Paul O’Neill lecture about group exhibitions

On September 30th, in A101, Paul O’Neill will be giving a lecture on the subject “The Exhibition as Multiple Forms, Models, and Constellations”. 

It’s been said that “the group exhibition-form has become the primary site for curatorial experimentation and, as such, represents a relatively new discursive space around artistic practice.”

Paul O’Neill will look back at some of his exhibitions, and describe how cumulative and expanding exhibition-forms can constitute an investigation into how the curatorial role is made manifest through cohesive and co-operative exhibition-making structures applied during all stages of the exhibition production.

This talk will demonstrate how exhibitions create spatial relations between different planes of interaction for the viewer, and how multiple agencies and actors are necessary for an understanding of the curatorial as a constellation of activities that can be represented by the final exhibition-form.

O’Neill is an Irish curator, artist, writer, educator and the Artistic
Director of PUBLICS in Helsinki.

On Tuesday, 15 September at 14.20, pre-reviewing of Art and Design programme PhD student Ulvi Haagensen’s exhibition „ Thea Koristaja Museum” will take place at Hobusepea Gallery. Exhibition is part of the artistic (practice-based) doctoral thesis of Ulvi Haagensen.
Please registrate your participation at the pre-reviewing irene.hutsi@artun.ee.

The exhibition is open until 21 September, 2020.

Supervisors: Dr Liina Unt, Jan Guy (The University of Sidney).
Pre-reviewers of the exhibition: artist Urmas Lüüs and dr Ester Bardone, dr Anu Kannike.

Ulvi Haagensen’s solo exhibition “Thea Koristaja Museum” at Hobusepea Gallery

“Welcome to our place”, says Thea Koristaja, as she opens the door and indicates for us to enter an exhibition that explores the connections between art and everyday life. Thea Koristaja is an imaginary person, an artist, and a cleaner and this is her museum. Together with two other imaginary artists, known as Olive Puuvill and Loome Uurija, she works with Ulvi Haagensen, who is quite real, to explore how art and life can meet, converge, overlap and sometimes clash.

The exhibition uses the upstairs and downstairs of the gallery to present two different contexts – the exhibition space and the studio. Upstairs is clean and tidy, not dissimilar to a living room or hallway in a home – after all, we want to make a good impression, don’t we? But the real action of everyday life may in fact take place somewhere else, in the kitchen, the laundry, in front of the telly, in the everyday, when the visitors aren’t visiting. Downstairs is the cluttered, untidy workspace. This is where Haagensen and her imaginary team discover the unexpected as they push the familiar into new territory. A discarded greeny-blue Värska mineral water bottle, new and recycled timber, a length of rusted steel, wool and cotton yarns in a myriad of colours – all start to find a persona or a potential they never knew they had. Is it possible, here in the studio, to see the most exciting part, the magic of making, the moment when the thing emerges as a thing? Or is that something that takes place in the artist’s mind and can’t be shared?

Ulvi Haagensen was born in Sydney, Australia, but has been living, working and teaching in Tallinn for many years. She studied at City Art Institute in Sydney (BA) and College of Fine Art, University of New South Wales (MFA) and is currently doing her PhD at the Estonian Academy of Arts researching the connections and overlap between art and everyday life, as seen through the eyes of an artist, for whom art, work and everyday life are closely interwoven. 2018–2019 she spent a year as Artist-in-Residence and Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Sydney. She has had solo exhibitions in Estonia, Australia, Sweden and Lithuania.

Jane Jacobs
“Behind the Curtain”
Vitriingalerii, Tallinn, Põhja pst 35
Open September 9 through October 5, 2020

There is a pensioner quietly living “Behind the Curtain”. The data of Statistics Estonia shows that 25.1% of the population are pensioners. Sometimes we visit them behind the curtain; however, we do not live there, where you have to make both ends meet it with very limited resources. Estonian pensioners have the highest poverty risk in the EU. Pensioners are not marching the streets after Eurostat published surveys in February 2020 according to which Estonian pensioners are the poorest compared to other pensioners in developed countries. We do not shift the curtain in order to see how the older generation survives. Will we step quietly behind the curtain? What will happen with the pension funds? “Behind the Curtain” is an installation in Vitriingalerii by Jane Jacobs to emphasize this paradoxical normality.

