tellervo 
In the Finnish language, tunne luonto refers both to “knowing nature” and “feeling nature.” In our interactive Tunneluonto walk, Maija Hirvanen and I invited participants to reflect on the relationship between knowledge and sensation in their experience of nature.
The tour was originally planned for Vartiosaari and the Helsinki Botanical Garden, but it can be adapted to different environments. The walk was part of Maija Hirvanen’s Walkapolis walking series in 2016.
I Almost Said by JOKAklubi and Miia Rinne in Westwerk, Hamburg, 2-16 Oct, with the Time Machine -performance 1 Oct 9pm, and in Hilbertraum, Berlin, 11-20 Nov, 2016.
In the first larger gallery exhibition by JOKAklubi we show three installations: The Long Goodbye, The Ends and I Almost Said. The opening performance Time Machine invites the audience to look into the memories they´d like to live again – and be surprised. I Almost Said is made in collaboration with Finnish media artist Miia Rinne, whose new work Beautiful Confusion forms a strong dialogue with JOKAklubi´s work. Thank you FRAME for the support!
Video by JOKAklubi
Music by Karl Jonas Winqvist & Blood Music
Duration 7,50min
2016
The video is based on the instrumental piece The Long Goodbye by Karl Jonas Winqvist & Blood Music.
Three figures in blue search for materials from all the possible and impossible places of the world. Slowly the video turns into a documentation of a street performance, in which the big efforts are turned into a small gesture.
The Long Goodbye is the second video collaboration with JOKAklubi members and Karl Jonas Winqvist. The Long Goodbye is a track from Blood music´s 4th album The Light of the Future (Dark of the Past), published by the label Sing a Song Fighter.
Me and Oliver will be spending several weeks in June-July in Tanzania, working within the project Simulizi Mijuni / Urban Narratives. We´ll give artist talk at Nafasi Art Space 14 June.
Olento Orchestral will play at Jättömaa / Wasteland festival in Kouvola, Finland, 23 July 3.30pm. A lot of new music pieces will premiere, performed by Nick Martin, Aino Juutilainen, Mia Erlin, Pentti Luomakangas, Janne Lastumäki and myself. You are so welcome.
Archipelago Science Fiction is part of EMAP, an open air sound and moving image festival in Seoul, Korea, which carries this year a title Save Our Souls. Art for a Time of Urgencies. The festival consists of the art program from Korea and Finland.
JOKAklubi (Tellervo Kalleinen, Niina Lehtonen Braun and Mirka Raito) releases 25th May 2016 a music video, with the fantastic sound track The Long Goodbye by Karl-Jonas Winqvist & Blood Music! We show it at Katko Galleria 25.5.-19.6. – a gallery in Tampere – and publish it also online. Open behind this link: Enjoy watching
In The Middle Of A Movie will be shown at Kumu, Estonia, in an exhibition Kumu Hits. Contemporary Art from the collection of the Art Museum of Estonia. For the work I asked people to write a film scene that takes place in their own home, and act it together with me. The work was my graduating work in 2003 from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, and it was made almost with no money at all – many friends helping me out with filming, lending equipment and arranging, such as Ulla Von Brandenbrug, Anu Pennanen, Juhan Ulfsak, Rain Tolk, Andres Maimik, Marianne Körver, Oliver Kochta, Frank Lüsing, Anna Matveva, Ulu Braun and Thora Gudmundsdottir – just to name few!
Identity -exhibition at NAMU brings together artists from Nordic countries, the Baltics and Ukraine, to survey the marks of identity left on today’s world. The curator of the exhibition is Solvita Krese from Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art.
I will perform at the Binary Night performance art club at Madhouse, Suvilahti, with a new short piece dealing with binary oppositions as well as political polarisation. Other performing artists of the evening are David Frankovich and Irma Optimist, who approach binaries from the perspectives of mathematics, bisexuality, and Between and after the performances, DJs Ville Häkkinen and Jouko Korkeasaari will play mixed music ”Between Genesis and sixsixsix”. The tickets can be bought here
YKON launches a new open source project YKON DINNER GAME at Performing Encounters, Berlin. It takes place April 13, 2016 at 7pm, at Haus Am Lützowplatz. If you like to take part, please RSVP to hello(at)performingencounters.de
The YKON DINNER is a game, that alters interactions at the dinner table. By using a dinner structure of multiple courses, YKON facilitates the interaction between guests. Rules, scripts and designed hardware will encourage the conversations to go into new directions. You could imagine the YKON DINNER as a combination of a dinner party with friends whom you haven’t met but always wanted to meet, a candy box of tools that you can take home with you and a series of close encounters with your possible futures.
