Usage of digital games is common within the whole population. Gaming has been widely studied but so far research has been mainly focusing on the pros and cons in general. Master of Psychology and a doctoral student at the University of Turku, Suvi Holm, says that it would be more interesting to study the subject as a cultural, everyday phenomenon.
– Gaming is very commonplace but parents are worried when their kids do it because there is not really a consensus on what it means and how it should be reacted to, except to be horrified. We should be able to talk about it but the research drags behind. We are still pondering whether gaming should be allowed or not when everyone is already doing it, a former school psychologist Holm says.
“Gaming is very commonplace but parents are worried when their kids do it because there is not really consensus on what it means and how it should be reacted to.”
She says that another reoccurring problem is that gamers are often seen as one group when the spectrum is wide. This is why Holm’s doctoral thesis intends to investigate the relevance of the differences in individual preferences and cognitive skills between gamers, and the affect of those on emotions and information processing during gaming.
– Gamer classification has previously been quite limited. It also needs to be taken into consideration that there is a huge variety of games too. It is the same when we talk of literature; it is a completely different thing to talk about a children’s picture book or Dostoevsky, she says and gives an example of one of her studies.
In laboratory conditions sensors placed on the hands and face revealed that people who were known to like games that contain violence reacted less when playing those type of games than people who do not like the so-called shooter games.
– The emotional response of people who like these games was lower than that of those who do not like them. The latter had a faster heart rate and they were sweating more. The study hints towards the idea that there are individual differences between people, and therefore it is not correct to say that one particular game would have the same effect on everyone, says Holm.
The popularity of digital games continues to grow in the future
Individual differences have also been detected by studying the eye movements of gamers. Some people are naturally better at visual outlining than others, which is a key ability in many video games. Those who are more skilled at multiple object tracking were able to follow a game with fewer eye movements than members of a control group who were working harder to keep up with the game.
– Individual differences might explain why gaming is easy and pleasant for some people while others consider it uninteresting or even stressful. This will have to be taken into consideration when the effects of gaming are studied in the future, Holm tells.
Holm believes that the humankind continues its course towards a more digital direction.
She doesn’t think that the popularity of digital games is a passing phenomenon, quite the opposite. Holm believes that humankind will continue its course towards a more digital direction while the amount of face-to-face communication will decrease.
– If I had to be a visionary then I would say that the usage of entertainment will diversify over time. In the future we might wear VR glasses when watching a movie and choose ourselves what happens in the film. I would like to investigate people’s lives in the future too, she says.
Doctoral student at the University of Turku, Suvi Holm, received a one-year grant from the Varsinais-Suomi Regional Fund in 2019 to work on her doctoral thesis.
The research programme finances a set number of research projects. The aim is that the research benefits society by producing findings that are easy for citizens and decision-makers to access.
The research programme is financed by The Finnish Cultural Foundation, The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland and Stiftelsen Brita Maria Renlunds minne.
The application for the programme is completed in two steps. In the first step, stage 1, a shorter application is submitted. Every application in stage 1 is evaluated by a panel of experts who choose which projects will go forward. The chosen projects are invited to submit a complete application in stage 2.
The application period for the first application is from 1st of January to 15th of February 2021.
Roleplaying gaming is a broad concept that covers a great variety of types from computer-based strategy games to live action, and tabletop roleplaying games. The field is developing but there is a lot of ignorance about it.
– Storytelling is typically key to roleplaying games. At its profoundest gaming means settling into a role and looking at the game from that perspective. It allows the player to live someone else’s life, be in a different world, and advance the game and the story by making personal choices, says 30-year-old game developer Jaakko Rinne who got interested in roleplaying games when he was a child.
“Storytelling is typically key to roleplaying games.”