REF: Eurostat, ERR news

Jane Jacobs is an independent collective with the aim of highlighting environmental and community issues. The collective was founded in New York in 2016 by Sandra Nuut. Jane Jacobs uses and chooses mediums that possibly best express and convey problems and questions that need to be addressed.
janejacobs.co

The installation is on view around the clock until October 5, 2020.

Location of Vitriingalerii: On the facade wall of the Estonian Museum of Contemporary Art (EKKM), Põhja pst 35.

Each year, the Estonian Academy of Arts Research and Development Office, in conjunction with the Tallinn City Enterprise Department, holds an applied research and development projects competition to motivate the Academy’s members to apply their academic and research activity in the public and business sectors and to highlight successful collaborative projects.
This year the competition welcomes research and development projects and students’ graduation works with a clear applied output – projects benefitting a company or an institution or with potential to better social well-being in a broader sense.
The works must be completed between 01.09.2019–31.08.2020.
The author(s) of the best project are awarded 1000€, the author(s) of the second best work a prize of 800€.

To submit a project to the competition a completed form together with additional materials must be sent to tao@artun.ee no later than 14 September 2020. The e-mail addresses of all authors of the work must be included among the e-mail recipients.

More info

On Friday, 4th of September at 4 pm, the workshop “Looking for a Common Space” will open.
Estonian Academy of Arts students are collectively in a search for a communal space where they can socialize, relax and get inspired. Various workshops will take place throughout a two week period and are open to all EKA students. The workshop poses the question, now that we all share a building again, where has the inspiring atmosphere, collective and feeling of belonging gone that was so characteristic to EKA before? Contemporary art students look at these concerns and transform a classroom into a comfortable space meant for students. The workshop explores academic boundaries. Because the university building is struggling with a lack of space, the only possibility of having a student area is to approach the need through academic matter, applying for
a room under the guise of holding a workshop. To make the workshop appear genuine, an ironic program has been put together that encompasses workshop tasks such as 5 minutes of staring at the ceiling or 1 hour of just being. The project raises the question, what measures need to be taken in order to get a space for students where we can relax, meet new people, share experiences and let loose of the academic atmosphere?
The aim of this project is to get the attention of the university board members. To raise their awareness once more that a space for students is needed in order to fulfill the purpose of this shared building and to rebuild the sense of community.
Participating artists: Sindey Lepp, Johannes Luik, Nusrat Jahan, Ott Lemsaar, Tõnis Laurson , Grete Remmel.

Conference is a part of  the Ars Electronica 2020 programme: “In Kepler’s Garden”

Ars Electronica Garden Tallinn

https://ars.electronica.art/keplersgardens/en/new-technologies/

Direct streaming in Youtube (starts at 11.00 UTC+2): https://youtu.be/jeX-NjwJBwA

Visible also there: https://tv.artun.ee/eka

Varvara Guljajeva keynote: https://ars.electronica.art/keplersgardens/potentials-and-risks-of-ai/

REGISTRATION!

Short description

The conference discusses the role of technology in creative practices. On one hand, we aim to underline what kind of changes, new ideas, trends, and methodologies, technology has introduced into art and design. And on the other hand, the conference offers a space and time for unraveling new concepts, ideas, and dangers that the technological age introduces today and in the future. Especially, we would like to take a closer look at the topics as AI and machine learning. What can offer AI for creative communities? Is it here for boosting creativity and innovation or replacing human creativity with a machine one? And what kind of impact all these computationally expensive processes have on our environment, design, and art?

The conference invites local experts and practitioners to debate and share their ideas over these topics. We will also invite one or two presenters from abroad to talk about their research and practice over video conference.

This event we see as a seed for a future workshop at the art academy and also a publication.

