2019

URBAN PERIPHERIES WORKSHOP / Part 1. Helsink/Espoo

URBAN PERIPHERIES WORKSHOP is a course exploring spatial interventions as artistic alternatives for urban transformation.

 

URBAN PERIPHERIES WORKSHOP consists of two parts:

Part I takes place at Aalto University/Aalto ARTS in Helsinki/Espoo in Spring 2019, and Part II takes place at UdK Berlin in Autumn 2019.

The workshop aims at enlarging the understanding of peripheries/ peripherality into areas that are difficult to verbalize. Peripheries are conventionally conceived as marginal geographical locations, whereas we will explore peripheries as ambiguous and multifaceted phenomenon – as conceptual domain, aesthetically and spatially experienced sensory spheres and states of mind shaped by complex associations and mental images.

We will study different relations to ‘peripherality’ through practice and theory. We will conduct a series of spatial interventions in urban space – in Helsinki/Espoo and in Berlin. We will look into the spatial dramaturgies of everyday spaces and places, and create new narratives related to physical sites, memories and dreams, and build on-site installations that intervene with the existing reality and re-write the sites anew.

 

Maximum number of students: 8 MA students from Design for the performing Arts (Scenography) Aalto University, 8 MA students from Visual Culture and Contemporary Arts Aalto University, 13 students from Universitet der Kunste Berlin

 

Urban Peripheries Workshop I Helsinki/Espoo
(2-3 weeks in Spring 2019, 4-6 credits)

Urban Peripheries Workshop I brings together interventional approaches and experimental spatio-scenographic tactics to create alternative means of “urban planning”. We will explore, address, suggest and activate new policies for spatial practices that overcome the definitions that delineate urban space as a much regulated administrative space. Through interventional exploration and fictionality, we will create alternative, polycentric and experiential maps in which centres and peripheries are in constant transformation. 

 

WORKSHOP Part I SCHEDULE
Calendar week 6: Tuesday 5 Feb – Friday 8 Feb
– Tuesday 5.2. at 10.00-17.00: INTRODUCTION DAY (themes, texts, workshop scheduling, about collaborative methods, pre-assignment)
– Wednesday 6.2. – Friday 8.2. at 10-17: INDIVIDUAL & GROUP WORK with pre-assignment

Calendar week 7: Monday 11 – Friday 15 Feb
– 10.00–17.00 WORKSHOP AT AALTO ARTS: Aalto + TEAK + Universität der Künste (UdK) students

Calendar week 8: Monday 18 – Wednesday 20 Feb – Monday 18 Feb at 10.00–17.00: FINAL PRESENTATIONS – Tue 19 Feb – Wed 20 Feb at 10.00–17.00: Aalto and TEAK students’ REFLECTION WORK 

 

 

SUPERVISORS: Maiju Loukola (Aalto ARTS, ELO) and Gabi Schillig (UdK)

https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/569317/569318

2018

SPATIAL PERIPHERIES – Mediating the Sense of PlaCE

EXPERIMENTAL SCENOGRAPHY WORKSHOP

5 Dec 2017 – 12 Jan 2018

“New World 7 (Posthuman interface)” demo by Danai Anagnostou

 

“SPATIAL PERIPHERIES – Mediating the Sense of Place” course is a workshop that aims at enlarging the understanding of peripheries into areas that are difficult to verbalize. this course explores peripheries as ambiguous and multifaceted phenomenon – as a conceptual domain, aesthetically and spatially experienced sensory spheres and states of mind shaped by complex associations and mental images.

In this course we study different relations to ‘peripherality’ through emphasizing fiction and fictionalising as our primary operational tools. We wil play with the idea of Fictional Practices of Everyday Life in the context of spatial peripheries.

The course combines theory and methods of expanded scenography / practices of space also outside of theatrical context, such as spatial practices related to social sphere and everyday activities. The course furthers understanding of spatial practices that emerge on borderline performing and spatial arts and scenography.

PARTICIPANTS FROM ELO-SCENOGRAPHY & ART DEPT. VICCA/VISUAL CULTURES AND CONTEMPORARY ART.

