re-
1. indicates repetition – reiteration, recurrence
2. indicates a return to previous state – revert, reconsider
3. indicates an action performed reciprocally – reject, resist, rejoice

scale
Size. Scope. Ratio. Measurement. Scale implies setting things at levels in relation to each other and possibly supposing a hierarchy between them. Measuring something is generally utilitarian, not hypothetical. The subject of measurement is implied to be something worthwhile of inspection. What we measure, mark up and archive is a tool of social production. What does one pursue to find in measurements? At hand is the question of what is being measured and why, but also the tools for measuring. An architect in ancient Rome, Vitruvius, contemplated on what could be the perfect number, suggesting that it could be 10. Ten fingers. Ten toes. The human at the center of the world. The ‘perfect product’ of proportion and scale. Vitruvius practiced this in his writings on architecture; the perfect house is built in scale and proportion to that of the human body; the perfect anatomy of a house has the atrium, the navel, in the center. Body parts were used as tools for scale; a foot is one sixth of the length of the body, the palm of a hand one fourth of a foot. From finger to finger, the length is the same as the length from head to toe. We are familiar with Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing of the Vitruvian man drawn some 1400 years after Vitruvius’ propositions for proportions. The man fits inside the circle and the square. The man is proportionate, deemed as ‘perfect’. But the man is restricted; the determination for perfection will always only be a biased and hypothetical proposition. The disposition of the perfect man has been outlined. It is confined in the circle. Confined in the square. Trapped, and yet–

motion
The circle implies a motion. The disposition of the circle is constant movement. No point of end. No level to rest at. The motion is rotation. Seemingly endless rotation. Rotation at the core suggests a consequential motion elsewhere. Time and motion studies was an avant-garde field of research in the early 20th century pursuing to enhance labour (across many fields of work but mainly factory work) to be as effective and economical as could be. Frank and Lillian Gilbreth were engineers of motion studies, assessing work and motion through techniques of visualization.The Gilbreths developed their way of making a motion image: a long-exposure photograph of a worker repeatedly performing a task with a light bulb attached to the tool at hand, which would then reveal bit-by-bit the movement of a worker. They studied this image in order to find the perfect motion, or rather, eliminate all other wasteful motions. To discover the most efficient routine, the collective production process of factory labour was divided into singular, repetitive tasks. The Gilbreths recognised that even if they found the perfect routine and motion, it will always only be approximate to that of the actual work and motion. The search for perfection is always somewhat deluded. Repetition has variation, error. In reality it will always be different from the previous one, and so, also differs from the one that will come.

-Isa Lumme

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.1

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.

-Eero Karjalainen

1 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