Local experts and practitioners:

• dr Raivo Kelomees
• dr Varvara Guljajeva
• Oliver Laas
• Mar Canet
• Dr Andi Hektor
• Jon Karvinen
• Dr Maximilian Schich

Schedule: (Tallinn time)

1. 12.00 – 12.55 keynote dr Varvara Guljajeva, “Exploring Potentials and Risks of AI Technology from a Perspective of Creatives.”
2. 13.00 – 13.30: dr Raivo Kelomees “Creativity Algorithms from Surrealist Techniques to AI”
3. 13.30 – 14.00: Mar Canet, “Latent space – a wonderland to discover”
4. 14.00 – 14.15 Coffee break
5. 14.15 – 14.45: dr Maximilian Schich, “Cultural Data Analytics: Art, Design, and/or Science?”
6. 14.45 – 15.15: Andi Hektor ‘AI in art, tech & science: dream/hope/hype/fear?’
7. 15.15 – 15.45: Oliver Laas “Are We Witnessing the Dawn of AI-Artists?”
8. 15.45 – 16.15 Coffee break
9. 16.15 – 16.45: Jon Karvinen “AI and Garfield: The Future of Creativity”
10. 16.45 – 17.30 Panel discussion with dr Raivo Kelomees, dr Varvara Guljajeva, Oliver Laas, Mar Canet, Andi Hektor, Jon Karvinen, dr Maximilian Schich

Schedule: CEST time

1. 11.00 – 11.55 keynote dr Varvara Guljajeva “Exploring Potentials and Risks of AI Technology from a Perspective of Creatives.”
2. 12.00 – 12.30: dr Raivo Kelomees “Creativity Algorithms from Surrealist Techniques to AI”
3. 12.30 – 13.00: Mar Canet “Latent space – a wonderland to discover”
4. 13.00 – 13.15 Coffee break
5. 13.15 – 13.45: dr Maximilian Schich “Cultural Data Analytics: Art, Design, and/or Science?”
6. 13.45 – 14.15: Andi Hektor ‘AI in art, tech & science: dream/hope/hype/fear?’
7. 14.15 – 14.45: Oliver Laas “Are We Witnessing the Dawn of AI-Artists?”
8. 14.45 – 15.15 Coffee break
9. 15.15 – 15.45: Jon Karvinen “AI and Garfield: The Future of Creativity”
10. 15.45 – 16.30 Panel discussion with dr Raivo Kelomees, dr Varvara Guljajeva, Oliver Laas, Mar Canet, Andi Hektor, Jon Karvinen, dr Maximilian Schich

Contact: Raivo Kelomees, raivo.kelomees@artun.ee

EKA clips:

• https://youtu.be/rIEOF3WMnmw
• https://www.instagram.com/p/Bw8-DT3DVm9/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Participants and abstracts

Dr Varvara Guljajeva

“Exploring Potentials and Risks of AI Technology from a Perspective of Creatives”

Abstract:

It seems that AI is the ultimate solution, but also the biggest concern nowadays. In the beginning of AI technology development in the late 50s, the field did not reach set goals because the machines were not smart and fast enough. Today, when it is spoken about the third wave of AI and quantum computing, the dream is very close to come true – reaching the human-level of intelligence. However, what kind of consequences could bring these technological achievements?

Starting from the invention of the first computer, artists have always been the catalysts for the development of technology from one hand, and offering a critical vision from another.

What is the state of the art of AI today? I am going to explore the new trends in the art world and emerging tools used by creatives. Moreover, the talk points out the devil aspect of AI from the political and ethical point of view, and looks into the creative cases that hack the smart algorithms and fight back the system of control.

Biography:

Dr Varvara Guljajeva is an artist and researcher. She holds a position of researcher at the Estonian Academy of Arts, and also at the ELISAVA Barcelona School of Design and Engineering. Varvara has been invited as a visiting researcher to XRL, Hong Kong City University, IAMAS (Ogaki, Japan), LJMU (Liverpool, UK), Interface Cultures in the Linz University of Art and Design, and Blekinge Institute of Technology (Karlshamn, Sweden).

As an artist she works together with Mar Canet forming an artist duo Varvara & Mar. In their practice art meets technology, and technology an artistic concept. The duo has been exhibiting in international shows since 2009. Their works have been shown at MAD in New York, FACT in Liverpool, Santa Monica in Barcelona, Barbican in London, Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens, Ars Electronica museum in Linz, ZKM in Karlsruhe, and more.www.var-mar.info

Dr Raivo Kelomees

“Creativity Algorithms from Surrealist Techniques to AI”

Abstract:

Creativity is frequently a romantically mystified phenomenon in non-professional literature, but in history there are plenty of attempts to find methods and machines to mechanize the creative process. I explore parallels between traditional creative practices and computerised methods.

