The Sound of Form / The form of Sound

Two of them are, among other things, architects; two are also record producers. All three work in the field of visual arts, if such a concept can still be clearly outlined in contemporary culture. The Museum of Contemporary Art has invited Tommi Grönlund, Petteri Nisunen and Carl Michael von Hausswolff to create a joint production for the opening exhibition of the Kontti gallery of Kiasma.

Nowadays the field of visual arts contains border- crossings and a kind of local anarchy. It is increasingly difficult to define the visual arts and why an object should be regarded as a visual art. Furthermore, we are no longer certain that the most interesting aspects of contemporary art are directly connected with traditional exhibition spaces, the assumed location of the art experience. Art moves in time, in the here and now. The French philosopher Paul Virilio, for example, views contemporary art as pure energy without a specific location of its own, something where the essential takes place in the fleeting encounter between maker and viewer.

Petteri Nisunen and Tommi Grönlund have become famous as a pair of artists who create highly polished, architectural works of spatial art, the material of which contains radio signals, lighting, sound, as well as electromagnetic waves. The viewer is forced to face the invisible that has been turned visible, to encounter the piece of art almost by touch. Carl Michael von Hausswolff's material scale contains all this and much more. His work is more strongly tied to social themes and cultural events. The relationship with the viewer is more amusing and provocative, and what we encounter is more conceptual, something breaking all conventions and from which the visible has vanished without a trace.

For the time being, the final product of the joint production of the three artists is unknown. The given co-ordinates are time, place, the whole, and the context. We can assume that it contains ingredients of the architect's clear vision and sharp view, the charge, pulse and vibrations of the world of music, and some spontanity and arrogance. All three artists are strictly goal-orientated and they share a boyish curiosity about technical experiments, while being open-minded regarding materials, interpretations and solutions. They are all interested in the seductive materiality of the world of sound, the charm of the invisible and - maybe surprisingly - BEAUTY, even though the definition of beauty might vacillate from classical harmony and clarity to provocative cultural complexity.

Maria Hirvi