Per Hüttner will return to the UK for 4 day workshop in London and Oxford October 6-9, 2025. In both cities we will focus on upcoming music and performance events. In London the group will work more with the EEGsynth and prepare for upcoming performances in Europe and the Middle East. In Oxford we will partners that we have not worked with in a long time. The work will eventually lead to a one day event at the Belsyre Garage in centre of the academic town. During the event performers from the Nordic countries and the UK show their work together. The project’s artists are held together by a shared interest in how artistic expressions can contribute to deeper insights into how digital technology is shaping our daily life. Two questions become more pertinent every day: What are the possibilities? What are the dangers?

Ikfkos is a joint project between the organisations Vision Forum and Teatermaskinen. It is an independent organisation that is set up to support culture and language of Sami and Kven people. Special focus is given to the nåjd (a Sami/Kven shaman). The organisation also actively supports dialogues between different indigenous peoples around the world.

Jonas Engman who has worked in Sami shamanic traditions all his adult life will lead a workshop at a kåta in Bergslagen, Sweden June 14-17, 2025. During the workshop the group will focus on how contemporary sound and music can be incorporated into traditional Sami and Kven traditions and ceremonies, as well as how contemporary stage performers can learn from Sami and Kven practices. In the process the team (which include practitioners from theatre, dance, music and visual art) will use new technology that measure the bodily processes of the participants as well as the movements of the surrounding nature. Per Huttner will make music for the group.

The workshop will be held in a traditional Sami Kåta. The workshop will include public performance in on June 15 and offers a unique opportunity to experience traditional animism in dialogue with cutting edge performative expressions. If you want to experience the performance, please write us on info [at] visionforum.eu.

The music collective xLEPH returns to La Generale in Paris for their second residency, June 2-9, 2025.

The collective (This time Per Huttner, Ludvig Elblaus and Thomas Auroux) has worked extensively with hypnosis and hypnotherapy in their performances and musical compositions in the last few years. For instance, in their performance at La Generale in 2023, both the audience and performers were under different levels of hypnotically induced trance.

During the residency they will synthesise and develop their work with hypnosis further. The residency will culminate in a radio-show for P-node, 8-9pm on June 9, 2025, entitled Hypno-collage. The radio show is a collective hypnotic journey. It brings together memories and traces of various artistic investigations where hypnosis has been used as well as snippets from preparatory hypnosic session. These are coupled with new music, new interviews along with real-time dialogues in the studio.

The hypnotic radio journey, is an artistic collage for anyone who is interested in music, art or the boundaries of the human mind and its perception of the world. The conversations will mostly be in French interspersed with shorter interludes in English. You can listen to it here. (https://p-node.org/residencies/xleph)

The residency is co-organised together with the EEGsynth association in Paris.

The Liminal, a new performance by Carima Neusser will be shown at Weld in Stockholm May 23-25 2025. Per Hüttner has composed music for the piece. The Liminal team with members from Sweden, Ireland, Finland, France, Portugal and Åland will be in residence at Höjden, Weld and Återträffen in May and June  2025 in the Swedish capital to prepare and evaluate the event. Huttner will participate in the two first two residences.

The Liminal is a mobile laboratory that moves between different European urban locations. The work is a collective investigation, where the team is actively involved in shaping the results. The final performance will be first shown in Stockholm and we hope that it will tour in Europe soon. The project is supported by The Nordic Culture Fund, Svenska kulturfonden and Kulturbryggan.

Vision Forum is organising an 5 day workshop in Tunis and Bizerte in Tunisia April 9-13, 2025. During the workshop the team will develop the project “Do Trees Dream of CO2” with their Tunisian partners.

“In our working process we focus primarily on trees’ and their inner signalling. We use the PepiPIAF technology to measure changes in their inner. This non-invasive technology is attached to a branch of a tree. It measures the changes in pressure and temperature inside the actual tree, based on how sap moves. It shows how a tree adapts itself to changes of temperature, season, and daily rhythm. From these measurements we can derive information about how the tree grows and to a certain degree how it adapts to outside changes. You can find more info about the PepiPIAF here. (In French only.) We also record the sounds that the tree makes as it grows using specially designed microphones. These sounds are then modulated by the data from the tree and by human digital musical tools.”

During the workshop the Franco-Swedish, Per Hüttner and Karine Bonneval team will work will artists Soufia Bensaid and Hela Lamine. A public presentation will be held outside Bizerte on April 12. The program starts at 14h. Please drop us an e-mail (info [at] visionforum.eu) if you want to join. Participation is free, but the number of places limited.

Do Trees Dream of CO2 is supported by Kulturbryggan

Per Huttner will present a performance entitled “Two Rooms and What?” that encompasses music and moving images. The performance will take place at Fronda in Etla, in the state of Oaxaca. For the performance Huttner works with the EEGsynth (www.eegsynth.org) which is a hard and software platform that uses electroencephalogram (EEG) to allow performers to create sounds and images based on signals from the human brain in real time. He will therefore invite a local artist to join him in the performance. The second performer will wear an EEG cap on stage. The moving images that will be presented will be filmed during his stay in Mexico, allowing him to reflect on Mexican culture and aesthetics.The images will be also be influenced by the second performer.

The performance starts at 8pm, February 8, 2025. Doors open at 7pm and entrance is free. Address: Fronda, 56VC+5R, 68203 Santo Domingo Barrio Alto, Oaxaca, Mexico.

Per Huttner will be in Mexico in winter 2024-25. He will be working with two projects: Ghetto Gucci II and Microbes in the Desert of the Real.  The team will spend most of the time in Mexico City, but will also make excursions to the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca. Work will focus on developing work for the upcoming presentations in Sweden and in France.

The Microbes in the Desert of the Real phrase their research question like this:

• Microbes offer an interesting way into complexity. Their small size and the fact that they are everywhere connects them to other complex systems and their influence cannot be understated. Without microbes there would be no life on this planet, and small changes can have profound consequences for other interconnected complex systems. The world is full of unknown unknowns and to help us sort all of this out and extend our knowledge increasingly complex computer programs are being used.  But there is a problem with this. As computer models or simulations become increasingly complex they also become harder to understand. This is referred to as Bonini’s paradox.

The are preparing a large presentation at the amazing Hallwylska museet in central Stockholm.

*

The Ghetto Gucci II team formulate their research in the following way:

• For humanity, death constitutes the ultimate expression of the unknown. No human knows, and no one can know what happens when we die. In this project, a group of Swedish and Haitian artists together focus on how death is seen in Haiti. In the voodoo cosmology, death is viewed in a completely different way, than in our Western ontology. The Haitians believe that everything in the world is spirited. They also believe that death is not the end, but a transformation into another dimension. In the project, we allow the audience to reflect on death, but also to face death seen through an unknown Haitian perspective.

New performances will be presented at Fronda in Etla, Casa Bestia in Oaxaca City and at Humboltd123 in Mexico City’s Down town.

More info about the public events will follow soon.

A Vision Forum team of artists, thinkers and researchers who work on a publication on performance called “Performance Enigma” will meet in Stockholm December 2-5. The book is in the final stages of production and will be printed in late 2024 and available in bookshops in early 2025. The book is edited by Freddie Ross and focuses on Per Huttner’s performances 1989 – 2024.

Performance Enigma is supported by Längmanska kulturfonden.

The Ghetto Gucci team was recently in Guadeloupe to work with their new performance. During rehearsals, they shot these two amazing films with Haitian artist Twoket. He tells two stories about life in Port-au-Prince. The films were filmed and edited by Per Huttner, he also made the sound for the films.