Performing Encounters is curated by Yvonne Reiners
Welcome to Lavaklubi, the cozy home base of Speech karaoke! The speech selection of our karaoke system – including almost 300 speeches – has been completed with new speeches found from Thailand, where The Speech Karaoke Action Group had a tour in January 2016. The new speeches Include also the apology speech for Thai berry pickers in Finland. Free entry!
Nice exhibition coming up…
”While utopian or dystopian stories or images typically imagine societies separated from us in space (the island or enclave) or time (the future), these fictions invite us to make comparisons to our own world. The flaws and nascent possibilities that we are blind to in our own time and place become visible when projected onto another one. Similarly, the utopian gestures or critiques found in these artworks from Finland offer us opportunities to reflect on our own utopian aspirations. The photographs, films, performances, and installations in the exhibition explore the porous boundaries between utopia and dystopia.”
Curator: Paul Wilson
Participating artists: IC-98, Otto Karvonen, Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, Nina Katchadourian, Pilvi Takala, and Tärähtäneet ämmät/Nutty Tarts.
As part of DOings and kNOts -exhibition at Kunstihoone I will tell about our experiences in organising complaints choir -project in different cultures, after which Anneliis Kits, the composer of The Tallinn Complaints Choir, will teach the audience the Tallinn complaints choir song!
Imagine a Finland of 100 inhabitants. 51 of them would be women, 13 would be over 70 years old, one would be from Asia and one would hold a Ph.D.
101 For All offers the personal story behind the statistics. Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen visited one hundred homes around Finland and interviewed people about their personal relationship with 30 topics of discussion that tend to divide opinions. The 100 interviewees form a cross-section of the Finnish population in terms of gender, age, region, education, level of income, country of origin and mother tongue. The topics range from immigration to privatisation, and from nuclear power to euthanasia – and not forgetting the health impacts of butter versus margarine.
101 For All includes about 65 hours of video interviews. In the “sleep mode” of this interactive video installation only the muted images of the interviewees are visible, projected on wall. Visitors can pick – one at a time – their desired selection of answers from the available topics, and the interviewee that they want to hear speak. The 101th person – as referred to in the title – is the visitor, exposing the piece in his or her own way to other visitors.
A question that arises is that of representation: can one individual or small group of people ever represent ”everyone”? What about the ones left in the margins? The exhibition is based on encounters and reveals how people’s opinions are much more complex, rich and contradictory than what statistics have us believe.
The exhibition challenges to pursue one of the most radical acts of our time, listening to others without prejudice.
I am grateful for being one of the ten receivers of William Thuring Prize, awarded by the Finnish Art Society. Thank you!
Composition, Lyrics & Vocals Tellervo Kalleinen, Cello Aino Juutilainen, Guitar Pentti Luomakangas, Recording and Mixing PK Keränen, 2015
The song contains subliminal messages (a phenomenon known as backmasking) encouraging people to be open and emphatic towards other people and their opinions.
Under The Influence is the sound track for 101 For All -Exhibition by Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen. For the exhibition they interviewed 100 people who form statistical cross section of Finnish population. Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen visited their homes and interviewed them about 30 topics which often divide opinions. The interviews were made in depth, with an intention to understand the influences behind the formation of the opinions.
I am very happy to announce the first public concert of our band Olento Orchestral. The event takes place at the intimate and lovely concert venue Vihreä Talo.