Rinne is currently studying to become a community educator at the South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences, and working on a new type of roleplaying game model based on Japanese history by merging elements from traditional tabletop roleplaying games, online games, and strategic board games. He is creating the text-based online game for groups of 5-7 players, led by a game leader, and played in turns that can last up to two weeks. The name of the game, Gekokujō, is Japanese and translates as surpassing one’s superiors.
– The game is based on Feudal Japan when there were changes of power as the small rose to oppose the big. Japanese history is one of my favourite subjects which I get excited about again and again, says Rinne.
Great traditions form a solid base for growth
According to Rinne gathering the material for the game has taken a lot of time. His charts are filling up with data about county ownerships and productivities of provinces in the feudal society. It is crucial for him that the storytelling game gives its players credible and truth based information, which he will publish together with the game.
– I understand why design selection is often done when it comes to content but I want to provide reliable data based on historical events. Designing the actual game and its mechanics is easy for me – the challenge is in how I manage to chart everything and make the mathematics work. The rules of the game need to be in order, otherwise it is just going to be a story, he explains.
Rinne will be working on the game full on in the forthcoming summer when he will also put together the first test group. He hopes to launch the game at the end of summer 2021.
His mission is not to conquer the world because he is working on a niche project targeted at a small group of people interested in Japanese history and strategic gaming. Rinne has already reached one of his goals though, when he received 8 000 euros of funding for his project from the South Savo Regional Fund.
– My main goal is that roleplaying gaming is seen as a respected and funded art form. We have great starting point for doing things in Finland; we have great traditions and good, highly educated developers who produce materials and launch their own games. I hope that the field will continue to develop and that I can get a job out of it, he says.
Jaakko Rinne, game developer and a student of community education, received a grant form South Savo regional Fund in 2020.
Language is more than a communication method. It lays the foundation for learning, self-expression and understanding, and enables the formation of an identity; what we understand about ourselves, and others.
– Language forms the basis for all learning and the way we perceive the world, concludes teacher of early childhood education Katri Borm, who is one of the two founders of Kielinuppu, a producer of pedagogical music for children.
The method was founded as part of a study project four years ago by Borm and Sarah Goncalves, who are both students at the University of Turku’s Department of Teacher Education in Rauma. The inspiration came from the doctoral thesis of Jenni Alisaari at the University of Turku, who concluded that singing is an efficient way to teach a language.
Language lays the foundation for learning, self-expression and understanding, and enables the formation of an identity; what we understand about ourselves, and others.
Personal experiences of what it means to be bi-lingual, gave an even wider perspective to the project. Borm speaks Finnish and German in her family, while Goncalves speaks Portuguese as an addition to Finnish.
– We wanted to create an easy to use tool that is available for everyone. YouTube seemed like a good channel for us because one of our missions is to increase equality. There are many children with migrant backgrounds, and those that have lingual challenges. We wanted to provide every child with an opportunity to get excited and to enjoy learning Finnish through a playful method, Borm says.
From a study project to a life’s work
To this date Kielinuppu has created 47 songs that are easy to learn and absorb. The lyrics stem from everyday events and children’s play. Some of the popular songs teach children about emotions, the names of the weekdays, and numbers.
The songs are targeted at early childhood education professionals, parents of young children and speech therapists, but they are also used in language teaching for immigrants and school children. There has been no marketing – or even a budget for it – but information has passed by word-of-mouth and Kielinuppu videos have now been streamed over 3.5 million times.
– It has been a surprise that so many people have started using Kielinuppu. We are happy that so many children have been able to utilise the songs. For us this has been a once in a lifetime experience, Borm says.
She has produced a joint dissertation with Goncalves about Kielinuppu during their bachelor studies and they have almost completed their master’s thesis. Expanding the method is something that has crossed Borm’s mind but she says that Kielinuppu is, and continues to be, a non-profit product that is available for everyone.
– It’s great that I have been able to take part in starting something new, and I hope that there will be others who come up with something similar. There is an endless supply of possible topics for songs and many ways to create them. I believe in the power of singing and music, yet I don’t know where this all leads to. In that sense this has turned into a life’s work, Borm says.
