ENGLISH SreturnFeelfreetomeAVETHETREES Gabriela Pichler och Johan Lundborg Mechanicaldespitemovementspain If your heart wants it Pilvi Takala rodastenkonsthall.se@rodastenkonsthall 3.9–20.11 2022
Both Pichler and Lundborg’s and Takala’s wor king methods are developed by closely observing human relationships and understanding diffe rent actions, affections, and gestures that might differ greatly from our own. Their interest in human behavior lies in delving into its darkest depths; like taking a fireball in the palm of one’s hand until it starts twitching and stinging and Whathurting.also ties the two exhibitions together is the artists common interest in observing the human condition in relation to the reproduc tion of labor. Pichler and Lundborg question the traditional forms of labor in post-industrial society, while Takala explores the shady features of new public management: the emotional and intellectual worth of labor in the knowledge economy of late capitalism. In Pichler and Lundborg’s newly commissioned work—the site-specific video-installation Mecha nical movements despite pain—the visitors en counter a kaleidoscopic display of the fragmen ted, blurred, and broken memories of Pichler’s childhood. A childhood spent playing in the factory where her mother worked, breaking her body.
Amila Puzić, curator at Röda Sten Konsthall
Two exhibitions at Röda KonsthallSten
Two solo exhibitions are opening the fall season at Röda Sten Konsthall: Gabriela Pichler and Johan Lundborg’s Mechanical movements despite pain, and Pilvi Takala’s If your heart wants it. The exhibitions expand on the broader themes of the ambiguous and complex; the conscious and subliminal; the subtle and explicit; and the sensible exploration of the human condition.
Relying on the emotional labor and the physical engagement of the visitors, the artists question our boundaries to other human beings. They may shake and turn our beliefs upside down and make us rethink the way we treat each other; and they may do so until such feelings start twit ching and itching and making it very uncomfor table to sit in our own chairs and inhabiting our own bodies. May they challenge us to behave and think in a more emphatic way about those who are less privileged and less visible; those whose labor our comfort has been built upon. May they provoke us to make fairer decisions once we are given the chance to do so. May they help us dare become “the strokers” of the given human condition.
Takala’s disobedience to labor, a silent protest to new public management efficiency, is shown by three video installations: The Trainee, The Stroker, and If your heart wants it (remix). Focu sing on economic and social well-being, body glitches and fractions, collective spirit and the emotional investments of working together, Tak ala refuses doing anything but taking her diso bedience to the extreme. In doing so, she starts being perceived as a social parasite, an intruder, an emotional disturber…or “the stroker”!
fromStill Stroker,The TakalaPilvi
LundborgsJohanandPichlerGabrielaPhoto: Trainee,The TakalaPilvi
viewInstallation
Supported by Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art and the Finnish Cultural Foundation
Commissioned by Röda Sten Konsthall
The Trainee Video,2008 13 min. 52 sec, powerpoint presentation, keycard, letter The Trainee has been produced in collaboration with international accounting and consulting firm Deloitte. In order to realise the project, the artist worked for a month as trainee in the marketing department of Deloitte, where only a few people knew the true nature of the project. During the month-long intervention, an initially normal-seeming marketing trainee starts to apply peculiar working methods. Gradually she shifts from the position of someone others believe to be normal, to the object of avoidance and speculation. The videos and slideshow reveal a spectrum of ways of handling the odd member in a group. Sincere interest and bewildered amusement are juxtaposed with demands directed at the superior regarding the strangely behaving worker. We see the trainee sitting at her workstation in the consultants’ open-plan office space, or in the tax department library all day doing nothing. These acts or rather the absence of visible action slowly make the atmosphere around the trainee unbeara ble, forcing the colleagues to search for solutions and to come up with explanations for the situation.
2nd GABRIELAFLOOR
Mechanical movements despite pain
Total-installation:2022 moving images, audio, three interactive objects and one kinetic sculpture
PICHLER OCH
Mechanical movements despite pain revolves around the factory as a place for both play and the repetitive human pattern in labor production. Pichler herself grew up playing in the factory in which her mother broke her body through heavy labor. The praxinoscope, invented by C-È Reynaud in 1877, created an illusion of bodies moving long before film existed. The visitor is invited to play with this mechanical optical device and explore the connection between the mechanical and the human
JOHAN LUNDBORG
Thebody.development of modern industrialism has run parallel with the development of film. Both have fundamentally changed people’s views of themselves and the world around them. We have simultaneous ly taken control and lost control of our lives and bodies. Mechanical movements despite pain elaborates on Reynaud’s original illustrations of the praxinos cope—revealing images of Pichler’s mother trying to move, rehabilitate, or work despite pain. The visitor sets her and the whole room in motion.
Videography/editing/sound: Lundborg/Pichler
1st PILVIFLOORTAKALA
The Stroker is a two-channel video installation based on Takala’s two week-long intervention at Second Home, a trendy East London cowor king space for young entrepreneurs and startups. During the intervention Takala posed as a wellness consultant named Nina Nieminen, the founder of cutting-edge company Personnel Touch who were allegedly employed by Second Home to provide touching services in the workplace. Nina strolled around Second Home being friendly to everyone, greeting and lightly touching people as she passed them by. It gets the office talking, workers gossip amongst themselves, visibly bonding over a common confusion—she was nicknamed ‘The Stroker’.