Tellervo Kalleinen – composition, lyrics, vocals
Mia Erlin – vocals
Aino Juutilainen – cello
Nick Martin – synthesizer
Janne Lastumäki – drums
Pentti Luomakangas – guitar/saxophone
Open – this simple word contains the seeds for a slow and silent revolution. It stands for a complete transformation of society as we know it. In fact, this transition has already started: Open Source Software altered some fundamental economic beliefs. This transformation comes in many shapes and ideas: Open Source, Open Democracy, Open Knowledge, Open Space, Open University…
To celebrate the occasion of opening the Open University of the Arts, Helsinki we invite you to an OPEN BINGO afternoon. In a playful setting we will map, analyze and discuss the various movements, ideas and activities that are falling under the OPEN label. Together we will find out, how those ideas may affect our society, our daily lives, and the way we produce and distribute art and culture. Players will learn mostly from each others, but will also be able to consult jokers for support – the jokers being a number of prominent protagonists of the open movement in Finland: Sanna Hirvonen (Open Glam & Kiasma), Laura Sillanpää, (Open Knowledge Finland), Juan Duarte (Pixelache). We designed the Open Bingo with YKON . Prizes guaranteed!
Saturday 14.11.2015 1-4pm at Exhibition Laboratory, Merimiehenkatu 36 C, Helsinki, inner yard. Free entry!
Love, Death and Margarine is a four-hour long potpourri we composed of answers to different questions by the 100 participants of the 101 For All -installation. The interviews chosen for this showing have subtitles in English!
Welcome to Kunsthalle Helsinki, Nervanderinkatu 3, Helsinki. You can drop in any time between 4pm and 8pm for the video marathon, or come already earlier: the entrance fee 7/10e includes the visit to the exhibition!
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By Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, 2015
Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen asked 100 people who form a statistical cross section of the Finnish population to name one book which have strongly influenced their thinking. Inside of the books one can find cards including basic statistical info of the person who chose that book and description how the book shaped her / his world view. A Library of Influential Books was premiered at Helsinki Art Hall exhibition 101 For All.
We are happy to perform again Family Comes Home – a concept, which was originally commissioned by Helsinki Festival few years back. Together with actors Max Bremer and Johanna Af Schultén we will organize an event where the audience takes their ancestors along. The performances will be in Swedish. Family Comes Home takes place at private homes – the location will be announced for the audience members few days before he performance. See the trailer here
Reserve tickets (18€) from stjarnfallbiljett@gmail.com
The Speech Karaoke Action Group will have one of their popular karaoke club evenings at one of their favorite places in the world – Lavaklubi Helsinki!
Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, 2011
Commissioned by Art and Madness -festival, Haarlem, The Neatherlands
Curated by Nina Folkersma
People in White explores the relationship between doctor and patient in mental health care – strictly from a patient’s point of view. In the film, 9 former clients of mental health institutions return to their memories through storytelling and re-enactments.
The script is constructed from direct quotes from extensive interviews conducted with the participants. The participants could decide whether to act in the film or if an actor represents them.
The project was commissioned by the Madness and Arts -festival.
Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen 2005-2014
Many commissioners, including Mori Art Museum (Tokyo), Kiasma (Helsinki), Nordwind festival (Berlin), Pro Arte (St. Petersburg), Fringe festival (Singapore)
The COMPLAINTS CHOIR project invites people to sing their complaints out loud together with fellow complainers. We organised the first choir in Birmingham followed by the Complaints Choirs of Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Chicago, Singapore and many more. The documentation of the choirs form a 4-channel video installation.
In 2006 the project went “open source” when we published the “9 Easy Step Method to Organize a Complaints Choir” on our website. Since then over 150 DIY complaints choirs have been organised all over the world.
Tellervo – working with several musicians under Kaukaisu -name – has released a music album Käsky ja Hyräily (A Command And A Hum). It features a selection of her songs written since she was 16 years old until recent years.
The vinyl is available at Digelius, Record Shop X and at Bandcamp
– Mp3 -download code comes along with the vinyl
– In Bandcamp one can also listen the record for free, or buy the digital tracks only.