Vision Forum is happy that the Swedish-Haitian team that showed Ghetto Gucci at documenta fifteen will continue to work together. They were originally meant to travel to Port-au Prince to develop new work. However, due to the unrest on the western part of the island, they were advised against travelling to Haiti. They will therefore travel to Guadeloupe October 12-28, 2024 to be in residence and to work on Ghetto Gucci II (working title.)

The group, has since spring 2024, been developing a new performance that has been designed to move through different architectural settings. It is divided into four parts where the audience follows the performers on a journey into the unknown and where each scene elaborates on differences and similarities between European and Haitian culture.

For the piece the group focuses on one of the most well-known Haitian cultural traits, the zombie. The group uses the image of the zombie to investigate how different cultures take in the zombie, how it is reshaped by each culture and through that revealing its inherent values. The work also reveals  how forms of malicious (and benevolent?) forms of control can be carried out and through that reflecting on free will, the history of slavery in the Caribbean and the new world.

In the performance, the group presents a number of tableaux vivant where costumes, props, light, sound and movement form an emotive whole. For the piece, the group has also created new digital technology in dialogue with Dutch neuroscientist Robert Oostenveld that enables the group to use microbes to generate sound and moving images in real time and integrate kinetic sculpture into the performance.

The project is produced by Vision Forum (www.visionforum.eu) and supported by Kulturbryggan in Stockholm.

As an experimental duo, Alpha Xiao has been active in the musical exploration of mental and musical space since 2020. They often collaborate with other musicians and artists in different constellations. They participated in “An Infinite Love” at Konstnärshuset in 2021, performed at Teater Reflex and performed with Olav Westphalen at Hökarängens antikvariat and with Sebastian Campbell at Teatertribunalen. Alpha Xiao also created the music for Fabien Guillermont and Toan Van Che’s feature documentary “Reality Check” in 2024. They are currently developing EEG-altered visuals for their concerts.

The set-up consists of a portable electroencephalagraph (EEG) modulating designed audio samples in real time (Per Hüttner) combined with a traditional Chinese flute called Xiao (William Stafford). The music produced leaves room for the indefinite through sketches of compositions, sounds and themes. As brain waves influence certain dynamics of sound, and vice versa, a feedback loop is generated between brain activities and the sound thus produced ad infinitum.

Per Huttner will perform new work with the title “Near to the Wild Heart.” For his performance in Portugal in 2019 he created, together with Randolph Albright and Carima Neusser a piece called “Aqua Viva” which took its inspiration from the Novel of the same name by Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector. Since Albright and his long term collaborator Sixten Kai Nielsen are revamping 3 Rabbits and are also involved in the creationg of a new cultural centre close to Obigos, Huttner decided to name the performance after Lispector’s first novel which is a timeless tour de force. The performance becomes an incantation to rebirth and even hope for the future.

The performance is made up of three new musical compositions and new visuals. One was created during the Ghetto Gucci residency in Guadeloupe and the other two have been developed by Huttner in 2024. Huttner will be in residency at 3 Rabbits October 31 – November 7. The performance starts at 8pm, Sunday November 3. Entrance is free.

In spring 2019 Vision Forum organised a 4-day festival in Stockholm called Transformation. It investigated how naturally occurring nerve signals from muscle and brain can be used in musical composition and performance production. During the festival composers, musicians, technology developers and researchers met to investigate the aesthetic potential of biofeedback in music. The events and meetings led to a rich surge of reflections, development of new ideas, new research topics, new technological development, new collaborations and new artistic projects.The event was greatly appreciated by audience, participants and the media. During lockdown in spring 2020, Vision Forum organised the online festival Transformation II in collaboration with French online radio P-node. A third festival took place in France in spring 2024. It brought together artists from multiple fields, researchers primarily from neuroscience and technology developers from many field. Participants come from Sweden, France, Italy, the Netherlands, the UK and Japan.

Thanks to the success of the festival, for the week September 15 – 22, Swedish and French musicians will be working together with the EEGsynth technology at La Generale in Paris. Focus will be on harmonizing work with the Unicorn headset and to develop new performances. A public presentation with new performances will be heald at Chair de poule, rue St. Maur, 75011 on September 27, starting at 8pm.

The team working with the simple and complex in art and microbes travel to Amsterdam August 27-30, 2024. They will develop their work by visiting Micropia which is a museum dedicated to the microbes that surround humans virtually everywhere and also reflect on the simple and complex in art.

Microbes offer an interesting way into complexity. Their small size and the fact that they are everywhere connects them to other complex systems and their influence cannot be understated. Without microbes there would be no life on this planet, and small changes can have profound consequences for other interconnected complex systems.

The world is full of unknown unknowns and to help us sort all of this out and extend our knowledge increasingly complex computer programs are being used.  But there is a problem with this. As computer models or simulations become increasingly complex they also become harder to understand. This is referred to as Bonini’s paradox.

French poet Paul Valéry wrote: “If it’s simple, it’s always false. If it’s not, it’s unusable.” It is important to be able to simplify ideas without losing the complexities underpinning them, but how do we do that?

Vision Forum’s musical collective Xleph will be in residency at Teatermaskinen May 14-20.

They will investigate if music and hypnotherapy together help us to be stronger in the formulation of our own identity today. They will do so by recording material under hypnosis which will be shaped into their first studio album. The individual members of the collective will also perform a public concert on May 18.

Here are some reflections on the project:

“Who is the real me?” is one of the most persistent questions in human history. It is a question that obviously has no simple answer. Still, we know that from the day we are born that we are influenced by the outside world. We are shaped by our experiences of the natural and technological environment. But maybe more importantly, we are influenced by parents, teachers, siblings, friends, colleagues, the media, social media, politics, economic reality and artistic influences.

As our society gradually becomes more complex, the external pressure on each individual becomes stronger, it therefore becomes increasingly important to know who we are. At the same time it is not simple for each individual to formulate his/her life goals without influence of the above named external forces. It is harder than ever to distinguish our own wishes from those that are imposed on us by social and commercial interests.

Each individual human being struggles on his/her journey through life to make the most of the potential that he/she has. Not knowing who we are and where we belong can stop us from contributing to our loved ones’ lives and to society in general. In order to make this search easier, humanity has developed innumerable techniques to navigate through our inner lives: religious beliefs, psychoanalysis and self-help

Art and music are some of the oldest and most versatile tools for inner navigation and hypnotherapy is one of the most recent ones to be developed. In this project, artists, musicians and hypnotherapists from Sweden and France join forces to investigate what can be learned from bringing hypnotherapy and art together.

Per Huttner will play with Alpha Xiao at Tribunalen festival in Stockholm. He will also make music for the Zygote team. They will present new work at 6pm and 8.30pm respectively on May 12, 2024.

Alpha Xiao is an experimental musical group consisting of a portable electroencephalagraph (EEG) modulating designed audio samples  and a traditional Chinese flute called a Xiao. The two person constellation focuses musically on connectivity through rough sketches of compositions, sounds and themes. As brain waves influence certain dynamics of the sound, and vice versa, a type of feedback loop is generated between the activities of the brain and sound produced ad infinitum. Alpha Xiao often invites external collaborators and uses inspiration from contemporary research to create inventive concerts and visionary performances. For this performance they have invited Sebastian of Godmother to play the EEGsynth.

Zygote is project where performance artists, fashion designers, musicians and researchers in foetal development are working together. Zygote is a mobile laboratory that moves between different Swedish urban and natural locations. The work is a collective investigation, where the audience is actively involved in shaping the results. The process does not result in a final performance, instead the working group conducts a series of ongoing investigations together with different audience groups. We call these proto-performances. This makes the work an ongoing and investigative process. They will present such a proto-performance at Tribunalen.,

Entrance is free, but please boo in advance. You can book your tickets here.

