WHO GOES HUNTING DOES NOT COUGH curated by Kisito Assangni for Pixelache Helsinki, will open its doors at Museum of Technology on 11.9.2026 with a group exhibition, and a screening with a live performance will follow at EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, on 16.9.2026. The activities are a prelude to Pixelache Helsinki Festival’s celebrations, with contents linking directly within the festival’s programme.

The exhibition at the Museum of Technology will be on display from 11.9. to 11.10.2026 featuring works by: Kongo Astronauts, Yto Barrada, Neïl Beloufa, Theo Eshetu, Joseph Ijoyemi, Mouna Jemal Siala, Miatta Kawinzi, Ali Akbar Mehta, Marek Pluciennik, Johan Thom, Eden Tinto Collins, Sofia Yala, Oliver Whitehead.

The screening at EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art includes works from the Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection that explore contemporary narratives around identity, technology, social change and global perspectives: Kongo Astronauts, Yto Barrada, Neïl Beloufa, Theo Eshetu, Cao Fei, Joseph Ijoyemi, Mouna Jemal Siala, Jesper Just, Miatta Kawinzi, William Kentridge, Shirin Neshat, Johan Thom, Eden Tinto Collins, Sofia Yala, Oliver Whitehead. Live performances by Joseph Ijoyemi.

In the words of Kisito Assangni:

“The title Who Goes Hunting Does Not Cough, is derived from an African proverb suggesting that, despite the significance and positioning of projects, their value is ultimately best demonstrated through their outcomes. The exhibition introduces the public to the works of international artists from different contexts who take on the concepts of power relations, decolonial aesthetics, affective spaces, resilient communities, and new technologies. They reflect about new visualities conducive to look towards the future of the museum as a lived experience. Combining video, video games, film, sound, photography, installation and performance, most of the pieces in the show embrace a sense of reinvention and agency with the aim to shape various interpretative environments. They speak to the informed viewer as much as the uninitiated.

This exhibition is an experimental platform for critical reflection and non-hegemonic worldviews. It transcends cultural hierarchies, aligning with what theorist Irit Rogoff in her 2000 book Terra Infirma calls “criticality” –– a practice that constantly questions and destabilizes the authority of knowledge production. This shift opens up new interstices—spaces of intersection— where diverse forms of knowledge, from indigenous epistemologies to speculative futurisms, can coexist and interact. By challenging linear narratives and fixed hierarchies of values, media art could be the saving grace of the museum of the future. As society becomes increasingly mediated by technology, media art offers a compelling pathway for museums to remain relevant, accessible, and reflective of contemporary life.”

She spoke about Another Story, a long term project she designed for Pixelache Helsinki and supported by Kone Foundation. Over the course of a three-year program, three invited curators will delve into international media art archives to curate annual exhibitions and public programme.

The first invited curator is Kisito Assangni who will present Who Goes Hunting Does Not Cough, a group exhibition at the Finnish Museum of Technology, and a screening with live performance at EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art. The project will see the light at the beginning of September 2026. Introducing the public to the works of fifteen international artists from different contexts who take on the concepts of power relations, decolonial aesthetics, affective spaces, resilient communities, and new technologies. They reflect about new visualities conducive to look towards the future of the museum as a lived experience.

Link to the recorded interview here!

Who Goes Hunting Does Not Cough is a group exhibition and a series of public events curated by Kisito Assangni for Pixelache Helsinki. Realised in collaboration with the Finnish Museum of Technology and with EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art, the project will see the light in Autumn 2026. It introduces the public to the works of fifteen international artists from different contexts who take on the concepts of power relations, decolonial aesthetics, affective spaces, resilient communities, new technologies, and find them reflected in new visualities conducive to look towards the future of the museum as a lived experience.

Participating artists: Kongo Astronauts, Yto Barrada, Neïl Beloufa, Black Quantum Futurist, Eden Tinto Collins, Theo Eshetu, Miatta Kawinzi, Christian Nyampeta, Johan Thom, Sofia Yala, and five artists based in Finland which will be revealed later.

Curator Kisito Assangni: “Combining video, sound, photography, video games, installation, film and performance, most of the pieces in the show embrace a sense of reinvention and agency with the aim to shape various interpretative environments. They speak to the informed viewer as much as the uninitiated. This exhibition is an experimental platform for critical reflection and non-hegemonic world-views. The title, Who Goes Hunting Does Not Cough, derives from an African proverb which means sometimes, despite the importance and place of projects, you have to let the results speak for themselves. Especially, in a practice where the process holds as much importance as the outcome, and where the notion of an unfinished, remixable project is central. Media art, through its inherently interdisciplinary, participatory, and technologically responsive nature, has the capacity to radically reshape the future of the museum––transforming it from a static repository of objects into a dynamic site for the co-production of knowledge.”

Technology introduces a new infrastructure offering nearly unlimited possibilities for art in a hyper-connected, post-digital world. Intertwined with the museum, media art marks a profound disruption of the representative regime of aesthetic experiences and objects through its nature to question global cultural systems. To what extent can media art allow us to shape the future of the museum, and set a greater model for interstices of knowledges?

The Museum of Technology about the project: “In recent years The Finnish Museum of Technology has strengthened its position at the crossroads of technology, art and science. That is why this collaboration with Pixelache and EMMA is especially significant: it brings together technological heritage and media art in ways that open fresh perspectives on important issues that affect us all”.

EMMA Museum states about the collaboration: “Pixelache’s event at EMMA opens the art collections to the public from a new angle and strengthens the museum’s role in the field of media art. The perspectives of Pixelache—an electronic arts pioneer—and curator Kisito Assangni bring new voices to the fore and situate the media art collections in a topical context”.

Who Goes Hunting Does Not Cough presents works that epitomise the growth of new media art and produce sensory, affective and intellectual experiences in the context of museum. By fostering interstices of knowledges–those liminal, transdisciplinary spaces between science, technology, and embodied experience–media art redefines the museum-space as an agent of epistemic plurality and future-oriented thinking. This exhibition is an experimental platform for critical reflection and non-hegemonic world-views. It transcends cultural hierarchies, embracing what theorist Irit Rogoff in her 2000 book Terra Infirma calls “criticality”— a practice that constantly questions and destabilizes the authority of knowledge production. This shift opens up new intersticeç—spaces of intersection— where diverse forms of knowledge, from indigenous epistemologies to speculative futurisms, can coexist and interact. By challenging linear narratives and fixed hierarchies of values, media art could be the saving grace of the museum of the future. As society becomes increasingly mediated by technology, media art offers a compelling pathway for museums to remain relevant, accessible, and reflective of contemporary life.

Who Goes Hunting Does Not Cough expounds the critical potential media art has to shape museums physically and philosophically in a digital world striving for new ethical standards, equity and inclusion. The exhibition is part of Another Story, a long term project designed by Egle Oddo and supported by Kone Foundation. Over the course of a three-year program, three invited curators will delve into international media art archives to curate annual exhibitions.

Initiated to instigate emerging trends and explore new narratives, the project aims to critically examine contemporary media art practices and compare curatorial approaches. By showcasing the evolving field, the project’s ambition is to create meaningful connections to diverse global archives, and to unleash valuable repositories of knowledge that warrants further exploration and revitalization. Another Story will be a prelude to Pixelache Helsinki 2026 Festival’s celebrations, with events linking directly within the festival’s programme.

The project is realised in collaboration with Finnish Museum of Technology, EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art, and Villa Eläintarha. Supporting the project: Kone Foundation, The Arts Promotion Centre, The Department of Culture and Leisure of Helsinki City.