KAUKAISU: KÄSKY JA HYRÄILY – CREDITS
LYRICS & COMPOSITION Tellervo Kalleinen VOCALS Mia Erlin, Tellervo Kalleinen, Salla Hakkola GUITAR & BASS Nicolas Petitdan HARP Salla Hakkola SAXOPHONES & SHAKUHACHI Jone Takamäki DRUMS, PERCUSSION & VIBRAPHONE Ilmari Heikinheimo CELLO Riikka Lampinen VIOLIN Veera Railio, THROAT SINGING Pasi Mäkelä SYNTHETIC SOUNDS Nicolas Petitdan, Samon Takahashi EGG BEATERS Teemu Tuonela ARRANGEMENTS Kaukaisu – except Laiva by Työmaa and Kaukaisu
RECORDED by Tracy Lipp and Sami Auranen at Helsinki Records in June 2013, Mika Mylläri at AMPJazz studios in November 2013 and Nicolas Petitdan, Sampo Pyhälä and Mia Erlin MIXING Nicolas Petitdan and Mika Mylläri MASTERING Mika Mylläri PRODUCTION Tellervo Kalleinen
THE RECORD COVER ART WORK by Niina Lehtonen Braun
RECORD MANUFACTURING & LP COVER PRINTING by R.A.N.D. Muzik, Leipzig, 2014.
THANK YOU Minja Aho, Zouhair Amkas, Fred Bigot, Maija Blåfield, Valtteri Bruun, Tuula & Jukka Kalleinen, Kiwa, Elke & Dieter Kochta, Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, Pekko Koskinen, Heikki Laakso, Reiska Laine, Kalle Miettinen, John-Patrick Morarescu, Eeva Mäenluoma, Hanna Ojamo, Christa Renwall, Liisa Roberts, Vincent Roumagnac, Maija Ruuskanen, Sari Tervaniemi, Richard Thomas, Janne Tuomi, Julius Valve, Karl-Jonas Winqvist – and All About Voice, Boomout and Sputnik Oy. VERY SPECIAL THANKS for all the advices to Mika Mylläri
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The Summit of Practical Utopias 26—29 September 2013 in Brioni Island, Croatia
Organised by YKON, Drugo More and Electra
The Summit of Practical Utopias gathered 35 activists, artists, game designers, researchers and visionaries on the island of Brioni, President Tito’s former summer residency in the Croatian Adriatic Sea. Organised as a collaboration between YKON (FIN/DE) and Drugo More (CRO) in dialogue with Electra (UK), the three-day Summit took the form of a reality game where game rules, rather than summit conventions, defined the interactions between participants or players.
The Summit of Practical Utopias was born out of the legacy of The First Summit of Micronations, held in Helsinki in 2003. Kings, presidents and representatives of ‘self-made’ countries such as The Principality of Sealand, Ladonia, NSK-State, Kingdoms of Elgaland & Vargaland, Transnational Republic and State of Sabotage met each other in an unprecedented three-day exchange.
The participants in the 2013 Summit of Practical Utopias represented a wide cross-section of contemporary Utopian practices. Find out about the participants here
PRACTICAL UTOPIA
The term was coined specifically for the Summit. It reflects the desire to change the current system of society by developing alternative proposals that outline the first practical steps towards long-term processes of change. Practical Utopia insists on the necessity of Utopia as an intellectual concept interlinking the fantastical and the pragmatic in bringing about social, political and artistic change.
THE GAME
Replacing conventional conference formats, the Summit will use game design to provide a playful yet serious system of exchanges. The sights and infrastructures on the Island will be turned into a playground that will support the players to collaborate in novel ways.
The game is designed by the artist collective YKON and inspired by Buckminster Fullers’ ‘World Game’ (1961). It was created as a proposal for an alternative system of pedagogy: a game, rather than a curriculum, as the main platform of learning. It was intended as a tool to formulate competing, comprehensive design-science approaches that would “solve all the problems on Planet Earth.”
BRIONI
Initially a stone quarry, and later a luxury retreat for the wealthy, the archipelago became Josip Broz Tito’s summer residence after World War II. Tito was the central figure in Yugoslavia’s experiments with organisational structures, experiments which profoundly transformed its society. Brioni played a crucial role in the forging of the Non-Aligned Movement, and was the site where self-managerial socialism met international celebrities and world leaders. This beautiful and provocative Island speaks both of the possibility of imagining alternative systems, of restructuring social life, whilst simultaneously problematising this desire.
