Visual artist Maija Tammi and composer/performer Charles Quevillon have created an exhibition that combines Greek myths, spirituality, technology, scientific research, and the Hydra*. The installation titled Relic and Tammi’s photographic works pursue the human place in the continuum of existence and aging. The video installation The Problem of the Hydra examines practical and metaphysical questions raised by hydra all the way from the 1700s to this day. Quevillon’s interactive sound sculpture Le Refuge des Cordes is a meditation on the sanctity of technology. An integral part of the exhibition is also Tammi’s and visual storyteller Ville Tietäväinen’s book Immortal published by Aalto ARTS Books.
First presented at the gallery Forum Box in Helsinki (FI), (17.06–12.07.2020)
immortal's birthday
Exhibition, 2020
Collaboration with visual artist Maija Tammi
During the exhibition, four works (two videos and two installations) were using sound. The space was very resonant and it wasn’t possible to use headphones because of corona restrictions. Through careful design, speaker placement and mixing between the sound of the works, I manage to achieve a sound design that was praised in the review of the exhibition in Helsing Sanomat : “TAITAVASSA näyttelyarkkitehtuurissa on huomioitu monimediallinen ilmaisu, kuten ääniaaltojen kulkusuunnat, jolloin musiikki voi virrata vapaasti ilman, että se kaappaa kaiken huomion itseensä.”
“SKILLED in its exhibition architecture is attention to multimedia expression, such as the direction of soundwaves, in which the music can flow freely without it capturing all the attention to itself.” (my translation).
Work part of exhibition:
The Problem of the Hydra
HD 1080p, color, sound, 9 min 40 sec, 2017–2020.
Work by Maija Tammi
Sound Design: Charles Quevillon
Voice: Ava Grayson
Le Refuge des Cordes
Installation/performance, 35', 2019-2020
Solo performance with six suspended electric monochords and electronics.
Sound Sculpture: metal, rope, led lights, guitar pickups, piano wire, rocks and wood chips
Work by Charles Quevillon
Unheroic Labour #2
Video, HD 1080p, colour, sound, 11 min. 10 sec., 2020
Collaboration with visual artist Maija Tammi
Mentor: choreographer Tedd Robinson.
The work revisits Hercules’s second labour, which was to kill the multi-headed water serpent Hydra. However, in the artwork, killing is replaced with dancing, and the monster Hydra is not the mythic hydra, but rather the real freshwater polyp Hydra. And cats like water.
Screenings:
Finnish Institute in Estonia’s Ouroboros Film Program, 2021
Commission by the Finnish Cultural and Academic Institutes
Relic
Installation, 2020
Jelly cake, wooden box, light, fabric,
transducer speaker, subwoofer.
Collaboration with visual artist Maija Tammi
Relic is an installation of a jelly cake that is held in a shaking motion by the sound of slow heartbeats.