 In 2019 I started to think about the Pixelache 20th Anniversary approaching in 2022. During the years we had several survays and reviews of our activities made by Pixelache members. I thought it would be interesting to take the chance of the anniversary and invite a person who is not familiar with the organisation to delve into Pixelache online archive and write an article. I have been deeply interested in the work of curator Kisito Assangni since 2018, and I invited him to research our archive and formulate his findings. This interview anticipated in brief our dialogue which gave origin to his article published in October 2022, on Art Dependence magazine under the title “Disentangling Archives – How We Are Entering a New Era: The Case of Pixelache Helsinki“.

Egle Oddo: What elements in contemporary art awake your curiosity, interest and sensitivity, making you responsive? 

Kisito Assangni: Any project that articulates new debates and critical junctures in the field of contemporary art as well as artists who develop a body of work that combines powerful sociological explorations and great formal freedom make me responsive. Exhibitions emerge from the conjunction of numerous narrative, social, ethical, political, economic and technical circumstances and conditions. Consequently, finding new rewarding ways for audiences to connect with art can contribute to spread the meaning and value of art throughout society by using convergence, change, challenge, and innovation.

EO: You work with media art a lot, what are the recent turns you observe and is there anything in the latest media art productions and presentations that you find exciting? 

KA: The term “new media” was defined in 2001 by Lev Manovich in his The Language of New Media as a cultural artifact typically made and presented on the computer and characterized by five principles: 1) numerical representation of content, 2) modular structure of data and algorithms, 3) automation of processes, 4) variability of the object’s existence, and 5) transcoding of cultural data and practices which are digitized and transferred to the computer, which, in turn, modifies the operations of society and concepts in media theory. In an age of wildly accelerated globalisation and from the conviction that art must proceed as an engine of reflection and social transformation, media art is playing an undeniably central role. The idea of media art has changed quite fast and indeed significantly in the past few years with the rise of festivals dedicated to this form of arts on almost all seven continents. For example, transmediale in Berlin, Electrofringe in Australia, CYFEST in USA and Lithuania, Fakugesi African Digital Innovation Festival in South Africa, Japan Media Arts Festival and so on.  I really appreciate the recent major solo exhibition “Jet Black Futures” of the British artist Keith Piper at The New Art Gallery Walsall. This ongoing project explores issues of race, speculative futurism and technology in an age of anxiety. The piece In Search of Four Horses is particularly an ambitious and epic four-screen video installation based around an exploration of the myth, metaphor and symbolism of the Biblical story of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. 

EO: What limitations you see in media art, either technical or conceptual?

KA: Media art – including digital art, computer art, interactive art, CGI art or video art – still has to be more theoretically and conceptually developed. Media art works require a certain space, a budget and scheme to be realized. One difficulty with new media is that there is not so much flexibility in installing each particular work; it involves a lot of technical elements. Nevertheless, the limitations of a medium can also be its artistic freedom.

EO:  Can you tell us about the first time that you have curated a show, any type of show, and what was your motivation then?

KA: My first curatorial show ” Elavanyo – Everything is going to be alright” dates back to 2006 at Kiaca Gallery in Columbus (USA) in collaboration with The  Ohio State University of Art – Department of History of Art. It was a small exhibition of contemporary African art encompassing painting, drawing, and collage. It has been a noteworthy experience and I learned that an exhibition is more than the sum of its parts; it is the curator’s “oeuvre”, which illustrates a particular curatorial argument or perspective. I was undoubtedly motivated given that  two seminal events inspired me to think about making exhibitions that are interdisciplinary. The first event was the international group exhibition “GNS: Global Navigation Systems” curated by Nicolas Bourriaud at Palais de Tokyo in 2003. In terms of critical frameworks, this show blew my mind. The second event was the spectacular exhibition of Lemaître collection at Maison Rouge Foundation in Paris. This collection is composed essentially of recent video art by contemporary international artists who question the language of image today versus fictional cinema, documentary video and television.

EO: Did your motivations for curating artworks, shows, reviews, changed along time passing, and what is the path you see if you look backwards?

KA: My motivations did not change at any point since my curatorial approach is still empirical, reflective, and interventional. A good curator provides continually information, connections, and even contrasts to understand what makes art relevant today, and not only reflects meaning but contribute to debates and new understadings. Furthermore, I’m always interested in learning to illuminate the extra-verbal dimensions of curatorial work and the sociology of affordances.   Looking backwards, I’ve tried on my small scale to respond to the contemporary society as it changes, contribute to art-historical discourse with new thoughts and ideas, participate in the dismantling of prejudice, the discovery of individual and common opportunities previously unnoticed.

EO: You have been invited to look into the archive of 20 years activity of Pixelache organisation. What is your relation with archives in general and with digital archives in particular?

KA: Traditionally, archives are contemporary records created by individuals and organisations as they go about their business and therefore provide a direct window on past events. There are many varieties of archives, and they are for life and for living. I regularly identify appropriate archives for my research. Moreover, I’m fascinated by the record keepers who ensure the long-term physical survival and intellectual integrity of the archive as custodians of society’s memory. In 1994, Jacques Derrida delivered his “Archive Fever” lecture at the Freud Museum, and its subsequent publication. Within dialogues around this work it is frequently cited as the catalyst for a turn to the archive within the humanities. Derrida deftly guides us through an extended meditation on remembrance, religion, time, and technology – fruitfully occasioned by a deconstructive analysis of the notion of archiving. Digitization obviously enables the researcher to view materials without visiting the archives in person. The internet is absolutely changing the archive. New digital archives can generate, crowdsource, and share specific and previously unrecorded experiences in an official way. I think new digital databases have greater reach and impact than traditional archives. Online projects are being used to tell new stories, make information and perspectives accessible, connect and create communities, and to process old histories in new ways.

EO: Can you give us a tiny teaser of what you found out so far researching Pixelache archive?

KA: I’ve found that Pixelache acts as a spatial unification agent between human behavior, environment, music, new media, architecture, technology and communication, associated to diversity of living systems. Additionally, the Pixelache festival’s uniqueness is ethical interconnection doing well for the community, finding solutions in main topics of contemporary problems related to economy building circumstances that evolve society and economy sustainability.

EO: What is the next project you are involved in?

KA: I’m currently co-writing a socio-ethical project about insurgent invisibility in contemporary art. Actually, the project strives to create a transversal relationship between international artists from various territories and minorities by including semiotics of the refusal of identity against all forms of domination and destruction.

Kisito Assangni is a Togolese-French curator and consultant who studied museology at Ecole du Louvre in Paris. Currently living between UK, France and Togo, his research interests gravitate towards the cultural impact of globalisation, psychogeography and critical education.  His discursive projects have been shown internationally, including the Venice Biennale, ZKM Karlsruhe, Whitechapel Gallery London, Centre of Contemporary Art Glasgow, Malmö Konsthall Sweden, Torrance Art Museum Los Angeles, Es Baluard Museum of Art Palma, National Centre for Contemporary Arts Moscow among others. Assangni is a contributing editor at ArtDependence Magazine and Arshake.

In his words: “My curatorial approach is mainly to collaborate with artists who ask crucial questions through works that expand the possibilities of what the new media can do and stand for.  I’m unceasingly interested in video art, experimental sound and performance by contemporary international artists who examine the world we live in, the language of image today, a humanity in transformation, and the limits of our sociopolitical systems. Today the mechanisms and the geography of contemporary art are global. Therefore, searching for a right sustainable way to support to the universality of art, lends a hand to dismantle the asymmetrical power relations that structure the art world”.