Katri Borm and Sarah Goncalves have received grants from the Satakunta Regional Fund in 2017 and 2020 for producing musical language learning materials for children in early childhood education.
Priority is given to applicants who are currently living or have born in the region, work carried out in or for the region, and cultural and development projects of special regional importance.
Spearhead projects requiring larger-than-usual funding will receive a minimum of 40,000 euros in the form of one or two grants.Such projects require fresh or exceptional points of view, content, quality, or design.
20,000 euros have been earmarked for Art for Institutions projects in the January round of applications.The aim of this form of support is to promote the equal realisation of cultural rights and to improve the quality of life of people in need of special support or care, through art.The work or project may take place in welfare and nursing institutions or other environments, the residents or users of which may otherwise have limited access to art.Possible institutions include sheltered homes, day centres, and homes of the elderly, hospitals, prisons, reception centres, care units for substance abusers, and child welfare institutions.
The Local Culture Projects grants are specified for projects that aim to preserve and rejuvenate the local culture and cultural environment, such as documenting and increasing awareness of local heritage, as well as histories, exhibitions, and events of local communities and societies.
A person engaged in full-time gainful employment is eligible for a working grant (so called passion grant) for the purpose of carrying out a scientific or an artistic project not related to their full-time work. It is possible to apply for this grant as an individual or as a part of a working group. The size of the project is not specified, but the maximum amount of a working grant per person is limited to 3 000 euros.
For more information go to skr.fi/en/januaryround Please read the application guidelines carefully before sending the application. More information about the regional funds and contact information can be found on skr.fi/en/regional-funds
The application period closes at 4.00 pm on Feb 10. Ask also your referee to submit a reference in the Online Reference Service on the application deadline date.
The artists chosen for these residencies include visual artists Anastasia Artemeva for the Tokyo AIT residence, Parsa Kamehkhosh for the Tokyo Arts and Space residence, Gregoire Rousseau for the IFP residence in Beijing, and writer Tommi Parkko for the residence of the FILBA literature festival in Buenos Aires.
– At the moment I am working on several books and, next fall, probably on particular poems and a non-fiction book on writing poetry.The main thing about residencies is that you can focus on your own work.During this COVID-19 year, I have taken up writing in the middle of the woods.Being alone gives you an opportunity to focus, describes Parkko.
Besides the residencies in Tokyo, Beijing, and Buenos Aires, The Artspace residency in Sydney was open for application.However, during the latter part of the application selection process, in November 2020, The Artspace secured a significant, almost 3.5-million-euro funding to renew its facilities. Because of this, the Artspace will be closed for renovations until the summer of 2022, which meant that it was not possible to select a new artist for the residency.
– Due to the Coronavirus, the Cultural Foundation was forced to postpone all of its 2020 residencies to 2021, which is why selecting new artists was possible only for part of the residencies.Traveling to many of the residency locations is still practically impossible, and we can only hope that it will be possible to carry out both the postponed and these new residencies during 2021, explains Senior Advisor Johanna Ruohonen who oversees the residency programme.
– I hope that the situation with the pandemic will improve by next summer. This year has shown that we must be flexible and give priority to health and safety.At the same time, I believe that cross-border and cross-cultural communication is more vital now than ever, when the movement of people and information is restricted, reflects Artemeva, soon to embark on her Tokyo residency.
A working grant in a Cultural Foundation residency is 7,000 euros for a period of three months.An additional travel grant, the sum of which for remote residencies is 1,000 euros, will be awarded, provided that the journey is made by air.The Cultural Foundation encourages artists traveling to their residencies to choose as climate-friendly means of travel as possible, which is why artists bound for residency destinations reachable by rail and ferry traffic are awarded supplemented travel grants, provided they travel to their residencies by means other than air travel.In these cases, the travel grant to Asian destinations is 5,000 euros.