“New World 7” demo by Arto-Oskar Reunanen

 

“New World 7” demo by Amanda Hakoköngäs

 

“New World 7” demo by Oscar Dempsey

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2017

EXPANDED SCENOGRAPHY WORKSHOP, November 2017

Mental Museum at Lapinlahden Lähde

http://www.prolapinlahtiry.fi/?page_id=432

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2017

RIPA // relational – immersive – participatory artistic activities in performance

organised by UNIARTS/TEAK and Aalto ARTS Scenography 11.1.–17.2. 2017

Students familiarize themselves with dramaturgical, theatrical, theoretical and spatial approaches to relational, immersive and participatory performances. They acquire understanding about the spectator-oriented paradigm, where performances are created with the position(s) of the audience as the starting point or main focus. The course addresses also the applications of relational, immersive and participatory practices in other types of theatrical work.

The first part of the course consists of several viewpoints on relational, immersive and participatory performance, offered by various professional artists and scholars. The third week of the course is a workshop by Linn Hilda Lamberg from the Swedish group Poste Restante. In the second part of the course (weeks 4–6) the students work in groups and create performance sketches.

Implementation: Lectures, workshop sessions, group work, reading assignments.

Credits: 10 (or 5 if only 3 weeks)

Responsible teacher: Tuomas Laitinen
Other teachers: Maiju Loukola, Mikko Hynninen, Anders Carlsson, Katariina Numminen, Eero-Tapio Vuori

Time and place: weeks 2-7, Tue-Fri 9am-5pm
The schedule includes also attending performances in the evenings of the first week and on Saturday January 14th. The course site is Topeliuksenkatu 16 in Töölö.

photo of “NIGHT SCHOOL” demo by Wilhelm Enckell, Joel Neves, Tuuli Heinonen, Salla Loper, Alex Holmlund, Kris Gummerus, Sannah Nedergård, Alexander Wendelin, Adriana Guiman, Klaus Maunuksela. video projections by adriana guiman.

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2016

aalto arts (vicca/art department & elo)

Out 2 – Collective film in the spirit of Jacques Rivette

(5-15 ects, in Weboodi: Film as Contemporary Art).

COURSE ON COLLECTIVE FILM AND SPACE

Teachers: Harri Laakso and Maiju Loukola.

Jacques Rivette (1928- 2016) was one of the key figures in French cinema (many argue one of the most important theoretician of Cahiers du Cinéma). His masterpiece film Out 1: Noli me Tangere (1971) is one of the great feats in cinema, a 13 h giant. In this course you will have the chance to see this film, which up to now has been screened extremely rarely in its entirety.

 

It is a difficult film, already because of its sheer length but also because Rivette’s cinematic style is uncompromising – combining bizarre narrative, and being improvisational-experimental-theatrical. The film has improvised characters and plot and it is intellectual, meditative, illogical, sensual, highly enigmatic and at times also very funny.

 

In the first intensive week of the course we will see the film in its entirety at Orion Cinema in Helsinki (in four parts Monday-Thursday). We will discuss it and read the background materials of the “story” (Honoré de Balzac, Lewis Carroll, Aeschylus) as well as materials relating to Rivette’s work.

 

We will also produce a new film, one lengthy collaborative/collective video work that encompasses the contribution of all the students, and which includes documentary footage of our discussions as well as fabricated fictional fragments and narratives, all intertwined in one. This production is inspired by Out 1 and its enigma, but refers not only to Rivette’s film or its style but becomes a contemporary document about a certain time in Finland and a certain art school community. The project space, which will be the home base of the process, will also alter and change its form as the work proceeds.

 

This course is for students interested in experimental cinema and theatre, for students who are comfortable behind as well as in front of the camera, and who are interested in experimenting and improvising as a group. It is recommended for students in “all arts”, i.e.visual and spatial arts, scenography, production design, film (all majors), dramaturgy, acting, sculpting etc.