This article, written by curator Kisito Assangni on the occasion of Pixelache 20th Anniversary, was originally published on ArtDependence online magazine, Saturday December 3, 2022

ABSTRACT

Disentangling archives give us the ability to enter a new era as we disposition between organic and artificial telepathic communication. In this article, the aim is to overcome digital colonization of the human brain by analyzing the 20 years of the Pixelache archive. The themes emerged from the investigation were: human and non-human relation between artificial and actual physical world, tangible interfaces, consciousness presence in the ‘now’ moment, the body-movement articulation, gesturing including both digital and non-digital interfaces and systems, tangible and haptic interfaces within new technology progress, empathic communication skills awakening emotional aspects of expression and interaction. This article frames Pixelache inside a larger international context and underlines common operational aspects as well as what makes some artist-run institutions so unique. This juxtaposition is instrumental to find out themes that need yet to be investigated, and fields where the activity could expand in future. The future perspective of Pixelache Helsinki festivals and new media, involves the ethical principles in understanding digital and non-digital interconnectedness, and re-establishes the values of aesthetics that the art world is based upon.

Keywords: consciousness, telepathic communication, body movement, ethics and aesthetics, digital and non-digital, physicality and digitality, philosophy, art & science, pixelache, festivals, artist collective.

Table of Contents

1.1. From Transdisciplinary Research to Fully Formed Festival Program

2.1. How We Are Entering a New Era

2.2. A Platform for Emerging Arts Between Organic Thinking and Digital Interfaces 

2.3. Pixelache and Other Artist-run Institutions

3.1. Conclusion: Future Perspective

1.1. From Transdisciplinary Research to Fully Formed Festival Program

Knowledge exchange in the building of international festivals strengthens communication and connection as well as enhances different cultural experiences. Pixelache art festivals are beneficial for the art communities in general as they bring together parties for various backgrounds, places, and disciplines. Pixelache Helsinki art festivals have developed from local to worldwide artistic engagements of diverse individuals: artists, scholars, academics, scientists, programmers, and other participants. The meaning of the word pixelache is associated to a feeling of being overwhelmed with the digital and an overdose by digital information – criticism of contemporary time.1

As a trans-disciplinary platform for emerging art, design, research and activism, Pixelache began as a festival of electronic art and subcultures. Since 2022, it has been organizing progressive programs which include seminars, workshops, exhibitions, performances, concerts and club events. Amongst the fields of interest are: experimental interaction and electronics, code-based art and culture, renewable energy production/use, participatory art, open-source cultures, bio arts and art & science culture, alternative economy cultures, politics and economics of media/technology, audiovisual culture, media literacy and ecology, and engaging environmental issues. 

The advantage of Pixelache festivals is that they are inclusive of both, digital and non-digital interfaces and systems. The physical actions in real time and space, organic thinking often collectively articulated, are interwoven with virtual reality, using digital tools, programs and techniques, improving skills, while re-questioning the relation towards new technology on creative workshops, art events, projects, nurturing human-nature relations. Addressing various subjects, especially in the last ten years with the idea of adapting to a permanently changing circumstances, some of the themes of the festival have been: D.I.W.O. Do It with Others (2012), Facing North – Facing South (2013), Commoners Unite! (2014), Living Spaces (2015), Interface for Empathy (2016), Local & Decentralized (2017), Breaking the Fifth Wall (biennially from 2019), Burn (2021).

Many themes arose as the archive was sifted through. For example, patterns of Pixelache being perceived as a ‘thinking out of the box’ festival because it approaches digital and non-digital interfaces. It gathers creative individuals in uplifting activities going beyond expected results. It challenges mainstream conventions, invites everyone to participate, finds common solutions dealing with contemporary issues of global warming, examines humans and non-humans, presents environmental standards including a variety of tools or, analyzing the economy for social sustainability and efficiency in regards to the money lab workshops 2. It tracks current politics, rising collective consciousness in preserving nature as well as in new technology developments, aiming to evolve interaction and interconnectedness within humanity. 

As the investigation continued many questions came to surface. Could empathy be a key to reconnect us with our ecosystem and ourselves? The theme of ‘Interfaces for Empathy’ explores the promise of possible societal shift through macro-level direct experiences, and the perspective of interconnectedness of all living systems, visible and invisible ecosystems and energies. Technology serves as a mediator in accomplishing aspects of communication, of all and for all, challenging the contemporary turmoil in shaping social life.

2.1. How We Are Entering a New Era

Pixelache festival presents artistic projects and approaches of understanding technology, as opposed to not being a mere consumer 3, but rather a creative individual using new technology for subjective development, enhancing the community in general. How can society overcome the contemporary circumstances of the pandemic, the economic turmoil and war 4, while paradoxically technological progress continues? How can we advance our way of life, without producing more waste that is left behind? Digitalization is shaping the modern way of life, it is especially obvious in big cities. The examples of the artworks, workshops, and projects presented at Pixelache in the last ten years are re-calling to relations between human behavior, environment, architecture, technology and communication, and associations with the diversity of living systems.

Golan Levin’s interactive artwork with Zachary Lieberman, Reface 2007 (presented in Kiasma Mediatheque 2010, not organized by Pixelache), is the portrait sequencer which composes endless combinations of the visitors faces, by using face-tracking techniques, which allow automatic alignment and segmentation of the participants’ faces. The artistic creation in this innovative interactive play with participants’ eye blinking, results as a kinetic “generative group portrait”. It blends appearance and identity, the personalities and the genetic traits of visitors on site.

The work of Alessandro Ludovico and Paolo Cirio, Face to Facebook (presented at Map me if you will seminar at Pixelache 2011) exemplifies a critical provocative review of virtual profiles and digitized identities. It is based on stealing one million Facebook profiles, filtering them with face-recognition software, while posting them on a custom-made dating website. The work evokes strong reactions from people’s comments on Lovely–faces.com and Face–to–Facebook.com. The official Facebook’s reaction resulted as legal action which prevented the work from actualizing. 5

If interactive actions bring to life an artwork-event that awakens participatory behavior (Kluszczynski, 2010), a good example of interaction is the Rambler by Ricardo O’Nascimento (on Pixelache web archive). It takes digital data of participant’s walk through the city, with embedded sensors in the shoes, and it results in a real-time posting of the participants’ steps, on Twitter. The physicality of the participants’ behavior, the steps in the physical space are being merged with digital data. They are enabled by wearable-technology designed shoes, which enable online mapping of participants’ step patterns. The Internet connects people from different parts of the world beyond cultural differences, religion or any other differentiation, allowing interpersonal immediate communication.  At the same time, digital techniques used in these generative interactive artworks, predicted how new technology can manipulate social structures, for example in modern China  with technocracy. 6

Projects like Twin City of Talsinki / Hellinn, Between Borders, Visions and Reality, (Pixelache 2013), raise viewpoints, which emphasize strong interaction between perspectives of conflicting narratives that derive from passengers searching for new opportunities residing in these connecting cities, outlook and urban planning.  Another relational aspect between human memory and the environment surrounds the Pixelversity / Ruins project (Pixelache 2014), which occurs as a series of ruin-value theoretical walks in contemporary Finnish cities, such as Helsinki and Pori. It shows the process of re-thinking the future in relation to architecture. What kind of ruins will the modern urban construction leave behind? The value of the ruins adds value also to modern architecture, and invites participants from different fields (science, art, religion) to participate in guided tours.  The process is visualized by merging older sites and actual and existing ruins together. By doing so, it brings into relation the environment, memory and the temporality of nature. 