Welcome!!!

The project forms a part of Transformation III and is co-funded by The Swedish Arts Council.

Per Huttner will be part of the PaleoFaeces team that will meet in Gothenburg April 19 and 20, 2024 to talk about the relations between the simple and complex.

They will meet the researcher Martin Rahm at Chalmers Tekniska högskola and Earthship authority Kevin Schot.

Here are some words to guide them:

Microbes offer an interesting way into complexity. Their small size and the fact that they are everywhere connects them to other complex systems and their influence cannot be understated. Without microbes there would be no life on this planet, and small changes can have profound consequences for other interconnected complex systems. The world is full of unknown unknowns and to help us sort all of this out and extend our knowledge increasingly complex computer programs are being used.  But there is a problem with this. As computer models or simulations become increasingly complex they also become harder to understand. This is referred to as Bonini’s paradox.

French poet Paul Valéry wrote: “If it’s simple, it’s always false. If it’s not, it’s unusable.”

It is important to be able to simplify ideas without losing the complexities underpinning them, but how do we do that?

Per Huttner forms a part of the team that will investigate animal communication in Gotenburg April 18. Among other things, the Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Tiokasin Ghosthorse will talk about how the Lakota people see animals and also talk about the amazing Lakota languag as well as how water is a being and even how water constituted the first form of consciousness on the planet. In the group, theyoffer fascinating and yet wildly different perspectives on what language can be, how we understand animals and what water is. Huttner will together with Robert Oostenveld create music based on cod fish’s mating calls. Koen de Reus present how seal pups communicate The group use new technology and ancient wisdom to offer fresh perspectives on how we see the animals whom we share the planet with. In March Huttner will travel to Gothenburg to prepare for the event.

Vision Forum is proud to announce that we will be in residency at Dansplats Skog outside of Söderhamn March 4-22. Artists from Sweden, Norway, France and Japan will meet and work together during 3 weeks. Much of the work will be related to our project Zygote that we run together with Curatorial Mutiny. Per Huttner will make music for the dancers March 15-18. There will be a public presentation on March 17. Please write us on info [at] visionforum.eu if you want to join.

What can a cod concert sound like? What can be learned from animal communication? How do we understand animals ? Can water be a being?

Animals communicate amongst each other. Their communication offer new perspectives on language and a peek into a fascinating non-human world. Experience music based on the cods mating calls, learn more about how seal pups communicate and how Water can be viewed as the first form of consciousness on the planet.

A group of artists, researchers and activists will reflect on these questions on April 18. To prepare, Vision Forum organises a workshop on March 12 together with and at Sjöfartsmuseet in Gothenburg.

Sjöfartsmuseet, Akvariet, Ocean Lab, Karl Johansgatan 1-3, Gothenburg

Vision Forum is organising Transformation III in Paris together with our French partners. To prepare, Swedish musicians Per Huttner and Tomas Nordmark are in Paris to develop new music based on biofeedback February 29- March 2. The festival in France will bring together artists from multiple fields, researchers primarily from neuroscience and technology developers from many field. Participants come from Sweden, France, Italy, the Netherlands, the UK and Japan. The two will also go on tour in Japan and China in May and June 2024.

The project is supported by the Swedish Arts Council.

Per Huttner has been doing research in Mexico City, Oaxaca and Chiapas in December 2023 and January 2024. He has been in residency at El Dia D in Santiago de Queretaro, January 21 – February 12, 2024. During this time he has been be working with artists and choreographers from Mexico and Canada and has developed new work. The residency also includes public workshops at El Dia D and public performances at Museum of Contemporary Art in Santiago de Queretaro.

During the stay he has have developed the performance Trickster Ceremony. In it, the artist and another performer investigate the relationship between the inner and outer worlds of humans. How do the processes inside the human body affect how we perceive and understand the outside world? How does the outside world impact what happens inside us?

As the performance commences, the audience is offered a specially developed drink by the artist. He then invites the audience to make a short guided meditation exercise with them.

After the exercise the audience will watch a film which is accompanied by digital live music. For the performance Huttner uses repurposed neuroscientific technology developed by the EEGsynth to externalise the activity of the human brain so that its activities can be seen and heard by the audience. In other words, the sounds and moving images in the performance are influenced in real time by signals from a performer’s brain activities. This is the second performance in a short time where Huttner uses EEG to shape sound and images in parallel.

For this purpose a performer wears an EEG (electroencephalogram) cap on her head. The signals from the cap is sent to a computer which analyses the data and sends it on to a digital musical instruments and software that influence the film’s images in real time.

Tricksters are often boundary crossers of world-views: They can travel into parallel worlds. They cross and often break both physical and societal rules and violate principles of social and natural order. Tricksters often disrupt normal life and then recreates it in new shapes and forms. The film depicts a modern day trickster going through such a transformation.

The working process culminated with a performance at the beautiful Museo de Arte Contemporeano de Queretaro . The program started at 6pm, February 9 and entrance was free. Huttner’s travel to Mexico was supported by The Swedish Arts Grants Committee

The Swedish-French musical festival, Transformation III is doing multiple residencies, public presentations and concerts in Paris in autumn 2023. On November 11 at 19.30pm, Transformation III is performing at Cafe de Paris. During the evening Per Huttner presents “Trickster Tricking Himself.” In the performance he uses the brain waves of  Italian composer Claudio Panariello to create music an images in real time.

Per Huttner has been invited to show the performance “Mira Miraculous” at the 29th edition of the FIAV festival in Casablanca. It is the first time that he travels and shows work in Morocco. The work is presented at Instituto Cervantes on November 9 at 17.00. Entrance is free to all events in the festival

Mira Miraculous is a performance that investigates the relationship between the human inner world and the world that surrounds us. It is divided into two parts. In the first part Huttner invites the audience to an introspection exercise. While listening to subdued ambient music the participants are invited to massage special cream into their hands. They then close their eyes and spend some time to first relax and then investigate how their hands feel. How does the skin, bones, ligaments, muscles and nails feel? nce

After the introspection exercise, the audience is invited to watch a 20 minute long film that reflects on introspection. We see a woman who is engaged in introspection. She moves from reality to reality throughout the film. She also uses the same hand cream that the audience all wear and the cream has magical effects on the surrounding world. While the audience watches the film, Huttner makes music based on  brain waves, creating infinite feedback loops between the different levels of introspection in the film and in the space.

Circle Squared Hypnosis is performing at La Generale in Paris on November 1 at 7pm. Ludvig Elblaus, Per Huttner and Thomas Auroux have developed the performance together during a residency in Paris. In the performance Auroux Hypnotises Huttner. The latter is wearing an electroencephalogram (EEG) cap and Elblaus uses Huttner’s brain activity to make music in real time. The performance is followed by a Q & A. Per Huttner is in residence at La Generale with Ludvig Elblaus and Thomas Auroux  October 25 – November 1, 2023.

Circle Squared Hypnosis will perform at Le Cube Garges in Paris in on October 25 at 2pm. Ludvig Elblaus, Per Huttner and Thomas Auroux have developed the performance together. In the performance Auroux Hypnotises Huttner. The latter is wearing an electroencephalogram (EEG) cap and Elblaus uses Huttner’s brain activity to make music in real time. The performance is followed by a Q & A.

