Elina Brotherus

12’15”, HD video, stereo

Wind Music experiments on how to create sound starting from visual information. A motionless person is holding a silk scarf that floats in the air. Its movement is being analyzed and the data is used to accentuate a spectral chord consisting of 30 microtones played on string instruments. The position of the scarf on the y axis and its surface area determine the level and amplitude of frequencies accentuated. The result is a meditative and hypnotic experience.

Directed, filmed, performed and edited by Elina Brotherus
Music composed and produced by Max Savikangas 2022.
Musicians: Ilkka Lehtonen and Aleksi Kotila, violin, Max Savikangas, viola, Markus Hohti, cello and Juho Martikainen, double bass.
Computer programming by Anders Pohjola.
Thank you: Christiane Morsbach, Museum Kunst der Westküste, Föhr

1'01", digital slide show as UHD video, stereo

A stocastic piece in the spirit of John Cage and John Baldessari, where throwing snowballs in front of electric wires creates a musical score. The notes are played in pizzicato on a viola to create a cloud of sounds that stay bouncing in the space.

Directed, photographed, performed and edited by Elina Brotherus.
Music composed, played on the viola with live-electronics and produced by Max Savikangas 2022.
Thank you: Hlynur Hallsson, Akureyri Art Museum.

0’35”, digital slide show as UHD video, stereo

Directed, photographed, performed and edited by Elina Brotherus
Music composed and produced by Max Savikangas 2022.
Thank you: Édouard de Lamaze, Château de Bois-Héroult / Véronique Souben, FRAC Normandie, Rouen / Julie Faitot, Galerie Duchamp, Yvetot

00'52", 4K black and white video installation (loop without titles), silent

After Mieko Shiomi, Spatial Poem No.9, 1975, Disappearing Event: Notice the natural phenomenon that something is going to disappear - either suddenly or gradually. The disappearing event can also be intently performed by yourself.

Directed, filmed, performed and edited by Elina Brotherus
Post-production: Lauri Astala
Produced by The Wapping Project, London, in the Resonance program, Oman, 2019

4K video, silent, durations: 2’38” / 2’02” / 1’53” / 1’42” / 2’40”

After Mieko Shiomi, mirror piece, 1963:
Stand on the sandy beach with your back to the sea.
Hold a mirror before your face and look in it.
Then step back to the sea and enter into the water.

Directed, filmed and performed by Elina Brotherus
Editing: Elina Brotherus and Lauri Astala
Post-production: Lauri Astala
Filmed at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Sept.16-17, 2019
Thank you: Helle Brøns, Anders Kold, Poul Erik Tøjner

Règle du jeu is a series of short videos and photographs. I use Fluxus event scores as a starting point, but I have expanded the idea of the score and allowed myself to be influenced by a range of artists including film makers, photographers, painters and poets. In these performative and somewhat absurd pieces I am accompanied by dancer and choreographer Vera Nevanlinna. Règle du jeu questions the role of the artist, the place of photography and film in performance and the fluid nature of collaboration in art-making in the moment and across decades. The series was first exhibited at Centre Pompidou, Paris and simultaneously published as a monograph by Filigranes editions.

The American artist John Baldessari proposed a list of “art ideas” to his indecisive students at CalArts in the 1970s. I started to use Baldessari’s ideas first in my teaching, but soon also as the basis of new work of my own. The Baldessari Assignments is a series of short videos and photographs.

After 20 years of using myself in my pictures, I felt that I had done all the poses I could possibly do with my body. The way out of this dead end came through Fluxus. In 2016, at my nomination for the Prix Elysée, I started to use Fluxus event scores and other written instructions by artists as the basis of new work. Meaningless Work contains both moving image and photographs. This still on-going series keeps me curious and allows me to make new discoveries, all while continuing to do what I know best. It enables me to get back both in front and behind the camera. Citing Arthur Köpcke: “People ask: Why? I ask: Why not!”

A collaborative project of music videos between the famous world music accordionist Maria Kalaniemi and Elina Brotherus, who filmed the footage in Mänttä, Finland, invited by Serlachius Museums. The result is like an animated photo book with music, or like an illustrated album of music.

1 SUMU (Fog), 3'23", HD video, 16:9, stereo
2 MARCELLON TEEMA (Marcello's Theme), 6'11", HD video, 16:9, stereo
3 YÖ (Night), 3'37", HD video, 16:9, stereo
4 HOUSUTANGO (Trouser Tango), 5'44", HD video, 16:9, stereo
5 MUOTOKUVA (Portrait), 3'23", HD video, 16:9, stereo
6 ELINAN TEEMA (Elina's Theme) ,3'16", HD video, 16:9, stereo
7 HILJAINEN JÄRVI (Silent Lake), 6'03", HD video, 16:9, stereo
8 Svalan, 4'12", HD video, 16:9, stereo

Music composed by Maria Kalaniemi, performed by Maria Kalaniemi (accordion, voice) and Eero Grundström (harmonium, harmonica).
Camera and editing: Elina Brotherus
Recording and mixing of music: Eero Grundström
Mastering of music: Taito Hoffrén
Produced by: Elina Brotherus, Maria Kalaniemi, Serlachius Museums, AVEK
Thank you: Lauri Astala, Ville Lenkkeri, Pauli Sivonen, Timo Soppela, Tarja Väätänen

2'04", HD video, silent

After Mieko Shiomi, mirror piece, 1963:
Stand on the sandy beach with your back to the sea.
Hold a mirror before your face and look in it.
Then step back to the sea and enter into the water.