Various examples of circular objects containing built structures and open space from the Neolithic to the present, are related to the basic geometrical form, the circle; this becomes evident in the article titled Circle in Space, Space in Circle, the future perspective of architecture. The proposal is for the future urban constructions to enable organic, communication aspects, and more intuitive interconnection between human, nature and its surroundings. It draws a parallel which refers to ancient civilizations, Maya or Inka living spaces in South America, or tribe houses in Africa, as well as churches, mosques, or modern building expressing a technologically developed era, that is the Apple’s new campus is also built in the shape of a circle  (Jović, Čučaković, Grbić, 2021).

2.2. A Platform for Emerging Arts Between Organic Thinking and Digital Interfaces

Pixelache festival is inclusive to both, digital and non-digital interfaces and systems, which validates the necessity of establishing a balancing relation between physicality and digitality of contemporary time. The USB Dead Drop workshop (Pixelache 2015) by artist and philosopher Erno-Erik Raitanen, is an example of a point of disconnecting and, at the same time, connecting an analog actual physical materialistic world with digital a virtual reality store. The placement of USB Dead Drop in urban public space is made accessible to anybody and represents the solidness of the intangible-invisible digital memory, placed in stationary material of a wall, in a public space. 

On another note, the educational features of the festival are significant in enhancing programming skills. The workshops at Pixelversity / Av Culture (2014) titled Creative Coding for Live Audio Visuals, is a learning process of understanding how works are being created in a form of audiovisual performances. Raspberry Pi + Pure Data, acknowledges Pure Data visual programming language, and relies on the platform of Raspberry Pi. It creates live-sampling patches, 7 which are controlled and manipulated by mouse, keyboard, and gamepad. Raspberry Pi + open Framework workshop presents C++ creative coding that runs on different computers: Mac, PC and Linux as well as on Raspberry Pi as a tool that is easy to travel with due to its size despite how many visual synthesizers are embedded.

Earth Hour, presented as part of the Urban Projection Lab (Pixelache 2010), is an artwork by Miska Knapek. A prototype called Energy Pulse, visualizing the total energy consumption amount in the Helsinki city area, went online the same day as the prototype of the interactive sculpture Power Flower and Helsingin Energia. Again it is about publishing a new, real-time, energy meter online.

Human and non-human interfaces presented at the workshop by Lithuanian artist Mindaugas Gapševičius (Pixelache 2015), experiment with the space of living and nonliving, and underline organic notion of sensing the reality. At the seminar Art and Technoscience (Pixelache 2010), Roy Ascott among other participants, was part of the discussion that went on ethical discourse in art practices. Technologies of encounter consider human and non-human relations, implies as well traditional understanding of agency, community, questions political implications, manipulation, objectification, and abuse of non-human. 

Telepathic communication interconnects humans with other spaces and living systems beyond the expected. Intuition is an immediate understanding that elevates human spirit and consciousness overcoming toxicities and waste production which marks the contemporary time of the global modern cities. In the present day the conception of the Anthropocene has emerged as the reality which unexpectedly brings worlds together with diverse shapes, as well as an amorphic coexistence. 8 If communication strengthens connections and comprehension, Alpaca Oracle (Pixelache 2015) by Mari Keski-Korsu, the telepathic project aims to ask help and advice for humankind from other animals. It gives the possibility of expanding human understanding in the present state, inter-species communication or telepathy, and the future prospects of life on Earth. The project introduced the biggest alpaca herds in Finland to its participants. Practicing telepathic skills, for example enhancing empathic connection to other species, is representing deepening connection to the ecosystem we live in. 

Human relation to body is essential in developing human relation to nature, physicality, using diverse senses, proprioception or articulation of body movement and its gesturing, consciousness presence in the now moment (Fićović, 2016). The organic-body tool, using proprioception sense, can ground the virtual reality, and occupy the mind, influencing on cleansing the digital – pollution or, digital social toxicities, that in fact represents a digital colonization of human brain today. 9 

Another example of the physicality of interface activation of human bodies in the public space, the collective action with ropes, creating a net out of rope as the metaphor of digital social networking, was seen at the workshop Invisible city (Kiasma seminar room, Pixelache 2010). The importance of growing plants, especially in urban areas, a hallmark of The Making of Windowfarms project (Pixelache 2010-11), shows growing plants in the huge Kiasma takaikkuna illuminated with LEDs. The organic way of thinking can be developed by humans nurturing nature. The Trashlab theme, which explores experimental art-design-technology practice between hacker and maker cultures, focuses on re/up-cycling an increased available new fabrication. Also, Trashlab project (Pixelache 2014) coordinated by Päivi Raivio, deals with material and electronic waste in contemporary society. It has objectives in building community, including artists, hackers, designers, activists, and makers. Loving the trash by structuring urban life’s ecosystem, seeing it as material for creative solutions in organizing the urban environment, turns out to be an emotional attachment to trash.

Returning to human-non-human-interfaces, the newest project and workshop led by Lithuanian artist Mindaugas Gapševičius (Burn, Pixelache 2021), experiments with the space between the living and nonliving. The project considers the space inhabited and shared between organisms and machines. Electronic interfaces are built in order to bridge multicellular organisms like a plant or human body with a digital machine. Where technologies and organisms merge, it shows a state which is described by Katherine Hayles as a posthuman (Hayles,1999) in the project Humans and other organisms  experiments with the space between the living and nonliving. 

Greta Thunberg’s book No one is too small to make a difference, brought by I am the Messenger (Pixelache 2021), expresses the feeling of anger addressed in a clear message about the moment – when things are falling apart it means that the time for change is possible. If art is about the experience, human feelings, the human sensibility can be transferred via manual work. In the history of art, the special values of manual work are appreciated in for example, painting and drawing. The tactility, haptic interfaces in electronic materials and new technology, tools of a new media, is what future transdisciplinary platforms should be focused on, since body movement and gesturing, and hand gestures in particular awake consciousness in the now moment articulating different human senses. 

If human survival is endangered by overexploitation of the planet’s resources, what is ethical in current technology, scientific innovation, and new technological developments? Returning to the ethical principles, it can be what makes a difference in the paradoxes of globalization, which artist Hito Steyerl 10 exposes in the relation between political economies, visual culture, and the status of art production (Steyerl, 2017). 

Awakening consciousness as well as developing collective consciousness, from telecommunication to telepathic interaction, provides time for humans to deal with the philosophical aspects, alongside the science advancing and the technological applications. If Artificial Intelligence (AI) replaces labor, humans can interconnect on the level of consciousness and technology of time 11. As the ancient Greek philosophers discussed aesthetics and ethics, the notion of New Aesthetic (Bridle, 2013) in algorithmic transdisciplinary learning platforms of the 21st century is vital for the philosophy to understand the paradoxes of globalization, that Steyerl refers to. The ethics and the aesthetics challenge various aspects of contemporary art strategies, and the notion of sublime, food for the soul. It is in this vein that Jadranka Skorin-Kapov in her book The Intertwining of Aesthetics and Ethics (2016), gives more weight to Kant’s notion of the sublime as the major foundation for ethics and aesthetics. She claims that sublimity provides the most proper aesthetic experience for both art and nature. As the sublime points to something beyond our physical existence, it grounds ethics and aesthetics in the same realm of metaphysics.

The future is now, or, there is no future, (Burn Ecocide, Pixelache 2021) references global warming, ice melting, endangered food sources of the Antarctic krill, which are the main food sources for the Humpback whales. Nomadic Seeds: Desert Strawberries and PhosFATE by artists Mohamed Sleiman Labat and Pekka Niskanen, presented at the Baltic Sea screening & discussion, exposes the notion of garden, essential for local as well as global communities, not just representing the source of edible food, but also the activation of multisensory experiences, that are nevertheless a part of artistic immersive creations.