Supported by AVEK / The Promotion Centre for Audiovisual Culture, Finnish Institute in London, Koneen Säätiö, Second Home, Taike / Arts Promotion Centre Finland
3rd PILVIFLOORTAKALA
The Stroker
Director of photography: Katharina Dießner Sound recording: Karl Laeufer, Luke David Harris Editing: Elisa Purfürst Sound design: Christian Obermaier Choreographer: Emma Waltraud Howes Co-writer, production assistant: Iona Roisin Production assistant: Amelie Befeldt Curator: Teresa Calonje Trenor Title design: Ana Fernandes Performers: Donna Celay, Hais Hassan, Laura Hem ming-Lowe, Manos Koutsis, Matthew Moorhouse, Patricia Mories, Iona Roisin, Emma Waltraud Howes
4th PILVIFLOORTAKALA
If your heart wants it (remix) Video,2020 15 min. 37 sec. Taking place annually in Helsinki, SLUSH is a three-day super event for tech startups. It brings together entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in a party-like environment with ambitions of changing the world and solving the Big Problems. Even if at tendees don’t directly experience it, people still buy into the expectation that things are really changed Togetherhere. with an interdisciplinary research team and camera crew, Takala documented the 2018 edition of the event—If your heart wants it (remix) has been reconstructed from this material. Whilst posing as entrepreneurs and investors, the team attended events, talks and afterparties, and obser ved and initiated a range of social interactions with everyone from volunteers to fund managers. Takala set out to study the behaviours and attitu des encouraged by this environment, such as how those within the culture deal with the constant pressure to be positive and social, all whilst desperately trying to prove their ‘entrepreneurial worth’
In a world where success is framed as the result of individual determination, dedication and creativi ty, it is equally the individual that has to shoulder the blame when failure comes around.
Two-channel2018 video installation, 15 min. 16 sec.
Researchers: Paris Furst, Alice Wickström, Jessie Bullivant Production assistants: Jessie Bullivant, Iona Roisin Camera: Katharina Diessner Editing: Elisa Purfürst Sound design: Tobias Purfürst Voice re-recording: Emre Türker Voice actors: Derya Durmaz, Paris Furst, Emma Waltraud Howes, Uzay Gökhan Irmak, Edvard Lammervo, Dominik CommissionedWeberby Aalto University School of Business, SupportedFinland by KRIEG/PXL-MAD School of Arts Hasselt, Belgium
The responses of the ‘touchees’ varied widely, most were polite, but there were those whose body lang uage registered a visible discomfort.
The nuances of movement demonstrate how pe ople negotiate the dilemma of being mediated bo dies under social pressure, and how such responses are controlled by the tacit conventions governing what is deemed to be ‘acceptable behaviour’. In the clear-walled, open-thinking space of The Stroker, we witness a physical negotiation of boundaries where there seemingly are none.
LundborgJohanandPichlerGabrielaPhoto:
ContemporaryHelsinkiRastenberger,PatrikPhoto:
GABRIELA PICHLER OCH
JOHAN LUNDBORG Filmmakers Gabriela Pichler and Johan Lundborg are the authors of the internationally celebrated and award-winning films such as Eat Sleep Die and Amateurs Pichler and Lundborg often play with narrative perspectives and our worldviews. In their artistic practice they tend to strip down film to its bare essentials, and explore the remarkable encounter between the law of physics and our senses. The artists are obsessed by exploring the movement emphasizing—“where there is life, there is move ment.” By using repetition as their work method, Pichler and Lundborg explore tragicomical and musical elements as well as predictable scenarios and pointlessness. In doing so, they believe that it is just possible to evoke humility towards the limi tations of our eyes to fully see reality.
PILVI TAKALA Pilvi Takala (b. 1981, Finland) is an artist living and working between Berlin and Helsinki. Her video works are based on performative in terventions in which she researches specific communities in order to process social structures and question the normative rules of our behaviour. Her works show that it is often possible to learn about the implicit rules of a social situation only by its Herdisruption.workhas been shown at MoMA PS1, New Museum, Palais de Tokyo, Kiasma, Kunsthalle Basel, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Manifesta 11, Careof, CCA Glasgow, International Film Festival Rotterdam, HotDocs, Witte de With, and the 9th Istanbul Biennial. Takala won the Dutch Prix de Rome in 2011 and the Emdash Award and Finnish State Prize for Visual Arts in 2013. Takala repre sents Finland at the Venice Biennale, 2022.
Welcome to a film screening of Eat Sleep Die, directed by Gabriela Pichler. After follows conversation with Gabriela Pichler and Johan Lundborg. The movie is in Swedish and 1 h 44 min long. The conversation is in English. Film screening of Good Life with following conversation.
Film screening of Eat Sleep Die with following conversation.
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Welcome to a film screening of Good Life, directed by Marta Dauliūtė and Viktorija Šiaulytė. After follows conversation with the directors and Maja Kekonius, film consultant at The Cultural Development Administration of Region Västra Götaland. The movie is in Swedish and 72 min long. The conversation is in English. Film screening is organised in collaboration with The Cultural Development Administration of Region Västra Götaland.
Sunday October 23 and Sunday November 6
StrokerThe TakalaPilvi,
Thursday 22 September, 5–7.30 pm
Thursday 13 October, 5–7.30 pm
Cost: 100 SEK Bring a yoga mat with you. More information www.rodastenkonsthall.se
FILM SCREENINGS AND ARTIST TALKS
YOGA CLASSES WITH KUNDALINI YOGA TEACHER NINA BRORSSON
Pain Map by Gabriela Pichler
