Anni Puolakka’s From the Heart (2021, in featured image), Jenni Toikka’s Prelude Op. 28 No. 2 (2022) and Noora Geagea’s Life Goals (2020) are included in the programme of Instants Vidéo, held in Marseille, France, and Milan, Italy, from November 9 2022 – January 22 2023.
Anni Puolakka’s From the Heart is included in the screening programme “What can I do with me“, screened at Milan [Box] Videoart space from November 16 – December 2 2022. Inside a sleeping human, Toxoplasma Gondii communicates. In From the Heart, the parasite tells stories about its journey to the heart and a fatal encounter with a fetus. Toxoplasma gets excited when the human wakes and starts moving. Its life is one tour of intimacy. The human has dreams about moments with a baby, but the parasite has incorporated into her for a lifetime.
Jenni Toikka’s Prelude Op. 28 No. 2 is included in the exhibition in Tour Panorama, Friche la Belle de Mai, Marseille, until January 22 2023. During a single long shot, we see two people taking turns playing the piano and listening alternately. The piece is the same on both times – Prelude Op. 28 No. 2 by Chopin – but when the performer changes, the interpretation of the song changes along with the perspective from which the song and its performance are viewed. The uninterrupted playing and single shot capture the event in one temporal moment, but as the camera moves and two people change places, time is equally layered. The performer becomes the listener and the listener becomes the performer. In one of the key scenes of Ingmar Bergman’s Autumn Sonata (1978), the mother and daughter take turns playing the very same Chopin’s Prelude. It is a piece that both are familiar with, so they are able to settle into the position of the other as they listen and watch the other play. A situation like this raises questions about the sense of reciprocity, simultaneity and synaesthesia. Could the roles become mixed from viewer and listener to the object of the gaze and listening? When watching the other playing, can you feel your own hands and fingers on the keys?
Noora Geagea’s Life Goals is installed in gallery SARA Logisol, Marseille, until November 25 2022. In Life Goals, a pregnant woman acts as a goalkeeper on a football field. Sometimes the ball goes past the goalkeeper, other times she makes an amazing save, and once in a while she loses her strength. In Life goals, a human being is everything: an active subject, an object of action, a survivor, a mortal, and a protector of life. The video is a condensed depiction of life.
Instants Vidéo, November 9 2022 – January 22 2023, Marseille, France & Milan, Italy
More information: Instants Vidéo
AV-arkki has promoted and distributed Finnish media art since 1989. AV-arkki’s promotional efforts have made the artists’ participation in this event possible.