- Welcome to join us at Bioart Society in Helsinki, October 13 at 18h/6pm

Do Trees Dream of CO2 is a collaboration between the Swedish artist Per Huttner and his French colleague Karine Bonneval. They have been developing technology and artistic expressions to facilitate interspecies dialogues between humans and trees for two years. On October 18, they will present their work under informal circumstances at Bioart Society in Helsinki. The event offers an opportunity for the audience to get a glimpse of the technical, scientific and artistic developments that the projects has made to date. The visitor is also invited to participate in a practical demonstration where they can try to dialogue with a tree.

Background
Humans have traditionally ignored plants’ ability to solve problems. Biology has recently acquired important knowledge about plants and their perception and problem solving skills. We gradually learn more about how plants react when the surroundings world changes and what they do in order to enhance their chances of survival. Mankind has also been relatively blind to many of the similarities that we share with the vegetal life around us. But since we share the same planet and the same evolutionary past, we also share a lot of biochemistry. In biology much attention has recently been given to the agency of plants – how they sense the world and deal with changes in their environment. In Do Trees Dream of CO2, artists and researchers from Sweden and France investigate what art can learn from this new and exciting research and how it can be used to create new and visionary art.

Concept and Technology
In the working process of Do Trees Dream of CO2 the team focus primarily on trees’ and their inner signalling. The artists use the PepiPIAF technology to measure changes in the trees’ inner. This non-invasive technology is attached to a branch of a tree. It measures the changes in pressure and temperature inside the actual tree, based on how sap moves. It shows how a tree adapts itself to changes of temperature, season, and daily rhythm. From these measurements the team can derive information about how the tree grows and to a certain degree how it adapts to outside changes. You can find more info about the PepiPIAF here. (In French only.)

The Performances
In Do Trees Dream of CO2, the artists focus on making performances for smaller groups of visitors (6-8 people at the time.) They present the work in the evening or at night. Their main focus is on the nocturnal life of plants. Researchers have learned that they rest at night, in similar way that humans and animals do. But do they also dream? What is their nocturnal existence like? Which similarities and differences can we find between them and us? In the performances the audience is invited to spend extended time with a unique tree and experience art based on that tree’s inner processes. The performances offer a dedicated moment to the inner life of a specific tree, entangled with the specific life rhythm of one human being.

The event is free and everyone is welcome to join:

SOLU / Bioart Society
Panimokatu 1, 3rd floor
00580 Helsinki
Finland
info@bioartsociety.fi

The project is supported by Svenska kulturfonden, Helge Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse and Kulturbryggan.

The Swedish-French musical festival, Transformation III will warm up in 2023 with multiple residencies, public presentations and concerts. They will take place at La Generale and at Le Cube Garges in Paris in October and November 2023. The festival in France in 2024 will bring together artists from multiple fields, researchers primarily from neuroscience and technology developers from many fields. On October 1, 2023 at 2pm, Gaël Segolene, Per Huttner and Samon Takahashi will be performing at La Generale in Paris’s 14th arrondissement.

In May 2022 Per Huttner was invited by French-Iranian artist Ghazel to present his work. He made a one hour online presentation about his artistic practice and his work for the Tehran summit. He draws from a text by Vaclav Havel called that he wrote in 1978. He explains that power structures that are not monitored by exterior forces (like a critical press or opposing political powers) quickly become too comfortable in their way of thinking and acting. Ideology becomes becomes what he calls a “ritual.” But more than anything, the powers that be lose contact with reality, the real lives of its people. This is not only happening in our world today; it has been happening in the arts for a long time. The members of the tribe (whether it be political leadership, the arts or a media turned into propaganda machine) is only interested in being recognised by its peers, the ritual which unlike real “ritual,” functions without any connection back to the real world. In the arts, politics and the media, we have to abandon “ritual” and return to dealing with the real issues in our lives. The performative lecture is now available online:

Alpha Xiao is an experimental musical group consisting of a portable electroencephalagraph (EEG) modulating designed audio samples (Per Huttner) and a traditional Chinese flute called a Xiao (Will Stafford). The two person constellation  focuses musically on connectivity through rough sketches of compositions, sounds and themes. As brain waves influence certain dynamics of the sound, and vice versa, a type of feedback loop is generated between the activities of the brain and sound produced ad infinitum. Alpha Xiao has been active in its musical exploration of mental and musical space since 2020 and participated in “An Infinite Love” at Konstnärshuset in 2021.

Per Huttner’s short film “Dark Light” is now a part of Filmform’s program.

“Dark Light depicts two men who live in the same house, but in parallel universes, unaware of each other’s existence. One day, one of the men discovers a strange object while digging on the beach. When he brings it home it is revealed that the object allows the two to communicate with one another across dimensions.”

For more info or to screen the film, please go here.

Per Huttner will perform “Friendship in the Age of Gaslighting*” on June 16, 2023. The performance forms a part of “You Are not A Guest”  which takes place at AllArtNow in Stockholm. The exhibition and program is curated by Abir Boukhari. Everyone is welcome and entrance is free.

The world is changing fast. Many aspects of our reality that we took for granted only a few years ago can no longer be counted on. The landscape of industry, politics and technology are moving in previously unimaginable directions. In the performance Huttner looks at what happens to friendship in the wake of the changes that we are living through.

He will use text, sound and moving images to reflect on friendship. He invites the audience to ponder how love expresses itself in their relationship to their friends. Could this affection be the foundation for inspiring hope in our hearts? Does friendship demand honesty? What happens to friends when they no longer share the same values? These are some of the questions that the performance raises.

* Gaslighting is an insidious form of manipulation and psychological control. Victims of gaslighting are deliberately and systematically fed false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves. They may end up doubting their memory, their perception, and even their sanity. The term comes from the 1944 film called “Gaslight” which stars Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer.

A previously unknown world of microbes is being revealed by current discoveries in many different fields. What is discovered drastically changes the way we understand ourselves. Naturally questions arise: How can these tiny creatures inform our lives? Where do we encounter them? How can we live in symbiosis?

An international group of artists, thinkers and researchers who work with these questions want to open a for a larger conversation. We both want to share what interdisciplinarity has taught us and discover what we can learn from you. We therefore gather people from many walks of life to come together, think about these questions and create a platform for shared learning.

This is why we would like to invite you to our first Microbiome event: where science, ethics and art meet. Together we will explore the microbiology of our surroundings and introduce different aspects of bacterial life. It starts with an unconventional guided visit through the Ghent University Museum where you will meet scientists, artists, philosophers and be surprised by some practical experiments and inspired conversations that they engage in. After that, we can discuss freely while listening to microbes making music, over a drink and snacks.

Where: Ghent University Museum, GUM, Karel Lodewijk Ledeganckstraat 35, Gand, BE 9000
When: Wednesday June 7, 2023 at 14:00

Guided visit with the participation of:
Marjan De Mey, Dptmt Biotech – UGent;
Giada Lo Re (with sound by Per Huttner) – Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden;
Sarah Lebeer – UAntwerp
Christina Stadlbauer and Bart Vandeput – UGent.
Supported by: Cara Deal, Chiara Guidi, Jasmine De Baets, Nele Buyst, Varsha Paleri.

Reception with the participation of:
Kristien Hens – UAntwerp
Per Hüttner and Till Bovermann – Microbial sounds

If you want to join us. Just drop a line to info [at] visionforum.eu.

Per Huttner and Karine Bonneval will present “″ at Kuntsi Art Museum in Vaasa, May 27 at 2pm. The event offers an opportunity to look into the technical, scientific and artistic developments that the projects make. You are also invited to participate in a practical demonstration where you can try to “dialogue with a tree. The team is in residence in Vexalalandet the week before the presentation where they work closely with Finnish artist from the region.