Directed, filmed, performed and edited by Elina Brotherus
Thank you: Serlachius Museums, Mänttä

1'26", HD video, stereo sound

After Mieko Shiomi, event for the midnight, 1963:
0:00 - one light
0:04 - five tones
0:05 - smile

Directed, filmed and performed by Elina Brotherus
Editing and sound design: Elina Brotherus
Thank you: Serlachius Museums, Mänttä

6'32", HD video, 16:9, stereo.

On a winter’s night a traveller arrives in Venice. In the morning, a gondola takes her to Murano. The boat passes by the cemetery island of San Michele. About her grandfather, the glassblowers said: “Era un vero muranese.”

Camera and editing: Elina Brotherus
Music and sound design: Antti Ikonen
Music made with glasses designed byTapio Wirkkala.
Produced by: Maaria Wirkkala
Thank you: Tinni Torikka, Filippo Vedova, Gianluca Benedetti, Chiara Moccia, Miia Perkkiö, Venini.

13’54”, HD video, 16:9, stereo.

Voyage au bout de la nuit progresses from abstract linear elements through nocturnal light phenomena to a windy beach with a brightly lit amusement park in the background.

Script, camera, editing: Elina Brotherus
Music: Harri Vuori, Conter fleurette, 2012; performed by Heikki Nikula, clarinet and bass clarinet; Juho Laitinen, cello; Nio Kumpuvaara, accordion. Recorded live on Apr.19 2012 at Tampere Biennale of contemporary music, Tampere, Finland, by YLE Broadcasting Company (used with permission).
Commissioned by Serlachius Museums, Mänttä, 2014
Thank you: Pauli Sivonen, Olli Virtaperko, Lauri Astala

5'19", 16mm black and white reversal film (can be screened as HD video), stereo.

Two women remove the animal masks they are wearing. One is bold, the other one starts to comb her hair, she then walks a small dog across the room. The women dance, the younger woman's feet are tied. They pour water from a glass to another and then through the window to the street. Out there is New York City. The older woman recites Allan Ginsberg's poem Howl, one of the greatest works of the American Beat Generation. Elina Brotherus' 16mm film Howl employs parataxis, a technique Allen Ginsberg used in his poetry, in which seemingly dissimilar images or fragments are juxtaposed without a clear connection or hierarchy. Howl completes Elina Brotherus' New York Trilogy of 16mm films. The previous ones are Francesca Woodman's Aunts (2012) and Wrong Face (2013).

Script, directing and editing: Elina Brotherus
Cinematography and sound recording: Thomasz Werner
Performers: Elina Brotherus, Victoria Schultz, Alfred (the dog)
Reader: Victoria Schultz
Text: Allen Ginsberg: Howl, 1955 (excerpts)

Year 2015 marks the 60th anniversary of Ginsberg's Howl.

6'08", 16mm color film (can be screened as HD video), 4:3, silent.

Two "Alices" playing with mirrors until they disappear through the looking-glass.

Directed and edited by Elina Brotherus
Featuring: Elina Brotherus, Victoria Schultz
Script: Elina Brotherus, Victoria Schultz
Cinematography: Sean Hanley
Costumes: Victoria Schultz
Filmed on the Lower East Side, NYC, November 2012.
Special thanks to: Bob Nash, Sean Hanley, Thomasz Werner

2 min 53 sec, 16mm film (can be screened as HD video), 4:3, stereo

Two photographers are working to make a self-portrait with a large-format view camera. They pay homage to Francesca Woodman, who for her age could be their niece.

Performed by Elina Brotherus and Victoria Schultz
Script, camera, direction, editing: Elina Brotherus
Text: from Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies 1
Produced in Mono no aware workshop, Brooklyn NY
Thanks to: Victoria Schultz, Tomasz Werner, Sean Hanley, Steve Cossman

2'19", HD video (Apple ProRes422), 16:9, stereo.

Directed, filmed, performed and edited by Elina Brotherus
Text: Arseniy Tarkovsky: The Bright Day, 1942, translation from Russian by Kitty Hunter-Blair.
Music: Maria Kalaniemi: Kaamos, from Cranes of Spring, SibKaCD084, FIZEN9800067.
Thanks to: Martino Marangoni and Clare Lillingston, Marina Tarkovskaya, Andrey A. Tarkovsky.
Commissioned by COMMA at Bloomberg SPACE, London, by Bloomberg LP, 2010.