The residency programme of the Cultural Foundation currently features nine residencies in eight countries.The programme is being developed in co-operation with the Helsinki International Artist Programme (HIAP).The artists applying for the residencies are chosen through a two-stage evaluation process, in which the receiving residency makes the final selection on the basis of the preselection made by the Cultural Foundation.The August application round for the residency programme received a total of 58 applications.
Text: Laura Iisalo
Photos: Laura Iisalo and Weldon Green
PhD Crystal Green is conducting her postdoctoral studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Photo: Weldon Green
A recent graduate from the educational department at the University of Jyväskylä, Crystal Green, headed to the United States with her family soon after her graduation. She is conducting her postdoctoral studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, funded by the Foundations’ Post Doc Pool. Acquiring international experience was a significant, but not an obvious choice.
– I was relieved when I had my PhD done, but I soon realised that it was actually just the beginning; it was as if I had just been born as an academic. Without sufficient support it can be difficult moving forward into a postdoctoral career when a mobility period and international experience are expected in the CV, she says of her experience.
In her postdoctoral research Green looks into how equality and non-discrimination are facilitated in teacher education. She has collected data at two teacher training sites, one in Finland and one in the United States. She will then analyse her findings in order to understand how equality is understood, and what is the role of teacher education in prompting social justice and equality in society.
Green finds it especially important that while marginalisation in a community is often abstracted or reported in quantifiable terms, it actually stems from real-life human experiences.
“Painful experiences can be used as a power to better understand other people and the situation they are in.”
– It was amazing and very emotional to witness pre-service teachers talk about their personal experiences of discrimination. These painful experiences can be used as a power to better understand other people and the situation they are in. Educator Paulo Freire used to say that education is about becoming more fully human, and we bring ourselves and our experiences into education. I also believe that ultimately the goal should be to humanise education, she says.
When her two years in California come to an end, Green hopes to return to Finland to continue her academic career. Her current goal is to become docent eligible by gathering the required evidence to meet the qualifying criteria.
– It is really well understood in Finland what the importance of teacher education is, and what it means to society. I also find academia there very open and forward thinking. It can get very competitive in the United States and I feel like I’m currently running a sprint. In Finland the research pace leaves more time for thinking, which I think is very important, says Green.
A multidisciplinary research community provides new perspectives
Postdoctoral researcher Kreeta Niemi was awarded a grant from the Post doc pool for an academic year at UCLA. Photo:Laura Iisalo
Postdoctoral researcher Kreeta Niemi, who graduated from the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Jyväskylä in 2016, is also heading to the United States in October 2021. She chose UCLA because of its multidisciplinary research community – and also because so many pioneers and current top researchers in interaction studies come from California.
– Los Angeles is the mecca for conversation analysis, which is my main research method. Interaction is a very wide phenomenon, which requires a multidisciplinary approach and I’m very excited to collaborate with international scholars and colleagues from varying fields. But I’m not only going there to learn, I hope to give something to the community too, she says.
Niemi is planning to take with her the data that she has collected over three years in research funded by the Academy of Finland, in which she has looked into children’s interaction in modern learning environments. Her goal is to find out what kind of opportunities and constraints those entail.
There are currently 33 schools in Finland that are classified as modern learning environments, and in the future flexible and versatile spaces will be the norm. The trend goes hand in hand with the phenomenon-based learning approach, which aims to study problems stemming from the real world with a holistic approach.
– Studying in an open learning environment is more project-based, self-guided, and technology has a greater role. Those are all good things but require adequate support and guidance. At its best this kind of environment enables new ways to get closer to society and adapt to the evolving needs of the world, Niemi says.
She hopes that the research will give new information that teachers, educational professionals and, for instance, architects can use to develop more efficient learning environments.
– There is a lot of potential involved in supporting self-direction and community building but these spaces need to adapt to multiple uses, and enclosed spaces are also needed. In Finland the teachers are genuinely keen to develop learning environments and practices. A bit of time is just required for everything to come together, Niemi concludes.
