interviewimage-centric media (print & electronic multiples, collage), I see the making/production as process first, product second. The details tend to lead to each other as the process unfolds, full of improvisation in the moment and method in the long haul. I enjoy all of it. Your work accomplishes such insightful inquiry into the point of convergence between images that come from perceptual reality, as environment, and other ones that comes from imagination: how do you consider the relationship between imagination and reality within your work? That’s a big complement, thank you. I suspect that one part of coming up as an artist in the 70’s and 80’s is that I see reality as fluid, especially perceptual reality. A basic tenet of visual perception is that if you’re looking at something, you’re not looking at something else. It’s possible looking and seeing are different things. The interplay between one’s intention and actuality of attention is always of interest to me. What we care about. How does our will influence our imagination and vice-versa? An affiliated action- that of mis-interpretation, is important too. Like the bunny in the clouds, it’s amazing how everyday mis-interpretation of what we consume through our senses is so generative, crucial to (at least) my imagination. That’s likely the most coherent way I can describe the relationship between my reality and imagination. In It’s Stonewall in My Navel we can recognize lots of images riches with high symbolic values, as shadows and organic objects. German multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead". What is your opinion about the importance of symbols in your video? And in particular how do you conceive the narrative and especially the visual unity for your works? In the big picture, I don’t see a meaningful separation between mediums and their content. The experience and influence of
watching a film is due precisely to what film can deliver, including manipulations of time, narrative, sound, image, etc. The material (or immaterial) nature of analog film and digital video makes those manipulations possible. Symbology is a conundrum. In order for a symbol to function, there has to be a consensus as to it’s meaning. I think there’s an understanding that symbolsstand ins for something else, are by nature a function of any representation. Ordinarily that would entail a remote entry into meaning, ‘a picture of’ resembling an experience rather than being one. The moving image has the ability to derail naturalistic sense in favor of providing an experience of its own, and perhaps that’s what Demand means after all. Of course, abstract film/video, in total or in part, brings heightened perceptual experience that’s closer to light and space art than the history of narrative film. I’m not sure my work has a narrative unity. Part of my artists statement is pertinent here, it says, “In my practice I strive for visual and conceptual richness, while privileging uncertainty, idiosyncratic humor, and the non sequitur over conventional narrative approaches. In the work “stuff happens”, and it is fully entrance-able through its visuals and sound, but certain outcomes are suspended in favor of layered meaning.” I’ve been working the relative presence of narrative throughout my works, and continue to. One thing is that I always begin projects with a kind of optimism about everything, including the themes, and yet the content often turns out rather dark. Not pessimistic, but let’s say, with a sense of mortality. As far as the visual unity, I’ve been making images for a long time and there’s a palpable sensibility that is both visual and conceptual, and I suspect the visual aspect is more easily discerned. In general, unity is not a goal, though enjoyment is; it’s not important to me to be able to easily summarize the work. The soundtrack plays a crucial role in the unity of It’s Stonewall in My Navel: according to media theorist Marshall McLuhan there is a 'sense bias' that affects Western societies favoring visual logic, a shift that occurred with the advent of the alphabet as the eye became more essential than ear. How do you see the relationship between sound and moving images? Yes, that’s true, re: vision as the dominant field, though interestingly, it’s sound that gets to/through our body first before sight. I have, over the last many years, made many silent videos, mostly for public projections with no audio capacity. Occasionally I’ll revisit a silent work, such as the abstract Smile interview
#1 (studies in satisfaction), and add sound. In that case it improved the piece, though that doesn’t always happen. In most of my work, sound is critical, often, such as with the Stonewall piece, there’s recognizable music involved that drives the desired direction and emotional impact of the project. I’m also a fan and researcher of musical film and theater, of the relationship and divergence between the stage and the screen. Since sound moves through space in a way that images do not- we experience ourselves as contributors to what we see, whereas sound feels like it just happens, the punctuation sound facilitates is critical. And we don’t bring the same level of criticality and evaluation to sound as we do to imagery, which is very useful in generating an experience. Multidisciplinary artist Angela Bulloch onced remarked "that works of arts often continue to evolve after they have been realised, simply by the fact that they are conceived with an element of change, or an inherent potential for some kind of shift to occur". Do you think that the role of the artist has changed these days with the new global communications and the new sensibility created by new media? I believe more commonly that it’s the reception of art that evolves based on shifts in social and environmental change. Context is everything, and it’s plastic. It’s important to consider contextual shifts when viewing historical works; not everything is about us in the moment, though we may re-interpret it accordingly for different results. The role of the artist has been confused for sometime, with little agreement across cultures and time as to what and why we make art. I agree that digital technologies have ushered a sea change in most things really, though I see it as part of continuum of change in communication technologies, including visual ones. In art practice, the global nomad is the new player, envisioned as an artist/curator/dealer, concomitantly, there’s a surge of hyper-locality. Every new technology displaces old and facilitates new activity, and each has led to older forms and newer forms being re/invented by artists. In terms of media specificity, the digital environment has rendered that obsolete, which I see as a good thing. Consider the dual response to Bong Joon-Ho’s film, Okja: A standing ovation at Cannes quickly followed by boos at the Netflix production due to a distaste for streaming. Closer to home, is ‘moving image’ a good catch all term for contemporary film/video work? Perhaps; at least it includes implicit crossover potential with media including performance and installation, and so called new media. Self-identified new media moving image work interview
