Maiju Loukola

Scenographer, post-graduate researcher, University of Art and Design Helsinki (FI)

Image-spaces in the urban environment - a performative display window installation

keywords: affect, digital image, display window, installation, performance, space

In this paper I am approaching the issue of digital image-space in urban environment through e.g. Mark N.B. Hansen´s writings on digital image as process rather than as surface appearance - as something that is extended to the entirety of the process by which information comes perceivable through embodied experience. Deriving from the ideas of Henri Bergson´s foundation of image technology, Hansen emphasizes that the digital image presumes the user´s bodily presence through which it penetrates and happens as an image. The issue of image-process is looked upon through concepts such as affect-image, affect-space and body-brain. As an example is a display window performance installation project (Summer/ for Pass-byers ) in Helsinki city centre (November 2004).

From the viewpoint of perception and reception, could we understand dwelling in the space of a performance or an installation through a simultaneous presence of a viewer, a visitor and a user? If so, in which ways do the fundamental conditions of perception and reception encounter - or differentiate - in case of a (theatrical) performance or video installation, or in the case of mixed media?

Maiju Loukola lives and works in Helsinki. She graduated as scenographer MA, and works with video, installations and performance. Currently working on post-graduate studies in the Dept. of Film, TV and Scenography/ ELO in University of Art & Design Helsinki (UIAH). Title of thesis: Fractures in Performative Space . Works as guest lecturer in University of Art & Design (ELO) and Theatre Academy (Dept. of Dance). Member of FIRT/IFRT (International Federation for Theatre Research/ Digitalisation and New Media for Performances research group), Artist´s Association MUU ry, Oistat Centre Finland (member of history and theory comission/ Oistat International), SET (Union of Finnish film and video employees).