Background
Humans have traditionally ignored plants’ ability to solve problems. Biology has recently acquired important knowledge about plants and their perception and problem solving skills. We gradually learn more about how do plants react when the surroundings world changes and what they do in order to enhance their chances of survival. Mankind has also been relatively blind to many of the similarities that we share with the vegetal life around us. But since we share the same planet and the same evolutionary past, we also share a lot of biochemistry. In biology much attention has recently been given to the agency of plants – how they sense the world and deal with changes in their environment. In this project, artists and researchers from Denmark, Sweden and France investigate what art can learn from this new and exciting research and how it can be used to create new and visionary art.

Concept and Technology
In our working process we focus primarily on trees’ and their inner signalling. We use the PepiPIAF technology to measure changes in their inner. This non-invasive technology is attached to a branch of a tree. It measures the changes in pressure and temperature inside the actual tree, based on how sap moves. It shows how a tree adapts itself to changes of temperature, season, and daily rhythm. From these measurements we can derive information about how the tree grows and to a certain degree how it adapts to outside changes. You can find more info about the PepiPIAF here. (In French only.)

The Performances
In our project, we focus on making performances for smaller groups of visitors (6-10 people at the time.) We present the work in the evening and at night. Our main focus is on the nocturnal life of plants. We know that they rest at night, in similar way that animals do. But do they also dream? What is their nocturnal existence like? What similarities and differences can we find between them and us? In the performances the audience is invited to spend extended time with a unique tree and experience art based on that tree’s inner processes. The performances offer a dedicated moment to the inner life of a specific tree, entangled with the specific life rhythm of one human being.

The project is supported by Svenska kulturfonden, Helge Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse and Kulturbryggan.

- Alpha Xiao plays live at Hökarängens antikvariat 19.30 on May 20 (doors open at 18.30).

Alpha Xiao is an experimental musical group consisting of a portable electroencephalagraph (EEG) modulating designed audio samples (Per Huttner) and a traditional Chinese flute called a Xiao (Will Stafford). The two person constellation  focuses musically on connectivity through rough sketches of compositions, sounds and themes. As brain waves influence certain dynamics of the sound, and vice versa, a type of feedback loop is generated between the activities of the brain and sound produced ad infinitum. Alpha Xiao has been active in its musical exploration of mental and musical space since 2020 and participated in “An Infinite Love” at Konstnärshuset in 2021.

Johan Hellis will DJ before and after the concert. Entrance is free and contributions welcome.

Per Huttner and the EEGsynth team are working together with French hypnotherapist Thomas Auroux throughout the spring 2023. Together they investigate how music and sound can be generated under hypnosis. The investigations will lead to the creation of a new performance that will be presented in Sweden and France later in the year. Auroux works professionally as a hypnotherapist and specialises in trauma and addiction. The sessions also adds depths to Vision Forum’s work with artists and hypnotherapists in Sweden and Egypt which focuses on how artists can become truer to themselves in their artistic practice in the light of the steady encroaching power of consumerism in our lives. The group has carried our three sessions in April and more are planned in May, June, July and August.

Per Huttner returns to London for another recording session with Tomas Nordmark. Together they will continue their investigation into the work of Andrei Tarkovski and Mark Fisher and how the two investigated the unknown. They will pay special attention to the electric guitar, an instrument that they both have a life-long relationship. They will investigate the instrument as if it were an alien object fallen from the sky. The two created a four part opus called “Emmnauel’s Demise,” which awaits release.

Per Huttner will perform Mira Miraculous for the opening of “You Are not A Guest,” curated by Abir Boukhari at Elbirou Gallery in Sousse. The opening starts April 17, 2023 at 18h and the performance at 21h. Everyone is welcome and entrance is free.

Mira Miraculous is a performance that investigates the relationship between the human inner world and the world that surrounds us. It is divided into two parts. In the first part Huttner invites the audience to an introspection exercise. While listening to subdued ambient music the participants are invited to massage special cream into their hands. They then close their eyes and spend some time to first relax and then investigate how their hands feel. How does the skin, bones, ligaments, muscles and nails feel? What is the individual traits of the fingers and the thumb? How does the palm feel different to the upper side of the hand?

With their eyes still closed. They then continue to investigate their inner world with the same curiosity and warmth that they have sensed their hands. Special attention is given to the music and its influence on their inner worlds. How does music affect one’s inner feeling? Does it make one calm or affect one in different ways? Does it evoke colours, images or other sensations?

After the introspection exercise, the audience is invited to move into the main gallery space. Here the music becomes louder. A member of the audience lies on a bench in front of an empty film screen. The person wears an electroencephalogram (EEG) headset and engages in introspection. The signals generated by his brain are sent in real time to Huttner’s computer and affects the sound. The audience sits down, Huttner turns on the video projector.

The audience then watches a 20 minute long film that reflects on introspection (see stills and trailer below.) We see a woman who is engaged in introspection. She moves from reality to reality throughout the film. She also uses the same hand cream that the audience all wear and the cream has magical effects on the surrounding world. While the audience watches the film, Huttner makes music based on LaChambre’s brain waves, creating infinite feedback loops between the different levels of introspection in the film and in the space.

Governing Bodies participates in this years edition of the Science Festival in Gothenburg. Please join the evnt at Sjöfartsmuseet Akvariet, April 22 at 1pm.

Every human being has over one kilogram of microorganisms in their gut. We live in symbiosis with them and they are necessary for digestion and other life support processes. They affect our mood, energy and probably also to what extent we are curious and social. They help to facilitate communication between gut and brain. So far we know only around two per cent of their functions and capabilities. But one thing is certain: they can live without us, but without them we die

Since 2018 a group of artists and researchers from half a dozen European countries have met, discussed, cooked, eaten and made interdisciplinary art events about the microbes that humans live in symbiosis with. Giada Lo Re, PhD will talk about the interdisciplinary approach and what it means for her as a scientist and what we can learn from it. Freddie Ross will make a performance piece based on the work within the group as from the perspective of a writer and artist. Per Huttner has composed special music for the performance.

Freddie Ross, Artist/Writer, Vision Forum, Vision Forum;
Giada Lo Re, PhD, Industrial and Material Science, Chalmers, Göteborg

Sjöfartsmuseet Akvariet
Ocean Lab
Karl Johansgatan 1-3, Gothenburg

Free entrance

Per Huttner was one of the artists who in 1998 participated in “Stuff it” at the artist run space “Ynglingagatan 1.” Huttner one of the organisers of another artist run space  in Stockholm, “Konstakuten” that he opened with 3 colleagues in 1996. “Stuff it” was in part a social event in where the meeting between artists was in focus. Peter Geschwind  was one of the co-founders of Ynglingagatan 1). In conjunction with his exhibition “After Image” at Bonniers Konsthall,  they create a second “version” of “Stuff it” at one of its galleries in the museum and they welcome artist to participate with work. The curator of  “After Image” contacted all the artists who participated in the exhibition 25 years ago. Both exhibition are open until April 2, 2023.

The project Cod-spawning and Music will be at demo-stage at Tekniska museet in Stockholm February 11-12, 20023. In the project we use recordings of the cods’ mating sounds to make contemporary music. We also use humans’ nerve-signals to modulate the sound. The long term goal is to use real time data from cod and humans in order to create a platform for exchange. Here is the team describe the project:

“When cod gather to mate each spring, they do not just mix and mate with random partners. They have a complex mating ritual that involves both audio (“song”) and visual (“dance”) displays. The music is made when the males beat their ‘drumming muscles’ against their swim bladder to produce rhythms, usually while dancing around the female. Science has been able to show that males with larger drum muscles have more offspring, which indicates that this drumming is important for attracting partners.

