Anna Mikkola

Mutual support + surviving the game of real life with R U Still There? at House of Egorn, Oct 13 – Nov 25

9 October 2017

The R U Still There? group exhibition is on at Berlin’s House of Egorn, opening October 13 and running to November 25. 

Curated by Annika Kuhlmann and The Mycological Twist, the show includes work by Anne de Boer, Eloise Bonneviot, Viktor Timofeev, Joey Holder, Gaile Pranckunaite, Dorota Gaweda & Egle KulbokaiteAnna Mikkola, Christopher Kulendran Thomas and The Mycological Twist.

The press release does not reveal what the show will bring, but rather sounds like promotional material for a video game, with survival tips like “the environment is not kind,” and, “How you survive is up to you.” It echoes themes of online survival game called ‘Rust‘ by The Mycological — with contributions from Kulbokaite & Gaweda’s recently ended Agatha Valkyrie Ice project, as well as Mikkola — focused on how social and physical networks support each other.    

Visit the House of Egorn website for details.**

‘R U Still There?’ (2017) Exhibition image. Courtesy House of Egorn, Berlin.
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Slime moulds, submarine creatures + migrating birds in Ambient Intelligence at Enclave, Sep 21 – Oct 1

21 September 2017

The Ambient Intelligence group exhibition is on at London’s Enclave, opening September 21 and running to October 1.

Bringing together slime moulds, submarine creatures and migrating birds, the show looks at “processes of emergence of non-neuronal and expanded forms of intelligence, both in nature and technology” and features work by Joey Holder, Anna Mikkola and Jenna Sutela. 

There will also be accompanying events, including a performance by Rachel Cheung ‘Corporeal Computation’ on September 28 and 29, as well as ‘New Ecological Paradigms’ lectures by Aslak Aamot Kjærulff, Alexandra Anikina and Inigo Wilkins, and a screening of Air Kiss (a film by Karina Golubenko, Egor Kraft, Alina Kvirkveliya and Pekka Tynkkynen). 

The event is part of Deptford X Fringe 2017.

Visit the FB event page for details.**

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Major chords with minor adjustments: an exploration of affection in Non Standard

27 June 2017

The Non Standard group exhibition at Milan’s t-space opened June 8 and is running to July 23.

Non Standard (2017). Exhibition view. Courtesy t-space, Milan.

Curated by Mattia Giussani, the show looks at the relations between “human, nature and technology within 21st century networked capitalism” and includes new media works by UK-based artists Lea Collet & Marios Stamatis, Anne De Boer, Joey Holder, Anna Mikkola and Eva Papamargariti.

The exhibition also includes a text NON STANDARD: Human and technological mediations with surrounding environments  by Matilda Tjäder who explores the relationship between human affection, technology and our surrounding environments with an excerpt that reads, “A human hand picks it up, tightens and bends it, points it in the direction of a gathering point. Behind the back of all woodpecker-like dialogues, some have gathered to breath in choirs, to attest major chords with minor adjustments.”**

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Sonic Acts 2016 @ Paradiso, Feb 27

26 February 2016

Amsterdam’s inaugural Sonic Acts 2016 is presenting a monumental music line-up at Paradiso on February 27.

As part of the three-day festival programme that runs in the Netherlands capital from February 26 to 28, the Saturday event will feature producers including NON Records artists Chino Amobi, Angel-Ho and Nkisi, Janus affiliates KABLAM, Lotic and M.E.S.H., as well as J.G. Biberkopf, Sky H1, Toxe, Why BeVisionist and Anna Mikkola among others.

The newly-founded Sonic Acts academy is a new platform aiming to “grow, expand, sustain and disseminate stimulating discourse about artistic research”. This year the associated festival programme and its ‘Dark Matter’ theme feeds into the academy’s ongoing investigations into nature, culture, technology, and ecology, and what it calls ‘Dark Ecology’ and ‘The Geologic Imagination’ within the Anthropocene era.

See the Sonic Acts website for details.**

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The Mycological Twist / Rust @ Riverside Space, Dec 14 – 18

14 December 2015

Eloïse Bonneviot and Anne de Boer continue their The Mycological Twist process with a weeklong workshop in the online survival game Rust at Riverside Space in Ittigen, Switzerland on December 14.

Taking the themes of their original process-based project and expanding on them, Bonneviot and de Boer explore networks as support for sustainability and the idea that human networks are, in a sense, natural.

The workshop comes with a programme of  events and case studies happening in-game, commencing Monday at 18:00, with ‘Exploration, Construction and Development, Tuesday through Thursday from 14:00 onwards, a contribution by Agatha Valkyrie Ice and Anna Mikkola on Thursday at 18:00, and a DJ / VJ set from 19:00 on Friday.

See the workshop page for details. **

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biotic / abiotic @ The Gallery Apart, Nov 26 – Jan 24

25 November 2014

Rome’s The Gallery Apart brings its latest group exhibition, titled biotic/abiotic and running to their space from November 26 to January 24.