SCHEDULE:

1st Intensive week: 12.–16.9.2016,

intermediate check-days: 3.–4.10.2016 + 27.10.2016

2nd Intensive week: 31.10.–4.11.2016

Extra: Sat 8th Oct Rivette Symposium “Leikkisä work-in-progress” at Orion/Kavi

 

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1.–29.1.2016 at Aalto ARTS Helsinki

peripherical scenes – p.s. miniFESTIVAALI – p.s. miniFESTIVAL

is a experimental scenography workshop in which the notion of ‘periphery/peripherality’ is tackled by contemplating it/them as multifaceted spatial, conceptual and mental phenomenon. What kind of phenomenon is periphery or something peripheral? How do peripheries emerge, and where are they located? We will also ponder on the relations between peripheries and centers, and how these relationships might be affected through means of art. The orientation is ‘scenographic’: how to make peripheral spaces, events, situations and phenomenon visible through scenographic means?

The course is acted out following a festival concept. During the workshop a curated exhibition-event is realised. The participants are invited to submit a proposal, as response to a Call for Proposals. The participants will be negotiatng with the curators about the propositions and practical issues related to their realisation. At the end of the workshop, the miniFESTIVAL is opened to the public and a panel with invited guest critics is organized. The festival space is ISO ARSKA in the Arabia Center 4th floor.

Organized by Aalto ARTS ELO SCENOGRAPHY & Expanded Scenography Research Group

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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OTHER EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES ORGANIZED IN RELATION TO  EXPANDED SCENOGRAPHY RESEARCH GROUP

DiViDe / Introduction to Intermedial Design 8.–12.2.2016 at TEAK

One of the focus areas in the expanding practices and research of scenography are new media environments and intermedial performing arts inside and outside of conventional theatrical spaces and in the public sphere. The group members contribute in the education within these areas.

“The new Digital Visual Design – Advanced Intermediality in Performance (DiViDe)” is a newly launched minor (25 credits) pilot, focusing on intermedial design in performance by examining the theory, methodology and practise of the field. DiViDe is jointly organised by Degree Programme in Lighting Design, Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki and Degree Programme in Design for Theatre, Film and Television (ELO) of School of Arts, Design & Architecture, Aalto University.”

DiViDe started with an Introduction to Intermedial Design course 8.–12.2.2016 at TEAK. It ponders the concepts of media and mediality and their effects on our sense perception, conceptualisation and practices from different perspectives. The introduction is led by Maiju Loukola, postdoctoral researcher and member of Expanded Scenography research group, with Professor of lighting design in Theatre Academy Tomi Humalisto. Visiting lecturers Terike Haapoja, Dominik Schlienger and Ray Langenbach (LAPS, TEAK) expand the theme of transference to areas of interspecies excange, sound art, and live art and performance studies. 8.–12.2.2016 TEAK/Uniarts & Aalto ARTS Helsinki. See also: http://elo.aalto.fi/en/current/news/2016-02-12-002/

 

PROGRAM

DiViDe Introduction to Intermedial Design

WEEK 6, Tuesday to Friday 9.–12.2.2016 Teak Auditorium 1

Tuesday 9.2.

9–12    OPENING of DiViDe (5 cells) by Maiju Loukola (spatial/scenography), Tomi Humalisto (light)

LECTURE I: Mediality, intermediality and senses by Maiju Loukola

13–17 LECTURE II: Interscpecies exchange and platforms of knowledge as artistic media by Terike Haapoja.

Wednesday 10.2.

9–12    LECTURE III: Participatory, interactive, immersive performance environments by Maiju Loukola

13-17    LECTURE IV: Sound & Intermedial Performance by Dominik Schlienger

Thursday 11.2.

9–12    LECTURE V: Expanded fields and approaches by Maiju Loukola

13–17  LECTURE VI: Terminal Metaphors: Late modernist auto-destructive and body-linked mechanics by Ray Langenbach 

Friday 12.2.

9–12    ASSIGNMENT: weaving together the week’s discussions & textual references:  (Pick an angle from each theme + bring them into discussion/relation with your own artistic practice and fields of interests.)

