Hello World! Greetings from Finland, from Ice Hole!
We, the artists of Reality Research Center, have been working on a print magazine titled Esitys (fin. performance) for eight years now. Esitys was created to expand the scope of art journalism in Finland and to create a dialogical space for Live Art discourse in Finnish. Most of the writers that have contributed to the magazine have been artists themselves; they have written peer-reviews, articles, interviews, essays, columns and more.
As we have been exploring the textual space of performing arts in the Finnish context, now it’s high time to join the international conversation on contemporary performing arts. We want to share and exhange the experimental and theoretical texts, discussions, actions and videos.
Eventually, we decided to create an online magazine in English as a counterpart to the print magazine published in Finnish. The magazine uses different formats; the first issue is a combination of textual and video works.
We are open to your contributions, what ever they may be.
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The first video, The King of Dance, is made by artist Pasi Mäkelä. Needs no explanations.
Pauliina Hulkko, Professor of Theatre Work in Tampere University, writes about the material plasticity of experience. How are we moulded by genes, prevailing conditions, and culture – and how much are we able to change ourselves?
In her text Compost, performance artist Essi Kausalainen writes about her collaboration with plants and how it has challenged her way of thinking and percieving the world. Through this work, Kausalainen has started to see that her body consists of interactive relationships.
We commisioned a one minute video piece with a banana from three artists: Tomasz Szrama, Essi Kausalainen and Eeva-Mari Haikala.
Alternating correspondent for this issue is live artist Nora Rinne, currently living in St. Andrews, Scotland. Her video At the Dawn of Independence deals with the atmosphere in Scotland after the vote on independency. The majority voted for staying a part of the United Kingdom.
And finally, our visiting artist is Annette Arlander, swinging in the island of Harakka.
We have a plan to publish two issues 2015. I hope you will join us!
Pilvi Porkola