Sandra Jõgeva (SJ): I have been fortunate to witness your development as an artist up close. In particular, I am thinking of the 2007–2014 period at the Polymer Culture Factory, the programme of which we were both involved in organising. As were Tanel Saar, Mai Sööt (now Arslan), Janno Bergmann, Kilian Ochs and Ernest Truely. You started with massive sculptures, and their connection to machines was somewhat tentative. Next came spectacular works bordering on interactive installation and inclusive performance (which you called mysteries). You then moved on to performance art and choreography. Your recent solo exhibition “Freed Machines” in Tartu Art House (11. XI–11. XII 2022) can quite unequivocally be considered a (kinetic art) gallery exhibition. How would you comment?

Erik Alalooga (EA): My seemingly rather turbulent development has had clear moments of recognition at key turning points that have set my focus in a new direction. I already started experimenting with kinetic art during my bachelor’s studies in sculpture at the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA). The understanding of how movement can be treated as a completely independent aesthetic came naturally to me.

I came to the interactive aspect of machines for purely technical reasons – certain types of machines simply do not operate in such a way that if you switch them on, they will keep going all day. “Linear” machines, which perform a single unidirectional action at a time, constantly need to be started again by the audience. This requirement made my machines significantly more attractive.

Interactive machines have a strong performative aspect – a certain inevitable dependency between person and machine. Dealing with the performative aspect, in turn, began to evoke more and more characteristics of a performance in my treatment of the machines. I ended up abandoning interactivity because I wanted to operate my own machines in a theatrical manner. I turned towards theatre and the art of dance. During this period, I also became increasingly interested in the sounds accompanying mechanical movements. Currently, I mainly design sound machines in the context of installation art and experimental music. 

But that’s not all! I’m embarking on opening another new perspective. Treating a manipulated mechanical object as an artificial partner places this relationship in the field of new puppetry. At the moment, something similar to what happened in real theatre as a result of the post-dramatic shift is taking place in this field. The “new puppet” is no longer necessarily an anthropomorphic character but can just as well be a sound machine handled by the performer. It’s not that I’m going to do puppet theatre behind a screen now, but this recognition allows me to look at my work from a new angle again, keep it fresh.

SJ: I once described your art to my father, one of the pioneers of Estonian kinetic art, Villu Jõgeva (1940–2019), as something along these lines: if today small machines do big things, Erik Alalooga’s art consists of the fact that he builds room-sized machines that do one small thing. A contradiction – and an absurdity.

EA: It’s a contradiction if we consider technological art from the point of view of the capitalist myth of success and progress. We are generally used to regarding a machine as an artificial aid that should give its user a competitive advantage. Because many people want to get this advantage, technology is continuously developed to outsmart others. The more innovative and capable your machines, the higher your position in society. For some reason, a large part of the artists practising technological art have obediently adopted this myth. They compete for who can make a smarter, more skilful, more accurate and more reliable “art machine”.

My approach is a little different. If you look at my machines, you will quickly notice that their technical performance hasn’t changed significantly in twenty years. For the power source of the first kinetic machine I made in the second year of EKA, I borrowed, after some bargaining, a windshield wiper motor from Kaarel Kurismaa (b 1939), another pioneer of Estonian kinetic art. I still use similar motors today.

I don’t care who can technically develop an art object faster, move towards greater automation, let alone artificial intelligence. I am interested specifically in the relationship between man and machine outside the myth of progress. Figuratively speaking, I’m like Robinson Crusoe with a machine on a desert island with no one to sell it to or be victorious over. In that case, the designer of the machine has an honest and personal relationship with it.

The technical quality of the machine reflects the ability of its author without sugarcoating it. If the machine needs constant help from the author to work, so as not to fall apart or to jam, then for me there is a certain positive dependency. This is primarily conceivable in the performative arts. Of course, ideally, a kinetic work displayed at an art exhibition in a gallery should manage on its own all the way.

