Timeline of Finnish media art – the 2010s

The 2010s

There are already more than a thousand artists working in the field of media art in Finland, and artists from various disciplines use media art methods in their works. Media art organizations and festivals maintain diversity in media art, and the Finnish Media Art Network promotes mutual cooperation and cultural policy in the field. Bioart becomes established, and media art becomes part of the public space with media and light art festivals in urban space. The applied use of media art is becoming an essential part of music performances, dance and theatre – as well as construction projects and media education. Finnish media art features prominently in the Venice Biennale and is successful in EU projects. Domestic visibility in museums and galleries around Finland also increases, and distribution of works moves online. The Finnish Media Art Network collects statistics on the results of the field and influences cultural policy. As media art becomes a mainstream part of contemporary art, the new technologies of virtual reality, artificial intelligence and cryptography become accessible to artists’ experimentation.

2010

Lauri Astala’s exhibition at the Helsinki City Art Museum in Meilahti, including e.g. the Pieni spektakkeli (translates as Little Spectacle) series (2003–05).
Pekka Sassi’s installation and sound work Sisäinen lähiö (translates as Inner Suburb) receives the main prize at the EMAF Festival in Osnabrück.
Heart Chamber Orchestra, a work by Erich Berger and Peter Vateva in which the heartbeats of the musicians control the composition and visualization through an algorithm. Performances at Pixelache Helsinki and FILE Festival Sao Paulo.
Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen’s exhibition at the Ars Electronica Center.
AAVE Festival (Alternative Audio Visual Event) experimental film and art event is held in Helsinki until 2018 with Kari Yli-Annala as artistic director.
Jari Haanperä and Mirka Flander open Suomesta gallery in Berlin’s Potsdamer Strasse. The gallery presents the work of contemporary Finnish artists until 2015.
The first Speech Karaoke is held at Hämeenlinna Art Museum. The Speech Karaoke Action Group artist group continues its activities into the 2020s.
Ars Fennica Award 2010 for Charles Sandison. Other Ars Fennica -awarded media artists in the 2010s are Anssi Kasitonni (2011), Tellervo and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen (2014) and Mika Taanila (2015).
Media Facades Festival starts as a partner festival of the Helsinki Festival during the Night of the Arts. The festival is produced by M-cult and presents domestic and international media works in Helsinki and European urban spaces until 2015.
AV-arkki’s online service enables the preview of full-length works by domestic and international curators. Distribution of media art moves online.
Photography and Media Art Association Valmed ry is established in Kuopio
Helsinki Hacklab ry is founded. The community opens a hackerspace in the Vallila industrial area.
AV-arkin Mediataide kasvattaa! (translates as Media Art Educates!) – online service uses media art as learning materials for media education. New learning materials based on the works are published until 2021.
The Helsinki School of Economics, the University of Art and Design Helsinki and the Helsinki University of Technology merge into the new Aalto University from January 1, 2010.

2011

Vesa-Pekka Ranniko’s architectural spatial experimentation at the Venice Biennale
Pilvi Takala received the Prix de Rome, the biggest prize for young artists, for her intervention at the European Parliament in the Netherlands.
A collaboration between composers, musicians and video artists, IRKI – three soundscapes (produced by Poike ry / Tuuli Penttinen-Lampisuo) is exhibited at the Sibelius Museum and the Pori Art Museum as part of the Turku 2011 Capital of Culture Year programme.
Bioart Society organizes the first art and science Field Notes field laboratory in Kilpisjärvi. The publication Field_Notes – From Landscape to Laboratory is published in 2013.
Aquatrio is started. Marianne Decoster-Taivalkoski, Alejandro Olarte and Alejandro Montes de Oca mix electronic, synthetic and realistic water sounds in their performances.
Sound art gallery Akusmata is established.
Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications, and Implications, edited by Erkki Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka, presents trends in media archaeological research.