often highlights the tools in their capacity and glitches, which as a gesture is not new; what is newish is the enhanced connectivity, raising issues about authorship and relevance. In that way a sensibility is evolving, and the role of the artist is now plural. Besides producing the interesting works that our readers have admired in these pages, you are also a professor of Experimental Video/Animation and Public Practices at the University of California, Santa Barbara. How much does this experience inform your vision about Art? And in particular, do you ever get inspired from your students? I’m inspired by my students with regularity, though I also get disappointed when they don’t fully believe in, engage with, or innovate with their work. In a public research university such as UCSB, the mission of the campus is such that we serve a group of students with really diverse goals. Most of the students see art either as a luxury, gadfly, alien, or they don’t see it at all. As the general population, in the United States anyway, gets more conservative and frightened, they have less use for art of any kind, unless as an investment. A complex dynamic rife with economics, technology, psychology, politics and more. That’s the dark side, the bright side is that there’s tremendous activity in all areas of art practice, and that’s very positive. Over the years your works have been showcased in several occasions, including your recent participation to the Montreal Underground Film Festival: one of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are provided with of the the opportunity to become active participants and are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context? Thank you! I hope to create involvement, and probably do that to the extent that the viewer is both witness and agent in making the meaning. Many people find my work odd or eccentric, and I fully embrace that while secretly finding it not interview
odd at all. The leaps are my norm. I do consider audience reception important, I want folks to watch my work, to experience it in multiple places and ways. I’ve done a lot of public video work, billboards, transit systems, street projection, and in these cases it’s the specificity of the site that is important to me. Not by way of censorship issues, but rather by attending to the physical experience of the audience at the location. Otherwise, my decisionmaking process considers the value of uncertainty, play, humor, and complexity in the work and its reception. I’m not clear if by language you mean the spoken/written word, or the language, say, of imagery. If it’s the former, most of my work, actually all of it so far, has no real spoken language, just some songs, a few utterances, and other sound; so that’s helpful in that the work travels well. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Laurel. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? I’m currently in the middle of a series of videos that use historically noted tools of rebellion as foils to look at affect in relation to resistance, attention, currency, time, and waste. I’ve completed three of those, a forth’s in progress, and there will be six total. The series evolved from It’s Stonewall in My Navel, in that the tools used in the Stonewall rebellion are featured here, though not particularly as functional tools. After that, what’s moving around in my head includes incidentally placed small (10”-20”) works, thematically, more immovable things having to do with free-will, and a preoccupation with the feeling of surfacing. We’ll see how that aggregate evolves! Along more general lines, I’d like to see my work include more visual/aural experimentation, but mostly I just want to make work that surprises, delights, and engages the viewer and myself. Thank you for asking me to participate, and for your thoughtful and provocative questions. It’s a real pleasure to respond and to be a part of Women Film and Video makers everywhere. interview
Riikka Haapasaari
I am an artist. I am a filmmaker. I am a writer. However, most of my artistic practice fits in none of these fields as my work grows from a deliberate in- betweenness, uncertainty and rootlessness, and I intentionally work in the space that is around these fields. I believe that by focusing on the unspoken, unconventional and non-traditional points of view it is possible to make work that positively expands all these traditions, and to create new ways of approaching even difficult issues in our society. My practice is project-based, branching intentionally across cultures - it is this change and being always an outsider that enables me to approach a myriad of issues in my projects. However, often my projects are within or in a close proximity to the field of glass. I want to welcome modern technology and knowledge into this field while simultaneously respecting the tradition, and acknowledging economical, ecological and cultural concerns. I am trained in traditional glassmaking techniques and see a glassmaker’s set of skills as a way of thinking and talking about our society in broader terms, and take advantage of this in my projects. Our world is changing as we breathe new life into this ancient material of glass: the prospects of a future unseen for this magical, multi-faceted material that is reaching beyond its traditional boundaries, responding to our ever-changing surroundings and new challenges, is an immense source of awe for me. These changes, new perspectives and the cultural heritage are my themes, my research issues, and the terrain I operate on. I am a storyteller and aim at showing sections of and occurrences in our society from perspectives that I believe need more attention. Often, I work with glass and film, and usually my films talk about human relationships and emotions through observing the physical world. While many of my projects revolve around fictional narratives, my focus is on actual curiosities and marvels in our culture, and how we treat our environments. Education, research and a pursuit of understanding are central to my enquiry, and whilst the current state of our society saddens me I believe that through addressing various phenomena and being fearless about taking a stand we can aspire to a better tomorrow. This is what I constantly work towards. reviewRiikka Haapasaari
Hello Riikka and welcome to this special edition of : before starting to elaborate about your artistic production would you like to tell us something about your background? You have a solid formal training and after having earned your Bachelor of Arts in Ceramics and Glass Design you moved to London to nurture your education with Master of Arts in Ceramics and Glass, that you received from the Royal College of Art: how did these experiences influence your trajectory as an artist? From very early on, already before considering studies in any creative field in the university I had developed a fondness towards cinema and glass, I felt that more than anything these two means of communication spoke to me, and that maybe, maybe there was a way of bringing these two together and eventually develop a way of telling stories that exceeded the vocabulary of both means individually. But there was no straight avenue to learning to work in both fields simultaneously. I felt that I had to choose: either film or glass and reasoned that I should start with glass - coming from outside the glass community, growing up in Finland it can be a real challenge to develop skills in meets An interview by Bonnie Curtis and Jennifer Rozt Druhn Riikka Haapasaari
