Kevin Tavin, Aalto University
As an example, Tavin refers to a collective of five students who call themselves Brains on Art, led by Aalto art graduate Kasperi Mäki-Reinikka. The five first became friends at high school, then went off to study art, cognitive science, computer science and electrical engineering. They kept in touch, meeting from time to time to grapple with the way each of their world views were being shaped differently through their diverse academic experiences. Unable to reconcile their views through conversation alone, the crew decided on another way to try and find some shared answers: they would produce art together. The result is a startling collective that combines cognitive science and art. Their signature project is an interactive poetry generator, where an electroencephalogram (EEG) monitor on a user’s head measures their brainwaves and then produces a poem on a screen in real time. The style, meter and wording used in the poem differ widely between individuals, depending on the brain activity read by the EEG. Other projects from Brains on Art include an interactive stock market performance tool that uses electric balance manipulation, a virtual petri dish pool where digital organisms are created from bio-signals, and a forthcoming exhibition where the group will build several installations that bring to life children’s drawings that imagine machines of the future. 16 / AALTO UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE 18
“BY PUSHING BOUNDARIES, WE HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO CREATE NEW IDEAS. TO WORK BETTER, TAKE BETTER CARE OF OURSELVES, OF OTHERS, AND OF THE WORLD.” The art of silence For an example of art meeting the business world, Tavin refers to artist Pilvi Takala’s performance of The Trainee. In a rare and courageous instance of a corporation embracing workplace disruption, international accounting firm Deloitte allowed Takala to pose as an employee in their Helsinki office. Then, using a series of hidden cameras, Takala recorded employees’ reactions to her unconventional working style. In the first scene, she simply sits at an empty desk in an open office, introducing herself as “on loan” from the company’s marketing department. When questioned as to why she has no computer in front of her, or why she isn’t doing anything other than sitting silently at the desk, Takala responds that she’s doing “brain work.” In another scene she rides the same office elevator all day long, telling curious colleagues who enter and exit that she simply “thinks better” while standing in the elevator than she does sitting at a desk. At first the performance seems strange – even silly – and the scenes are actually uncomfortable to watch. But the point starts to sink in when you see and hear people’s reactions. One colleague whose curiosity gets the better of him eventually approaches her as she sits silently at the empty desk and implores her to tell him what she’s thinking. Others say of her elevator riding