Bio:

Raivo Kelomees, PhD (art history), artist, critic and new media researcher. Presently working as senior researcher at the Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn. He studied psychology, art history, and design at Tartu University and the Academy of Arts in Tallinn. He has published articles in the main Estonian cultural and art magazines and newspapers  since 1985. His works include the book “Surrealism” (Kunst Publishers, 1993) and an article collection  “Screen as a Membrane” (Tartu Art College proceedings, 2007),  “Social Games in Art Space” (EAA, 2013).  His Doctoral thesis was “Postmateriality in Art. Indeterministic Art Practices and Non-Material Art” (Dissertationes Academiae Artium Estoniae 3, 2009).

In recent years he has been participating in conferences dedicated to new media, digital humanities, theatre and visual art in São Paulo, Manizales, Plymouth, Krems, Riga, Shanghai, Göteborg, Hong Kong, Dubai and other places.

www.kelomees.net

Dr Andi Hektor

‘AI in art, tech & science: dream/hope/hype/fear?’

Abstract:

AI is a mythological creature. Sometimes a beautiful dream, sometimes a nightmare. I will show and explain some limits of AI in art, technology and science. In the near future, the development of autonomous vehicles will be a test case of AI in technology. I will discuss the limitations there and draw some parallels in art and science.

Andi Hektor

Andi Hektor is a senior researcher working in astro-particle physics and cosmology at KBFI, Tallinn. He has worked at the Tartu, Uppsala, Helsinki and Cambridge University and at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. He is a co-owner and a member of the boards of the companies GScan OÜ and Nosob OÜ. He is an active science communicator and a founder of the Estonian Chamber of Science. He is an enthusiast of hydrogen and nuclear energetics.

Oliver Laas

“Are We Witnessing the Dawn of AI-Artists?”

Abstract:

From the musical dice games popular in 18th century Europe to the mathematical literary experiments of Oulipo since the 1960s, there is a long history of using creativity aides in the arts. A relatively recent addition to the artist’s creative toolbox, artificial intelligence (AI), raises a number of questions about authorship, creativity and the nature of art. This paper applies a criterion for evaluating the creativity of recent prominent examples of AI creativity both within as well as outside the arts. After concluding that the evidence for AI creativity is inconclusive at present, it will be suggested that resistance to AI creativity, and the accompanying tendency toward moving the goalposts, is at least partly motivated by intuitions against artificial moral agents.

Bio:

Oliver Laas is an artist, cultural theorist and philosopher whose research interests include metaphysics, logic, philosophy of technology, and semiotics. He currently works as assistant professor and junior researcher at the Estonian Academy of Arts, visiting lecturer in philosophy at Tallinn University and the Estonian Business School, and visiting lecturer on the video game industry at the Estonian Entrepreneurship University of Applied Sciences. His artworks have been exhibited in the Impact International Printmaking Conference and the Tallinn Print Triennial. His recent publications include “Coordination Games and Disagreement” (in Controversies in the Modern World, eds. A. Fabris & G. Scarafile, 2019), “Instrumental Play” (in Jahrbuch Technikphilosohie: Arbeit und Spiel, eds. A. Friedrich, P. Gehring, C. Hubig, A. Kaminski & A. Nordmann, 2018), and “Questioning the Virtual Friendship Debate: Fuzzy Analogical Arguments from Classification and Definition” (Argumentation 32(1)).

Mar Canet Sola

“Latent space – a wonderland to discover”

Abstract:

In the latent space of the AI models that generate sound, image, text or other content are hidden all possibilities that can be used for creative purposes. The research explores novel methods to understand, characterise and navigate the latent space of cultural forms of meaning in the latest developments and products of machine learning – with an emphasis on Deep Learning. The presentation explores how Interactive art systems can be used to create meaningful and novel ways to navigate the latent space.