The Post Doc Pool’s Spring Call is open from 15 Dec 2020 until 31 Jan 2021. For more information go to postdocpooli.fi/en
PhD Crystal Green received a Post doc pool’s grant in 2020 and 2021 for her research concerning Social Justice and Equity Promotion in Teacher Education.
PhD Kreeta Niemi received a Post do pool’s grant in 2021 for hes sresearch concerning Rethinking Learning and Teaching within Modern Learning Environments.
Lotta Jokiniemi received a grant to for her research in Barcelona University.
Altogether 122 post-doctoral scholars from around Finland took part in the autumn application round. Thus a grant could be awarded to 25 % of the applicants.
Amongst others the Cultural Foundation awarded Neda Neisi, whose comprehensive study of the AMB supported rotor; Normal operation and rotor dropdown, received a 54 000 euros funding. Medical Doctor Lauri Holmström received a 70 000 euros funding for his study of Genetic underpinnings of sudden cardiac arrest due to non-ischemic myocardial diseases.
Doctor of Philosophy, Lotta Jokiniemi, will conduct her study in Spain, in the University of Barcelona. Her study of neutrino scattering of atomic nuclei in connection to new physics Beyond the Standard Model (BMS) received a 38 000 euros funding.
You can find all the Cultural Foundation’s post doc grantees here.
An important support for young researchers
Säätiöiden post doc -pooli has proven to be an important instrument of research funding which has enabled young scholars with families to finance research periods at top universities abroad. The grants awarded by the Pool are determined flexibly in accordance with the applicant’s needs and they often include their family’s moving expenses and children’s day care or school fees.
The Pool has a role in making Finnish research more international. After twenty-two application rounds over 600 scholars have already received funding through the Pool for at least a one-year research period abroad.One third of the grantees have received a two-year funding.
The Pool’s next application round will take place from 15 December 2020 until 31 January 2021, when some 1.6 million euro will be given in grants. The results of this round will be published in April 2021.
The Säätiöiden post doc -pooli was set up in the autumn of 2009. During the fourth three-year-period 2019-2021 there are thirteen foundations involved, allocating altogether 3.2 million euro annually to the pool. The Pool’s foundations are Emil Aaltonen’s Foundation, Alfred Kordelin Foundation, the Foundation for Economic Education, the Paulo Foundation, Päivikki and Sakari Sohlberg Foundation, Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Finnish Medical Foundation, Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland, the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland, Finnish Foundation for Technology Promotion, Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation and the Ulla Tuominen’s Foundation.
Further information: www.postdocpooli.fi, info(at)postdocpooli.fi or from coordinator Mikko-Olavi Seppälä, tel. + 358 400 868 006
The approach for Argumenta is emphatically cross-disciplinary. Although the same problems are often studied in different disciplines, it may be difficult to find a common language for formulating solutions. The purpose of Argumenta grants is to apply interdisciplinary dialogue to producing new answers and conclusions for challenging issues in society, and to communicate these results to a broader audience than the academic community.
Professor Eeva Furman and the Sustainability Panel Community team from the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) received EUR 110,000 for their Six Paths to Sustainability project.
There are many worrying trends in the world: inequality is growing, biodiversity is shrinking, climate change is advancing and waste is accumulating. A conscious and quick paradigm shift is needed: a sustainability revolution.
– For most people, even the term ‘sustainability revolution’ is unfamiliar and off-putting. For people to understand it and be prepared to act accordingly, new methods and ways of talking about it are needed, Furman says. The Six Paths to Sustainability project brings together researchers from various disciplines with ordinary people to verbalise the sustainability revolution.
Next year, the topic will be discussed in libraries and museums all around Finland, with people working together to create pictorial, verbal and aural stories. These will help in shaping a shared understanding of what constitutes sustainable food and energy, how urbanisation and the economy can become sustainable, and what new opportunities there are for well-being.
