3 Dec 2018

Events

TOKAMAK 7, AGENTS OF AGENCY

Spies Schedule: Public Programme

The joint task of the residents of TOKAMAK 7, Agents of Agency, will be to explore the idea of artistic Agency through the international cultural trope of Espionage– creating a collaborative film-collage of remakes, homages or radical re-imaginings of scenes from international spy films which can come from any period or location. Participants will be asked to come to the residency with a film, TV show, novel, short story or nonfiction account selected, which we will look at, one or two per evening, and then discuss in terms of production strategy for the next day. We also ask each participant to present his/her own work to the group. The rest of our time will be spent “freely”! At HIAP Suomenlinna Studios, Johan Tobias (Sculpture) Studio.

15. 07
Kirill Tullin’s talk on Kafka’s “The Burrow”

Burrow is a monitoring tool for keeping track of consumer lag in Apache Kafka
Yes, we would indeed talk about “Burrow” – a late unfinished short story of Kafka, where the question of agent and agency as such are crucial. Digging deeper and deeper, in search for the other mole , by a mole whose being is both affirmed and threatened by the other 2 who digs against.
Without any ambition of a new solid (re-)interpretation, I would like to talk about this peculiar type of subject relations that are woven into the story and discuss few models that both learn from and feedback to the “Burrow”.

18. 07
20.00
Axel Straschnoy
Notes on the Double Agent

Notes on the Double Agent is a research project on officially true double agent stories. The results of this research are presented in a series of lectures mixing a magic lantern show, a Powerpoint presentation, and secret agent aesthetics. While the broader timeframe is the XX century, the talks focus in particular on stories of WWII and Cold War double agents.

19.07
17:45
Manuela Unverdorben
Welcome to the world of shortwave espionage!

On Tuesday, 19th of July at 14:45 GMT (17:45 Suomenlinna Time) we will offer a singular radio experience and a time travel to the fascinating world of radio broadcasting during the cold war.
Broadcasting is basically subversive: radio waves don’t recognize state borders, radio signals travel long distances and radio receivers are standardized around the world: The perfect medium for espionage and propaganda. (research in progress)

21.07
19:00
Pavel Arsenyev
The sign with double agency: self-consciousness of a transparent actor

Is the sign a transparent tool or an autonomous fact? Most often, signs, or semiotic actors, are treated either like slaves of a demiurg author, or are themselves sovereign beings, that is, not utilitarian. The latter makes us either agents who take full responsibility for the production of meaning, or delegate the task to the signifier.
But what if the sign could have double agency, and be a double agent? What if enunciations could be (self)ironic and politically aware and even engaged at the same time? What if signs, in certain circumstances, could be simultaneously tools and actors, affording us to say something not only about war, revolution or at least deficit, but to enact it.

25.07
(time to be confirmed)
Ishmael Falke
Escape from Kurpitsa

– A Micro-Action-Trash-Vegetable-Specific-Market-Show. In Season Only

Escape from Kurpitsa Island is a small story of a big issue. The cold war is gushing as secret agents Sergey and Johnstone steer after a nuclear device lost in the depth of a giant pumpkin. Chased by mutant rabbits and a living double ham, they find finally each other – and world peace.