To challenge contemporary art and science, inevitable philosophical aspects of ethics and aesthetics, a transdisciplinary coexistence is questioning the merging of human and machine and the idea of cybernetics (Wiener, 1948). It’s necessary now more than ever to underline the notion of organic thinking that puts humans out of the center, which is opposite to the central position during the Renaissance. Today’s focus could be maybe more about metaphysics of inner being, relations to universal laws in sciences. Being grounded in the moment, where music, nature and culture coexist in collective consciousness, is what body movement encourages. The body movement of the eternal now expressed by the circular form (The Circular Movement of Dot, 2020) 12, conveys the intention to harmonize the notions of destruction and construction regarding global urban transformations, another digital colonization of the human brain. The presence in the moment could be considered a flow of energy of the ubiquity-human instead of the anticipation of the post-human. Curiosity explored on an emotional map, where all of these possibilities of transdisciplinarity in the field of art and science occur, accompanies contemporary strategies for an artist’s inner expressions, and contingent models of artistic production.

2.3. Pixelache and Other Artist-run Institutions

It is necessary to put the existence of Pixelache inside a larger context, within the wider landscape of international organizations. It is useful to understand what are the common grounds for many grass-root initiatives, and what makes some of them so specific and unique. The contextualisation of Pixelache operational modalities is also instrumental to foresee the next developments, to point out directions that still need to be investigated, and where the activity could expand in future.

The infrastructure for art strategies and art production is closely related to the economy, politics, art market, coordinated by the art world, private art institutions, art galleries, collectors, non-profit institutions including museums, associations, and art centers. The logistics until the artwork reaches the audience, or art markets, involves three stages: creation, production and distribution. The Art World internationally adopts a convention on the value of an artwork, which then receives a certain price based on the art market. The Art World consists of the State (that invests into art field institutions), museums, collectors, sponsors, art galleries and curators, biennials as well as external factors, banks, art managers, and designers. Within the Art World, curators represent the gatekeepers, selecting the valued art works for exhibitions and shows, according to certain consensus. 

Piknik Frequency ry is a registered non-profit association 13, (working name Pixelache),  its members are the supporting source for festival realizations, from the beginning of 2002 in Helsinki with annual activities, with biennial character from 2019. People’s interest for art, going to galleries, visiting other cultural institutions, depends on the communicative aspect and networking within the art world or, it relies on media promotion. Pixelache is well covered by media press with a list of supporters, actively engaged in cultural projects and collaborations on a year-round basis. 14

Having a similar artistic field of interests as Pixelache, Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria organizes the Ars Electronica festival that is one of the main festivals in the world for electronics and new media. Happening each year in September with exhibitions setup on a few locations in the city, it presents interdisciplinary approaches, art and science, and new technology achievements. The festival welcomed known names who also participated in Pixelache such as Roy Ascott, and Ricardo O’Nascimento. Unlike Pixelache which has a lot of projects based on the process of diverse members, Ars Electronica festival is the platform for presenting already produced artworks and projects installed in exhibition venues, with talks, presentations, discussions, and Prix Ars Electronica Award. Hiroshi Ishii (MIT), regular guest of Ars Electronica festival (in 2016 the festivals title Radical Atoms is named upon Hiroshi Ishii’s project Tangible Bits & Radical Atoms) 15, introduces interface of HCI, as the time and interactivity (Dix, Finlay, Abowd, Beale, 2005) that deal with movement, body, hand gesturing, and tactility. The issue about the importance of tactility in the art world, questions the aesthetic in art and consensuses, state of mind and feelings. Concerning the everlasting question of what is art, Roy Ascott presented at Ars Electronica 2014 16 the idea of having mobile phones integrated into the human body in 2050, re-calling the notion of merging human and machine presented in Norbert Wiener’s cybernetics. Inside a technocratic society, human behavior becomes shaped by social scoring with mobile apps (system of control and punishment), and during pandemic and vaccination campaigns, contemporary politics became a bio art demonstration of social engineering.  It’s what Mignolo describes as a change of epoch (Mignolo, 2020). 

Resonate festival lasted for only a few years in Belgrade, Serbia. It consisted of intensive talks and lectures, knowledge sharing, presentations, educational activities, involving international participants. It was about setting new standards in the arts industry by creating new platforms for networking and sharing information, and for debating on the position of technology in art and culture. The Resonate festival in UK City of Culture Coventry, brought a twelve-month inspiring and interactive events program of great ideas, curiosity and creativity (for all ages in Coventry and Warwickshire). Similar to Pixelache, it encompasses areas ranging from software engineering to visual arts theory, bridging culturally separated segments of the artistic and intellectual scene through a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach. Another example is a short-term international platform conference named CGA Belgrade, presenting educational workshops and lectures on electronics and new media, where people can meet, exchange contacts, and with the pandemic crises (covid 19) it switched to online platform meetings.

The Pixelache festival’s uniqueness is ethical interconnection, doing well for the community, finding solutions in main topics of contemporary problems related to economy building circumstances that evolve society, economic sustainability, and creating its own local currency (Suomenlinna Money Lab workshop). 17 

The economic global crises which started in 2008, shifted the art market to China, auction houses like Sotheby’s and others, moved to Asia. International galleries, network of art founders are currently present in 798 districts in Beijing. 18 

Rising collective consciousness on Pixelache projects, such as intellectual collectivity, relates somehow to the Apartment Project Berlin, Germany, the collective thinking-based artist-run initiative. For example, the quality of production, the process of communication which leads to collectively building art projects, comes across various topics. Some of the projects dealing with the problems of migrants and refugees in Europe, are oriented to understanding a reality through communication, talks, and the artistic projects are entangled with several countries. 19 

Pixelache, was initially oriented to a local Helsinki small-size festival, and it developed through the years into an international community, having several branches in different countries. 20 Similarly to Pixelache, Instanbul SAHA initiative is a good example of infrastructure, which supports the artistic productions, sustainability fund. SAHA Association was founded to support artists, curators and writers working in visual arts from Turkey in improving their production and development environments, and to enhance their interactions with international art institutions and networks. 21

Returning to the notion between digitality and physicality of Pixelache festivals (discussed in the first part of the paper), inclusion of both digital and non-digital interfaces and systems, the process of creating activities and projects, is a privilege of Pixelache. The aesthetic as well as ethic, the philosophy and culture of ancient Greeks (Jones, 2019), represent a challenge for science and for the future perspective of technology and new media. It encourages the significance of spirituality in contemporary global society, as a key to overcoming global crises and turmoil (economy, pandemic, war), all consequences of the politics of ego-power game.

Another kind of artist-run space, Alzueta Gallery, a contemporary art gallery in the center of Barcelona, is located in an old textile factory. The gallery stands for modernity, radicalism, transformation, ideas and the politics of change, bringing contemporary art into the calm retreat of the Catalan countryside, with antique furniture, creating a situation where people can calmly discover new relations between art and its settings. In this gallery, the production of art is more oriented towards visual language, the value of colors, compositions, rhythm, lines, and surfaces, presented with the medium of drawings and painting, and then displayed at international art fairs, as one of the most wanted and sellable media.

Nafasi Art Space in Dar es Salaam, compared to Pixelache, is unquestionably a way of making art that is built upon the idea of working together. This contemporary art center founded by a small group of Tanzanian artists, presents special events that look at issues of post-colonialism and African identity and society through the lens of contemporary art practices. As one of the foremost multidisciplinary creative hubs in Africa, Nafasi Art Space welcomes interdisciplinary public events such as music festivals, concerts, film screenings, art talks, workshops, and dance performances, providing a meeting point for intensive dialogue and exchange between artists and the public. 

