An ongoing process from Boys of Summer to Pervert Art (2016)
An excerpt about my artistic work from Mira Kallio-Tavin and Minna Suoniemi's article Changing the Course of Art Education Students’ Art Studies in Aalto University.
This text is an excerpt from Mira Kallio-Tavin and Minna Suoniemi's article Changing the Course of Art Education Students’ Art Studies in Aalto University, published in IMAG. InSEA MAGAZINE N.°3. Vol. 1. November 2016.
The article relates to the KUVIS1000 exhibition and my work Pervert Art, with more information provided after the text.
The article relates to the KUVIS1000 exhibition and my work Pervert Art, with more information provided after the text.
An ongoing process from Boys of Summer to Pervert Art
When pondering the starting perspectives for his artistic work process, Nummela emphasized the effort to develop private topics into public themes. In his undergraduate thesis he focused on teenage homosexual identification to female film characters. TV and films influenced him strongly as teenager,and he wanted to make these experiences visible to the wider audience through his art. As artistic influence and source, he mentions Candice Breitz’s artwork and especially Babel series and Soliloquy trilogy. Nummela finds it interesting how Breitz uses popular culture as her material and artistic method. For example, in Soliloquy trilogy, Breitz has edited out from theoriginal movie everything but the main character’s lines, hence producing a long monologue.
When describing the actual artistic process, Nummela mentions his interest toward using popular culture material, such as music videos and commercials, and developing his ideas based on editing existing materials. Seeing artistic examples encouraged him to continue with his ideas. He first tested the method and made versions. These tests shaped his artistic thinking and effected in how he continued editing his material. Some seemed better than others, but nothing seemed sufficient to exhibit. Working on existing video material made the artistic process first seem too easy. He decided that instead of focusing on “overdoing” one singular piece, he included several draft-type edits into a video installation to be able to allow space for coincidences. This made it possible to include different layers, voices and perspectives to the artwork, and hence emphasize un-finished and open-ended artistic process.
When describing the actual artistic process, Nummela mentions his interest toward using popular culture material, such as music videos and commercials, and developing his ideas based on editing existing materials. Seeing artistic examples encouraged him to continue with his ideas. He first tested the method and made versions. These tests shaped his artistic thinking and effected in how he continued editing his material. Some seemed better than others, but nothing seemed sufficient to exhibit. Working on existing video material made the artistic process first seem too easy. He decided that instead of focusing on “overdoing” one singular piece, he included several draft-type edits into a video installation to be able to allow space for coincidences. This made it possible to include different layers, voices and perspectives to the artwork, and hence emphasize un-finished and open-ended artistic process.
Pervert Art in KUVIS1000 exhibition at the Kamppi shopping center. Photo: Neonilla Narjus
The first piece turned out to be an installation, including an image modified from the Superman strip where the Superman has been edited out, a letter written as a child to a lost friend, and a video entitled Boys of Summer. The video consists of edited material of men and boys, which Nummela had found beautiful as a teenager. The installation speaks on longing, absence and admiration, mixing layers from early childhood emotions to teenage and adult erotic, and romantic homosexual fantasies. Later on, the video Boys of Summer was included into a larger video installation, Pervert Art. For this video Nummela edited material based on his teenage visual fantasies, represented through popular culture imaginaries of that time. In this installation, five videos, which differ from their length, loop randomly and hence every reviewing experience is different. For Nummela, this artwork represents namely images in process and an effort to include coincidence into a video artwork process when the images and their themes are more important than their form.
Nummela’s work can be seen as an example of a critical artistic process in which the piece both reflects personal experience and forms a visual research about constructed and loaded media representations of what it means to be a young man. Thus, Nummela’s artistic working process can be seen as an exploration of a certain phenomenon, to which he has a very personal relation and motivation. For us, it serves as a good example of practiced contemporary art pedagogy, where societal and cultural phenomena are contemplated using conceptual thinking through artistic language.
Nummela’s work can be seen as an example of a critical artistic process in which the piece both reflects personal experience and forms a visual research about constructed and loaded media representations of what it means to be a young man. Thus, Nummela’s artistic working process can be seen as an exploration of a certain phenomenon, to which he has a very personal relation and motivation. For us, it serves as a good example of practiced contemporary art pedagogy, where societal and cultural phenomena are contemplated using conceptual thinking through artistic language.