Tellervo Kalleinen & Niina Lehtonen Braun
2013, Helsinki, Berlin, Stockholm
Music video for Blood Music´s song “Play This At My Funeral” made by Tellervo Kalleinen and Niina Lehtonen Braun. The artists invited people to pose with an instrument, which they wish to be played at their funeral.
By Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, 2010
I Love My Job dramatizes conflicts experienced by employees of eight different work places in Helsinki, Finland and Gothenburg, Sweden. The episodes end with dark fantasies, that have grown in minds of the participants because of the unresolved conflicts.
Eight back projection screens are hanging in a dark space. In each scene you see a title of a profession. One film is playing at a time.
People in White is a film that explores the relationship between doctor and patient in mental health care from the point of view of 10 patients.
In the film a central artistic device is re-enactment of key moments in the therapeutic process in which former patients play themselves as well as their doctors. Memories vary from beautiful, healing moments to the horrors of isolation and abuse.
Margreet has been receiving electroshock treatment monthly for 2 years now. As side effect she has lost most of her memory – but she doesn’t care because she feels better. She has had the same psychoanalyst for 20 years. He is her memory; He knows more about her than she can remember. She is afraid what will happen when he dies.
Margreet is one of the 10 patients who gather together in order to share their experiences about mental health care professionals. They return to their memories through story telling and re-enactments. Some of the stories are beautiful descriptions of healing moments. For other participants the traumatic experiences they had with doctors are still haunting them even today after many years.
The Speech Karaoke Action Group is a group of 13 artists who developed a karaoke system for speeches. It functions like classic Karaoke, but instead of singing, people can do spoken karaoke versions of speeches – and perform it in any desired style. The system includes all kinds of speeches, ranging from dictators rants to movie speeches to private wedding speeches.
Besides the karaoke club evenings, the group organises also Speech Karaoke workshops. There anyone can add a speech of their choice to the karaoke system.
Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, 2009
DREAMLAND is a film montage containing dramatisations of dreams of local citizens in which the President of Finland makes an appearance. In Spring 2009 we collected 87 dreams from all around Finland. A selection of 21 dreams were then dramatized and filmed. The President was played by four different actors, all other roles were acted by volunteers.
Tellervo Kalleinen
2001-2003, Helsinki, St Petersburg, Hamburg, LA, Seydisfjördur, Tallinn
Tellervo Kalleinen asked people to plan a film scene which takes place in their own home, and to give Tellervo a role in it.
Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, 2009
Hosted by Nafasi Art Spae, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Curated by ZK/U, Berlin
TRACKIN DAR ES SALAAM is an interactive video installation that allows viewers to follow 11 residents of Dar es Salaam finding their daily paths trough the sprawling city of Dar – from dawn to dusk. The 11 particpants reflect and comment in voice overs upon their views on living in that city, how the city has changed, and how it could be improved. This project was part of “Simulizi Mijini / Urban Narratives” – an academic and artistic exchange between Berlin and Dar es Salaam, focussing on urban heritage, whether tangible (architecture) or intangible (cultural practices at large).
Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen
Commissioned by Art Space, Sydney, 2006
THE MAKING OF UTOPIA brought us to four Utopian communities in Australia (Bodhi Farm, Dharmananda, Equilibrium and Moora Moora.) We sent an open letter to the communities inviting them to join a workshop and write a fiction film about themselves. The main questions we posed to the communities were related to the ongoing conflict between utopian vision and communal reality. The workshops resulted in 4 short fiction films written and acted by community members. In several interviews the participants commented on the films that came up in each community. Additional commentary is provided by Bill Metcalf – a leading researcher of Intentional Communities.
THE MAKING OF UTOPIA : 2006 : film 60 min : media installation
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Find out about YKON´s projects at YKON web site
YKON was founded in 2005 as an artistic initiative and platform for exploring utopian fantasies and the political imaginary in relation to concrete sociopolitical structures and concerns.
Emerging from and working in the field of contemporary art, YKON merges the languages and approaches of a number of disciplines, such as game design, scenario development and experimental education.