WRITINGS

Selected writings on spatial sound, perception and field practice (2008–2026).

These texts articulate the spatial, perceptual and methodological foundations of my installations.
They clarify the structural field and non-coercive conditions from which the works emerge.

My installations are often experienced as immersive or meditative. Without articulation, they risk being interpreted as aesthetic atmospheres, technical constructions or spiritual gestures. Writing is a way of defining the position from which the work emerges.
If I do not articulate this ground, someone else will do it for me.

These texts are an attempt at methodological transparency. They describe the compositional constraints and spatial decisions through which attention can refine itself without coercion.

I am not interested in producing meditative effects.
I am interested in building conditions where perception can reorganise on its own.

These conditions are not neutral. They are constructed through proportion, restraint and sustained attention.
Non-coercion requires effort. Without the willingness to remain within uncertainty, discomfort or indifference, attention collapses back into habit.

This effort is not additional to the work.
It is part of the work.

Some texts originate in earlier research from 2008, others in current practice from 2026. Together they trace a development in how I understand space, listening and the field.

They do not prescribe a method.
They map a working process.

The following texts describe the spatial logic and field practice underlying my installations.

For practical details on production models, technical requirements and selected works, see → For Curators.

FIELD PRACTICE

On listening before construction
2026

My installations do not begin with composition.

They begin with a place.

The first phase of the work is not building but listening. I spend time in the environment allowing the site to affect perception before introducing structure or technology.

In some conditions, the body cannot remain in the space long enough to think. Work proceeds through repeated entry and withdrawal. Listening is not continuous but intermittent, shaped by physical limits, temperature, distance and fatigue. Notes are taken outside the field and tested again upon return.

Wind, materials, spatial openness, architecture and human presence gradually reveal the acoustic and perceptual character of a location.

In one site, wind moving through an empty industrial hall determined the temporal rhythm of the work before any speaker placement was considered. In another, the presence of water and ice shifted the listening position of the body itself.

Only after this phase do I introduce instruments or recording systems.

Technology is not used to dominate the environment but to extend listening. Binaural microphones function as external ears. Multi-channel systems later translate this listening into spatial form.

The installation is therefore not an abstract composition placed into space.

It is a response to a field that already exists.

Rather than representing a place, the work emerges from sustained attention to how a place already acts upon perception.

SPATIAL DRAMATURGY

On multi channel sound as architecture
2026

My installations are not compositions placed in space. They are spatial situations that unfold through listening.

I work with multi channel sound as architecture. Sound is not background or illustration. It defines orientation, proximity, gravity and distance. It creates a field in which the body negotiates its position.

Space is never neutral. It has a centre and a periphery, zones of intensity and zones of rest. I often structure installations with a concentrated core and softer edges. The centre holds density. The periphery allows breathing.

Visitors are not spectators. They move inside the field. Their bodies complete the work.

This movement is not directed. It requires the willingness to remain within a distributed condition without a fixed point of orientation.

Individual speakers function as presences rather than devices. Standing close to one voice is different from standing within the distributed field. Listening becomes directional, relational and embodied.

Time is spatial here. The work does not progress linearly. It circulates. One can enter at any point and remain as long as needed. There is no demand for completion.

FORM AND OPEN CENTRE

On proportion and restraint
2026

Perceptual decentralisation does not occur by accident. It depends on proportion.

Distance between speakers, calibrated levels, symmetry and restraint determine whether a field remains distributed or collapses into hierarchy. If one channel dominates, hierarchy returns.

Silence is not absence. It is structural tension. Restraint is not weakness. It is load bearing.

What might appear as an empty centre is not a void but an open condition, a centre that does not assert sovereignty. It is constructed through precision so that perception can circulate without being forced.

This precision requires sustained calibration. Small deviations accumulate. The field either holds or collapses.

Form makes decentralisation possible.

LISTENING AND THE UNFIXED SELF

On redistributed orientation
2026

Listening is often described as an act performed by a stable subject.

Multi channel sound complicates this structure. When sound arrives from multiple directions, orientation cannot be maintained from a single axis. Attention shifts laterally and proximally. Perception redistributes.

This redistribution is not immediate. It requires remaining within a condition where orientation cannot stabilise.

The listener does not disappear. But the listener is no longer sovereign.

This is not mysticism. It is spatial architecture.

Instead of “I hear a sound,” the experience approaches “hearing occurs here.” The self becomes relative within a shared condition.

My installations do not represent this shift. They stage it.

FIELD AND PRESENCE

On breath and relational space
2026

In works involving breath and distributed voices, each speaker functions as a point of encounter.

Proximity alters relation. Standing close to one voice differs from inhabiting the composite field. No source dominates. Plurality remains intact.

The work does not simulate community. It spatialises coexistence.

Presence is not centralised. It is distributed.

Recording situations often involve participants who would rather be elsewhere. The work includes sustaining attention within that resistance without forcing compliance. Presence is not assumed. It is negotiated.

Visitors are positioned among others, human and non-human, within a field of shared intensity. Environmental rhythms such as wind, water, ice and resonance participate in this field as much as human presence.

Breath is not metaphorical.
It is architectural.

INTENSITY REQUIRES RESTRAINT

On rhythm and confidence
2026

Continuous stimulation produces engagement but not necessarily depth.

When rhythm constantly propels experience, attention never stabilises. Energy disperses through variation.

Restraint introduces risk. Silence suspends control. In that suspension, perception must orient itself without being carried.

Intensity arises when potential is allowed to gather.

The strongest movement in a space is often the one that does not yet occur.

DECENTRALISATION IS NOT IMMERSION

On structural difference
2026

Much contemporary immersive work reproduces the very centralised subject it claims to dissolve.