2012

AV-arkki starts a continuous cooperation with Moving Image Art Fair, which lasts until 2016. The works of Anssi Kasitonni, Heta Kuchka, Sini Pelkki, Maija Blåfield, Milja Viita, Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen are presented at art fairs in London and New York.
Forum Box opens a new space for media art, Mediaboxi, in cooperation with AV-arkki. The use of the exhibition space and equipment is free for artists. The programme emphasizes contemporary works that have not yet had their premiere in Finland.
Mika Taanila and Erkki Kurenniemi in Kassel’s Documenta; Pilvi Takala’s The Trainee in New Museum’s Ungovernables Triennial, New York.
Timo Wright and Matti Niinimäki’s Race Code contests the connections between facial recognition and racial discrimination. The installation arranges the participants’ facial images based on an algorithm.
Marita Liulia as artist-in-residence at Aalto University. Two works that combine dance and technology, Jumalattaren paluu (2012) and Swan Song (2014), are made during the residency.
Tuomas A. Laitinen is selected Flow Festival’s visual artist of the year. After this, the festival regularly presents media art in its programme.
The Suohpanterror group starts its activities. The group publishes campaigns about the rights of the Sámi and indigenous peoples and makes interventions in the public space.
Biofilia – Base for Biological Arts is established at Aalto University under the School of Arts, Design and Architecture..
Art and Craft School Robotti is established. The goal is to promote children’s and young people’s understanding of the electronic and programmed environment and encourage them to take control of it boldly and creatively.
Jussi Parikka publishes the book What is Media Archaeology? (Polity Press, UK).

2013

Jan Ijäs’s Two Islands at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York
Salla Tykkä’s Giant receives the main award for short film at the Rotterdam Film Festival.
Tülay Schakir’s Hyvä valo, paha valo (translates as Good Light, Bad Light) at the Valon Voimat light festival is based on research into experiences of light and danger in urban space.
The rise of media art at the Venice Biennale begins: Terike Haapoja and Antti Laitinen 2013, IC-98 2015, Erkka Nissinen and Nathaniel Mellors 2017, Miracle Workers Collective 2019, Pilvi Takala 2022.
The video work Suomen Paviljonki (translates as The Finnish Pavillion) by Jaakko Pallasvuo and Kaino Wennerstrand (formerly Kimmo Modig) parodies the ideology of national exhibition concepts.
Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s Parallel Worlds exhibition at Stockholm’s Moderna Museet and Kiasma (2013) features new works by the artist that reflect on interspecies relations, such as The Annunciation (2010) and Horizontal (2011).
The FixC cooperative establishes the VILKE collection of Finnish electronic art – an exhibition Vilkettä ja tajunnanvirtaa (translates as Vilke and Stream of Consciousness) at the Art and Museum Centre Sinkka in Kerava.
Titanik gallery’s artist residency programme continues with an emphasis on sound art.
Pixelache starts Trashlab workshops for recycling, reuse and appliance repair.
Erkki Huhtamo’s Illusion in Motion (MIT Press) maps the cultural history of the moving panorama and early spectacle techniques.
The Emdash Award for Pilvi Takala. Takala invites children aged 8-12 to decide what the award funds should be used for.
The Academy of Fine Arts, the Sibelius Academy and the Theatre Academy merge into a new University of the Arts.
At the Art Promotion Centre Finland (Taike), funding for media art is distributed by the National Council for Media, Comic and Illustration Arts.

2014

The planetarium film In Kilpisjärvi, directed by Axel Straschnoy, is awarded in the international Edith-Russ-Haus Awards for Emerging Media Artists competition and receives an honorable mention at the Jena FullDome Festival. The film premiered at the planetarium of the Heureka Science Centre in 2012.
Jari Haanperä’s FYR, a light work consisting of more than two hundred storm lanterns and lamps, at the LUX Helsinki festival.
Finnish contemporary art is widely presented at the Arco Madrid art fair. The #FocusFinland programme has works AO by Heta Kuchka and IC-98. AV-arkki presents Hannu Karjalainen’s works on digital billboards in Callao square.
FixC opens a teletext art museum in cooperation with YLE.
Polarized Vision Festival in Rovaniemi presents Nordic film and media art as well as film from the Barents region. The event is organized by Magneetti ry in cooperation with the University of Lapland.
Camp Pixelache in Helsinki’s Vartiosaari focuses on commons culture.
The Ääni, kuva, kokemus (translates as Sound, Image, Experience) exhibition at the Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art explores multisensory experience. Artists include IC-98, Merja Nieminen & James Andean and Hans Rosenström.
The Nordic Culture Fund awards a grant of 400,000 euros to the Bioart Society’s Hybrid Matters project, which examines the merging of the digital, technical and living.
MUU ry opens the Sound Art Bank database online.
Live Herring launches the Mediataide kartalle (translates as Media art on the Map) project. The project, coordinated by the regional artist Soile Ollikainen, aims to improve the visibility and performance opportunities of media art also outside major cities.
The Finnish Media Art Network’s statement on the development of media art allocations and national council structure proposes a separate National Council for Media Art and points out that the budget funding for the field is only 8 promille (0.08%) of the funds allocated to the promotion of film culture.
Media Art Day is organized in cooperation with the Arts Promotion Centre Finland and the Finnish Media Art Network. The programme includes an Overview of Finnish Media Art – activities, results and funding, compiled by network members

