Tuomas Laitinen (FI): Blind Spot

ANTI Festival has invited three artists to collaborate with a child, creating three unique duets. In this duet, Tuomas Laitinen collaborates with his son.Scooterers approach the city as an ecosystem of emergent spots. These sites serve to house the flow of movement of the ones scootering, as they inhabit the spot temporarily through their instrument, with tricks, jumps and landings. The spot is the way they take the city, hijack it to serve corporeal creativity. It is through this kind of habitation that the urban in-between spaces become landing sites for the displaced humans.

what if the performance would have nothing? – anyway you have to breathe – or hold your breath – and stand or sit or lay down – you have to be in a position – and if you lay, you move – you can’t be still – nothing is impossible – we can try it anyway? – it won’t work even when you are dead – even then there is something – if your eyes are closed, you see nothing – no, you see black – what if you had no eyes?- it would be the same black, I think – what if you are deaf, do you hear anything? – I don’t think so –  so there is no black in sound? – I don’t know of anything at least – what about silence? – even then there is some small sound, even if you can’t hear them, sounds are there – so there is something, even when you notice nothing – yes

Tuomas Laitinen (FI)

Tuomas Laitinen is a Helsinki-based director, performance artist, curator and writer. For the past ten years his home base has been Reality Research Center, an experimental performative arts collective committed to questioning the nature of reality. He invents new forms of performance based on the bodily participation of the audience. He has innovated performances in the form of retreats, an esoteric philosophical school, pedagogical systems, secular rituals, guided walks through urban spaces, and a methodology of immortality. Laitinen has also worked as a freelance director in the field of contemporary theatre and performance art in Finland and abroad, and has been active in creating organizational foundations for the unorganized field of performance in Finland.

#lounge is a pop-up café for local young people, offering free (that’s right, free) coffee, tea and snacks to all who drop by.

#lounge uses the anti-café concept: developed in Moscow, customers pay for the time they spend in the café rather than for the products they consume. The idea has since spread across Europe, with hundreds of anti-cafes appearing every year. It was only a matter of time before the anti-café arrived at the ANTI Festival. Moscow’s first anti-café, Ziferblat, charged about five cents for every minute spent in the café. At ANTI #lounge two Euros buys an entire day, no matter how much coffee you drink, or how many hours you sit watching the world go by. Come alone, bring your friends, you can even bring your own refreshments and so long as you are 25 years old or under, you’ll receive a very warm welcome.

#lounge will provide its customers with free fast Wi-Fi, chargers for mobile phones, board games, Wii and Xbox with library of games.

#lounge is produced in collaboration with Savonia University of Applied Sciences, Nuorten palvelut ry association and Culture Arena 44. YIT has helped arrange the use of the premises.

Visitors to #lounge must be 25 years old or younger.

Alcohol and drugs are not allowed at #lounge.

The entrance fee for #lounge is €2 per day.