Issue 4: Permanent Transience
December 2005
framework: the finnish art review
www.framework.fi
In an effort to understand the ongoing processes that are taking place around us in the spheres of contemporary culture, the 4th issue of Framework sketches the conditions for creating concepts of meaning and worth in an era characterized by a sort of permanent transience, a state in which exception and insecurity take the upper hand. In the midst of constant movements, migrations, displacements and transformations, the general dissolution of the borders between various spheres of life has had deep consequences on the traditional understanding of knowledge creation. New global tensions arise and are reflected in local scenes, often in violent forms.
In Locating philosophers Panayiota Vassipoulou (GR), Jonardon Ganeri (GB), and Chuck Dyke (US); Professor of Regional Studies Jouni Häkli (FI), and Professor of Environmental Policy Yrjö Haila (FI) compel us to recognize the extent to which our consciousness is formed, manipulated and maintained by a range of technologies of image production and networks.
Focus is inspired by an experimental conference, Capturing the Moving Mind: Management and Movement in the Age of Permanently Temporary War, which took place on the Trans-Siberian train and in the cities that it connects – Helsinki, Moscow, Novosibirsk and Beijing – from the 7thth to 20th of September, 2005. The conference brought together an exceptional, interdisciplinary group of researchers, intellectuals, and artists interested in the shifting and turbulent terrain of changes in current organization, economy, politics and culture. The guest editors Akseli Virtanen (FI) and Steffen Böhm (GB) have invited as contributors also Jussi Vähämäki (FI), Carlos Fernández (ES), Imre Szeman (CA), Maria Whiteman (CA), Leena Aholainen (FI), Bracha L. Ettinger (IL/FR), Stevphen Shukaitis (GB), Sophea Lerner (AU), Adam Hyde (NZ), Brett Neilson (AU), Ned Rossiter (IE), Natilee Harren (US), Elly Clarke (GB), and Brian Holmes (FR). They call upon philosophy, social sciences, psychoanalysis as well as art, media and activist practices to expose the insidious cultural, political and economic forces that structure the confluence of production and creation today. Visitors Voice essay by media artist and theorist Jordan Crandall (US) concretizes the theme of this issue on an utmost personal level. It is based on the lecture that he was supposed to give in the pre-conference of Capturing the Moving Mind in Helsinki on 7th of September 2005. Due to the natural catastrophes and human tragedies caused by Hurricane Katrina on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico last August he, however, had to postpone his trip to Finland until next year.
Features and Interviews examine the ways in which the artistic practices today participate in forms of knowledge creation and understanding contemporary networked societies. It has often meant exploring and discovering social and communal contexts, as well as providing the means for assessing new ones. The featured Finnish artists Jaakko Niemelä, Sanna Kannisto, ROR – Revolutions on Request, and Gun Holmström give insight also into debates around the body and feelings, difference, as well as technology.
Opinions, Analyses & Letters offers a forum for both invited and submitted texts by those in the fields of art and science, to discuss different perspectives on cultural criticism, as well as institutional and cultural policies. The general theme Permanent Transience is approached by Mark Kremer (NL), Serena Giordano and Anna Daneri (IT), Pierre Guillet de Monthoux (SE), and Jan Olof Mallander (FI).
Global Watch includes three reviews: Denise Robinson (GB) takes a look at the 51st Venice Biennale and Mika Hannula (FI/GE) at the 9th Istanbul Biennial, both widening their approaches also to the biennial phenomenon at large; the latter also analyzes the recent exhibition Making Things Public. Atmosphären der Demokratie at ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany. In addition, Heie Treier (EE) discusses with Sirje Helme, Director of KUMU, the new art museum in Tallinn that will open to the public in mid-February 2006.
To see the content of the issue in detail or get information about the previous issues as well as to subscribe online, go to www.framework.fi or contact office@framework.fi.
Publisher:
FRAME Finnish Fund for Art Exchange
Merimiehenkatu 36 D 527
FI-00150 Helsinki
Phone 358 (0)9 612 6420
info@frame-fund.fi www.frame-fund.fi
framework: the finnish art review, a bi-annual magazine launched in April 2004, is a discursive forum that opens a space for a variety of visual material, as well as extensive articles, analyses and international commentaries. One of its major tasks is to assist in establishing Finnish contemporary art on the international scene – to connect the local to the international. It is primarily concerned with visual arts and culture, but will also deal with other art forms and cultural criticism at large. framework emphasises and supports cross-disciplinary aspects of art that transcend conventional boundaries.