this craft. It is also my firm belief that in order to truly speak with glass, to use the material to its full capacity, these skills and a deep understanding about its cultural heritage, and awareness of the tradition and potential futures are paramount. And for this very reason, studying glass with skilled and aware individuals was a requirement to even begin to understand what glass really is. Very early on into my studies in glass it became clear that my approach to this material was not in the curriculum and I had a hard time accepting that. To me, glass was a means of communication, a language that crosses cultural and social boundaries, forever moving, forever transforming, it was a magical material that tapped into the secrets of the universe and beyond - it was everything else but a tangible, immobile object. And this clash of my fantasy world and the reality of glassmaking largely defined my approach to studies in the university. I had amazing tutors and brilliant colleagues and the technical skills I developed in the university are such a resource but I was always searching for another place where someone shared my vision of glass. This drove me to travel around the world, trying to find anything that would ring true to me, in a journey to find at least someone who used the same words as I did - while I am still on this quest (and perhaps will always be), I have been extremely fortunate having met individuals who see glass in a similar way as I do. While in London, I had the privilege of working with a filmmaker who instantly understood what I was talking about and pushed me out of my comfort zone in the most gently way, and during our discussions I felt that I was changed, glass and cinema made more sense than ever and there was still a magical future to work towards. He is no longer with us but the wisdoms he shared are still the backbone of my practice. interview
Thinking back to that time, and now when I have a little bit of perspective, it seems so important crossing paths with encouraging educators and individuals who see the uncanny as a source of new standpoints and are not afraid of nurturing that. Sometimes, all it takes is just a couple soft nudges. Proper education and developing skills in ones craft are crucial but even the fanciest diploma does not measure up to meeting the right people (for you) and having those most challenging discussions. However, this path I have been on since pre-university, the schools, the people and the places have had a tremendous effect on what I am doing these days, I would not change a thing. Before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.riikkahaapasaari.com in order to get a synoptic view of your work. In the meanwhile, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up? My process has changed over the years from approaching projects as individuals to treating my practice as a continuum, endless discovery, development, and learning. I continue to grow as a glassmaker, as a filmmaker, as a person working within the creative fields. For me, it is of utmost importance that the one thing that will never change is the change itself – if I know exactly what is going to happen, it is not worth doing anymore. I continue to accumulate a large body of material and research to fuel my work – there is always so many stories to tell but it also takes me time to find the right words and for this reason I am constantly adding to this “pool of material” where everything relates to everything: mainly it consists of research, visual material, writings, emotions, everything interesting and curious… As time passes, strands of stories start to form in this pool and I begin developing those into actual projects. Some projects take years to complete while others are finished within weeks, interview
so it is very natural for me to work on a volume of stories at the same time: I just finished two new shorts in the last week, am writing six other shorts and am developing a handful of other projects on the side – alongside my more time-consuming work in the “pool of material”. I actually follow the traditional script-productionpost tangent and enjoy the structure it brings to my practice as I do everything from script to post on my own – while sometimes my practice is everything else but linear and I might go back from edit to redrafting the script only to rush back to the editing table. As I now work outside of (any) industry and free of most constraints, I know this way of working is such a luxury, and am fully embracing the opportunities this time in my practice has brought. I do not have a studio and for now this supports my practice as I am able to move around freely and set up basically anywhere. However, glassmaking is often tied to a physical space, a workshop, a factory or a studio, and thus this mobile approach I have embraced has sometimes proved difficult in terms of glass but it has not stopped me, the physicality of glass has always been also a challenge but these days it is a very welcome opportunity instead. I do take the advantage of honing my glassmaking skills every time I get to work in a workshop though – learning new about glass is a never-ending process. I carry a simple computer and a camera + mic set-up with me, and often that is enough for my projects – occasionally I do the heavier work in a studio both in production and post but this is very rare. In the past I have also steered away from heavy tech because I felt that it slowed me down and prevented from fully exploring the avenues my practice took me. I do look forward to the day when I have a crew to work with interview
me though - as working in solitude has its limitations and bigger things are possible with a bigger crowd. In the past I felt that my voice was not strong enough to involve other people in my projects but as time goes by this is changing too: I am thrilled about the prospect of having other “glass-y filmmakers” under my wings one day. For this special edition of we have selected , an interesting video that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of the is the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with : while walking our readers through of , would you shed light to your main sources of inspiration? The myth about glass being liquid still persists. Glass is an amorphous solid but the thicker bottoms in older churchwindows and the like are thicker because of practical reasons: window glass was not manufactured as flat and consistent in thickness in the medieval times as it is today. The window glass does not melt while in place – put it in a glass furnace and it will though. I wanted to take advantage of this belief and developed a story about a little glass wave that aspired to be like its real-world watery counterparts in the oceans but because of its very nature its dreams were doomed from the start. Central starting points for me were the power of imagination, poetry by Hafez, wanderlust in our modern society, the concept of justice. Also, the story about the little wave is directly linked to my older film Pieni Sininen (The Little Blue) from 2016, both films drawing from stained glass tradition and the current state of it. I enjoy approaching issues in our society through storytelling – often in childlike stories, taking advantage of allegory and suggestion – the space between the lines is equally as important as what is directly interview