Bio:

Mar Canet Solà is an artist and researcher. He has two degrees: in art and design from ESDI in Barcelona and in computer game development from University Central Lancashire in the UK. Mar has gained a master’s degree from Interface Cultures at the University of Art and Design Linz. He is Phd candidate in the Cudan research group in BFM Tallinn university. He is a course instructor of the “Data visualization”course at MA of data science in Open University of Catalonia (UOC). Mar has been invited as a visiting researcher to XRL, Hong Kong City University, IAMAS (Ogaki, Japan), Blekinge Institute of Technology (Karlshamn, Sweden).

As an artist he works together with Varvara Guljajeva forming an artist duo Varvara & Mar. Often duo’s work is inspired by the information age. In their practice they confront social changes and impact of the technological era. In addition to that, Mar is fascinated by AI/ML, kinetics, participation, and digital fabrication, which are integral parts of her work.

The duo has been exhibiting in international shows since 2009. Their works have been shown at MAD in New York, FACT in Liverpool, Santa Monica in Barcelona, Barbican in London, Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens, Ars Electronica museum in Linz, ZKM in Karlsruhe, and more.

Link: http://var-mar.info/

Jon Karvinen

AI AND GARFIELD: THE FUTURE OF CREATIVITY

Creativity is an aspect of culture that is explored by machine learning more and more. In my presentation, I will be discussing the possibilities of AI in studying and thus understanding comics and to understand their value in the art world. I will discuss how AI can have the means to be a viable tool: how it could have the tools to teach us about creativity and how AI could be used in analysis as networks, machine learning and algorithms are becoming more common in life. My presentation focuses on comics; exploring and discussing the steps of how analysing AI-generated visual narratives could bring out more from the study of comics and visual art and vice versa. For this, I analysed the current direction of the comics scholarship by focusing on the most elementary of comic strips. Here comes Garfield.

Bio:

Jon Karvinen is a recent graduate from Tallinn University, holding a BA in Culture and Arts and MA in Art in Humanities. He works as an illustrator and artist in Finland, focusing on comics and how they are perceived in society.

The exhibition focuses on printmaking as a process that is cultivated through contacts between forms and counterforms (negative space), and by the tension produced by these interactions. We are not so much interested in specific images, proofs, shapes or manners as in printed matter’s ability to introduce the new space that emerges between matrix and multiplicity. We focus on forms, and their dissemination through various statements and manifestations of printmaking in the post-disciplinary era. We define material as a subject, while the predicate denotes what the material does. We wish to return to the beginning of the functions of imprint and investigate its points of contacts with other disciplines. The exhibition takes its name from Georges Didi-Huberman’s book La ressemblance par contact: archéologie, anachronisme et modernité de l’empreinte, 2008.

The exhibition curated by Liina Siib and Maria Erikson from the Department of Graphic Art at the Estonian Academy of Arts features artists from Europe and the Americas and is accompanied by a film program.

Artists: Ann Pajuväli (EE), Ari Pelkonen (FI), Augustas Serapinas (LT), Cecilia Mandrile (US/UK), Claire Hannicq (FR), Elena Loson (AR), Dénes Kalev Farkas (EE/HU), Inka Bell (FI), Inma Herrera (ES/FI), Liis-Marleen Verilaskja (EE), Lina Nordenström (SE), Maria Erikson (EE/FI), Maria Izabella Lehtsaar (EE), Maria Valkeavuolle (FI), Riin Maide (EE), Tatu Tuominen (FI), Viktor Gurov (EE).

Curators: Liina Siib, Maria Erikson (Department of Graphic Art, EKA)
Exhibition design: Kaire Rannik
Graphic design: Viktor Gurov
Translators: Tiina Randviir, Richard Adang
Risograph printing: Pärtel Eelmere

We thank: Estonian Academy of Arts, Department of Graphic Art and Department of Graphic Design; Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Tartu Art House, EKA Gallery, Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design, Tanel Asmer, Pire Sova, Kaido Kruusamets, Mart Saarepuu, Hans-Gunter Lock.

The Graduation Ceremonies of this year will take place on August 24th in the EKA hall (room A101, Põhja puiestee 7, Tallinn).

