ENLIGHTMENT MACHINE – 12 EXERCISES
The Other Spaces Live Art group has become renowned for its performative enactments, where it embodies more-than-human phenomena and states. This time, the transformative exercises the group has developed study the most heightened form of human experience, the enlightenment.
Photo Paula Tella
THE ANGLE OF WATER 104,45˚ VIDEO SERIES
The newest production by the Other Spaces Collective is video series with 8 episodes The Angle of Water 104.45˚. The series invites spectators to try out different manifestations of water, and to approach the particularities of water as a chemical substance through bodily exercises.
The episodes are available on Vimeo.
Photo Jenni Kokkomäki
DISCONNECTED SPACE
Disconnected space is a durational performance, that transforms the lonely walk in the urban space into a collective, playful exercise, that is based on the practices of walking, reading and writing.
Photo Jaakko Ruuska
COLLECTION OF IMAGINARY BEINGS
The participatory workshop-performance opens the door to a space, where the creatures of past, present, and future generations can get together. The performance invites people from 6-years-olds and above to imagine together and share their imaginations during the event, that takes place in museums or libraries.
Picture Hieronymus Bosch
POSTHUMAN THEATRE
Posthuman Theatre is an experimental performance project organised in collaboration between LUST Association and the Other Spaces Live Art collective during the year 2019. The facilitator of the project is Esa Kirkkopelto, Live Artist, philosopher and the founding member of the Other Spaces collective.
The aim of the project is to develop the idea of the non-human acting in practice: how is it possible, what does it require from a performer and what kind of theatre will it produce? The project aims at inventing, developing and demonstrating new kinds of body techniques, as well as new kinds of corporeal thinking and dramaturgy.
Photo Finnish National Gallery / Pirje Mykkänen
ELISENVAARA-PIEKSÄMÄKI: RECONNECTIONS
Elisenvaara-Pieksämäki: Reconnections is a wandering performance at the partly abandoned railway between Pieksämäki (Finland) and Elisenvaara (Russia). The project repossesses these areas which are now in the shadows of cultural and economical action, through the means of Live Art. Performances at different locations in the area are targeted for people living along the railway. In the performances, we move along the unused portions of the railway, with ways of moving like draisines, steam engine and walking, that experientially bring us back to the birth period of the railtracks.
Photo Jaakko Ruuska
TOURING PERFORMANCES
GREAT BARRIER REEF
The Great Barrier Reef near the coast of Australia is the largest coral reef in the world, a unique and endangered ecosystem. In the Great Barrier Reef performance we visit the coral reef without travelling far. The participants, adults and children of all ages together, form a living and constantly changing corporeal construction, a large human coral reef. Great Barrier Reef begins with a workshop part where we learn to collectively build the underground world of the coral reef.
Photo Alte Oper Frankfurt / © Achim Reissnern
AVALOKITESHVARA SUPERCLUSTERS
Avalokiteshvara Superclusters is a collective exercise in compassion. The goal is the experience of the equality of all beings and creatures in the universe. The performance combines Avalokiteshvara, the Buddhist embodiment of compassion, with superclusters, the largest known structures of the universe.Our aim is cosmic compassion, a limitless compassion towards all beings, regardless of their size, scale and position in the universe. The challenge of cosmic compassion involves all of us, and to respond to this challenge we need to practice. Avalokiteshvara Superclusters brings us to the beginning of this practice!
Picture Paula Tella
HUMANOID HYPOTHESIS
Do I believe in humanoids? The humanoid is a modern experience of which every one of us has both cultural and personal understanding. We “know” what humanoids look like, how they think and what they do, regardless of whether we believe in their existence or not. As much as humanoids contribute to our everyday experience, we have – perhaps without noticing – become humanoids.
Humanoid Hypothesis brings to the forefront the inner humanoid found in all of us. We learn to recognize the humanoid in ourselves and others, and take part in posthumanistic discussion: what will come after the human? Do we dare to imagine the human being of the future?
Photo Finnish National Gallery / Pirje Mykkänen
WOLF SAFARI
What is it like to be wild? In Wolf Safari our goal is to visit the experiential world of the wolf. Because the wolf is a social pack animal, we approach the experience of the wolf collectively, as a social process. We borrow a few features from the wolf, that let us encounter each other and the nocturnal city from the viewpoint of a hunting pack animal. The process of transformation to a wolf happens gradually during the hunting.
Photo Paula Tella
REINDEER SAFARI
Reindeer Safari is an award winning participatory performance by the Other Spaces collective. Urban space and wild nature collide as we leave our human selves to become reindeer for a day! The participants of Reindeer Safari form a reindeer herd, moving silently across the landscape, at times wandering, at times grazing and resting.
The Safari participants restore the urban landscape to a natural state by observing it from the point of view of a semi-domestic, semi-wild herd animal – a reindeer. The transition from human to reindeer viewpoint is acquired gradually and effortlessly during the wandering.
Photo Jaakko Ruuska
CAR PARK
If I were a car…
Car Park is a performance that takes place literally in a space reserved for cars, in an underground car park which is normally reserved for cars only. A space that is mostly used only for exit or transit is transformed into a subject of shared exploration. A car park or highway is a space for people’s cars, not for the car owners themselves.
What happens if the cars are replaced by humans? What if the rush to exit the space could be replaced with easy lingering? What will be revealed and how does it alter our relationships to other people?
Photo Paula Tella
OTHER PROJECTS
TRIPIT
The core of the work of Other Spaces consists of collective physical exercises through which people can visit “other spaces”, i.e. modes of being and experience other than human.
At the TRIPIT! Festival organized regularly at Suvilahti, Helsinki, Other Spaces realises some of the group’s trippiest and most enjoyable exercises together with the audience. The festival is a day long event where you can join in at any time.
Picture Paula Tella
OPERATION SNOWFLAKE
In Operation Snowflake we perform our collective’s exercises that form visual social choreographies, in ways determined by weather conditions.
The goal has been to organize Operation Snowflake on the Sunday before Mardi Gras on the ice at Töölönlahti, Helsinki, but during the years 2014-19, the ice conditions have made it impossible or too dangerous. Operation Snowflake has thus become a very concrete indicator of climate change.
Photo Pasi Kirkkopelto
WORKSHOPS
The exercises and practices developed by Other Spaces broaden and alter:
I our accustomed sense of ourselves,
II our accustomed sense of each other,
III our relationship to the universe as a whole.
The exercises are easy and suited to individuals of all ages and fitness levels. No previous experience is required. Other Spaces workshops are an enjoyable way to be temporarily liberated from our habitual human shape and identity.
Photo Laura Jantunen
Some other performances and projects of the Other Spaces collective are:
ANIARA
GOLEM
ODRADEK
PANPSYCHIC SESSIONS
ETERNAL RECESS
WINTER WANDERING