Trilogy of The Delusions of Certainty

2017–2021 in collaboration with Heidi Saramäki

The Delusions of Certainty is a body of works that has taken shape between 2017 to 2021. Its name derives from a book written by Siri Hustved. In the working process we have aimed to find meanings for the minds internal dreamlike and disconnected experiences that come forth as bodily or psychological processes. The shaping of our work has been affected by the enactivist theory. According to the theory the mind is created through interactions between an organism and its surroundings. A living entity builds knowledge and meaning through a process in which the entity’s own bodily functions entangle with its surroundings. In the final part of the trilogy Delusions of Certainty we state the following:

We build our existence as individuals and communities mainly on the scaffolding of the notion that something is certain. From time to time we have to challenge this illusion of predictability and certainty of things on the level of concrete everyday thought and abstract, scientific reflection. At the moment we are living in an exceptional situation where earlier certainties hold no more. The complexity of nature and the interaction of organisms create unforeseen phenomenas. Facing these phenomenas we lose the feeling of control. Once again we have become aware of our vulnerability in the face of a minuscule biological system. We are an undivided part of the global complexity of nature. Our body is a connection to the world. The concept of meeting has been in the core of our practice. In addition of meeting being just concrete interaction, it is also interaction with things that strive to be observed. These things and experiences do not necessarily have a name. They can appear suddenly, and then disappear into the folds of our consciousness, or into the cacophony of the surrounding world.

 

The Delusions of Certainty is a spatial experience which contains video, sound, photographs and kinetic elements. It is a whole that has formed through a process of consecutive exhibitions begun in 2017 in Gallery Harmaa in Turku, advancing in 2018 to Muu gallery in Helsinki and in 2021 to Photographic Centre Nykyaika in Tampere.