2015

At New York’s Moving Image Art Fair, AV-arkki, Sinne, SIC and Helsinki Contemporary participate in the Focus program presenting Finnish media art. Included are works by artists IC-98, Pink Twins, Tuomas A. Laitinen and Timo Vaittinen.
Helena Hietanen and Jaakko Niemelä’s Chaos & Beauty exhibition at Kunsthalle Helsinki creates an overview of the authors’ light art through installations and documentation of public works.
Antti Tenetz’s Tracing (Jälestää) maps the movement of animals and traces left by humans in their environment by visualizing GPS data. The installation participates in the Tate Modern’s Who are We project 2017.
Helinä Hukkataival’s Metsämartta video performance is part of the photo and video series Ensin on oltava Martta (translates as First you have to be a Martha).
Jani Leinonen’s retrospective The School of Disobedience in Kiasma.
VAFT Video Art Festival Turku is organized for the first time.
AV-arkki implements a project to promote the long-term archiving of media art in cooperation with member organizations of the Finnish Media Art Network. The project produces a strategy document and a seminar on documenting spatial and event-based media art. AV-arkki and KAVI start collaboration for the long-term archiving of linear audiovisual media art in 2016.
The new National Council for Audiovisual Art of the Arts Promotion Centre Finland gives out the first grants and stipends. The council’s film art division, media art division, and light and sound art division are responsible for peer evaluation.

2016

Anna Estarriola’s exhibitions at Forum Box and Galerie Anhava (2017).
The Lönnström Art Museum in Rauma opens a series of contemporary art projects by allocating a budget of €100,000 to IC-98’s work House of Khronos. The following prizes are awarded to media artists Jani Ruscica (2017), Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen (2018), Nastja Säde Rönkkö (2021) and Milja Viita (2022).
Life Aquatic group’s first underwater art project in Rauma’s swimming hall combines light, sound and sculpture art with electronic music and space design.
The first regional artists for bioart (Antti Tenetz) and light art (Leevi Lehtinen).
Media art gets its own separate budget allocation in the state budget for the first time. With the reshuffling of the arts administration, the dedicated budget allocation disappears in a couple of years.

2017

Artist duo Grönlund & Nisunen’s Gray Area retrospective, Kunsthalle Helsinki and Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Kriittinen taso (translates as Critical Level) installation at the Flash1 light art biennale.
Kaino Wennerstrand develops a multimedia piece together with LGBTQ youth at FACT Liverpool as part of the European EMARE residency network.
The Liitos (translates as Union)exhibition at the Oulu Museum of Art examines nature in a new light. The artists of the exhibition produced by the Bioart Society are, among others, Pekka & Teija Isorättyä, Antero Kare, Mia Mäkelä, Kira O’Reilly, Anu Osva, Johanna Rotko and Leena Valkeapää and Oula A. Valkeapää.
Juha van Ingen’s gif animation loop As Long As Possible (ASLAP), which will run for 1000-years, is acquired for Kiasma’s collection.
Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma’s ARS17 Hello World! is a major international exhibition of contemporary art, the theme of which is art after the internet. In addition to the Receptor installation created by Tuomas A. Laitinen with AVEK co-production funding, there are e.g. Reija Meriläinen’s Survivor game and Nastja Säde Rönkkö’s (LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner) #alonetogether, which deals with online presence. In connection with the exhibition, Kiasma’s online art collection is opened.
At Nordisk Panorama, Jonna Kina’s work Arr. for a Scene receives the Nordic short film award and a compilation of Finnish experimental films curated by Mika Taanila is screened.
An extensive Pasi “Sleeping” Myllymäki retrospective at the Reykjavik International Film Festival.
Pink Twins’ Parametronomicon (2014) opens Finland’s first media space using 4K technology and immersive 3D multichannel sound at the Espoo Museum of Modern Art (EMMA).
The Finnish Light Art Society FLASH is founded 7.1.2017. The association organizes the first Light Art Biennial in Suomenlinna.
AVEK turns 30 and celebrates the anniversary by releasing film compilations and opening the Mediarata grant programme that supports media art production companies. During its 30 years, AVEK has supported the production of more than 2,000 short films and media art works.

