HUMANOID SPACE
Photo Timo Jokitalo / Anna Luttinen
HUMANOID SPACE 8.8.-21.9.2025
Welcome to Humanoid Space – a place where the boundary between human and non-human gets fuzzy and reality obtains a new form. The Other Spaces collective invites you to step into a world where our inner humanoid has space to breathe, move and express itself. A simple but imaginative exercise opens up a chance to observe our lives through a different view – as if we were ourselves alien observers in our own world.
The Humanoid Space exhibition transforms the Critical Gallery into a living, changing installation. At first the space is controlled by humans, but little by little it becomes the territory of humanoids – not just physically, but also contextually and semantically. What happens, when we allow existence that doesn’t respect the conditions of humanity? Through Humanoid Space we open up a window to otherness – but at the same time it mirrors our own selves in a deep way. It asks: what will we become, when we no longer remain mere humans?
The exhibition doesn’t obey the rules of a traditional performance. The humanoids may show themselves, move, observe – or stay hidden. You might glimpse them, through curtains or in a passing moment. The installation lives by their acts, and you can sense the change: something has shifted, even if you didn’t see it happening.
Humanoid Space is an experience of what happens when we allow ourselves to observe the world without the obviousness so common to humanity. It is an opportunity to be silent, observative, and perhaps, for a moment, to become something else.
HUMANOID SPACE SCHEDULE
Opening 7.8.2025 at 18–20, including the Critical Club (at 19–20).
The exhibition is open 8.8. – 21.9.2025 Tue-Sun, 12 – 18. Free entry!
Look here how Humanoid Spaces has transformed during the exhibitionWhen humanoids are present at the gallery, we will give them privacy for their own activities. At such times, you can peek through the curtains and possibly get a glimpse of the humanoids. It may also be possible to notice the humanoid outside in the vicinity of the gallery.
The humanoids are present most likely on the following days:
Mon 11. – Tue 12.8.
Mon 25. – Tue 26.8.
Mon 8.- Tue 9.9.
The exhibition also invites you to get in general familiar with the Other Spaces collective and its artistic practice.
Critical Gallery (Kriittinen galleria)
Art House Turku, Building C, ground floor (courtyard), Nunnankatu 4, 20700 Turku, Finland
kriittinengalleria.fi
HUMANOIDITILA WORKING GROUP
As humanoids in the gallery the following Other Spaces artists: Hanna Heino, Timo Jokitalo, Heli Keto, Maarit Myllynen, Anu Nirkko, Judit Kemppilä, Eeva Kemppi, Kati Korosuo, Kaisa-Liisa Logrén, Helena Ratinen.
Convener Timo Jokitalo
Production Timo Jokitalo, Eeva Kemppi and Hanna Romo
Graphic Design Maarit Myllynen
Photos Timo Jokitalo, Anna Luttinen
In cooperation with Critical Gallery
HISTORY
Humanoid Space is based on the Humanoid Hypothesis performances (Helsingin Yliopisto 2015, Kiasma 2017) and peformance live artist and philosopher Esa Kirkkopelto’s essay Humanoidihypoteesi (Humanoid Hypothesis). Humanoid Hypothesis workshops have been performed, among others, at Emma museum (Espoo, Finland), the Jyväskylä art museum and the Brighton Fringe festival in England.
WHAT IS HUMANOID?
What is a humanoid? The word means a human-like, human-shaped, but non-human entity. Humanoids are familiar to all of us: we have seen them in drawing, advertisements and movies. We have read science fiction stories about them, that tell us where they have come from. We can reflect on them and talk about what humanoids are like, how they think, and how they act, regardless of whether we believe in their existence or not.
The Other Spaces collective has been interested in the humanoid for several years already. According to the collective’s humanoid hypothesis, the humanoid is a modern experience to all of us, of which we all have accumulated cultural and personal understanding. Through this understanding, we all have our own inner humanoid, which gives us awareness of otherness and difference without any given model. According to the hypothesis, it is meaningful to learn to awaken this inner humanoid, and to observe our own life, and the lives of others, with the forms it suggests.
THE EXERCISE
The Other Spaces collective has come up with a simple technique whose goal is to awaken the inner humanoid present in all of us. When you perform this exercise, you become a humanoid, in other words you reach the viewpoint of a human-shaped observer from outside this world. The humanoid exercise brings a condensed experience of otherness, through which the phenomena of the human world obtain new meanings and forms. Although the state produced by the exercise is almost invisible to the untrained eye, it opens up vast vistas to the person experiencing it.
HOW DO I RECOGNIZE A HUMANOID?
In general, you don’t recognize a humanoid, unless the humanoid decides to show itself. The state produced by the exercise is almost invisible to the untrained eye, and you can’t reliably see it from the outside.
Most of the time the humanoid artfully hides among humans. There are however sometimes signs from which you can guess that someone is a humanoid. A humanoid may act in faintly weird ways. It can use ever so slightly odd words, or the rhythm of its speecs might be unusual. Mostly, the humanoid remains silent, because the production of speech may be tiresome to it. The humanoid might move in an exaggeratedly ponderous and thoughtful way. Sometimes you may witness a humanoid observing keenly a thing that a human might not remark at all.
Mostly, a humanoid can only be reliably identified if it decides to make a recognizable sign.