said. I draw ideas from everything that I come across. Everything is a potential starting point for a project, everything has the potential of being the most thrilling story. Sometimes it is difficult to see the excitement of taking the trash out or going to the dentist but when you approach these activities as potential adventures, a whole new reality reveals itself. One of my biggest enemies is growing tired of looking, imagining and dreaming in the everyday so I work hard to keep that possibility to its minimum. I present myself with new situations, places and ideas in my daily practice, and over time, these experiences grow into stories that I feel are too valuable to be left untold. However, most of my work stems from very simple realisations and occurrences, just like with the Little Wave: addressing the liquid-like connection between glass and water, and posing myself with a question: what if? What if there was a glass wave that wanted to be like a real wave? The ambience of provides the viewers with an immersive experience and brings the notion of landscape to a new level of significance, evoking an atmosphere that reminds us of the idea of elaborated by French anthropologis Marc Augé. How would you describe in your work? And in particular, how did you select the location for ? For me, the greatest responsibility of an artist is to bring new perspectives to what is around us and create situations where the viewer feels safe to entertain a different point of view. A landscape such as the beach in the Little Wave is already there, a large number of people have already seen it but still an endless number of stories relating to that landscape, perhaps taking place in it is still untold. Landscape, for me, derives its meaning and significance from someone looking at it or existing in it – it is the dialogue with that landscape that is important in my practice and in the Little Wave: how the landscape or the surroundings of the Little Wave have a direct impact on how it sees its relation to the world, and how painful it is to see these waves that perhaps come from the places it dreams of seeing. There is so much beauty around us, in the landscape and in the potential mindscapes of us. My approach to locations such as the beach is fairly practical, and my projects change and evolve in relation to what is accessible in the terms of production. I was doing a fellowship in Boston, at MassArt at the time when the Little Wave was in production and came across with this gorgeous beach in the Old Harbor. I have made it into a habit of walking and exploring the surroundings I am in and often find locations during these walks – the explorations also have a direct impact on my projects and this beach with its gentle waves, the direction of the sunset, the lack of larger buildings and crowds was ticking every box on my list on a quest for a location that could be in any continent, was versatile in terms of being a shooting location, had a lot of visual perspective to it, and an air of beauty and mystery around it. Everything was in the can in just a matter of hours one evening: the beach proved to be such a solitary place to shoot and the light was just amazing – such a magical place to shoot. Despite to clear references to , your visual vocabulary, has a very ambivalent quality. How do you view playing out within your works? How would you define in your practice? Most of my work is fiction that draws from the real world and actual occurrences around us. I am captivated by the blurred line between the imagined and the real, and a recurring question in my practice is if the imagined could be real, how could the imagined manifest itself in our perceived world? Concepts such as the power of imagination keep reminding me about the limitations of
interviewhuman existence and the wonders still outside of our reach. The real and the imagined exist side by side in my work and could not occur without each other, and it is the dependant relationship between abstraction and representation that enables this: human senses are sensitive to a limited range of our surroundings but the mind has so much more capabilities. In my practice, I feel that this has everything to do with glass and moving image too – both media can be utterly ethereal and hold the capacity of bending stories beyond our language, and together this power of these traditions is magnified. The pursuit of understanding and education are central to your artistic enquiry, and as you remarked in the endling lines of your artist's statement, you believe . What could be in your opinion the role of artists in our unstable, everchangin contemporary age? Do you think that art may address people to create a better society? Artists are facilitators of other perspectives – also for themselves. At a time when groups of people are coming together and voicing out hurtful and ignorant sentiments towards other groups of people this could not be more important. Every opinion has value but enabling people to review and see these opinions in a
safe environment is paramount in creating a better tomorrow and challenging persisting prejudices. When and if the unknown seems scary and it is easier to succumb to old habits, unawareness, and truths of the past generations and deny change, the artists could not have a more rewarding task at hand: to generate a mentally stimulating environment of reflection, learning and growing – of pleasure and emotion too. Change begins from within, so absolutely, when that one viewer walks away from a screening or an exhibition or a poem or a snippet of creative work, and something inside them has shifted, they have a smile on their face, it is a move towards a better society. I feel that like attracts like, and enabling people to experience beauty and emotion in the midst of what sometimes seems a disgusting society is certainly one of the greatest joys of working in the arts. We appreciate the way your work balances modern technology and tradition, accomplishing the difficult task of pursuing such coherent equilibrium between apparently opposite aspects. We are sort of convinced that new media will bridge the apparent dichotomy between art and technology, and we dare to say that Art and Technology are going to assimilate each other. What's your point about this? In particular, how is in your opinion technology affecting the consumption of art?
