sumutus: finnish video poetry

event held in german and english

video poetry, the fusion of poetry and experimental film, is a young and quickly growing art form.
at the sumutus-evening a selection of video poems will be shown. finnish poet mari laaksonen and austrian poet & performer oravin host this evening and introduce, after a short overview of the art of video poetry, the individual artists and their work. the evening will flow into an audio-visual performance about the work of the finnish poet harry salmenniemi.

sumutus
is a new platform for finnish and international audio-visual poetry. the event at vienna poetry school takes place as part of a small video poetry tour through austria and germany in april and may 2014. in november 2014, sumutus organises a festival of audio-visual poetry in jyväskylä in central finland: http://sumutus.tumblr.com

the artists:

j.k. ihalainen (*1957) is a poet and publisher, and frequently works together with musicians and artist. during the past thirty years he has published numerous books. his video poem kone was shown in 2010 at zebra poetry film festival in berlin.

tytti heikkinen (*1969) is a poet, media artist and graphic designer. she has published three volumes of poetry. her first book, täytetyn eläimen lämpö, was translated into english (the warmth of the taxidermal animal, action books 2013).

joona ruusuvuori (*1981) is a musician and poet. his first book ambulansseja taivaalla (ambulance cars in heaven) was published in 2012 by sanasato publishing house. for years, he has focused on poetry animations.

harry salmenniemi (*1983) is regarded as one of the most influential finnish poets of his generation. from 2007 until 2008 he was editor of the magazine tuli&savu. his four poetry volumes were publihed by otava publishing house.

mari laaksonen (*1986) is the winner of the finnish poetry slam 2013. recently she has worked on manually drawn animations and her thesis about the performance of derrida’s writings. her first book, galleria noesis, was published in 2013 by ntamo.

oravin (*1984) is an austrian poet and audio-visual performer. since september 2013, he is part of the network for young german lyric poetry, babelsprech. he lives in finland and austria. http://oravin.tumblr.com

video samples:
joona ruusuvuori: https://vimeo.com/85686378
(at the presentation at vienna poetry school with english subtitles)

JK Ihalainen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoGZqNVYh8w

mari laaksonen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WnKkXlBL0Q
(at the presentation at vienna poetry school with english subtitles)

oravin: https://vimeo.com/86361382

photos of the event at sfd: www.facebook.com/poetryschool