Could you tell us about the background and starting point of this project?
Things form through encounters. A cloud begins to form when warm, moist air rises to meet lower temperatures. A shadow forms when rays of light meet an opaque object placed in their path. A cloud and its shadow began with a meeting between Reality Research Center (RRC) and Moving in November.
Things change relative to one another. This isn’t the first time that Reality Research Center and Moving in November meet. In previous years, performances from RRC’s members have been presented in the festival, e.g. Tuomas Laitinen’s Audience Body and Matilda Aaltonen’s and Veli Lehtovaara’s Performing Animalities – A Praxis in 2022.
Things find each other in memory time when there are no memories. A cloud and its shadow challenges one of the elementary structures of reality, time. RRC’s members artists Emma Fält and Alina Sakko are invited to review the RRC’s members performances from 2022 without having experienced them.
“Things are transformed one into another according to necessity”.1 Clouds appear when there is too much water vapour for the air to hold. A shadow appears to make the light visible to one’s eye. Getting resources for local artists becomes harder and harder for international festivals. Getting resources for Finnish artists becomes harder and harder due to the current government policies. “Remember the light and believe the light”.2
As though conjured
by conditions;
as though constellations
fretted something
to existence; as though
larger arrangements […]
produced brief real things
in real places.
– Kay Ryan, “Brief real things”
Things experience time according to their altitude. This year, Reality Research Center introduced a new series of seminars under the title How do I research reality?. The series is a way for Reality Research members to encounter and learn from each other’s research on reality and to think forward on how reality research could be developed and with it, how RRC can respond to this development. This year, Moving in November introduces the Focus on the Local Landscape program, as a political initiative to shed light to the local scene. These relative times gravitate towards each other on the 16th of November.
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1. Anaximander in Carlo Rovelli, The Order of Time, Riverhead book, New York, 2018.
2. Tindersticks, “4.48 Psychosis” based on Sarah Kane’s play, on the album “Waiting for the Moon”.
Brief real things persist. This program aims to bring together artworks, artists, a collective, and a festival to express admiration, gratitude, and respect to all the individuals, communities, and forces that, through their generosity and dedication, make creating and experiencing art possible.
“Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
– Mary Oliver, “Poem 133: The Summer Day”
How do you situate your artistic work within the Finish performing arts landscape?
For over 20 years, Reality Research Center (RRC) has played a pivotal role in establishing Performance and Live Art within the Finnish cultural landscape, and has carried out more than 100 performance projects. As a collective of performing arts professionals, we are driven by a shared passion for the study of reality—observing, questioning, and renewing it. Performance is both our method of research and the outcome. We believe that art expands the spectrum of reality.
Most of our performances unfold beyond traditional art spaces, taking place in diverse settings such as forests, offices, streets, boxing rings, virtual reality, parliament, and even people’s homes. These unconventional environments demand exceptional care for our audience, and over the years, we have developed various effective strategies for audience engagement. The audiences and their experience are central to our work, which is why we often refer to them not just as spectators, but as experiencers, participants, or even co-authors.
In addition to performances, our activities include publishing (Esitys Magazine, the online publication Ice Hole – The Live Art Journal, and Taiteen paikka which is published in collaboration with Voima magazine), projects in cooperation with local residents and communities, and course activities such as the Queer Dance Group.
In Reality Research Center, we are committed to exploring the boundaries of Live Art and rethinking how to diversify the field, especially in the Finnish context. We aim to develop new forms that address and challenge the inaccessibility of Live Art, broaden our member base and audiences, and inform our working structures in terms of equity. In the current political climate, this is a necessary, daring move and an almost impossible performance, consistent with the collective’s long history of challenging reality and experimenting with emancipatory art practices.