This is exactly one of the driving forces in my practice. Technology is everywhere so it feels naïve to even suspect an issue in here: art does not exist separate of the society. Our society does not function as it does independent of technology; everything evolves and changes as the society and we respond to our inventions and needs. While there has been remarkable technical inventions in the recent years in the field of glass that has remained largely unchanged tradition for centuries, these are still somewhat separate from the daily practice of many glassmakers and artists – I am convinced that this is going to change in the near future as makers and artists understand that these technologies are not in place to replace the human but to free them from restrictions and widen their scope. This is true not only with actual technologies but new media too: for instance glass and moving image in combination, in the field of glass, is still in its youth, and it is the task of the artists already utilizing their knowledge and skills in both fields to show that this is pretty amazing and there is nothing to be scared of – facilitating a safe and rewarding approach to this way of working. Moving image does not take away from the tradition of glass but enables new perspectives to this magical material and gives more tools to the artists interested in it. Instead of being stuck in the past we must look into the future, there is no question about it. Technology will only have an increasingly more important role in the everyday, also in how we consume art: while art that has a physical presence and a tailored way of being observed is still best experienced live, I have no doubts there will be a way of having that very same experience from distance in the future and this will be possible because of advancements in technology. The human mind is capable and the question has been asked, so it is simply a matter of time. Such ordinary issue today as the internet has blown the opportunities across the table, for both artists and consumers of art, so that it seems only natural that there will be ways of experiencing art in ways that we can barely imagine today. As you have remarked once, your work . Multidisciplinary artist Angela Bulloch onced remarked ". Do you think that the role of the artist has changed these days with the new global communications and the new sensibility created by new media? Absolutely. New media and the ease of communicating across time zones, the ease of travel enable seeing and doing so much more than what is in our immediate vicinity. Art is not necessarily precious or financially burdensome to make, there are no requirements on working as an artist… It sounds superficial but really, anyone could be an artist. A good artist is aware and sensitive when it comes to observing and interpreting the world around us though and this is something that can be a challenge to develop even with the most advanced access to new media, tools and resources – I think this is where education steps in and I do advocate for quality education for artists. Sometimes learning is painful but necessary for growth... would one really not do any cherry picking if given a free range in learning by themselves? I think this has everything to do with balance, there must be freedom but discipline too, and new media does not provide solutions for all of this, we still have to sit down at the bench and learn some aspects of a conscious artistic practice through doing. Simultaneously, the education must change and evolve to better cater for the needs of the artist of tomorrow. New media such as moving image and sound are certainly one of these aspects when it comes to more traditional fields such as glass – the glass artists cannot assume that their work is inherently eternal because glass seems to be so, and it is not only the material or technical advancements
but the way the viewer sees the work. Everything is in a constant flux - why would a piece of art be any different? Over the years your works have been showcased in a number of occasions and you have participated to several exhibitions, including your recent show , at the Sikka Art Fair, in Dubai. One of the hallmarks of your work is the capability to create with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context? For me, my work has meaning only when it has an audience. This has everything to do with facilitating opportunities for new perspectives for my audiences. And naturally, I have to tell my stories in a language my audience understands. Unfortunately, when using spoken word, there is often a question of not everyone in the audience speaking English or Finnish or a particular language but as the vast majority of my audiences understands English there has to be a major reason for navigating away from that. I am currently working on a fictional con-language though so this might address some of the challenges of language-specificity. My earliest moving image projects were aimed at the glass field so I would use “glassy” visual language that might be incomprehensible to people unfamiliar with glass as a material – not that these would be gibberish but a viewer with a glass background would get so much more out of seeing one of these films. I have since gravitated away from such a narrow audience. Today, and as with the Little Wave, my work can be read in different “languages”: the same film presents a very different scenario for a glassy-native, a filmmaker, an elderly lady interview
