Taavi Suisalu works in the field of technological, performance and sound art. The artist is most intrigued by sociocultural phenomena and their influence to social beings’s behaviour, perception and thinking. Suisalu has studied sociology and informatics at the University of Tartu, he has graduated from the department of media and advertisement design at Tartu Art College in 2010 as well as obtained MA degree in the deparment of new media at the Estonian Academy of Arts in 2014. Suisalu has also taken additional courses in L’École de design Nantes Atlantique, France and in Geneva University of Art and Design, Switzerland. He has participated in several international art projects and workshops in Estonia, Iceland, Lithuania, Finland and Switzerland.
In 2014, Taavi Suisalu was awarded the Young Artist Prize, granted by the Estonian Academy of Arts and private investors, that provided the artist also with the opportunity to hold a personal exhibition I am NOT sitting in a room in Draakon gallery. In 2016, Suisalu took part in the 5th Artishok Biennale curated by Evelyn Raudsep in Theatre NO99.
Taavi Suisalu: „While preparing for the current exhibition, I have navigated on the surface of technological sphere and practised cosmic field-recording and distant photography – for that purpose, I have used the top achievements of the engineering science of the Cold War era, the orbiting satellites accessible from electromagnetic landscapes. Their ability to communicate information between very far distances changed the ways we move in space and time as well as perceive the personal and the general in it. The equipment originally designed for military purposes is now widely used in science, communication and has become part and parcel of the global culture. The first ones have transformed into inadequate technological waste. However, there are cases where, as a result of favourable system errors, satellites have reset their working regime after they have been switched off. This, in turn, results in transmission of dented, disrupted and noisy signals with the potential of an aesthetic error.
At the present exhibition, landscape and portraits have interwoven. Landscape is presented as a distant self-portrait – a somewhat cosmic reflection where the one taking his portrait and the one whose portrait is being taken have been recorded as a pixel, the smallest addressable element, in the middle of the picture. The exhibition tells about the unaddressed signals; suspense between the personal and the general; love towards antennas; technological metaphysics and technological utopia to defy gravitation while free-falling for several decades.“
Exhibition will be open until January 30, 2017.
Thanks to: Kaspars Lielgalvis, MoKS, Evelyn Raudsepp, Heiki Zvorovski, Ivar Suisalu, Kadri Toom.
Exhibition will be supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Exhibitions in Hobusepea gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Ministry of Culture.