At the ‘Center for Coastal Research, University of Agder’ on the southern coast of Norway, they study how these drum behaviours vary between individual cod, what makes some individuals more attractive than others, and whether cod have different dialects depending on where they come from. The work takes place in specially designed pools where about 50 cod live throughout the mating season.”

The goal of the project is to create a platform where humans and codfish can interact to get a more intimate sense of what each others’ lives are like. The team is made up of:

• Per Huttner (Visual artist and musician, Stockholm)
• John Andrew Wilhite (Musician, Oslo)
• Rebekah Oomen (Marine biologist, Oslo)
• Susanna Huneide Thorbjørnson (Marine biologist, Agder)
• Robert Oostenveld (Neuroscientist, Nijmegen)

The project is supported by Statens kulturråd, Längmanska kulturfonde and Helge Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse.

Per Huttner will join in for an evening of performances and talks at Galeria Liberdad in Santiago de Queretaro in collaboration with El Dia D on Friday, February 3, 2023 at 7pm (free entrance). He will present a new performance using the EEGsynth. It starts with a somatic introspection, followed by a concert where Huttner presents a film that he has produced during his two month stay in Mexico. For the performance he is joined by the Canadian choreographer Benoît Lachambre who has deeply interesting ways to introspect. His techniques are based in somatic practices that allow him to generate novel brain waves and to bring magic to the music.

Galería Libertad (And. Libertad 56, Centro, 76000, Santiago de Querétaro, Qro.) +52 442 214 2358

The participating artists are supported by Kulturbryggan and Helge Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse.

Per Huttner has been doing research in Mexico in December and January. He will be in residency at El Dia D, Queretaro 21 – February 3, 2023. During this time he will be working with artists from Mexico and Canada and developing new work. The residency also includes public workshops and public presentations. More info here shortly.

Vision Forum is proud that Swedish National Radio’s “Elektroniskt” devote a large chunk of their 2h broadcast to our project LPJ-L and how they use brainwaves to make music. The interviews are in Swedish, but the music is of course in “Esperanto.” You find the whole show and/or the interviews in the link above. (https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/elektroniskt-i-p2-hjarna-och-psykologi) It is an interesting journey into the limits of perception and how music is created.

The members of the project “Do Trees Dream of CO2,”including Per Huttner,  are meeting in Paris November 25-26 for a workshop to prepare for future performances. During these  working days, artists will together investigate what happens to trees and humans at night and if the two can find a platform for nocturnal exchanges. The will look at new technology, new musical ideas and how trees and humans can benefit from these in the best of ways.

The musical collective LPJ-L which uses the EEGsynth to produce new and exciting technology and new musical material for an album that will be released by Vision Forum and our Danish partners in spring 2023. The group will meet and work at Huhta Home Studios in Copenhagen November 30 December 4. The new technology comprises a new EEG-headset and new ways to work with muscle signals electromyogram (EMG), they will also experiemnt with new ways of working collectively with modular synthesizers.

The musical and performance collective that uses the EEGsynth to produce new and exciting work has started working with new technology. In preparation for for future performances members of the collective will meet in Stockholm Novemner 8-14 to figure out how the new technology can be used in the best of ways. Per Huttner forms an integral part of this work, by linking the different players in Sweden, France, Norway and the Netherlands. The team is working with integrating new EEG (brain activity) and EMG (muscle activity) tools into their current platforms. The processes will be integrated into multiple Vision Forum projects including Do Trees Dream of CO2 and LPJ-L.

- 18:00, December 5, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg
Since 2018 a group of artists and researchers from half a dozen European countries have met, discussed, cooked, eaten and made interdisciplinary art events about the microbes that humans live in symbiosis with. Together the members of the group share a deep interest in how humankind’s growing understanding about the microbes in the human body influence humankind’s understanding of itself and our place in the world. Their collective experiences form the basis for a new publication that shed light on how microbes influence our health and our personality. It is also an exploration of what happens when different forms of knowledge come together and investigate a subject from different angles and new perspectives. It was created to inspire new thinking, new eating habits, and new perspectives on art and science. The contributors offer inspiration for our daily lives by reflecting on what happens when we see ourselves not as individuals, but rather living, walking ecosystems.

Each human being lives with 1,5kg of microbes. They live in and on our body and because they are so tiny they outnumber the amount of cells that make up our bodies. The increasing knowledge about our interactions with microbes is shifting our perception of who we are and how we understand the world. This also raises questions about how humans should act in the light of these unfolding discoveries about the importance of the more-than-human world. The new knowledge also offers opportunities for new technologies and at the same time forces humanity to make complex ethical decisions. Research about microbes is therefore not only a question for microbial scientists. It is important for everyone on the planet, human and non-human alike. Today’s research and technological advances are not only changing science, they also affect the environment as well as influence the humanities and the arts. .

You are invited to the release of the book where you can meet some of the writers who have participated in the process. We meet December 5 at 18:00 at Chalmers, Hörsalsvägen 7, in Gothenburg. When you enter you will have Café Bulten to your right. On your left you will find a large space and in it the entrance to the room “Delta”  where the event takes place.  There will a performance and discussions with the editor and contributors to the book.

If you have trouble finding your way,  please call Freddie Ross on 070 85 49 635. We also invite you for some pizza and some drinks afterwards.

Welcome!

The Association for the Palliative Turn (APT) is a project initiated by long time Vision Forum partner Olav Westphalen. It is an open platform for artists to make work around the palliative turn. Over the summer APT has been hosted by Künstlerhaus Bremen. The project in Bremen brings together contributions from artists, designers, a kinesiologist, a philosopher, a comedian, a grief and death counsellor, and a climate scientist, who have entered into an exchange within the framework of APT.

For the finissage, September 30 and October 1, Per Hüttner will contribute in  a series of public events including:
- The Art of Turning Palliation into Our Lives at any and all Parts of Our Life Cycle with Annemarie Goldschmidt and Per Hüttner
- Performance by Per Hüttner: Duet with a Dying Plant

Founded in 2020, APT is an open-ended collaboration dedicated to discussing and promoting a palliative approach to, and in the arts. With an experimental, speculative and humorous approach, APT applies the concepts and approaches of palliative care to the current crises of civilization, viewing the period before systemic collapse as a time of insight, growth, and profound joy in all that is left. APT proposes no solutions, but an acceptance of the finitude of life and the limits of our remaining possibilities.

Per’s contribution has been made possible through the support of The Swedish Arts Grants Committee.

The Helsinki based filmmaker Samy Kramer has made a wonderful short documentary about Emergence and Microbes: Governing Bodies Helsinki. The workshop was organised by Per Huttner and Till Bovermann.  During 5 days artists and researchers investigated collectively how contemporary knowledge about microbes, the human body, and the arts inform each other. The session in Finland was co-organised by Vision Forum with The Bioart Society and took place June 1-5, 2022. Together, the two organisations invited the audience to performances, lectures, concerts, workshops, sauna trips and a mixture of these expressions.

Artists and filmmakers Per Huttner, Van Che and Fabien Guillermont will create an interdisciplinary film workshop at Teatermaskinen in Riddarhyttan September 5-11, 2022. The workshop will lead to the production of a documentary film. During the workshop seven people will live and make short film sequences based on the dreams that they dream during the workshop.

In the group, we are curious to see how working practically with filming their dreams influence their nightly lives. What kind of feedback loops between sleeping and waking lives become visible? Together we use the film medium and dreams to make invisible values visible – values that are so fundamental to us that we are unable to see them.