and a child. I do not aim at speaking to every single being but take great pleasure and pride in enabling the widest possible viewer-base. Essentially, the majority of my projects do talk about issues related to what it means to be a human being in this world and thus narrowing my audience to a specific group of people seems ridiculous. So yes, absolutely, I do have my audience in mind at every stage of the process of making work and they have a direct influence on how I construct and present my stories, my vocabulary and visual language. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Riikka. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? I am currently working on a volume of new short films that are going to my upcoming solo shows in 2018. I am very excited about these projects as I am working with animation, utilizing my con-language (I call it as the Glass language) and bridging the material and the immaterial as well as movement and stillness in ways that are completely new to me. I have also grown my scale and reach significantly in terms of narrative and production and am consciously embracing the opportunities heavier tech brings into filmmaking. Moving image especially in the field of glass is my true passion and I am working towards developing new approaches towards exploring the opportunities glass and moving image bring into creative work. Not in the too distant future I have also a major research project and a feature in the works – I am thrilled to see how far I can push glass-informed moving image and naturally, as I see education as the cornerstone of a well-functioning society and prosperous future of the arts, my work is not done before I have passed my research and knowledge to the next generation. interview
Lynn Dennison Gen Doy Lynn Dennison and Gen Doy are artists who sometimes collaborate but also have their own distinct practices. To put it in very general terms, Doy works with sound, images and live performance, and Dennison with moving image and sound. They are both interested in making works which are research-based, engaging with the natural environment and with locations of historical, cultural and social significance. An example of this type of collaborative practice is their film Greenham Common, which was made with the help of a new collaborations bursary from a-n The Artists’ Information Company. This film attempts to create a kind of sound archaeology of different periods of military activity on the Common through spoken text and songs, while the meditative images convey the present state of what can be seen on the site. To make this work, Doy visited the Common several times with maps and an immensely helpful archaeological survey found online. At first it was very difficult to identify and understand the largely buried traces of the layered past on the Common but gradually she was able to locate and recognise in material reality what was described in the survey and the maps. During this process she made fieldrecordings and also recorded spoken texts and songs onsite, as well as speaking to people she met on the Common. After Doy’s visits they had further discussions about the direction of the work, and Dennison then began filming aspects of this large site. The images suggest that what they see on the surface is only the most recent layer of what is beneath and largely invisible. Throughout this process they had many conversations discussing what they wanted to convey through the sounds and images of the Common, best known for the peace demonstrations in the 1980s against the use of nuclear missiles which were being stored there in readiness for an attack. They also met to discuss with singer Lucy Legg to get a different artistic perspective on the work in progress, as specified in the bursary award from a-n. Dennison and Doy’s works together depend on conversations, dialogue, and sometimes differences of opinion. They also usually involve physically going together to visit sites to discuss during the making of the works. Further examples of their collaborations include four sound and image pieces they made for the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Caistor, Lincolnshire under the title of When will our Fields be Seen, Our church bells heard? Based on four poems by Lord Tennyson’s brother, Charles, who was a vicar of the parish and a poet, these pieces installed in the Church brought the fields, skies and seas of Lincolnshire right into the heart of the community. Song cycle, a video installation across six screens, documents Doy singing songs written and composed for six different areas of Hampstead Heath in London. Based on an idea suggested by Schubert’s work, Der Leiermann, the songs refer to the difficulties life presents, particularly in the present political climate.
Hello Lynn and Gen, and welcome to this special edition of Women Cinemakers: before starting to elaborate about your artistic production would you like to tell us something about your backgrounds? Are there any experiences that did influence your evolution as filmmakers and creatives? We met one another when we were doing a postgraduate diploma in Fine Art in London, and then we both went on to do an M.A. in Fine Art at the same university. Our backgrounds were slightly different in that Gen was previously a university meets An interview by Francis Quettier and Dora Tennant Lynn Dennison Gen Doy
lecturer in art history and critical theory, and Lynn had previously trained as an artist at the Slade. So Lynn already had an established practice when we met, and Gen was studying Fine Art at university level for the first time in 2010 after taking early retirement from her job. We both changed our practice quite a lot when we were studying on the same courses, though in slightly different ways. Gen moved from 2D work such as drawing, painting, photography and printmaking to using sound and elements of performance . Lynn had been making sculptural works and then moved towards installation, using video projection and digital film making. www.gendoy.com www.lynndennison.com For this special edition of Women Cinemakers we have selected Greenham Common, an interesting film that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your successful attempt to create a layered history of the area is the way you provided the visual results of your analysis with autonomous aesthetics: while walking our readers through the genesis of Greenham Common, would you tell us what attracted you to this particular subject? And what was your shooting process like?
