re-scaling motion

On principles of association and the endlessness of re-scaling "We are not simple witnesses of what happens. We are the bodies through which the mutation comes to stay. The question is no longer who we are, but what we are going to become." (Paul B Preciado (2022). Dysphoria mundi: El Sonido del Mundo Derrumbándose, 38. Translation by João Laia. In Forms of the Surrounding Futures. GIBCA 12th edition. Gothenburg: Röda Sten Konsthall.) There are at least two clear overtones in Leevi Toija’s exhibition re-scaling motion at Galerie Blunk. The first is that of the history of movement: What are the choreographies and tracks of operation through which one validates their existence? The second refers to the scale of (artistic) production: What is the motion that is re-scaled and by whom? By posing these questions in a research-based manner, Toija presents a re-scaled version of his work motion study (series), originating from this year and re-scaling itself in numerous possible futures. In Toija’s artistic practice historical consciousness links with new interpretations of lost (or hidden by own nature) narratives. Showing the reverse side of visuality, Toija presents a new context for phenomena where the textual has ruled. Toija’s artistic practice can be, thus, seen as an architecture of the amorphous; the works show their subtle infrastructure-critical tone in their ways of being, at the same time, contemporary and local. They are of necessity but without a singular purpose. The exhibition at Galerie Blunk continues the praxis of circulative site-observations which are at the core of Toija’s artistic work. This can be understood as a type of nomadism where certain elements – such as the camera, the relation to space – stay, and a certain, for example place, changes or evolves. Toija works across countries and locations, always forming an unambiguous relation to the place of working. From this point of view, it is impossible to pin down a definitive category of historical references in the exhibition. In re-scaling motion, the relationship between the used technology and the work itself (read: visuality) is underlined. The camera – operated by Zaher Jureidini – stays and projects, referring to the soviet avant-garde activist Aleksej Gastev, whose photographs of worker’s body movements while conducting their labor can be thought of as a map for recursiveness. The moving images create a possibility to critically examine the (different) realities of work, modes of operation, structures inhabited by the living and the technical, and the changes in them. There is a certain aspect of obscurity present for there is no clear line where the characteristic of an artwork starts, and where the association of ideas are looped in itself. The idea is both general and complex, presenting multiple subcategories of – for example, relation, substance, and the principles of associations. The screens present a never ending (or at least referring to a never-ending character) loop, questioning the need for a set of principles at all.