– A revolutionary turn onto a sustainable path is still possible. We trust that everyone in Finland wants to be involved in building a safe future for us all, Furman explains.
Panu Halme, PhD, and his team from the University of Jyväskylä received EUR 150,000 for their project Towards a Common Understanding on Changes in Sustainability of Forest Use.
There are many players taking part in efforts to determine the sustainability of forestry in public discussion. “Forestry operators and their stakeholders have their own interests, based on which they tend to brand the forest industry as either highly sustainable or completely unsustainable. This causes debates on forestry sustainability to go around in circles. What the situation especially demands is a broader, science-based evaluation and definition of sustainability-related concepts, and improvements to how they can be measured,” says Halme.
The project brings together researchers and stakeholders with an interest in the sustainability of forest use, to discuss what the elements of sustainability are in Finnish forestry. The objective is to identify the elements of sustainability that the various players consider important when measuring and evaluating sustainability. The project will analyse the principles of measuring these various elements, as well as the related challenges; develop indicators for assessing progress in these elements; and generate methods for visualising the conflicts in these elements, as well as their impacts.
Assistant Professor Panu Savolainen and his team at Aalto University received EUR 145,000 for their project Sustainable Construction, Techno-Economic Perspectives and the Value of Architectural Heritage.
Photo: Annakaisa Tavast
The life cycle of the built environment has a significant impact on the fulfilment of targets related to a sustainable, carbon-neutral society. Finland’s building stock is being renewed at an increasing pace, however, and even in city centres younger and younger buildings are being torn down. The topic is regularly brought up in the media.
– The factors affecting the life cycle of buildings are financial, technical, functional and heritage-related, as well as ones of urbanisation, location and ownership patterns. Parallel to these are questions of the society’s values and opinions, politics and economic control. Due to the differences between these fields and methods, each argument is very different. So far, especially in the public domain, discussions have mostly consisted of recognising the problem and bringing it up sporadically, Savolainen explains.
– Currently the demolition of modern buildings is not debated enough between various experts, nor is the debate sufficiently deep or solution-centric. Publicly, discussions are led by a reliance on authorities and heightened emotions. Future opinion leaders – children and young people – are not included in understandable and easily accessible ways, Savolainen says. The purpose of the project is to deepen and increase public debate on the fate of modern buildings, and on the various points of view involved. The aim is to build dialogue between academic disciplines and with the public, and to make this dialogue more understandable for the society and for political decision-makers.
When Monika Czyżyk built a rocket: on bamboo, synchronicity, and subconscious memories
An interview by Athanasía Aarniosuo
As soon as Monika arrived in Beijing she met Hu Wenna, an urban planner who works with revitalisation of villages at China Academy of Urban Planning and Design – CAUPD. She invited Monika to visit Anhui province in order to experience life in traditional Chinese villages. Monika was welcomed by social worker Wang Zheng, who introduced her to local people in Shangcun and Wanjian villages. It was a busy time with many revitalisation projects taking place. Monika witnessed coffee workshops and was welcomed to document them. Filming was a means of communication between Monika and the local people, with the camera acting as a very natural, kind communication tool.
As CAUPD was interested in the presence of artists in the village, Monika proposed a process of building an outdoor bamboo rocket sculpture together with the local community, which initiated a process of performances, workshops, sharing knowledge and learning from one another.
Installation view Bamboocene Memories of Synchronicity 2020. Photo: Laura Mainiemi
While working with bamboo, Monika discovered that bamboo plants flower at the same time all over the world if they are derived from the same mother plant, regardless of geographical location or climate. It was a magical thought, Monika found, that showed her how amazing the bamboo plant really is. The unique flowering impressed her so much that this moment of synchronicity is also featured in the documentary film about rocket-building.