Film still from A Line through the Periphery, 2014. Digitally transferred and edited Super 8 film by Dawn Nilo
Film still from A Line through the Periphery, 2014. Digitally transferred and edited Super 8 film by Dawn Nilo
interviewThis project started when Gen applied for a bursary under the scheme “new collaborations” run by a-n the artists’ information company, a British organisation supporting and encouraging contemporary artists. https://www.a-n.co.uk/news Gen proposed working with Lynn and also a professional singer called Lucy Legg, who was to provide an advisory perspective on the ongoing work from someone who was not a visual artist. Gen wanted song and the voice to be an important element of the work, evoking the past uses of the Common. Gen did research on Greenham Common, which is most known for the antinuclear missle protests and the women’s peace camp of the 1980s. It turned out that the Common had a long history of being used for military purposes, either as a place to billet troops awaiting deployment to somewhere else, or as a place to accomodate weapons. It was at one time a US airbase. After two visits alone by Gen to investigate and get a feel for the place, as well as sound-recording onsite, we both made a visit to the Common after discussing how the project was shaping up.Lynn began filming then, responding to the sights and sounds of the Common, which now bears traces of previous histories, but is again used by the public for cycle pathways, dog walking and grazing horses and cows.
Escaping from traditional narrative form, Greenham Common features a non linear and suggestive storytelling: how did you develop the script and the structure of the film? By the way, do you think that your being women provides your artistic research with some special value? The visuals and sounds of the film are evocative rather than descriptive or setting out a linear narrative. It kind of parallels what the experience of going to the Common is. You gradually realise that the traces of histories you can see on the surface of the earth, are like tips of icebergs… there’s much more beneath, and it’s difficult at first to realise the meanings of the traces you can see. Gen read archaeological reports, took maps with her, and visited several times before she began to understand what she was seeing. The first visit she made seemed disappointing because she saw, but she didn’t understand what she was seeing. It was through a combination of bringing the past and the present together that the meanings of the Common emerged....well, some of the meanings...we couldn’t claim to have dealt with everything that happened there! When we visited the site together, we didn't know exactly what the work would be at that point and Lynn wanted to make a thorough documentation of the area to work with. Gen
Film still from A Line through the Periphery, 2014. Digitally transferred and edited Super 8 film by Dawn Nilo
Film still from A Line through the Periphery, 2014. Digitally transferred and edited Super 8 film by Dawn Nilo
interviewtalked about the research she had made as we explored the common, so Lynn had an idea of what the content would be, so in that way, she began to 'hear' the work while she was filming. As far as being women is concerned, we feel that our approach to a site that was associated with military activities would perhaps be rather different than a man’s approach might be. Several of the songs sung by Gen in the film were written and/or performed by women originally, eg the one from the period of the Jacobite rebellion, the WW2 song “Coming in on a wing and a prayer” originally sung by Anne Shelton, and the later song associated with womens protest movements on the Common. The power of visual arts in the contemporary age is enormous and as you have remarked once, the images suggest that what we see on the surface is only the most recent layer of what is beneath and largely invisible: are you particularly interested to trigger the viewers' perception as starting point to urge them to elaborate personal interpretations, urging them to capture what is beneath the surface of the images?
A very good question. Yes we are definitely interested in inviting people to engage with sound and images which could make them think not just about what is embodied in the work, but also about their own positions and situations in the present, and how things from the past can have an impact upon viewers and listeners as the past comes into the present in a sensual way, not just by reading about it in a history book. Greenham Common has also drawn from the specifics of the environment and your process usually involve physically going together to visit sites to discuss during the making of the works. How was this film affected by its location? We discuss a lot when we are applying for commissions together and making work together, either by email, meetings in cafes, or meetings onsite. Even when we are making work separately this usually involves us visiting specific places, as the places are pretty much like participants in the works. We are in dialogue with them. The location played its part in the film totally and without it the work would not exist. The site was understood gradually through time and the time it took to visit the site and spend time there, just as the film unfolds through time. So one could say really that the film is about time, place and what can be brought to the surface and what is still invisible to someone whose feet are placed on the earth of the Common. Your approach accomplishes an insightful combination between sound and images. The sounds were made by “playing” some of the metal structures and other parts of the built environment of the Common. According to media theorist Marshall McLuhan there is a 'sense bias' that affects Western societies favoring visual logic, a shift that occurred with the advent of the alphabet as the eye became more essential than ear. In Greenham Common you seem to go beyond such paradigm: what is the role of sound in your work? And how do you see the relationship between sound and images? We both use sound in our work, though in different ways. Gen uses the voice and song and field recording whereas Lynn uses sound as part of film and projections. There are indeed some interesting critiques of the way that sight has become privileged in experiencing and writing about art and culture. For example there’s the lovely book on experiencing architecture using all the senses by Juhani Pallasmaa The Eyes of the Skin, and the equally thoughtful book by Laura U. Marks, The Skin of the Film, in which she argues that “watching” a film is an experience that involves the whole body. For Gen, sound is a way to channel the meanings of a site and its histories through a living body (her own) into the present. As you breathe in the air, it passes in and out of you and you taste it and feel it. You are a kind of conduit for the meanings of the site to live again. It sounds a bit mystical probably but there’s an