Participants

Berit Engman
Toan Van Che
Fabien Guillermont
William Becker
Jonas Engman
Frederique Roy
Josefin Arnell
Leila Anna Christina Salvesen
Per Hüttner

The project will lead to the production of a documentary film and is supported by The Swedish Arts Council, The Swedish Arts Grants Committee and Region Västmanland.

Per Huttner and Multiple Vision Forum members participate in the second version of The Palliative Turn at Künstlerhaus Bremen 09.07.–03.10.2022. For the finissage of the project there will be a weekend of events. Huttner will meet and work with Kinesiologist Annemarie Goldschmidt  in Copenhagen August 29 to prepare for the small festival.

Here is the program for the two days in Bremen:

Friday, 30.09.22
6 pm Performance by Per Hüttner: Duet with a Dying Plant
7 pm talk by Livia Paldi
8.30 pm film screening of contributions by Christoph Draeger, Nina Katchadourian, Olav Westphalen, et al.

Saturday, 01.10.22
11 am Last Aid Course with Lydia Roeder (DE)
1 pm Workshop with Annemarie Goldschmidt (Kinesiologist) and Per Hüttner (artist) (EN)
3 pm Workshop with Louise Ashcroft: NO KIDS (EN)
4.30 pm Exhibition tour with members of APT
7 pm Open roundtable with members of APT
8 pm Palliative Dinner (Registration at galerie@kuenstlerhausbremen.de)

Vision Forum’s artistic director Per Huttner at the European Film Colleage in Ebeltoft, Denmark, 9am, August 25. Here you can read a transcript of his talk.

The musical collective LPJ-L which uses the EEGsynth to produce new and exciting music has started developing new material for a series of concerts in spring 2023. Parallel to that they prepare a series of album releases. In preparation for both, members of the collective will meet in Copenhagen August 26-28 to dwell on new ideas and evaluate old recordings.

Per Huttner is co-organising the  project “Do Trees Dream of CO2.” For the next workshop the group of artists are  hosted by the amazing Secret Hotel and Earthwise outside Aarhus. It will take place August 19-25, 2022. During these intense working days, artists will together investigate what happens to trees and humans at night and if the two can find a platform for nocturnal exchanges.

The residency is rounded off with a public event that is open for the public and also free of charge. The performance will take place as night falls on August 23. Anyone interested should go to Earthwise at 19.30. If you are close to Aarhus or Ebeltoft. Drop a line to Rudi on: info [at] vision.forum.eu and you will get directions.

Per Huttner will participate in the second version of The Palliative Turn at Künstlerhaus Bremen 09.07.–03.10.2022. He will show his drawings “Studies for Duet with a Dying Plant” and will present the performance “Duet with a Dying Plant” at the exhibitions finissage. He will also make presentations with Annemarie Goldschmidt and William Stafford in September. More info soon.

Participating artists:

Carla Åhlander, Louise Ashcroft, Simon Blanck, Christoph Draeger, Kasia Fudakowski, Anna Gohmert, Annemarie Goldschmidt, Teal Griffin, Harry Haddon, Ethan Hayes-Chute, Lars-Erik Hjertström-Lappalainen, Keith Larson, Per Hüttner, Nina Katchadourian, Alex Kwartler, Karin Kytökangas, Mathias Lempart, Dafna Maimon, Marit Neeb, Laura Pientka, Sascia Reibel, John-Luke Roberts, Xavier Robles de Medina, Lydia Röder, Ruth Rubers, Maxwell Stephens, Anna M. Szaflarski, Nala Tessloff, Jana Thiel, Olav Westphalen and Gernot Wieland.

More info soon.

Per Huttner will make music for the presentation of Ghetto Gucci at Weld in Stockholm June 26 and 27. The performance begins at 19h.

In Ghetto Gucci artists from Haiti and Sweden invite the audience to reflect on the role of visions, dreams and life goals in our lives. Whether we live in great poverty or in enormous wealth, we encounter relentless advertising images, media reports and slogans that tell us what to think and how to act. How can we collectively find alternatives? Art offers other perspectives. With art, we can engage with each other with our bodies, with real emotions, create real exchanges and give each other support.

The two performance artists Michel La Fleur and Jerry Reginald Chery appear on a dark stage. They are dressed in “bling-bling” and Gucci copies. They stare coldly at the audience and at the same time caress live kittens in their arms. Carima Neusser and Adriana Benjamin enter the stage and they dance together. We see that through dance they develop another form of freedom and alternative ways to communicate. By creating and dancing together the artists become intimate with life in new ways. Music, movement and props enable them to formulate new hope and new goals. Huttner provides the soundscape for the entire performance.

Between the different tableaux, romantic paintings of heroes from the Haitian revolution are projected on stage. The Haitian revolution is an important inspiration for Haitians who want to change their lives. What dreams of another life drove the slave uprising 1791-1804? Ghetto Gucci inspires artists and audience alike to learn from each other, from history and to reflect on what kind of future we can imagine individually and collectively.

To book a ticket: write to info [at] weld.se.

Ghetto Gucci is a performance developed jointly by Swedish and Haitian artists under the direction of the Swedish choreographer Carima Neusser. The presentations are supported by the Swedish Arts Grants Committee, The Swedish Arts Council and Helge Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse.

Per Huttner is proud to announce that he will perform Ghetto Gucci at documenta fifteen, in Kassel June 17, 18 and 19

In Ghetto Gucci artists from Haiti and Sweden invite the audience to reflect on the role of visions, dreams and life goals in our lives. Whether we live in great poverty or in enormous wealth, we encounter relentless advertising images, media reports and slogans that tell us what to think and how to act. How can we collectively find alternatives? Art offers other perspectives. With art, we can engage with each other with our bodies, with real emotions, create real exchanges and give each other support.

The two performance artists Michel La Fleur and Jerry Reginald Chery appear on a dark stage. They are dressed in “bling-bling” and Gucci copies. They stare coldly at the audience and at the same time caress live kittens in their arms. Carima Neusser and Adriana Benjamin enter the stage and they dance together. We see that through dance they develop another form of freedom and alternative ways to communicate. By creating and dancing together the artists become intimate with life in new ways. Music, movement and props enable them to formulate new hope and new goals. Huttner provides the soundscape for the entire performance.

Between the different tableaux, romantic paintings of  heroes from the Haitian revolution are projected on stage. The Haitian revolution is an important inspiration for Haitians who want to change their lives. What dreams of another life drove the slave uprising 1791-1804? Ghetto Gucci inspires artists and audience alike to learn from each other, from history and to reflect on what kind of future we can imagine individually and collectively.

Ghetto Gucci is a performance developed jointly by Swedish and Haitian artists under the direction of the Swedish choreographer Carima Neusser. It will also be shown at Weld in Stockholm June 26 and 27. The presentations are supported by the Swedish Arts Grants Committee and The Swedish Arts Council.

Vision Forum will present the third incarnation of Governing Bodies. The project has previously appeared in Östersund and in Copenhagen. The session in Finland is co-curated by Per Hüttner and Till Bovermann. It is co-organised with The Bioart Society and takes place June 1-5, 2022. Together the two organisations invite you to five days of performances, lectures, concerts, workshops, sauna trips and a mixture of these expressions.

Huttner will present an immersive installation/demonstration of the EEGsynth at Bioart Society. He will also make music for Carima Neusser’s performance at the same venue and for Freddie Ross’s performative lecture at Akusmata.