12.00 o’clock – graduates of Faculty of Design

3 o’clock pm – graduates of Doctoral School and the faculties of Architecture, Art Culture and Fine Art

Dear graduates,

Seating is reserved for You in the hall, congratulators can watch the ceremony from the screens placed in the open areas of the 1st floor or through tv.artun.ee

Carl-Robert Kagge
Four-Grain Image
Vitriingalerii, Tallinn, Põhja pst 35
14 August 2020 – 7 September 2020
Curator: Lilian Hiob

Carl-Robert Kagge’s exhibition “Four-Grain Image” is open from August 14 in Vitriingalerii, the showcase gallery of the Photography Department of Estonian Academy of Arts.

Carl-Robert Kagge’s solo exhibition “Four-Grain Image” is a site-specific work inspired by the location of Vitriingalerii, displaying a hauntological image of Instagram’s infinite database. Replacing the glass walls of the gallery with a canvas of bent plastic, Kagge continues developing his original artistic technique.

The title of the show refers to the manual technique the artist uses to apply the motifs onto plastic, silkscreen printing. On the other hand, this marks the process an image uploaded to the internet goes through before reaching the viewer: mutations on the screen used to view the image.

Carl-Robert Kagge is a painter, focusing on images found on social media and their materialisations in physical space. The artist’s original technique consists of silkscreen printing and applying the images on heat-shaped plastic. Gathering his visual material on various online platforms, Kagge creates a subjective archive of past and present that has not much to do with collectively perceived space of reality. Using already existing visual material, the artist composes a unique field of images that do not always comply with straightforward categorisation. Kagge skilfully navigates multiple fields: painting, printing, design, internet culture, technology, and graffiti. Looking at Kagge’s work on a computer screen, it may resemble Photoshop comps, however, exhibited in physical space we see painting-hybrids, blurred photos abstracted until they become unrecognisable. A similar effect occurs when phones fail to load Instagram photos in full resolution due to slow internet connection. All of this leads the viewer to be confronted with hyper-physicality: a mix of virtual and material shaped into something almost haunting. Kagge’s work skilfully reflects a state increasingly taking hold of people – time and space, where technology has become a permanent artificial limb and where it has become almost impossible to distinguish between the real and the simulated.

The exhibition is on view until 7 September and can be viewed on 24 hours basis.

For more info check the event on Facebook.

Contact: Lilian Hiob, lilian.hiob@artun.ee, +3725272556

On Wednesday, August 19th at 15:00, pre-reviewing of Art and Design programme PhD student Ulvi Haagensen’s exhibition „From the Archive: a Collection of Funny Things” will take place at Tartu Art House Small gallery. Exhibition is part of the artistic (practice-based) doctoral thesis of Ulvi Haagensen.

Supervisors: Dr Liina Unt, Jan Guy (The University of Sidney).

Pre-reviewers of the exhibition: Villu Plink and Ester Bardone

The exhibition is open from 30 July to 23 August 2020.

This exhibition is by imaginary artist, Olive Puuvill, who creates work in the manner of a bricoleuse, cobbling, tinkering and using whatever is close at hand. In her latest work she combines patterns, lines, textures and light to create an installation where objects, situations, materials and ideas are juxtaposed in a slightly chaotic arrangement, but one that nonetheless has a logic of its own. All this bears the traces of her intentions, aims and ideas as physical evidence of the working processes where Olive’s everyday life clashes, meets and melds with her art practice.

Ulvi Haagensen’s doctoral research is about the line between art and everyday life. By merging a multi-disciplinary art practice that combines installation, sculpture, drawing, performance and video with everyday experiences – mainly cleaning, one of the more mundane aspects of everyday life – she works across and along the lines between everyday life and art to discover the lines, overlaps and boundaries between art and the everyday.

Together with three imaginary characters and using an autoethnographic approach that includes the methods, tools and attitudes of an artist who uses ‘what is at hand’ and ‘makes do’she uses the everyday, not only for inspiration, but also materials, tools and techniques.

As her characters move between their roles and various places of work and everyday life, they explore notions of the everyday and the specialness of art, especially from the viewpoint of an artist for whom art and art making are very much a part of the everyday and therefore quite un-special.