Oksasenkatu 11
7.–28.2.2025 Opening party on the 6th of Feb, 18–20.

This exhibition transforms the Oksasenkatu 11 cellar space into a nest, where time is allured to stay. Time is an entity too huge to be summoned, so it must be approached through metonymy – by calling one of its manifestations. For this, I have chosen one of its archetypal embodiments, the Day.

The sonic, visual, textual, and mathematical installation with similarities and attributes specific to Day – its duration, proportions, and components – will welcome Day to feel at home and inhabit the cellar for a month. If the experiment is succesful, time and days will pass in the space, and if the experiment fails, time will not pass.

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Existence on Earth follows the cycle of the day, which can be roughly described in the following ways:

1 d
86 400 s
1.1574074074074E-5 Hz

Despite its familiarity, the day is a blurry unit. The Earth’s rotation is slowing down, and therefore each day is slightly longer than the previous one.

The day is being constructed from two directions – the day and longer units are anchored in the movements of celestial bodies, while the second and its derivatives – minutes and hours – are tied to atomic-level vibrations. The friction of these bodies causes ruptures, which are patched with leap seconds and leap days.

In this exhibition, the shape of the day is constructed using a different set of raw materials – simple sound waves, specifically sine waves, and their frequencies measured in hertz. The sound suggests alternative divisibilities, rhythms, and textures for the planetary, ever-changing cycle. (It is unclear whether Day recognises seconds, minutes and hours as parts of itself.)

The bundle of frequencies that represents the shape of the day is stretched between two noons, yet it constantly unravels at its seams. Its instability originates from another kind of friction – for example the one between the decimal system and the sexagesimal one, that was inherited from the history of timekeeping.

In addition to sound, the space contains numerical raw material, which can be used to construct diverse shapes of the day e.g. in sound or in thoughts.

~ ~ ~

The day is a tangle of beliefs, layers of histories, magical thinking, and precise calculations. Seeing it as a whole requires viewing it from multiple angles at once.