important act of being present, of witnessing, and of performance involved in making the sound. In Lynn's practice, the narrative (although not linear), is carried predominantly by the images. Her work is observational, and usually based loosely in documentation of place and the human activity there. She knows how she wants a film to look before she thinks about the sound, although conversely, the sound often takes far longer to edit that the images. So for her it feels as if the visuals are the driver, but if the sound is not navigating, the work will not get there. Conversely, for Gen the locations and the sounds are the drivers, with images in a more secondary role, so we probably complement one another in our collaborative works. For the works we make together there is lots of discussion, often site visits, and sometimes the
images are edited first and then sound is added, and sometimes the other way around. The relationship between the two elements doesn’t offer a linear narrative but a kind of invitation to engage the senses and reflect. French anthropologist and sociologist Marc Augé once suggested the idea that modern age creates two separate poles: nature versus science and culture versus society. How would you consider the role of an artist in such dichotomies that affect our contemporary age? Well these binary oppositions have some truth in them but mainly because they have been socially and historically constructed as antagonistic. Clearly things are more complex. There are many artists who work with science and scientists, and some who still consider that art is a creative pursuit and that science is concerned with tests
and demonstrable facts. There are some fantastic artworks that bring together science, art, history, utopian vision etc which are more than the sum of the individual disciplines they make reference to. For example there is Jeronimo Voss’s installation Eternity through the Stars (2012) which Gen saw at Documenta and this work is so moving and poetic, yet it involves scientific material and was visible in a planetarium in a scientific museum. She found it totally inspiring. http://d13.documenta.de/programs/the-kasselprograms/some-artworks-and-programsinitiated-by-documenta-13-participants/eternitythrough-the-stars/ Then there are the works by Aura Satz , for example the impressive Sound Seam https://wellcomecollection.org/exhibitions/aura -satz-sound-seam The Wellcome museum in London puts on exhibitions which bring together art and science on a regular basis. Science as well as art can deal with past, present and future, so in this general sense, it’s not so different from art. Lynn is at present artist in residence at the University of Birmingham where she is working with research from scientists and geologists whose work investigates how we deal with issues of climate change, such as flooding.In March, as part of this cross disciplinary research, she presented a site specific video installation, Clepsydra, during the University's Art and Science Week, as part of the Land and Water festival. Doy works with sound, images and live performance, and Dennison with moving image and sound. You sometimes collaborate but also have your own distinct practices: it's no doubt that collaborations as the ones you have established together are today ever growing forces in several fields of artistic production and that the most exciting things happen when creative minds from different fields meet and collaborate on a project. Could you tell us something about this effective synergy? By the way, Peter Tabor once stated that "collaboration is working together with another to create something as a synthesis of two practices, that alone one could not": what's your point about this? Can you explain how your work demonstrates communication between several artists? We definitely agree that the work we do together is far more than the sum of its two contributory parts. It’s not only the making that is important but also the discussions. Yet over time, we probably get more of a sense of what we think is interesting, worthwhile pursuing, or just won’t work at all, sometimes without this even being spoken about. This doesn’t mean we always agree though. Having a commission is a big help in focussing on what will make a successful outcome. There is one project we did a lot of work on...a kind of song cycle with films for Hampstead Heath in north London, which, largely because it was never funded or offered a
public venue to be installed, has never really been finished. One of the hallmarks of your approach is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your artistic production with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decisionmaking process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context? Well if we understand this correctly, this addresses a desire to communicate with our audience without necessarily spelling everything out. This is quite difficult in some cases. We want to suggest things rather than explain them, but we want people to “get” the drift of what we have been investigating and developing without making things too obvious. Also it is important for us that the viewer finds space within the work for their own recollections, whilst also creating something more precise than an ambience. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Lynn and Gen. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?
Umstulpen, 2016, Performance with Video Installation. Dawn Nilo
We would like to see our collaborative work evolving with support to enable us to make works in types of locations we haven’t yet been able to visit or create installations. This often involves official permissions, invitations to make work, or physically being able to visit sites such as decommissioned lighthouses etc. It is often not easy to get access to the sort of sites we find really interesting, and a huge percentage of our time is spent researching and writing applications to enable us to make more ambitious works. We are always looking for commissions and residencies which will allow us to move forward and try to work with interesting locations. Shortly Gen will be an artist in residence at Kings College London, working with Professor Michael Trapp to create a work entitled Layers and Echoes including a projection by Lynn. This is inspired by the histories and social meanings of a pseudo-Roman plunge pool on the university site. Part of Gen’s residency will also involve engagement with students studying classics to see whether contemporary art practices can contribute to an enhanced experience of historical studies. Lynn is working on a video and sound installation, made as a result of her cross disciplinary residency at the University of Birmingham over the past year. It will feature a voice over from Gen. We are also looking for a venue to show our Song Cycle! interview