Minna Tarkka Lectures
Collective Imagination in the Era of Optimisation
M-Cult’s annual get-together focused on discussing and debating the potential of art, media, and technology reshaping current and future democratic societies.
About
M-Cult presents the second edition of the Minna Tarkka Lectures, an annual get-together dedicated to discussing and debating the potential of art, media, and technology in reshaping current and future democratic societies. Inspired by the legacy of media art pioneer and M-Cult’s founder Minna Tarkka (1960–2023), this series continues her commitment to critical experimentation and socially engaged practices rooted in a deep commitment to hospitality and the intersections of political and technological development.
Responding to pressures in contemporary social and cultural environments impacted by digital, networked, and so-called intelligent technologies, this year’s edition asks: What forms of togetherness and resistance surface through media within the context of artistic practices today? How can artists, communities, and technologies rewire shared futures when the dominant narratives emphasise acceleration and optimisation?
The first day of the event is arranged on Mon 1 December at Aalto University. Check the full programme from M-Cult’s website.
Lectures will also be streamed on M-Cult’s YouTube channel
Free entry to the lectures, but pre-registration is needed. Register here.
Kiasma Theatre’s programme
Ruth Catlow (UK): Life and Death in the World Wild Web
Artist, researcher, curator, organiser, and co-founder of Furtherfield, a platform known for building critical digital art infrastructures and peer-to-peer practices that defend the commons. Ruth’s lecture traces how the early 1990s web’s utopian collaborations and dreams have been transformed by accelerationist capital, eroding ecologies, commons and digital freedoms.
Harold Hejazi (FI/CA): Reprogramming Public Spaces
Artist and game designer who transforms play into a civic tool, reimagining museums and public spaces as arenas for participation and collective rehearsal.
Harold’s playable lecture explores how collaborative games can rebuild fragmented publics and transform cultural spaces into civic arenas for shared dialogue, resistance, and togetherness in an age of digital isolation and division.
eeefff (DE/BY): Scenes of Algosomatics, Educational Fiction, Partisan Technologies
An artist collective formed by artist and fiction writer Dzina Zhuk and artist and computer scientist Kolja Spesivtsev, working with the poetics and politics of new technologies. Blending art, technology, and political imagination, their lecture invites reflection on collective strategies for resisting digital control and building alternative infrastructures of imagination.
The lectures will be commented by Andrew Gryf Paterson, Marleena Huuhka and Grégoire Rousseau.
Edible artworks
Food and hospitality played a strong role in Minna Tarkka’s curatorial practice and life. In M-Cult’s past and present, preparing and sharing food has been a vital medium for building communities and forming infrastructures for conversation around shared tables. Continuing this celebration of relational practices, Minna Tarkka Lectures 2025 pairs each lecture with edible artworks by three artists:
Alejandra Alarcón
Joona Sorsa & Emma Vilppula
Caroline Suinner
Schedule
14.00 doors open
14.15–15.20 Ruth Catlow: Life and death in the World Wild Web
15.25–16.30 Harold Hejazi: Reprogramming Public Spaces
16.35–17.40 eeefff: Scenes of Algosomatics, Educational Fiction, Partisan Technologies
17.45–19.30 Food Pairings: Alejandra Alarcón, Caroline Suinner, Joona Sorsa & Emma Vilppula
Minna Tarkka Lectures
Minna Tarkka Lectures are developed as an experimental public forum and learning initiative that amplifies critical activities in the arts and media, facilitating debates on the artistic, social, and technological currents of our time. Each year, the programme builds dialogue that underscores the roles of art and media as active contributors to civil society amid the severe challenges faced by democratic life today.
Minna Tarkka Lectures 2025 edition is produced by Media Culture and Art Agency M-Cult, in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma and Aalto Media Lab, and kindly supported by Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation.
All events are free and conducted in English.