Theses
Browse by
HELDA contains all theses whose authors have given permission for online publication in PDF format with Open Access. Academy of Fine Arts theses are in HELDA since 2015. Sibelius Academy theses are so far stored elsewhere. Doctoral theses of Theatre Academy can be found in the Acta Scenica publication serie.
Collections
- Academy of Fine Arts [47]
- Sibelius Academy [0]
- Theatre Academy Helsinki [141]
Recent Submissions
-
(2017)The subject matter of this research is the method with which I have approached my video archives. I have developed it together with Lea Kantonen, and it is a method of filming, watching and commenting that we have named Generational Filming. We watch and comment our home videos with people from different age groups, different specialists, and other viewers with different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. These discussions are filmed, and then added to the next edition as a new generation of the video to be shown to other audiences. Viewers help us conceptualise both the interpretations and the theorisation of our footage. We have arranged more than fifty screenings in order to analyse the data in a collaborative way. Generational Filming takes reflexivity to exhaustion or to a kind of saturation point. The chain of watching and commenting changes the meaning of the first shot, of the first generation of the chain. The focus of watching gradually changes from the viewed to the viewer. While listening to the interpretations made by previous viewers the subsequent viewers start to make comparisons between different cultural positions, and self-reflexivity begins to govern the experience of watching. My study concentrates on epistemological issues connected to the documentary approach. My research interest could be distilled into the following questions: What happens when an event is recorded (on film, video, etc.) and the recording is subsequently viewed? What are the truths, meanings and interpretations that emerge in the process of filming, editing, viewing and discussing a video diary? How does the spectator’s experience of watching change when watching filmed comments of that which has just been shown? In every chapter I concentrate on a special phase of the Generational Filming process: the birth of the idea, filming, performing for camera, arranging and indexing the material, editing, screening, commenting, and making new versions of the case study. My research consists of eight case studies. I borrow the term case study from sociology as it corresponds well to the manner in which I have both delimited and approached the areas of study. These eight case studies present an overall view of Generational Filming. With the term case study I refer both to the video and to the writings on it, which have been assembled as chapters in this book. The videos and texts are also case studies in themselves. In five case studies the first generation of video is a home video clip filmed in our home. One case study is based on a filmed song sang by Seto songmothers. One is a dialogical art project made together with a third artist about her summer identity. The eight case study is a museum project with Mexican indigenous people, Wixaritari, in which the method is used for planning a community museum. I recount the results of each case study and attempt to understand the significance of the method and its position in different academic and artistic discussions. I have categorised these discussions under four headings: Generational Filming in the tradition of moving images, Generational Filming as ethnography, Generational Filming as socially engaged art, and Generational Filming as artistic research. Doctoral thesis in fine arts includes three exhibitions made with Lea Kantonen: Favourite Place (2004) in the project space of the Museum of Photography Helsinki, Most Important in Life (2005) in Helsinki City Art Museum Meilahti, and Ripples at Home (2011) at Helsinki Kunsthalle. My part in these exhibitions has mostly consisted of the video documentation. In this book I write only about the works presented in the Ripples at Home exhibition.
-
(2017)This doctoral work is an interdisciplinary study of basic forms in art and science. It combines artistic and scientific modes of research and consists of artistic productions and the cultural-historical study of forms as well as mathematical explanations. Three pre-examined artistic productions are included in this doctoral work: (1) “Uusi Luonto Tieto” [new nature knowledge], 11.1.-3.2.2008, Forum Box, Helsinki, (2) “Constructed Landscapes”, 10.1.-1.2.2009, Galleria Heino, Helsinki, and (3) “Tutti Frutti”, 5.1.-3.2.2013, Galleria Heino, Helsinki. The thesis begins with the basic forms of classic Euclidean geometry, i.e. the circle, square and triangle since these forms are most often found in the history of teaching visual arts, especially the elements of drawing. This triad constitutes the kernel of modernistic Bauhausian design, while being the visual embodiment of the Platonic theory of Ideas as well. In addition to these simple forms, the branching tree-like form, or dendrite, is considered a basic form in the thesis. Rhombuses play a significant role in the last parts of the thesis and in the appendices and are thus also treated as basic forms. In this study I show how human culture represents nature with basic forms in two ways. For this I introduce two new concepts: perceptual forms representing nature and conceptual forms representing nature. The former refer to mimetic depictions of visible forms and structures that we can see in nature, either with our bare eyes or by using some kind of instruments. The latter refer to seemingly artificial and often geometric forms that we humans have invented by accident or constructed with purpose to visualize phenomena or functions of nature. By depicting perceptual forms, we aim to show how nature appears, whereas by constructing conceptual forms, we aim to show how nature works. The thesis also includes a mathematical study about the rotational symmetries of rhombic tilings. In a sense this mathematical part presents a generalization of the five-fold rotationally symmetric rhombic “quasiperiodic” tiling discovered in 1974 by Roger Penrose. In the 1980s a similar atypical five-fold rotationally symmetric quasiperiodic pattern was discovered in physical nature from the atomic structure of a certain crystalline metal alloy. The discovery was remarkable as the classic crystallography was based on the assumption that all atoms in crystalline solid matter are organized in periodically repeating units having two-, three-, four-, or six-fold rotational symmetry but never having five-fold or any larger than six-fold rotational symmetry. Dan Shechtman who made the observation received in 2011 the Nobel Prize in chemistry for the discovery of “quasicrystals”, as the new form of solid matter was soon named. During my research I discovered a way to construct a quasiperiodic rhombic tiling with arbitrarily n-fold rotational symmetry, including also all integers larger than six. This geometric model apparently is first of its kind in mathematics of crystallography. The mathematician Jarkko Kari managed to prove ¬– in a strict mathematical sense – my “intuitive” solution. The geometric model and its proof were published in our co-authored paper in the peer-reviewed Discrete & Computational Geometry, Vol. 55, Issue 4, June 2016, pp. 972–996. Due to its rather technical nature, the paper is included in the thesis as an appendix, but the most essential features of the model and its background are also explained in more accessible terms. In the end of dissertation I also reconsider the concept of basic forms and introduce an alternative, generalized notion of conceptual systems of geometric forms.
