crisis (ex. for honeymoon). Wonderland has also been critiqued as a literary example of heterotopia, hence, the use of parts of the silent film Alice in Wonderland (1915) distributed by the American Film Manufacturing Company (film in the public domain/copyright expired).
Exhibited in:
2023. Visual Culture 2023. CICA Museum, Gimpo, Korea.
2022. Self Surroundings. Himmelblau Gallery, Tampere, Finland.
Alien / 2021, 2022
(Version III) 2022: Single channel work, 4:55, Insta360 camera and iPhone footage
(Version I) 2021: 360 Video, moving image, 5:54, Insta360 camera
The work of the same name was loosely inspired by the film Alien (1979). The piece was largely inspired by feeling alien in one's own body & identity, and even in one home where the work was largely filmed due to the pandemic. Whilst in isolation, one might have felt alienation under capitalism, hopelessness as political conflicts, wars, and climate change continue, as well as a disconnection from one's body.
The work was also inspired by feeling dysphoric and alien in one's body and how one is perceived by others. The work wanted to express something more innate or primal about one's body and identity. Simultaneously feeling natural in one's body but also at odds against it, wishing to go beyond one's body and/or secede within it.
Exhibited in:
2023. Visual Culture 2023. CICA Museum, Gimpo, Korea.
2023. Progress. On Contemporary and Future Society. Millepiani Exhibition Space, Rome, Italy.
2022. Global Impro Ensemble, Kino Club x Global Fest. Musikkitalo, Helsinki, Finland.
2022. Festival de Videoarte SPMAV 2022. Leopoldo Gotuzzo Museum of Art (MALG), Pelotas, Brazil.
2022. Kino ClubXNomads Festival 2022. Vapaan Taiteen Tila, Helsinki, Finland.
2022. DigitalBigScreen 2022. Video festival. Delavski dom Trbovlje, Trbovlje, Slovenia. (Version II)
2022. D.A.N.C.E. Video Screening. YO-Talo, Tampere, Finland.
In My Body / 2022
Single channel, 04:07, iPhone
Exhibited in:
2022. Living Life: Stories of Artists. Cinema Arts Centre, Huntington, NY, USA.
Fragmented / 2021
Single channel work, 3:54, Insta360 camera, iPhone footage, 360 VR capability.
The video also attempts to interact with the past & nostalgia by involving a large stuffed Mickey Mouse. The work was also inspired by Jacques Lacan’s idea of the mirror stage that conceptualizes infants’ ego formation with either literal or metaphorical mirror that shows the infant that they are one entire being and recognizes themselves in the body they see in the mirror. Other theorists and writers have discussed how the mirror stage is used to induce ego formation in marketing, advertising, social media, etc. This ego formation, many times can be built and then deconstructed just as quickly. This piece tries to see through those different egos by looking into one’s self (as if the camera were another ego, observing everything) and seeing how different those parts interact (suicidal feelings, nostalgia, being overwhelmed, etc).
Consumed Birth / 2021
Single channel, moving image, 6:06
The work represents a cycle of identity and life. The artist was inspired by nostalgia, culture, and identity and authors like Mark Fisher, Gary Cross, Frederick Jameson, David Alderson, Jonah Peretti, Todd McGowan, and Elisabeth Wesseling. The artist included images of their parents to note their origins and differences. As well as the senses like taste, touch, and sight and how these are very early on built into how we understand the world around us. The work represents the creator as fragmented and shifting in forms between human and muppet.
Is this muppet oneself, or is it a separate entity entirely? Should they give this entity, or part of me, compassion or brutality? The use of the muppet alongside other media forms overlaid on top and within the video represents a saturated self were commodities, media, and consumerism take hold, the isolation, and distortion that can be felt from that. In the end, it's more about how this kind of cycle continues as they consider it, if they have kids what is the world I will bring them into and who will they become under those pressures? Or in other words, how will future generations continue to build culture amidst everything?
Exhibited in:
2022. D.A.N.C.E. Video Screening. YO-Talo, Tampere, Finland.
Consumed Birth (Installation) / 2021
Two-channel work, moving image, 5:17, installed in a kitchen oven, chocolate cake, waffles, and birthday candles.