13–17  ASSIGNMENT PRESENTATIONS with discussion. Closing discussion.

 

 

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Lecture-presentation MELLIFEROPOLIS – BEES AND MAN IN URBAN NATURE by Ulla Taipale and Christina Stadlbauer

TIME & PLACE: Wednesday 6th of April in ELO Project space A2, 4th floor in Arabiakeskus.

Students attending the Scenography Lecture Series may include this in their lecture package.


Melliferopolis – Bees and Man in Urban Nature

Melliferopolis – Honeybees in Urban Environments is a long-term project combining wild nature and city culture, launched in Helsinki in 2012 by artist/reseacher Christina Stadlbauer and independent curator Ulla Taipale. The project aims to appreciate the intrinsic value of honeybees, reaching beyond the reductionist view of bees as ecosystem providers and honey-producers and experiments with new ways of understanding bees, beekeeping and the ecology of the hive.

Between June and Septembet of 2016, the manifold outcomes of this project are shared and presented as a summer-long series of events, featuring workshops, exhibitions, a concert and other interventions. The Melliferopolis Fest program consists of events for Bees and Humans in Urban Nature.

The aim of the Fest is to highlight the connection between bees and city dwellers.  In addition to the bees, the program is inspired by art history, literary, natural scientific research methodologies, architecture, music, landscaping, smells, sounds and flavors. 

In this presentation Stadlbauer and Taipale explain the project and activities of the past years and give a glimpse to the program of the Melliferopolis Fest 2016.

More information about the project: www.melliferopolis.net

Melliferopolis – Mehiläisiä ja ihmisiä kaupunkiluonnossa

Melliferopolis on hanke, joka yhdistää villiä luontoa ja kaupunkikulttuuria. Se tarjoaa puitteet tarkkailla ja tutkiskella mehiläisten elämää keskeisillä julkisilla paikoilla, kuten kasvitieteellisessä puutarhassa tai yliopiston kampuksella. Helsingissä ja Espoossa vuonna 2012 alkanut monialainen hanke lähestyy mehiläisten maailmaa taiteita, tieteitä ja arkkitehtuuria yhdistellen. Kesällä 2016 toteutamme Melliferopolis Fest -tapahtuman, jonka ohjelmassa on avoimia työpajoja, näyttelyitä, installaatioita, seminaari ja konsertti Helsingin keskustassa. 

Hankkeen vetäjät, itsenäinen kuraattori Ulla Taipale ja taiteilija/tutkija Christina Stadlbauer kertovat hankkeen vaiheista, esittävät videoita ja kertovat ensi kesän Melliferopolis Fest- ohjelmasta.

Lisätietoja projektista:  www.melliferopolis.net

 

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DiViDe course MEDIATED PERFORMANCE DESIGN, Nov–Dec 2015

LEARNING OUTCOMES: Students are familiar with the fluctuating and changing nature of contemporary performance in which varying media are combined, cohered or effectively co-related. By focusing on a hands-on project they gain a fundamental understanding of how actual and virtual elements perform within and activate live events. This is developed through theoretical approaches, practical space-time explorations of the dramaturgical qualities and possibilities of technological and embodied performativity.

CONTENT: Students explore and apply networked and embodied performativity to the design of specific projects; including installations, games, interventions and/or participatory events. This is developed through shared research, instrumental demonstrations and playful experimentation. The processes and outcomes of individual and group experiments are documented, presented and discussed.

THEMATIC FOCUS POINTS: Testing with expanded scenographic means in new media environments, urban space and natural environments, influencing new forms and modes of artistic production. Immersive spaces, game-related performances, utilisation of digital applications and virtual scenographies.

The MEDIATED PERFORMANCE DESIGN workshop included a collaboration with HIDE – Helsinki Identities : Film Narrative as a planning tool for urban districts research group and HSL / Helsinki region transport, utilising the gps navigation system provided by HSL and creating performative mapping events based on the methods developed e.g. through the use of cultural mapping.