SJ: Returning to your mysteries for a moment: at the “Baltoscandal” theatre festival in 2010, I witnessed your rather spectacular… failure. It seemed to me that you had expected too much from the audience that entered your room full of big machines, predicting that the crowd would behave, move and act in a certain way. Unfortunately, some unsuspecting visitor started the machine that was intended to create the climax of the show – an axe severed the main cable and the power went out, so the show ended before it could really begin. It seems to me that you took a different direction with your interactive machines after that. Correct me if I am wrong.

EA: No, you are not wrong. One of the weakest links in these interactive mysteries was the expected behaviour of the audience. With an audience that spills out into the room, it’s pretty hard to predict. And that’s how it happened – people knew from before that my machines could be handled. So, someone started solving the mystery “from the end”! As an inexperienced performance artist at the time, I was unable to initiate a backup plan, and the strict linearity encoded in the work did not allow for it either. I couldn’t get over this failure for a very long time.

At the same festival, however, I saw the Saint Petersburg theatre group AKHE for the first time, who jammed expressively with all kinds of objects and devices. This was one of the reasons I abandoned interactive mysteries. I felt like I wanted to physically mess around with my machines on the stage, instead of fretting over whether the audience would read my supposed scheme correctly.

SJ: Instead of you being on the stage with a few companions, there are now young performers on the stage and you are more often the director. Is this related to the fact that you are finishing your doctoral studies at “lavakas” (Theatre Department of the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre – Ed.)?

EA: Mostly, yes. One of the central concepts of my research is bricolage, which means solving a task using random available means.

In the context of performance art, I am interested in how a person without any specific skills constructs sound machines from available means, and then operates with them on a stage. I mainly participate in this process as a (post-)dramatist of object theatre, creating a context for the play, not through a literary work but through the selection of materials. I have set myself aside to examine it in an exploratory manner.

 

 

 

 

Erik Alalooga (director, author of objects)
Resistance of Material
2012
Performance at the Kanuti Gildi SAAL
Team: Erik Alalooga, Andreas W,
Tanel V. Kulla, Hans-Gunter Lock
Photo by Krõõt Tarkmeel

 

 

 

SJ: How did you fit in at “lavakas” and what is it like to study at the highest level of higher education in this legendary theatre institution, having an entirely different background? What will be written on your degree and when will it be handed to you? When and why did you enter the doctoral programme there?

EA: To be honest, I have not really even tried to fit in. Maybe it is my own phobia, but I am afraid my views and vocabulary are too different from real theatre. From the point of view of the academic process, I haven’t really had any business at the “lavakas” main building. All the activities have taken place elsewhere.

SJ: Has “lavakas” made you re-evaluate your views on working with actors? How do you choose the young people who perform in your shows? Who are they?

EA: The main criteria have been performance experience and as little exposure as possible to bricolage, do-it-yourself methods and the like. As a result of persistent social roles, I have preferred female performers because they are still being kept away from such “boy stuff”. This mostly guarantees starting from a clean slate and the desire to prove oneself; as for young men, going to a party in a dress seems to be the most courageous challenge at the moment.

Working with female performers has been very meaningful and effective from the point of view of my research. I think I have proven the viability of my method. I do not treat the performers of my projects as actors. Most of the performers have a background in dance.

The main factor that made me enter the doctoral programme was a desperate desire to get away from Viljandi. In the two years that I worked there, I had a studio and a sound art gallery, Supersonicum, in the Viljandi Koidu society house. I have very good memories from this house, and the relationships are still good, but everything else somehow made me feel totally claustrophobic. I felt a real danger that I would have to take up a simple job unrelated to my field to sustain myself. Being admitted into the doctoral programme turned out to be one of the biggest moments of salvation in my life.

Well, and then there is how I should really answer your question: it was the desire I have to analyse my work.

SJ: And what will you do after your PhD? The artist Fideelia-Signe Roots, who received her doctorate from EKA in nominal time – an extraordinary achievement, by the way – has already proven that the degree does not necessarily save an artist from a menial job unrelated to her field, in order to make a living.