*

Each human being lives in symbiosis with 1,5kg of microbes. They live in and on our body and because they are so tiny they outnumber the amount of cells that make up our bodies. They influence our health and probably also our personality. Governing Bodies is an international group of artists from multiple genres (visual art, dance and music) who work closely with researchers in biochemistry, psychiatry and material sciences. Together they share a deep interest in how humankind’s growing understanding about the microbes in the human body influence humankind’s understanding of itself and our place in the world.

The group has met, discussed, cooked, eaten and made interdisciplinary art events about microbes since 2018. During this time they have also changed how they eat, how they understand their bodies and the world they inhabit. In June 2022 the group will travel to Helsinki where they will share their knowledge, experience and also learn from you. The work (with artists and institutions in Finland) constitutes a collective effort to inspire new thinking, new eating habits and new perspectives on art.

In Finland special focus will given to microbes and emergence. Nature is filled with examples of how complex behaviours arise from relatively simple elements: we see this in how ants behave, or in how fish shoals or bird flocks interact. The term emergence is used to describe these fascinating manifestations of self-organisation that can, at first glance, seem inexplicable. Where does the extra injection of complexity suddenly come from? One thing is clear: these emergent phenomena can only be understood as collective behaviours — there is no way to make sense of them without looking at dozens, hundreds, thousands or more of the contributing elements. These wholes are indeed greater than the sums of their parts.

In Governing Bodies Helsinki we will investigate how emergent properties influence our relationship with the microbes that we live in symbiosis with. For instance, the group has noticed that when they change their eating habits it affects the microbes in their gut, which influences their health and overall mood, which affects what they eat etc. creating infinite feedback loops.

The whole program is open to the public and the events can be visited free of charge.

Per Hüttner has supported Freddie Ross with the process of editing the publication Governing Bodies publication. He also contributes with a text where he writes about “Penicillin Ontology,” the work of Lygia Clark and the shaman and activist Davi Kopenawa.

Since 2018, artists, musicians, dancers, researchers, psychiatrists and thinkers have met, discussed, eaten and made art events about the microorganisms that reside in our bodies. The book documents some of the theories and practices that have come out of these meetings. It also constitutes an exploration into what happens when different forms of knowledge come together and investigate the same subject from different angles and perspectives. It is created to inspire new thinking, new eating habits and new perspectives on art and science. The contributors offer inspiration to everyone’s daily lives by reflecting on what happens when we see ourselves as living, walking ecosystems rather than individuals.

The book’s editor Freddie Ross writes in the introduction: “Microbes, it seems, govern almost everything. This realization raises some fascinating questions about things we previously took for granted. It forces us to reevaluate the idea of microbes as one-sided plague-bearers. It also makes us question who we really are. What makes me me? Where do I end and the microbes within me begin? How do microbes shape us and our lives? “

Other contributions by: Maibritt Giacobini, Elias Arnér, Freddie Ross, Kurt Johannessen, Carima Neusser, Emil Krogh and Giada Lo Re. The anthology was edited by Freddie Ross.

To order your copy, please drop a line to info [at] visionforum.eu. The project and publication is supported by Nordic Culture Fund, Nordic Culture Point, Längmanska kulturfonden and Kulturfonden för Sverige och Finland.

Vision Forum Director Per Huttner makes a performative lecture entitled “Parallel Structures” with the online platform The Teheran Summit on May 19, 18.00 CET.

In the talk he will first make a short demonstration of the EEGsynth. It is a technology platform that him and others in the VF team use to make performances with the help of brain activity. We use medical electroencephalogram (or EEG) technology and we measure the brains inner workings on the outside of the skull. The signals that are produced, we connect to influence sound, light, moving images etc.. (virtually any digital platform).

For The Teheran Summit he works with sound. After the short demonstration he outlines how he sees how this practice connects with his artistic practice and its place in the world today. He means that “to make art today is more essential than ever. It constitutes what Vaclav Havel calls ‘parallel structures.’ Worlds that function differently from the mainstream. People who seek ‘truth’. As you all know well, using that word today means opening a can of worms, but we cannot shy away from it any more. We have to discuss empty rhetoric as well as lies that are spread in order for a few to profit from it, while the great majority sees their freedoms shrinking.”
To join the meeting, please use this link

Vision Forum is proud to announce that our research group “Circle Squared” (Per Huttner, Ludvig Elblaus and Jean Louis Huhta) will perform at “Vetenskapsfestivalen”  (The Science Festival) in Gothenburg 7pm May 7. The concert is open to the public at free of charge (Göteborgs universitet, Humanisten, Trappscenen, Renströmsgatan 6, 412 55 Göteborg). More practical details here. The group uses the EEGsynth to play cutting edge contemporary music. They will improvise, within clear boundaries, a 1 hour piece conceived by the group during Nordic workshops organised and carried out by Vision Forum in Sweden and Denmark in 2019-2021. In conjunction with the Gothenburg gig they will appear on Swedish national radio P4 at 3.10pm on Friday May 6.

Welcome!

Per Huttner is part of team that is creating performances for sleeping audiences in a project called “Delta.” They are interested how art can become a part of enriching and better understanding the third of our lives that we spend asleep. The starting point can be found in the fact that some people have very rich nocturnal lives, while others only experience sleep as a necessity without any intrinsic value. Those whose minds are active at night and are aware of it, dream of magical and fantastic places and develop inspiring stories. Others find sleep a profoundly sensual experience where bodily pleasures take another form. The project, in other words, changes how we understand sleep and the processes that take place in our bodies during the night. In order to do this in the best of ways, they are approaching the problem in two ways: Firstly, we collaborate with people who have alternative outlook on sleep.

April 29-May 4, 2022, Per Huttner is co-organising a workshop in Lecce together with Italian artist Emilio Fantin, GrossiMaglioni and the organisation Fondazione Lac o le mon. Fantin has over the last decade developed interesting artworks and creative working processes where he investigates how people can collectively investigate and experience dreams.

Delta is supported by Kulturbryggan in Stockholm

Per Huttner and Vision Forum collaborates with Norwegian biologists, Norwegian musicians  and Dutch researchers to develop performances that are created to be presented to both humans and cod fish. In the project we use high-quality recordings of cod fish’s mating sounds and turn them into aesthetically interesting music. We also let the cod’s movement patterns control sound, light and moving images during the performance using digital technology that measures their location and interaction.

The first research trip to Norway will take place March 31 to April 3. During the trip the group will visit  Flødevigen Research Station close to Arendal in southern Norway where special ponds have been created to study the cod’ s mating rituals. Participants include researchers from Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES). Department of Biosciences at the University of Oslo and the Donders institute in Nijmegen.

The group plans that the results will be shown publicly in Sweden, Norway and Finland in 2022-2023.

The 1+1=3 team will be working in the UK March 27-31 to create new sounds and music using the EEGsynth. They are joined by London-based composer and music producer Tomas Nordmark in his studio in Walthamstow (E17). Together they will look for new strategies for making music using both parties technology platforms, experiences and aesthetic know how. The group has previously worked and performed in the English capital. This time they focus on recording rather than preparing for future performative events.

LPJ-L will perform at 3031 Art Fest in Cairo, March 12 at 7.30pm. The Festival takes place at the epic Darb 1718 art centre.

LPJ-L is a new performance trio that uses the EEGsynth and where Huttner is a member. They will perform “Neu Oscillations,” a 1 hour piece conceived by the group during Nordic workshops organised and carried out by Vision Forum in Sweden and Denmark in 2019-2021. LPJ-L will shortly launch their website. They will also perform at “Vetenskapsfestivalen” in Gothenburg May 7 and they will appear of Swedish national radio. More news here soon.