-
-
-
(2014)Teatterikorkeakoulun opinnäytteeni taiteellinen osa koostuu kahdesta erillisestä, vuonna 2005 toteutetusta teoksesta: Pelto – ankara moraliteetti ja Studio 5. Pelto – ankara moraliteetti -esitykseen kuului kaksi osaa, esitysinstallaatio ja näyttämöesitys. Ensimmäisessä luvussa käyn läpi kirjoituksia siitä, kuinka teatterin käytäntöjen (tila, tekstit, esityskonseptit) on ajateltu vieraannuttavan suhdettamme luontoon kenties voimakkaammin kuin muissa taiteenlajeissa. Erityisesti ihmiskeskeinen aihemaailma ja passiivinen katsojuus nousevat ekokriittisessä luennassani esille. Toisessa luvussa tarkastelen tilallisia strategioita muuttaa esityksellisiä ja siten ehkä ylipäänsä havaintotapojemme ”ympäristöherkemmiksi”. Tilan, ympäristön ja sen tuottamien suhdeasetelmien pohdinta on tärkeää, koska tilan jakamisen tapa nousee keskeiseksi ympäristöeettiseksi kysymykseksi opinnäytteessäni. Kolmannessa luvussa kirjoitan Pellon ratkaisuista luoda toiminnan ja tekojen tilaa sekä työvälineiden käytön ruumiillisuudesta ja ajallisuudesta, kuinka ympäristö ja ruumis asettuivat vuoropuheluun niiden kautta. Studio 5 -produktio koostui kolmesta pääosasta, jotka olivat installaatio Teatterikorkeakoulun Studio 3 -tilassa Helsingissä, ympäristötaideteos Suitian tutkimus- ja koetilan maastossa Siuntiossa sekä verkkosivusto, joka dokumentoi projektimme kirjallisen ja kuvamateriaalin. Opinnäytteen keskeiseksi osaksi muodostui myös niin sanottu metsänvuokrausprosessi. Opinnäytteen kirjallisessa osiossa pohdin Studio 5:n taiteellista työtä erityisesti esityksen elävyyden (elävän tilanteen), vuorovaikutuksen ja kytkeytyneisyyden kautta. Lisäksi kirjoitan teoksestamme kokonaisvaltaisuuden käsitettä vasten, mitä kaikkia ulottuvuuksia ja näkökulmia se yhdisteli, millaisen suhteikon se loi? Tarkastelen tässä valossa myös Teatterikorkeakoulun tilapolitiikkaa, ja ylipäänsä kaupunkitiloja, ja pohdin, millaisia ulossulkemisen mekanismeja niissä harjoitetaan. Ensimmäisessä luvussa tarkastelussa on musta sieni/home-installaatio, ja sen esiintuoma Teatterikorkeakoulun ”piilevä luonto”. Pyrin ristivalottamaan installaatiomme ”elävyyttä” ja vuorovaikutusta sekä esitysteorian että elävän materiaalisuuden teorian ja ekologian kautta. Mitä lopulta ymmärrämme elävyydellä, elävällä tilanteella tai vuorovaikutuksella; voisiko niitä ajatella laajemmin kuin vain ihmisten, esiintyjän ja katsojan välisinä suhteina? Omistan omat alakappaleet myös kahdelle installaatiossa esiintyneelle perustavalle toimijalle: pimeydelle ja sienirihmastolle. Toisessa luvussa etenen kohti projektimme metsäosiota maanomistajuuden ja siihen kietoutuvien tilapoliittisten kysymysten kautta. Kirjoitan metsään tai ylipäänsä ei-rakennettuun ympäristöön menon tärkeydestä elinympäristöjen mentaalisen häviämisen eli luonnon kulttuurisen olemassaolon uhanalaistumisen näkökulmasta, sekä retkeilevän kävelemisen ja niin sanotun ympäristöherkkyyden yhteydestä. Kolmannessa luvussa käsittelen vielä ajatuksia ja näkemyksiä siitä, mitä voisi olla niin sanottu esitysekologia ja kokonaisvaltainen esitys.
-
(2016) -
(2016) -
-
(2016) -
-
-
(2016) -
-
(2016) -