EA: It does not. A doctoral degree can be a considerable argument when applying for some academic positions, and when applying for creative research grants.

It is difficult to trace the origin of the myth that getting a diploma in art will propel someone to a job in their field of expertise in the labour market. As far as I know, this has never happened anywhere.

SJ: But you had this professional job when you headed the Department of Performing Arts at EKA from 2010 to 2013?

EA: A brief overview of my teaching CV looks like this: from 2003 to 2006 I worked as teacher at the Tallinn Art Gymnasium, from 2006 to 2010 as associate professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Arts at EKA, and from 2010 to 2013 as head of the Department of Performing Arts at EKA. We can talk about this last job, because sometimes it seems that its existence is ignored, and that it never actually existed. But it did!

In 2010, when Jaan Toomik, head of the Department of Interdisciplinary Arts at EKA, started working as a professor in the painting department, I replaced him. I considered it necessary to significantly change the profile of the department towards the performing arts. The former “trademarks” of the Department of Interdisciplinary Arts (i.e. video art and installation) had already been taught in depth – in the new media and sculpture departments respectively. However, performing arts were not handled in depth at that time. This is how this change of direction came about. It was largely thanks to Marko Mäetamm, dean of the Liberal Arts faculty at EKA at the time, who fully supported my plan.

Looking back, the Department of Performing Arts dealt with all sorts of manifestations of post-dramatic theatre. Technological theatre, experimental music, durational performances, performative installations, etc., are exactly what the world knows as modern theatre, without the obligation to call it theatre.

This was a very intense time; all courses ended with live presentations in front of an audience. The main test venue was the Polymer Culture Factory, which allowed unlimited freedom. We also used other alternative venues.

The fact that we operated away from the mainstream art galleries and performance venues pushed us into the position of outsiders. I also focused all my energy on students and learning processes; academic glass clinking and institutional flirtation remained in the background.

So when Mäetamm was sacked, the new dean and the rector immediately began to eradicate the heresy! Everything that had managed to be introduced into the development plan of EKA under the previous dean was put on hold. In 2013, my contract was terminated, and that was the end of this brief experiment.

Today, similar things are being done at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, under the auspices of the privately funded international studies of the modern performing arts. Hopefully, this curriculum will have a longer academic life.

Currently, I am back at EKA as head of the sculpture and installation studio. This is not an academic position. I am responsible for the premises, materials and tools.

SJ: Is the history of kinetic art in any way important to you, does anyone from the past inspire you? How do you feel about the current art scene both in Estonia and elsewhere?

EA: I would be lying if I said that I work on my own and am driven by the so-called divine spark. Of course I am familiar with history. Seeing Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle’s “Stravinsky Fountain” (La Fontaine Stravinsky, 1983) in Paris long before I became involved with art was like a bolt from the blue! Like a revelation of what lies ahead.

I have also been to the Tinguely Museum in Basel, watched videos, read biographies. But if I had to say whether he is a role model for me, I rather feel that my soul mates are the weird inventors of the 19th century who, driven by some indefinable obsession, built aeroplanes or other silly devices, failed and tried again.

About art currently, I still relate the most to sound art and experimental music. Estonia’s situation is twofold. We try and experiment, but to my dismay, the general picture in experimental live music is obviously based on industrially produced instruments. Constructing your own instruments and machines using DIY methods is pretty much non-existent.

I have occasionally been asked if anyone in Estonia still makes their own instruments, and sadly, I have to say that not as far as I know. Electronic synthesisers might be an exception, but there aren’t many of them around anymore.

As far as sound installations are concerned, on the other hand, the situation is much more varied! Many artists – such as Taavi Suisalu, Raul Keller, John Grzinich and others – build original objects and systems. The level of work is impressive, their handwriting is idiosyncratic, and the artists are intellectuals in their field in addition to being skilled at their craft.

Sandra Jõgeva is an installation and performance artist, writer, critic, and documentary film director.