The show comes out of the Jupiter Woods curatorial platform and takes the idea of interconnectivity directly into its design, curated by Jupiter Woods’ Hanna Laura Kaljo and Lucy Lopez and in collaboration with The Gallery Apart and the Nomas Foundation.

Featuring eight different artists and artist collaborations – including Emily Jones, Chiara Camoni, Jacopo Miliani and V4ULT‘s Anna Mikkola among others – biotic / abiotic explores the points of connection (and dissolution) between the natural and the cultural.

See the exhibition FB page for details. **

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The Mycological Twist (2014) installation photos

27 October 2014

‘Round the back of Jupiter Woods there are mushrooms growing. Or at least there was one, smaller than a pinky nail and indistinguishable from the other rubble in the multi-shelf structures stacked high with chipboard, in the yard of the Bermondsey gallery where the ceiling’s falling in and there’s toxic waste nearby. Having seen the space in a week where extinction was on the brain, this productive generative artwork was a most welcome relief from all the end-is-nigh narratives with their “we’re all fucked” messages during Frieze week.

The Mycological Twist (2014) @ Jupiter Woods. Detail. Courtesy Anne de Boer and Eloïse Bonneviot.
The Mycological Twist (2014) @ Jupiter Woods. Detail. Courtesy Anne de Boer and Eloise Bonneviot.

As part of a survey of all the good stuff on the periphery of October’s art-as-liquid-asset week (more on that here) a visit to The Mycological Twist permanent installation, opening along with Genuine Articles on October 2 and running indefinitely, meant a chat with artists and initiators of the project, Eloïse Bonneviot and Anne de Boer, who point out the tiny white thimble of a fungus, from the stacks of hay, soil and plastic-covered shelving surrounding us, explaining that the rest of the mushrooms could spring up overnight.

I don’t know what’s happened since but in light of energy-sucking artists critiquing energy-sucking enterprise through energy-sucking art, it’s nice to see an effort to transform all the toxins into something a little more constructive. Particularly when positioned beside what I can only describe as the most beautiful toilet I’ve ever seen; a maybe disused outhouse with yellow, green, red, blue and brown paint peeling from its inner walls and a perfectly round cistern beneath a TV rack screening ‘Respawn’ (2014). It’s a collection of video featuring contributions from 17 artists, Juliette Bonneviot, Sam Kenswil, Lars TCF Holdhus, Anna Mikkola, Emily Jones and Jaakko Pallasvuo among them.

Eloise Bonneviot and Anne de Boer, 'Respawn' (2014). Film still. Courtesy the artists.
Eloise Bonneviot and Anne de Boer, ‘Respawn’ (2014). Film still. Courtesy the artists.

Launched with a mushroom brunch and dinner and a ‘Shroom Music & Myco_educational_VJ-set’, where Bonnevoit and de Boer occupied the first floor roof top of Jupiter Woods to play their evolving playlist, The Mycological Twist is an experiment in the regenerative powers of the fleshy, spore-bearing bodies. That’s all while offsetting some of the the energy needed to keep the digital image going and the ‘Respawn’ video rolling. **

Installation images, top right.

The Mycological Twist is a permanent installation launched at London’s Jupiter Woods on October 2, 2014.

Header image: Harm van den Dorpel, ‘Cloud on Title’ (2013) install view at ‘The Mycological Twist’ (2014) @ Jupiter Woods. Courtesy Anne de Boer and Eloïse Bonneviot.

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V4ULT 2013 exhibition archive launched

6 January 2014

Berlin-based ‘non-space’, V4ULT, has launched a video archive of last year’s exhibitions on its website.

Speaking to their precept of “URL continues IRL”, and vice versa, founders and curators Anna Mikkola and Hanna Nilsson (of PWR Studio) spent the past year exploring place and our relation to it by playing with the notion of the online and offline gallery, as well as its documentation. If you click the black square in the top right hand corner of  the website, links to shows by Iain Ball, Kimmo Modig, Pamela Rosenkranz and, of course, last September’s Breathing Kevlar, Perforated Skin group exhibition, among others, present yet another experience of 2013’s Adalbertstrasse space, which is set to shift elsewhere in 2014.

See the V4ULT website for details. **

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Pamela Rosenkranz @ V4ULT, Sep 18

17 September 2013

With space becoming a real concern in a densely populated, urbanised world, its galleries like new Berlin additions V4ULT that are exploring the notion of boundaries and how to transcend them. Run by Anna Mikkola and Hanna Nilsson they aim to utilise the small space by exploring networked social media and our interlinked relation to it via a combined online and offline gallery.

Opening their first show with an exhibition from UK artist Iain Ball in June,  with shows by eight artists in the three months since, the title of Pamela Rosenkranz’s, Content, opening on Wednesday, September 18, marks an interesting parallel with V4ULT’s high-volume, rapid turnover of works, especially when that ‘content’ appears to consist entirely of online information on skin care. Refresh.

See the V4ULT website for more details. **

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