The resulting documentary film, I Want to Build a Rocket, has been displayed together with various mixed-media sculptures such as bamboo root masks which hang on a metal globe made by Monika’s father, clusters of wood that were used to build the rockets (with the help of the Finnish Astronautical Society), red Finnish thermoses that were referenced during filming, sculptures of dragonflies, green mesh, and led lights.
Currently, Monika is showing the work in an exhibition curated by Kathryn Zazenski for Stroboskop Art Space in Warsaw, Poland, until the end of November. The work is a variation of an exhibition she put on at Myymälä2 gallery in Helsinki. In Poland, Monika is showing one additional work: a banner featuring a composition of a print of two condiments, Majonez Kielecki from her hometown in Poland and a well-recognized condiment from China. The banner combines memories with local products, while the composition has been arranged to represent the Polish flag. Patterns of behaviour come from subconscious memories, for people just like bamboo plants. The banner contextualises and introduces the objects – in this case the condiment jars – while touching on another similarity between Poland and China: in both countries the communist and post-communist times are visible, with different eras and different styles being present in the architecture of the cities.
Monika very much enjoyed putting on an exhibition in Poland and felt very inspired. She feels the artistic community is very strong, with artists all helping each other, arranging things on their own, and communicating. Working in Poland for some time is something Monika feels could be on the cards in the future.
Memories of Synchronicity (Polish Flag), 2020, banner print, 432 x 220 x 0,5 cm. Stroboskop Art Space. Photo: Bartosz Zalewski.
In the nearby future, Monika would like to continue working on the film, making a condensed screening version of it. She is also going to continue working on a finalized version of a collaborative catalogue, the prototype for which was exhibited alongside her film and sculptural works in Myymälä2 gallery in September 2020. In addition, she will return to an ongoing project from 2016, in which she addresses issues of body, gender, and learning, through Barbie-dolls and videos of her female friends telling stories about their lives. She is also planning a new documentary film situated in various allotment gardens in Poland and Finland.
But first, she will take a much-needed break.
(The interview continues after the image.)
Monika Czyżyk, Geographies of a lonely Pole, 2020, bamboo poles with carved drawings by Torsten Zenas. Photo: Laura Mainiemi
AA: You have recently been traveling around the world, getting to know the area and the local people, and documenting stories. Is your work fiction, travelogue, or documentary?
MC: I often mix documentary interviews with staged scenes. A kind of participatory docu-fiction is often created blurring the research and adding new elements the meaning of which is not entirely clear until the final montage. I think this genre relates to my understanding of the world and creation of art works in general.
Every project I have participated in or activated is very different and based on a specific context and collaboration. There is a notion of a documentary filmmaker in my practice, I react to my surroundings, situations and people I am in contact with. I am always capturing moving image files with a digital camera. I mostly work in local contexts, creating collaborative situations with others to develop community-based performances, stories and acts with co-created fictional elements that combine the shared documented experiences of the participants.
Over the years I have participated in different global residency programs. Usually I enter the new space with some initial thoughts and ideas, often looking for collaborators or participants involved in a local workshop, screening, or other similar situation. I have been lucky to meet really fantastic people during these encounters. Once the energy and motivations are right, I dedicate my time to focus on work in a very specific place and community and often these projects are developed over many years. That’s how I began to work on projects with Footprints of David, a performance group based in the Bariga area of Lagos, Nigeria and with local residents located in Anhui province, China.
AA: What interests you most in experiencing a new culture, and what have you gained the most from past travels?
MC: I sense the romantic image of a traveler in this question.
I am actually not sure how to answer this question. What interests me is the unknown, the unpredictable, thecoincidental, the intuitive, the hospitable, the risk, the trust, the sharable, the memorable, the smiles, the smells. There are so many different styles of travel.
I think I have been always questioning my identity and my belonging to a certain place. The necessity of the escape is my inner drive. All experiences are shaping who we are. I have gained knowledge, experiences, memories, friends, proof that the Earth is not flat.