2018

Adel Abidin’s History Wipes exhibition at Art Museum Ateneum deals with the sore points of history. The installations interact with the architecture of the national art museum.
Marja Helander’s Birds in the Earth receives the Risto Jarva award and is selected for the Sundance Film Festival. Sami van Ingen’s Polte premieres at the Rotterdam Film Festival with subsequent screenings at dozens of festivals.
Koneäly (translates as Machine Intelligence)party’s founding meeting – art event in Mad House’s programme, working group Sami Henrik Haapala, Kaisa Kemikoski, Paula Lehtonen and Aku Meriläinen.
Petri Kuljuntausta’s Tempus (for 100 bells), a permanent sound installation is opened in Musiikkitalo music centre.
MUU ry celebrates its 30th anniversary at the Finnish National Theatre’s Lavaklubi club.
M-cult joins the prestigious European Media Art Platform residency network.
The new Amox Rex museum is opened with a large immersive collection of works by the Japanese TeamLab.
Salla Tykkä gives a speech at the Art Promotion Centre Finland’s Art Parliament event, which sparks a discussion about the funding of visual arts and media arts and the status of artists.
AV-arkki’s and Amos Rex’s festival Rex Fest presents the most recent media art on the big screen and as live media performances.
AV-arkki, Kiasma and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra start the Visual Overture media art series on the Musiikkitalo Media Wall digital screen.
The Finnish Association for Avantgarde and Modernism FAM is founded under the leadership of Irmeli Hautamäki. The Federation of Finnish Learned Societies publishes the Avantgarde Suomessa (translates as Avantgarde in Finland) anthology 2021.
Frame Contemporary Art Finland publishes the report Uuden etsijä, rajojen rikkoja (translates as Searcher of the New, Breaker of Boundaries) survey of the prerequisites for the success of Finnish media art.

2019

Milja Viita’s Animal Bridge U-3033 wins the Risto Jarva prize at the Tampere Film Festival. Viita’s and Pilvi Takala’s works are screened at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto.
Maija Blåfield’s On Destruction and Preservation wins the main prize at the Ann Arbor Festival.
A Salla Tykkä retrospective at the Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art, showcasing a new film installation Untitled (White – Alps).
Hans Rosenström’s exhibition No Land is an Island at the Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art in Vaasa. The video works, photographs and photograms in the exhibition reflect on the intertwining of man and nature.
Jaakko Pallasvuo’s and Anni Puolakka’s Sacre-trilogy (2015–2019) is shown at the Kiasma theatre during Night of the Arts.
Erich Berger is chosen for the CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) artist residency with his project Spectral Landscapes.
Finnish Sound Art performance at the Avery Fisher Center, New York, by artists Lora Dimova, Tuukka Haapakorpi, Jarmo Huhta, Anssi Laiho ja Marko Timlin.
Helsinki Central Library Oodi is opened and becomes an important venue for media art. The first major exhibitions organized in the space are Alien Intelligences (Samir Bhowmik, Tuomas A. Laitinen, Jenna Sutela) produced by the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, which engages with the library’s intelligence data and Network Effects produced by M-cult, which deals with internet affection
The Media Art Network in collaboration with Frame Contemporary Art Finland organizes Media Art Agenda 2030, a series of workshops dealing with the definitions, practices and financing of the media art field.
Planning of the history of media art project MEHI begins.

The timeline of Finnish media art was first published in the anthology of The First Century of Finnish Media Art, which was realized as part of the MEHI – Media Art History in Finland project. The timeline was edited by Petri Kuljuntausta, Perttu Rastas and Minna Tarkka. The English translation was made by Kati Åberg. MEHI project was financed by AVEK, Kone Foundation, The Ministry of Education and Culture, Oskar Öflund Foundation, The Finnish Cultural Foundation and The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland.

The MEHI – Media Art History in Finland project 2021–2023, led by The Finnish Media Art Network, was realized in a consortium with AV-arkki, the Centre for Finnish Media Art, M-cult, Artists’ Association MUU, Poike Productio, SOLU / Bioart Society and FLASH – the Finnish Light Art Society.