Directing
Self-Accusation is partially based on Peter Handke's 1966 play of the same title. Handke's text is dramatized in a video within the video. In the frame narrative, the maker of the video receives a violent critique. The work deals with submission, living by the rules, and dreams of beauty and freedom.
The Artist feels ambivalent about how it has all turned out, how what we see relates to what they had intended. We see: a beautiful mountain landscape and a man moving through it. He is playing the role of The Artist's future son investigating their death. More images follow, and The Artist tries to explain them, but is unsure of their relation to the proposed plot. They feel disconnected not only from the original ideas for the piece, but also from the situation of filming it. More alpine landscape, cartoonishly beautiful, it was all somehow supposed to be about love. The son/protagonist opens a fortune cookie while The Artist explains that they had found it randomly in a bank. Now we see The Artist drawing. They find the aspiration apparent in the drawings embarrassing. To desire, to want, is to make oneself vulnerable.
A demonstration of two legs in knee high socks attempting to keep balance on some blocks of ice cream.
"Disclaimer: I acknowledge that this video is not a sufficient response to the ongoing crises of the Earth." — J.P.
A self-parodying portrait of contemporary artistic genius, of the guises in which the notion of genius carries on even when no one wants to acknowledge their attachment to it. The video begins with a fantasy of your former art school contacting you on your deathbed, but their acknowledgement comes too late, history cannot be reversed. We see faces browsing the internet head on, shot through webcams. These portraits are layered over shots of The Artist holding them like framed paintings. One of the people portrayed reads the “stage directions” they received from The Artist, then the lines proper: internal reflections on abilities and self-image. Ideas follow from a process, but is this really "reverse engineering" as the video suggests, or the normal course of things.
He is dog-like. I'm into dog-ness in others.
Diamonds don't shine, they reflect.
How quickly the footage of the empty art school takes on the eerie quality of ruins. A putty sculpture becomes the chipped-away head of a Greek medusa from a thousand years ago. Now medusa becomes myth. Art education is relegated to the ancient past—and is then juxtaposed with the future, figured in the stark Nordic architecture of a residency program that doubles as a start-up hub.
Over a blue screen, a voiceover narrates The Artist’s experience of a sanatorium, where they were supposed to make a piece of art, but did not.
A cyber goth in her thirties makes dance videos at home, seeking freedom and the truth in a society obsessed with productivity and success. Her mode of living is persistently challenged by an older brother, whose caring and love come with a strive to transform her sister. The sibling drama takes a new turn upon the goth's encounter with a dance prodigy whose brilliance seems to leave everyone else in darkness. The film draws from the thoughts of the philosopher and activist Simone Weil (1909-1943), medievalism and cyberculture amongst other influences, viewing work, art and dance as war.
Pallasvuo claims that "the most beautiful things are torn, revealing something underneath". Bringing together grunge music, Georges Bataille, the story of doubting Thomas and open-pit mining, Pallasvuo allows a glimpse into his obsession with holes. Online-sourced references accelerate in front of our eyes, pulling us deeper into the abyss.
A sarcastic, fairytale-like voice narrates a story, a contemporary take on Decamerone, in which plague spreads across the EU from the east, killing all those infected within a day. Small communities of survivors begin to form. We see one huddling together on a stage. Saved by the coolness of its members, the community does its utmost to preserve it. It is the condition of their continued survival. Despite these efforts their clique gets infected. Fractions emerge, the uncool get banished, the cool stay and dance til the end. The film is part stand-alone fiction, part documentary interpretation of the work of the theatre collective Vibes.
A confessional narrative sequence revealed in a toilet.
Blending the old with the new, Pallasvuo assembles a mélange of voiceover, found footage, and digital graphics and software icons into a poetic, essay-like structure that contemplates the life and career of art house cinema legend Ingmar Bergman, along with the history of cinema and the mechanics of filmmaking, social media, and various other tropes. Bergmanproduces a saccharine and sentimental tone that feels both sincere and insincere, emblematic of the emotional ambiguity of modern digital culture.
Life in the shadow of Picasso is tedious. White balance, overlaid images, rendering. You have to put up with his moods, his narcissism, his disregard of your needs. How do you manage to maintain yourself in the face of all that, and is it still better than being alone? Behind the power relations there is viscerality. We see a man’s torso, “Picasso’s”, smeared in melted vanilla ice-cream, taking selfies. Does power trickle down, like viscous liquid on skin? Do you think you are better off alone? Picasso reverted to a beast as he grew less understood with age, and with this secured his status. We don't know what is going on in our world but Picasso continues to exist in his tunnel vision.
Sacre 2: HEX is the second part of The Sacre Trilogy by Anni Puolakka and Jaakko Pallasvuo. The solemn cybergoth dance enthusiast introduced in the first part of the trilogy (Sacre, 2015) has graduated into a smug Wiccan vlogger. Her formerly know-it-all brother has fallen on hard times and now needs her help. Family relations entangle with work anxiety. Virtual and material survival tactics get tested. Spiritual, financial and social layers mesh in money-burning rituals. A damaged sibling dynamic is further destabilized by a seductive alien.
Some Men Are Islands is divided into three parts. All parts deal with life events in and around the city of Turku, a town on the west coast of Finland. The first part is about a poorly attended exhibition opening. After the opening a work is burned on the parking lot behind the gallery. The second part is about being drunk and about ethics. The third part is about Utö, an island off the coast. The work is also about work, neurotically reflecting on its own form and means of production.
It’s 1967, 2015, 2515, 10000 AD. Simon and Garfunkel are travelling through time. Seeking an answer to their growing sadness and anxiety, brought on in part by climate change, they head to the coast, they are incarcerated, they visit a botanical garden… Above the tree line and into the Arctic Circle, they end up in Kilpisjärvi, the northwesternmost point of Finland, where they find themselves alone together.
How To is a five-part series of instructional videos on how to make it in the art world. They provide a helpful breakdown of the field and steps to take to conquer it, including clear examples. How to turn being from the periphery or not being great with words into an asset? What about being queer? The videos give tips on standing out in the data flows of the internet, how to make craft cool and even on how to adopt a critical stance without making any enemies.
Looking back at footage of Venice Biennale 2011, The Artist remembers the optimistic feelings felt at the time, the projected careers, the romantic setting and how art meant something. The Finnish pavilion was closed when the footage was shot because of a fallen tree. Was it a sign? The sinking city echoes The Artist's current sense of resignation. The piece shifts from video footage into cartoons with speech bubbles, perhaps in an effort to reclaim the voiceover from a romanticising of ennui that seemed to be setting in. Is this a new beginning? Liberated from its ambitions for an illustrious career, art has now become a more metaphysical means of survival.