Being born in 1989 and raised in Poland during some very politically transformative years I think my father implemented the ideas of adventure and exploration in me. I have a genuine interest in meeting people with different backgrounds than myself.
AA: Some of your films and installations evoke images of science fiction and awe. What inspires you?
MC: I would actually say that my main interests are in the realm of docu-fiction and experimental video art. I have been truly inspired by Leslie Thornton’s media works, especially her ongoing Peggy and Fred series, and artist and filmmaker Melanie Bonajo. I also have had the opportunity of seeing in person several films and installations by the outstanding Michel Auder. As far as inspiring and thought provoking conversations goes, I have had the fortune of conversing with the visual artist and theorist Thomas Zummer. Other important filmmakers that continue to inspire me over the years are the films of Agnes Varda and Jean Luc Godard. Another area of inspiration for me exists in global techno culture and dancing.
AA: There’s a sense of optimism and beauty to a lot of your sci-fi work. How do you see the future?
MC: Science fiction for me is a tool to engage the present. Speculative themes are explored in many of the video pieces and often shown through ambiguous performance rituals or through animations that explore new states of being. I enjoy working with technical collaborators coming up with both virtual and physical places, costumes and scenes that may or may not exist in some new reality. I am cautiouslly optimistic about the future transforming through culture. Although observing recent global events, I would need to find some special powers to keep that optimism going.
Still from the documentary film I Want to Build a Rocket, 2020.
AA: You are interested in events that occur simultaneously. Do you have any personal theory about how these coincidences occur?
MC: I guess I would like to believe in some kind of connectivity between humans, time and places we have lived in. It’s a desire to be in multiple places simultaneously. Adesire of sharing a level of understanding that goes beyond national, historical, cultural and spiritual contexts and differences. I would like to think that synchronicity and serendipity are embedded in a cosmic blueprint. Being lost in any artistic project is one way to enter. Stay open! Don’t always have a plan! Open perfect.
AA: You touch upon the subject of “the unique bamboo flowering which happens at the same time all over the world irrespective of their geographical location and climate as long as they were derived from the same mother plant”. Did you purposefully want to address issues of cultural identity and belonging?
MC: I definitely question issues related to identity and belonging. As our subjectivity is built up on certain grounds, we have the necessity to question, destroy, reinvent and destabilise, now more than ever. In my film, while recording scenes of Chinese revitalization I was sensitive to the saying ‘przepis na zachod’ (recipe for Westernization) taking root. I was also thinking about this in the context of my family and Poland in the 1980’s.
AA: You collaborate often with Torsten Zenas Burns. How did your paths and intentions cross?
MC: In 2015, we met at UnionDocs in Brooklyn, NY. while I was participating in a video screening. Over the next few months we started our ongoing series of video and performance works called Monstersweet in New York City, Helsinki and at a residency program called Signal Culture. We actually just finished the latest version which was recently shown in MUU gallery in September. It’s very exciting to collaborate with Torsten. We naturally combine our skills and research interests. Torsten’s usage of performance art and playfulness with analog transformations of the moving image goes in pair and enriches my documentarian and archival moving image working process. As a result, we often produce media works in a genre of docu-fiction with influences from global speculative fictions. Currently we are collaborating on electronic publishing projects related to my residency experience in China.
AA: Can you offer us a glimpse into what’s coming next?
MC: Like everybody on the planet, I am hoping a vaccine is developed and travel opportunities can resume. I am really looking forward one day to returning to China’s Anhui province and visiting all the amazing participants and collaborators that helped make my new film. They have not seen it yet and I would like to screen it for them. I also had a connection with a Chinese art publishing group based in Beijing, in the same building as the IFP residency program I went to. I am really excited to collaborate with them creating new exhibition, film and graphic novel catalogues for distribution in art international book fairs in the coming years.
Monika Czyżyk and Torsten Zenas Burns, Geographies of a lonely Pole, 2020, 24 bamboo poles. Photo: Batosz Zalewski