Modern ways of financing the global society shift to functioning online, bringing the visibility of artworks via Instagram or other social networks on the Internet, that reaches a huge audience. Independence is the privilege of the future perspective in various parts of social activities and in the art world. Still, with new media technology developments, the question Was ist Kunst (what is art) remains a contemporary quest.

3.1. Conclusion: Future Perspective

Human brain is not working digitally. Therefore in relation to digital, it is important to keep the presence of body movement underlining physicality, for example in the framework of Pixelache the walking guide-tour with Pixelversity/Ruins project. Future perspective on Pixelache paying attention to music, nature, culture, body movements, would be the introduction to a diversity of dance practices, rhythms and cultures. The spiritual aspect of dance, rituals of ancient cultures or traditional ones, folklore, waltz, dancing rhythms of Africa, explores movement of human body, sound, aesthetic and rhythm as spirit’s emanation. The Latin phrase says mens sana in corpore sano (a healthy mind in a healthy body). Or for example, Aristotle’s strolls in The School of Athens 22, shows a more efficient way of learning by walking. Harmonizing body-mind coordination is efficient for acquiring knowledge. If we consider digitalization and educational system, interfaces are still limited to a sitting position and limited typing gestures on keyboards or mobile phones (see the photo documentation of programming, coding, workshop on Pixelversity/ AV Culture, mentioned in the first part of the paper, obviously shows that the HCI didn’t change from the last century).

Communicational aspects are changed, since digitalization influences human brain by fragmenting the content of the memory, therefore the focus on reading is deranged. 23 Bringing back the focus of the brain, calming the state of mind (Buddha consciousness), 24 could be a challenge for interactive events, and meditative aspects. Aesthetics, quality and values make a difference in experimental electronic arts. The new media scientifically approaches the creation with learning processes, cognitive skills are rationalized with engagements based on problem solving, programming skills advance with future perspectives, collective mind-body articulates the practices through body movement and gesturing. 25 

Are we going that fast with contemporary digital navigation that we include mobile phones for every banal action, missing in that way the physicality of the real, like smell, taste, touch, diverse senses that evoke feelings, happiness of summertime? Art is based upon expression of emotions into aesthetics. Through centuries, these questions penetrate into philosophy, ethics and aesthetic, and this is an inevitable contemporary challenge for new media technology development, as well as for the future perspective of Pixelache. Establishing a dialogue based on a word-based communication (language, culture, writings – the ecosystems of linguistics), intuitively being present in the moment, while telepathically interconnected with ecosystem and other living systems, the channels of nature (telepathic communication, still part of Aboriginal culture in Australia). 26

How we are entering a new era, talking about modern cities, digital and non-digital interfaces, relation human non-human, interconnection of living systems, smart cities or wise villages, the efficient economy, NFT virtual objects, overcoming the pandemic, communicational aspect of online meetings, free of charge, time efficiency, without hitting the wall on energy consuming? In shaping the ecosystems and urban areas, if observing these aspects from the future perspective, AI and online function of society, the choice between smart city and wise village is essential, awakening consciousness and all human senses. Manual hand gesture is important in sensing the real – it can be experienced in human and non-human body-mind coordination, and in Buddhist contemplation 27 as a state of mind – offers a balance towards the digital. The balance between the organic, physical, analog interfaces and virtual reality are what Pixelache encourages from the beginning, a future perspective of ubiquitous human, flexible and fluent, like water.

NOTES

1. In the contemporary time, the 21st century with pandemic crises and lockdowns, life and society have switched to the online function (online classes, schools, jobs, shopping, dating), and digitalization takes over physical reality. The creative minds of artists are the first to try innovative technological devices, before they get  accepted by mass society. Pixelache provides a platform to find common solutions, questioning relations between digital and non-digital interfaces and systems. 

2. The Suomenlinna Money Lab project, initiated in Pixelache 2011, ended in 2014 with the publication Autopsy of an Island Currency reflecting on the artistic process leading to the attempt to create a local currency in Suomenlinna island. (https://archive.org/details/pixelache-2014-portfolio-annual-report)access 14.03.2022 

3. “Those who cannot understand technology are doomed to be consumed by it”, quote from The New Aesthetic and its Politics, Booktwo.org, James Bridle, 2013, London.

4. Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, after the covid-19 pandemic (2019-2022).

5. Face to Facebook addresses surveillance, privacy, and the economy of social media monopolies as well as performing art interventions within global media. During the performance the artwork received several letters from the lawyers of Facebook which had to confront this artistic intervention made with appropriated material and as a result of its security flaws. First Cease & Desist letter, 4th February 2011 (http://www.face-to-facebook.net/legal/1F2F_CeaseAndDesist_4Feb2011.pdf)

6. Technocratic society, digital scores, social scoring, if an individual does not properly collect positive feedback or social points through digital applications on mobile phone apps, this results in the exclusion of that individual from the society. The Chinese company Watrix AI has developed new software that can identify people by how they walk. The gait recognition technology analyses movements to create unique models for identifying people, allowing identities to be matched up even when faces are not visible. South China Morning Post, Tom Wang, 21st February 2019 (https://www.scmp.com/video/technology/2187159/chinas-new-video-surveillance-system-identifies-people-how-they-walk). AP News, Dake Kang, 6th November 2018 (https://apnews.com/article/china-technology-beijing-business-international-news-bf75dd1c26c947b7826d270a16e2658a)

7. A patch made with Pure Data (PD) is an open source visual programming language designed for musicians, visual artists and performers to create software without writing lines of code. It is used to process and generate sound, video, 2D/3D graphics, but also interface sensors, input devices, and old-school MIDI files.

8. In the Istanbul Biennial 2019 titled The Seventh Continent, and curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, the topic of Anthropocene offered a reading of specific phenomena such as the plastic mass floating in the ocean which created a sort of new continent in the middle of the Pacific. A mass that is the embodiment of the Anthropocene. Artists were invited to produce new forms, inspired by the new now, where humans and non-humans, machines, waste, trees and animal life are interwoven in amorphic structured presence (https://www.artpapers.org/the-seventh-continent/)  access 23.03.2022

9. Digital colonization of the human brain, which is functioning as an analog organ and it could be described as an electromagnetic oscillator, can be remediated and cleaned through free body movement, body movement that is essential for our mind – body harmony rises consciousness over the digital (true or false) illusion. About Heart & Brain Coherence on – How Meditation Can Help You create a new reality for your life, see Dr Joe Dispenza (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta4w28IlzPE access, 27.03.2022, 17:44) or J. Dispenza, Becoming Supernatural: How Common People Are Doing the Uncommon, Carlsbad, California: Hay House Inc., 2017.

10. In her book Duty Free Art: Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War (2017), Hito Steyerl wonders how we can appreciate, or even make art, in the present age. What can we do when arms manufacturers sponsor museums, and some of the world’s most valuable artworks are used as currency in a global futures market detached from productive work? What is the function of art in the era of digital globalization? Steyerl argues that we get art as an act of moral thinking-in-progress.

11. Nowadays, using technology has become a ‘second nature’ to us. Our technological relationships emphatically affect how we perceive time by locking us up into the material and techno-logical world that we create. The term I have created, technology of time, reflects on what we consider to be the positive and negative outcomes of being constantly connected to digital networks.

12. The Circular Movement of Dot is a video-performance where body movement in space demonstrates proprioception sense, connecting movement with imagination by multimedia artist Isidora Fićović. Dot is mathematically and arithmetically a symbol of time as the time of the now moment is always now, eternal now.

