speakers

Haemocyanin

The ecological term habitat cascade refers to the shaping of habitats by one species creating the living conditions of another in a mediated fashion. The work displayed is concerned with the indirect interaction of species and artworks, or with the attempt to generate the conditions for such an interaction to take place. 

Since 2016 one strand of Tuomas A. Laitinen’s artistic practice has touched upon the research into cognition and consciousness in other-than-human minds, focussing on octopuses in particular. This endeavour is emerging through different material agencies: glass objects made for octopuses, multiple video and audio works, and a series of glyphs—made both as a font and as glass objects—derived from research on octopus arm movements. 

Tuomas A. Laitinen is an artist who works with moving image, sound, glass, chemical and microbial processes, as well as algorithms to explore the entanglements of multispecies coexistence. Laitinen composes situations and installations that inquire into the porous interconnectedness of language, body, and matter within morphing ecosystems. In recent years, Laitinen has been working around ecology, mythology, and processes of knowledge production. He often works with translucent and transparent materials to find ways to layer complex material relations and different epistemological systems.

Since 2016, one strand of Tuomas A. Laitinen’s artistic practice has touched upon the research into cognition and consciousness in other-than-human minds, focussing on octopuses in particular. This endeavour is emerging through different forms: glass objects made for octopuses, multiple video and audio works, and a series of glyphs—made both with glass and as a font—derived from research on octopus arm movements. 

Laitinen´s works have been recently shown in the 21st Biennale of Sydney, 7th Bucharest Biennale, Screen City Biennale 2019 (Stavanger), Vdrome (online screening), SADE LA (Los Angeles), Amado Art Space (Seoul), Moving Image New York, A Tale of a Tub (Rotterdam), Art Sonje Center (Seoul), Helsinki Contemporary, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, and MOCA Shanghai.

He received The Fine Arts Academy of Finland Prize in 2013.