Locus out of Focus is a work to be published chapter by chapter. Each chapter is a new attempt to focus on the object under observation as a scientific problem, artistic idea and political opinion or as a fictional conception of the world. The chapters also ponder on the working methods where the focus becomes hazy, but at the same time and exactly therefore something essential concerning the locus will emerge.
Locus out of Focus is created by AKU and Mari Krappala.
info@locus-focus.com
AKU - visual acupuncture / Heini Aho & Sebastian Ziegler
Aku performs Visual acupuncture by way of interventions in urban surroundings. Acupuncture functions as a metaphor, and a frame for different actions. An action in one place might have an effect on another place in the city. Visual acupuncture is a creative tool that AKU uses when approaching the city. The aim is to energise the surroundings and to enhance the place-related consciousness. Interventions involve activities such as: performances, visual alternations, arranging seminars, or social engagements.
Aku uses the idea of the Chinese acupuncture and the idea of mapping energy points. The City is onceptualized as a living organism.
One key point for AKU is to work in residencies, with unfamiliar surroundings. AKU worked in the Pro Artibus Air residency in Ekenäs for September- October 2013. The idea for the seminar began during the residency. The Arranging of an international seminar “City as a living Organism” and The Invititation of experts from different fields to work together on common tasks was considered to be one of the acupunctures performed in the City of Ekenäs.
Mari Krappala (b. 1968, lives in Turku) is a writer, art theorist, curator and mentor. Her writings and curatorial projects focus on transdisciplinary art, collective productions, art & science projects and socially motivated art. She is a docent of cultural studies in the Aalto University, the School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Helsinki. Her PhD work dealt with contemporary art processes, photography and Luce Irigaray’s philosophy of the ethics of sexual difference. She teaches art theory, artistic research methodology and supervises MA and PhD works. She has curated several international exhibitions, shows and live art happenings in Finland and abroad. At the moment she is doing curatorial work with the independent art groups in the interartistic fields. She has co-curated art projects in collaboration with Finnish and local artists in mental health centers and prisons in Italy and Spain. Her recent writing and curating topics deal with an emphasis on articulations of borders, roots, rhizomes, and nature connections, focusing on real and imaginary ways of living with them. She writes fictions from theories.