13. Piknik Frequency board members (2021-2022). Full members: Irina Mutt, Sasa Nemec (vice-chair), Egle Oddo (chair), Mathilde Palenius, Sumugam Sivanesan. Substitute members: Steve Maher, Andrew Gryf Paterson.

14. Extract from Pixelache page: “Though we originally focused on our annual festival, since 2006 we have gradually introduced an around-the-year programme of activities organised mainly under the Pixelversity moniker between 2010 and 2014. For more info, please look at our portfolio and annual reports. A few years ago we tried to explore what the association is, or what it means to (some of) us. Pixelache Helsinki (‘Pikseliähky’) began as a festival of electronic art and subcultures, organised in Helsinki since 2002.” Link to page: https://www.pixelache.ac/projects/pixelversity

15. Time and interactivity include many data sets, temporal values, and the passage of time itself can be used in order to visualize other types of data. The time inside the data can be mapped directly onto timelines within the interface: the time-varying data are replayed. Alternatively, a spatial dimension may be mapped onto the passage of time at the interface to gain a 3D object. Special tool sets are available to analyze temporal information in 3D-models. See also: Alan Dix, Janet Finlay, Gregory D. Abowd, Russell Beale, Human-Computer Interaction, Pearson Education Limited, Edinburg Gate, 2004. See Hiroshii Ishii, Tangible Bits & Radical Atoms : https://vimeo.com/389799707 access 02.04.2022

16. See Roy Ascott, on Ars Electronica 2014: https://ars.electronica.art/aeblog/en/2014/10/01/roy-ascott-wir-sollten-unserem-herzen-folgen/access 15.04.2022

17. Other themes of the projects at Pixelache that called my attention are: Collective Intelligence, Temporary Pavilion (researching a democratic urban planning platform in Suvilahti since the 2017 Festival edition), BioSignals (2018-2019), Social Tools (decentralisation of organisations in practice, 2017-2019), Ferment Lab (art & design in fermentation processes), Trashlab (a regular series of activities exploring the creative use and re-use of waste materials), Narratives (which investigates the qualitative experiences in culture participation), Foodycle, Herbologies/Foraging Networks, Creative Coding for Live Visuals, Open-Sourcing Festivals.

18. Art District 798, also known as Dashanzi is a group of former military factories that now house popular creative sites such as Photo Gallery 789 and the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, which feature both well-known and non-established Chinese artists. Installations with outdoor sculptures stand next to boutiques selling unusual fashion pieces and art gifts. Elegant cafes in this area are popular for their outdoor brunch and meeting rooms, and for spaces for dance and performances.

19. The Apartment project in Berlin: http://berlin.apartmentproject.org/ access 07.05.2022

20. Though Pixelache originated as a local event in Helsinki, it developed into an important hub within an international network of electronic arts festivals. Although dormant as a network since 2015, members of the Pixelache Network are Access Space (Sheffield), Mal au Pixel (Paris), Pixelvärk (Stockholm), Piksel (Bergen), Pikslaverk (Reykjavik), Pixelazo (Colombia), Afropixel (Dakar) and historically, on one occasion, PixelIST (Istanbul, 2009). 

21. SAHA has supported over 350 artists, curators, writers, and art initiative projects in 163 not-for-profit institutions in 39 countries:  https://www.saha.org.tr/en access 22.04.2022

22. The School of Athens fresco by Raphael Sanzio, depicts Aristotle and Plato walking while discussing hot topics of the day with their followers, holding their books which undoubtedly contain the very first meeting notes. It is no coincidence that Aristotle’s followers were called the Peripatetic School (meaning the ones who walks habitually and extensively, the name links thinking with walking). https://www.arthurholm.com/aristotle-wearables-joy-walking-meetings/access 09.05.2022

23. For example, younger generations communicate via pictures as visual-based communication on Instagram, videos and stories,  short videos on tik-tok replace the text-based communication turning towards visual sensations.

24.  “Buddhism speaks of six, seven, or eight aspects of consciousness. It speaks first of the ground or basic consciousness, which has a global, general knowledge that the world is there and that I exist. Then there are five aspects related to the five sensory experiences: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. The seventh aspect is mental consciousness, which associates abstract concepts to the first six aspects. Sometimes there is an eighth aspect of conscious-ness that is related to afflictive mental states that distort reality (hatred, craving, etc.). But even more fundamental than all these states and aspects is primary consciousness, what is called the continuum of the luminous fundamental consciousness”. Quote from Beyond the Self: Conversations between Buddhism and Neuroscience, by Matthieu Ricard & Wolf Singer, MIT Press, 2017. (https://www.matthieuricard.org/en/books/beyond-the-self-conversations-between-buddhism-and-neuroscience)

25. Circular Movement of Dot, 2020, Hiroshii Ishii’s tangible interface highlights the hand body gestures, rhythm of movement in relation to HCI function.

26. “Aboriginal Australians’ oral tradition and spiritual values build on reverence for the land and on a belief in the Dreamtime, or Dreaming. The Dreaming is considered to be both the ancient time of creation and the present-day reality of Dreaming. It describes the Aboriginal cosmology, and includes the ancestral stories about the supernatural creator-beings and how they created places. Each story can be called a “Dreaming”, with the whole continent criss-crossed by Dreamings or ancestral tracks, also represented by songlines”. Quote from Rainbow dreaming ceremonies explained, Aboriginal Incursions, 16 January 2020. (https://aboriginalincursions.com.au/the-dreaming/aboriginal-ceremony-explained)

27. “Contemplation is central to all of the Buddha’s teachings because mental clarity cannot be achieved without it. The most important contemplations taught by the Buddha include impermanence, emptiness, the absence of a true essence, uncleanness. They are meant to be used to help us overcome our problems. They should be applied to the actual events of our lives”. Quote from The Four Contemplations, Fo Guang Shan International Translation Center, Hacienda Heights, CA, 15 May, 2018. (https://www.fgsitc.org/the-four-contemplations/)

REFERENCES

Mignolo, Walter D. (2020), The Logic of the In-Visible: Decolonial Reflection on the Change of Epoch, First published October 13, https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276420957741

Bridle, James (2013), The New Aesthetic and its Politics. Booktwo.org, http://booktwo.org/ notebook/new-aesthetic-politics/

Steyerl, Hito (2017), Duty Free Art: Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War, Hardcover, November 21.

Jones, Nathaniel B. (2019), Painting, Ethics, and Aesthetics in Rome, (Greek Culture in the Roman World), Cambridge University Press, March 14 

Wiener, Norbert (1948), Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and The Machine, The Technology Press, Cambridge, Mass.

Ishii Hiroshi, Dávid Lakatos, Leonardo Bonanni, and Jean-Baptiste Labrune (2012), Radical Atoms: Beyond Tangible Bits, toward Transformable Materials,  Interactions 19 (1): 38–51

Kluszczynski, Ryszard W. (2010), Strategies of interactive art, Department of Media and Audiovisual Culture, University of Lodz, Poland, Journal of AESTHETICS & CULTURE Vol. 2

Dix Alan, Finlay Janet, Abowd Gregory D., Beale Russell (2005), Human-Computer Interaction, February 13

Jović Biljana S., Čučaković Aleksandar A., Grbić Mihailo N. (2021), Circle in Space – Space in Circle: A Study of Ratio between Open Space and Built-Up Area in Historical Circular Objects, Sustainability 13, No. 9, https://doi.org/10.3390/su13094662 (accessed on 15 March 2022)

Fićović, Isidora (2016), Interactivity in drawing/writing gesture, from traditional tools to new media devices, AV Akademikerverlag

Skorin-Kapov, Jadranka (2016), The Intertwining of Aesthetics and Ethics: Exceeding of Expectations, Ecstasy, Sublimity Hardcover,  April 21

WEBOGRAPHY

Reface 2007 (presented at Kiasma Mediatheque 2010, not organized by Pixelache) 

Pixelache | Golan Levin exhibition & Window Farm in Kiasma (accessed on 12 March 2022).

