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Two artist-researchers from Aalto ARTS Department of Film, tv and Scenography ELO, postdoctoral researcher Maiju Loukola and doctoral candidate Paul Cegys present a collaborative installation FOAMING EXERCISES in the Research Pavilion #3: Research Ecologies opening week, launched on the 8th May in Venice. The Research Pavilion highlights the points of view of artistic research in the context of Venice Biennale in spring and summer 2019.

SPATIAL SCENARIOS OF MULTIPLE ECOLOGIES AND ECOSYSTEMS

Inspired by the philosopher Peter Sloterdijk's epic 'Spheres trilogy' (Vol I: Bubbles, Vol II: Globes, Vol III: Foams), Loukola and Cegys look at foams as metaphors of current times. They explore foams as metaphors that help understand how the lived environment, broadly understood as multiple ecologies and ecosystems, are interconnected. "Spatial experience connects us to the world and in that sense much defines what, who and where we are. And at the same time it is crucial to acknowledge how the conception of space is ever more complex via globalisation and digitalisation. In a way, foam-like co-joined structures manifest the spatialisation of our vantage point to the world today", Loukola explains. "Through foam exercises we not only explore but also manifest spatial scenarios of equal co-existence. We all know from childhood bubble bath fun moments how every single bubble touch each other, share the same wall... but each cell still maintains its individuality. It's a bit like buildings in a densely populated city... Topology of this kind makes every unit, every being (like) an island. Each microsphere can ignore its neighbours only to a certain extent – they are immune of nature, but at the same time they are dependent on the spaces that surround them. You can certainly call this ethics of foams!"

FOAM’S ANATOMY VIA ARCHITECTURAL AND IMMERSIVE 360º CINEMATIC EXPERIMENTS

Coming from a background of scenographic and spatial practices, the two researchers highlight the performative and scenic aspects in staging their installation. Maiju Loukola's research focuses on the co-dependencies in foamy architectural structures, and on the "anatomy of foam" in different scales and material formations. She explores how the passages between often abstract and fluid matters and ideas may enter, in terms of co-existence, into the sphere of conceptualisation and articulation. Loukola's project will evolve into a more site-specific direction along the lengthy process. Paul Cegys’ research will focus on the intersection of immersive 360º cinematic foam-poems and tactile environments in order to explore the knowledge that is created when real and virtual worlds come together.

PART OF AIRA “RESEARCH CELL” BY GROUP OF AALTO ARTIST-RESEARCHERS

The FOAMING installation is part of AIRA Artistic Intelligence Research Alternator project that was chosen to form one part of the seven "artistic research cells" of the Research Pavilion in 2019. AIRA investigates a new fictiveness modulating our social facticity ever more tangibly when thematised through processes that produce new narratives, images and constellations. It is is an “artistic thinking research machine” that explores new fiction and develops parallel worlds. AIRA artist-researchers are Susanna Helke, Liisa Ikonen, Harri Laakso, Marko Karo and Maiju Loukola, in collaboration with Paul Cegys and Aku Meriläinen. See more on AIRA + DP here: http://www.researchpavilion.fi/disruptive-processes-artistic-intelligence-research-alternator-aira


THE INTERNATIONAL FOCAL POINT OF ARTISTIC RESEARCH

The Research Pavilion is an ongoing project created and hosted by Uniarts Helsinki, in cooperation with the Louise and Göran Ehrnrooth Foundation and international partner institutions: 911������, Valand Academy of Arts at the University of Gothenburg, University of Applied Arts Vienna, and Interlab Hongik University Seoul.

Research Pavilion #3: Research Ecologies
9 May – 28 August 2019, 10am – 6pm. Moderated hours 10am– 12pm. Closed Tuesdays.
See the full programme here: http://www.researchpavilion.fi/high-season-in-venice

Opening on 8 May 2019 at 5.30pm – 8.30pm, including a concert-installation by Electronic Chamber Music.
Sala del Camino, Campo S. Cosmo 621, Giudecca, Venice
Free admission.

Research Pavilion website www.researchpavilion.fi
Research Catalogue www.researchpavilion.fi/rc