The Nervous Manifold

Synthesized music guides their presence, bright colours are heightened by the intense use of lights. Creating an intense sensory experience using sound, visuals, lights and large inflatable sculptural entities Kallioinen combines his experience as an artist, electronic musician and performer with a fascination of cognitive science and transhumanism.

The works in the exhibition included his video Transhuman Circuit / Turing Battle. The video shows unfamiliar creatures gathering, seemingly performing a ritualistic dance as if to conjure up a higher spirit, then morphing into futuristic pretzel-like creatures ‘battling’ each other with spray-foam and a game of ‘rock-paper-scissors’. Creating the suspense of a narrative, any attempt to interpret is frustrated: the work never really reveals an inner truth and stays inscrutable for interpretation.

Borrowing aesthetics from the old-fashioned futuristic sci-fi movies with references to popular depictions of extreme religious cults, decor and costumes reminiscent of those of children’s theatre plays, Kallioinen creates a world like no other. Despite the occasional concrete pieces of visual language that suggest some sort of allegorical meaning, it is impossible to get a complete overview or to grasp what is approaching one through all the senses. The experience seems to hypnotize the viewer who is unable to get a rational understanding of this experience.