Alessandro Ludovico and Paolo Cirio Face to Facebook (presented at “Map me if you will” seminar, Pixelache 2011) Pixelache | Map Me If You Will seminar (accessed on 12 March 2022).

Twin City of Talsinki/Hellinn, Between Borders, Visions and Reality (Pixelache 2013)

https://pixelache.ac/events/twin-city-of-talsinki-hellinn-between-borders-visions-and-reality (accessed on 13 March 2022).

The USB Dead Drop workshop by artist and philosopher Erno-Erik Raitanen (Pixelache 2015)

https://livingspaces.pixelache.ac/events/usb-dead-drops-workshop (accessed on 15 March 2022).

The Trashlab project (Pixelache 2014)

https://pixelache.ac/events/trashlab-at-kaupunkiverstas-january (accessed on 17 March 2022).

I am the Messenger (Pixelache 2021) https://burn.pixelache.ac/events/i-am-the-messenger (accessed on 20 March 2022).

Burn Ecocide, Pixelache 2021, https://burn.pixelache.ac/events/burnecocide (accessed on 22 March 2022).

Nomadic Seeds: Desert Strawberries and PhosFATE in the Baltic Sea,  screening & discussion

https://burn.pixelache.ac/events/nomadic-seeds-desert-strawberries-and-phosfate-in-the-baltic-sea-screening-discussion (accessed on 25 March2022).

Ars Electronica in Linz, https://ars.electronica.art/news/en (accessed on 28 March 2022).

Nafasi Art Space, Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) https://hamburg-daressalaam.de/nafasi-art-space/ (accessed on 10 April 2022).

Resonate UK, https://www.resonatefestival.co.uk/ (accessed on 21 April 2022).

CGA Belgrade, https://cgabelgrade.com/ (accessed on 21 April 2022).

Istanbul SAHA initiative, https://www.saha.org.tr/en (accessed on 22 April 2022).

Alzueta Gallery, Barcelona, https://magazine.artland.com/5-alternative-project-spaces-across-europe/ (accessed on 23 April 2022).

The Apartment Project in Berlin, http://berlin.apartmentproject.org/ (accessed on 7 May 2022).

Meet the Media Guru: Hiroshi Ishii talks about future ways of living and working, https://wow–webmagazine.com/meet-the-media-guru-hiroshi-ishii-talks-about-future-ways-of-living-and-working (accessed on 10 May 2022).

 (Editors Egle Oddo and Arlene Tucker, Helsinki, June-November, 2022)

From the beginning of its activity, Collective Intelligence (CI) has been moving tangentially to the Pixelache community. CI independently seeks the collaboration and patronage of institutions and funders to support CI activity, and the distribution of the results. The workgroup traveling to Palermo in 2017 was formed by Pixelache members Alan Bulfin, Antti Ahonen, Egle Oddo, Krisjanis Rijnieks, Saša Nemec; by artists Erika De Martino, Marjatta Oja, Milla Martikainen, Timo Tuhkanen, Jytte Hill, Ionas Amelung, and by project manager Johanna Fredriksson. The idea was to spend time together to discover common ideas, sharing intuitions during our daily routines. We stayed at a house in Mondello close to the seaside of Palermo, and while one could say that we were busy living and working together non-stop, the atmosphere was of pleasant excitement and discovery. Very seldom a large group of professionals of the creative field has the possibility to spend time together without the pressure for a given outcome. I found this initial possibility to think together extremely precious, and somehow I am convinced that that was the key of the success of the project.

“What do we seek? Unexpected assemblages, intuitive actions and heuristic knowledge” I wrote in 2017 before starting our trip to Palermo. What is heuristic? If one would search for its original meaning, it is not rooted in computational science, nor in empirical knowledge. The Greek term εὑρίσκω ‘I discover’, is a philosophical discourse the main purpose of which is to find new facts that were not known at the beginning of the investigation, it points to the production of new knowledge. And indeed we were busy with two discoveries: the influence of our subjectivities in the group, and the definition of the context in which we were enmeshed. Alan Bulfin took the initiative during our breakfasts, and involved the whole group to reflect about the geo-political and social context in Sicily, drown by its complexity and thorny history and layers of colonialism. Slowly, on the A1 papers covering our breakfast table, started to appear a labyrinth, a rhizome of words, drawings, signs, colours. The Breakfast Papers were taken to several places, they were the diary and the mind-map of the group, they were shared with Dimora Oz artists who added their inputs, and were finally shown at Dimora Oz gallery during one-month exhibition and activities.

However we were struggling to position ourselves in the context where we were. We came to agree that the context cannot be the background of an action, it is not inertly available to be interpreted, used, populated, compared, defined, included. The context needs to be a participant subject, for the project to be meaningful. After we re-positioned, various things started to happen at individual and collective level. We were tired to talk, and to communicate mainly verbally and textually. During a public event, we performed together indoors in Palazzo Barlotta and outdoors in Piazza Garraffello, in the heart of Palermo historical center. The actions of CI group emerged in collaboration with local artists and with the inhabitants of Garraffello district. This happening supported the birth of an affective relation, a bond, a thread with the context. To explain this delicate choreography of emotions in terms of generic cultural production would be reductive.

Our activities attracted the attention of curator Lori Adragna and of the Director of the Museum of Fondazione Orestiadi Enzo Fiammetta, who invited us to visit them and suggested a residency at the Foundation. The curators of Manifesta 12 attended our events, and encouraged us to apply the open call for 5x5x5 program. The program Collective Intelligence was selected for Manifesta12 and presented at Collective Intelligence in KaOZ, Growing a Language, IL TRAFFICO. However, the most important part of our program remained available only here and now, inside the specific situations generated extemporary.

To keep an artistic process fresh, spontaneous and genuine, and at the same time to gather interest around it is a rare combination of factors. In my opinion the success of the project has been to resist over-production, to resist stretching over the limit when the resources where limited, to resist overgrowing the project. I see the success of Collective Intelligence rooted in its intense yet inconspicuous relational research. From the first common artefact, the Breakfast Papers, to the exhibition IL TRAFFICO closing our activity in Sicily, we managed to stay true to our needs, hopefully without impersonating the needs imposed by external pressure.

Press and program links: 

2017

Article on La Repubblica: the first public presentation of Collective Intelligence project at The Day of Contemporary Art held by AMACI, the National Association of Contemporary Art Museums in Italy. Speaker Egle Oddo, performance Timo Tuhkanen. 

First public event of Collective Intelligence in Palermo, advertised by Italian press. 

Collective Intelligence participates at Le Vie dei Tesori cultural event. 

Program of Le Vie dei Tesori.

2018

Article by Liisa Vähäkylä on VOIMA magazine about Collective Intelligence participation at Manifesta12.

The Finnish Institute in Rome advertises Collective Intelligence activity in Sicily.

Cultfinalndia, the site supported by the Finnish Embassy in Italy to showcase cultural projects. First focus on Collective Intelligence.

Cultfinalndia, the site supported by the Finnish Embassy in Italy to showcase cultural projects. Second focus on Collective Intelligence.