Many immersive installations intensify perception while still preserving a coherent listening centre.

Surrounding the visitor does not decentralise perception. It often intensifies it while maintaining a stable receiver.

Decentralisation redistributes perceptual gravity. No single axis stabilises the field. The visitor becomes one element among others.

The difference is structural, not stylistic.

Immersion consolidates experience. Decentralisation redistributes it.

DEVELOPMENT
2008–2026

FIELD NOTE: 2008 → 2026

In 2008, I wrote my thesis on space, time and silence in theatre sound design.

At the time, I approached space and time as fundamental structures of perception — as if they were stable underlying conditions that could be accessed and shaped through sound.

“Eräs työni keskeisiä argumentteja on, että ihmisen minuuden tila koostuu kolmesta ajasta: menneestä, tulevasta ja nykyisyydestä.”

“Tilaäänen voima perustuu sen psykologiseen ulottuvuuteen, vaikuttaa katsojan tietoiseen ja alitajuiseen tunnetilaan.”

Looking back, I recognise both the precision and the limitation of that position.

What remains is the intuition that sound does not operate only as content, but as a condition — that it can reorganise attention and alter the way a situation is perceived.

What has changed is how I understand this condition.

I no longer attempt to define the structure of reality through space and time. Instead, I approach them as relational and situational: something that emerges between bodies, sound and environment.

Space is not given. It is produced through listening.
Time is not a fixed axis, but a way attention stabilises or dissolves.

The question is no longer what space or time are.

The question is how conditions can be built where perception reorganises itself.

This shift moves the work away from constructing meanings, and towards constructing situations — environments where experience is not determined, but allowed.

The earlier text remains as a trace of a moment when structure was needed.

The current work continues from that point, without that certainty.

FIELD NOTE: 2013 → 2026

In 2013, I wrote my thesis Kokonainen ääni while studying sound design at the Theatre Academy.

At the time, I was trying to bring together two parallel practices: contemplative training and theatre. The question was not only how to design sound, but how to work from a state where perception is less divided.

“Äänisuunnitteluni ei ole ajattelua, vaan maalaan sen, minkä kuulen itsessäni.”

“Työni on ylläpitää olosuhdetta jossa se voi tapahtua.”

The concept of a “whole sound” emerged from this attempt. It referred to a condition where perception, action and attention were not experienced as separate layers.

Looking back, I recognise that the intuition was accurate, but the framing was still tied to an idea of wholeness as something that could be reached or stabilised.

The work was oriented towards integration: reducing internal division, aligning body and mind, and approaching a more unified state of presence.

What has changed is not the interest in this condition, but how it is approached.

I no longer treat wholeness as a goal.

Instead, I work with conditions where fragmentation, uncertainty and multiplicity can remain without being resolved. The field does not need to become whole. It can remain open.

Sound is no longer a medium for expressing an internal state. It is a way of constructing relations in space.

The focus has shifted from inner coherence to relational structure.

From integration to distribution.

From a “whole sound” to a field where no single centre defines the experience.

The earlier work remains as a trace of a moment when alignment was needed.

The current work continues from that point, without requiring resolution.

FROM EMPTY SPACE TO FIELD CONDITION

On development and inhabitation
2008–2026

Earlier in my practice, I understood space and time as refined elements capable of revealing the structure of the self. Empty space confronted the ego with its relation to past and future. Silence exposed identity.

Space revealed the self.

This was necessary.

But revelation is not habitation.

There are moments when the field does not hold.

Work continues through this phase. Not by resolving doubt, but by remaining within it long enough for the structure to stabilise.

Before openings I have stood inside the installation and felt nothing but doubt. Not conceptual doubt but physical doubt. A tightening in the chest. A suspicion that everything is constructed too carefully and that the structure will fail under real presence.

During the installation of Re-Birth a suspension point gave way and I remained near the ceiling longer than planned, recalculating weight and tension. The geometry was precise. My confidence was not.

I know the pattern well.

It begins with a powerful idea. Then doubt enters quietly. Soon everything feels wrong. The work collapses internally and blame circulates in the wrong directions. At some point it stabilises again. An insight appears and suddenly the structure seems inevitable.

When the field finally begins to function, the recognition is not philosophical. It is bodily. A release. I usually step outside for a cigarette. I do not announce revelation. I simply notice that the structure no longer needs me to defend it.

This shift is fragile.

Depth is not harmless. Practices that loosen the self also expose fear. Without ethical alignment, without something like steadiness or goodwill at the centre, intensity can destabilise rather than clarify.

For this reason I no longer pursue peak states in the work. Wonder must be durable. It must survive silence, indifference and even the absence of reaction.

Over time my focus shifted from exposing the self to inhabiting a field condition in which the self remains relative. Space and time are no longer treated as primary themes but as assumed coordinates. What matters is relational movement within them.

The question is no longer “Who am I in this space?”
It becomes “How does this field move now?”

In a field the self is permitted but not sovereign. Creative decisions arise as responses within a shared condition rather than as assertions of control.

Earlier work trusted empty space.
Current work trusts the field.

This shift is not transcendence.

It is structural permission.

TRANSPARENCY OF METHOD

On non-coercive attention
2026

I am not interested in producing meditative effects. I am interested in avoiding coercion.

Rather than directing attention through climax or narrative propulsion, I construct constraints that reduce domination. Distributed sound, proportional geometry and rest intervals prevent perceptual fixation.

The work does not instruct belief.

It constructs conditions.

I describe mechanisms rather than states.

Not transcendence but distribution.
Not revelation but reorganisation.
Not doctrine but proportion and restraint.

The field is not content.

It is the structural condition in which content can appear and dissolve without being owned.

Practical information for curators and collaborators
→ For Curators