Bright, Bright Day is a simple composition with the camera remaining in one place throughout. The scene is of a grassy hill slope in an olive grove, shot in the golden light of the late afternoon. In the middle distance stands a female figure in a grey dress. She slowly starts to walk towards the camera, and in the end is standing close to it, at which point we clearly see it is Brotherus. The work has a sound track – which at first is ambient noises of birds and a distant dog bark – but which blends into a piece of accordion music by the Finnish composer Maria Kalaniemi. A poem appears in subtitles, by Arseniy Tarkovsky, the father of the film-maker Andrej, written in 1942. It is a poem eulogising about a remembered memory of idyllic harmony with nature. Yet, as so often with Brotherus’ work, it is tinged with melancholy. It speaks of loss more generally, such as the grief when loved ones pass away, and how over time memories of them can start to fade. They, as this remembered moment of idyllic happiness, are in the past – never to be recaptured. (From Camilla Brown: Elina Brotherus, Comma 27, Bloomberg SPACE, London 2010.)

41'11", HD video, 16:9, stereo. Dialogue in Finnish with English subtitles.

Who is watching whom? Who is the artist, who is the model? Who gets the “last gaze”? Having used myself as a model since a long time, I wanted to develop further the notions of the artist’s gaze, the model and the self-portrait of an artist.
In art history one can find a type of image where the painter presents himself with the model in the studio (and often looks over his shoulder towards the spectator). I wanted a situation where it is the model who presents herself posing as a model. Traditionally the painter watches the model and the model watches nobody. Painters Jan Neva and Teemu Korpela, who have studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of St. Petersburg, where the academic tradition of painting the nude still prevails, accepted the challenge. In our “unholy model session” the roles get mixed: the model looks back, observes the observers.

Concept, camera and editing: Elina Brotherus
Performed by Elina Brotherus, Teemu Korpela and Jan Neva
Filmed in the Kalervo Kallio Ateljee in Helsinki, November-December 2009.
Artists at Work consists of a series of nine photographs (medium format analog c-prints) and the HD digital video with two cameras.

60 min 12 sec, HD video, 16:9, silent

A study with the camera placed at a consistent vantage point, of the weather, water and sky, and of a lone figure who enters the water, returns and walks out of the frame. Filmed over a period of one summer, at different times of the day and night.

Directed, filmed, performed and edited by Elina Brotherus.
Commissioned by COMMA at Bloomberg SPACE, London, by Bloomberg LP, 2010.

0'18", HD video, 16:9, silent. Diptych.

A small ‘clin d’oeil’ to Marcel Duchamp’s famous painting. Preferably shown on small screens superimposed, in such a way that the figures cross each other on their way.

Filmed, performed and edited by Elina Brotherus
Thank you: Espace photographique Contretype, Hôtel Hannon, Brussels.

HD slide show made into a QuickTime movie, 4:3, silent, duration of loop 4 min 46 sec.

A mountain range, sometimes green, sometimes covered with frost, at times obscured by the clouds, is pictured from the same vantage point during 10 days. The work presents a slow metamorphoses over time.

Camera and editing: Elina Brotherus
Thank you: Giovanna Calvenzi and the city of Valsugana

8'52", HD video (HDV 1080i50) 16:9, stereo.

“What does love mean? What does important mean? Where do I come from? Why do we come because of that love-thing? In my life everything is fine, maybe”. My Happiness is Round is a short film about childhood and sister/brotherhood, but also about growing up and the uncertainty of life.

Direction: Elina Brotherus, Hanna Brotherus, Lauri Astala
Camera: Lauri Astala
Editing: Lauri Astala, Elina Brotherus
Choreography: Hanna Brotherus
Music and sound: Antti Ikonen
Performers: Robert, Johannes, Amos and Elsa Brotherus
Produced with the help of: AVEK, Taiteen keskustoimikunta, Centre culturel francais Helsinki

DV PAL 4:3, silent, duration of loop: 1'09".

The form of a mountain is revealed at the passage of a cloud. A continuation of the research started in the video Miroir, 2001.

Camera and editing: Elina Brotherus

6'33", DV-PAL 4:3, stereo.

Hanna Brotherus is a dancer and a choreographer, who has three sons. "Brotherus, tyttö" was shot after the birth of her fourth child. The title refers to the fact that for the first time "Brotherus, Boy" was not written at the foot of the cot at the clinic. (N.B. the Finnish word "tyttö" stands for "girl". It is the habit at Finnish maternity clinics to write the surname of the family and the sex of the baby at the foot of the cot).
The dancer advances up a road, and when the rehearsed choreography ends, she steps into the forest, into the unknown. There she encounters the new child. It is the mother's way towards her daughter, a daughter who came into life through all obstacles.

Direction, camera, editing: Elina Brotherus
Performers: Hanna Brotherus, Elsa Brotherus
Music: Antti Ikonen
Choreography: Jenni Kivelä
Costumes: Karoliina Koiso-Kanttila
Producer: Sanna Pohjonen / Supported by: AVEK, Taiteen keskustoimikunta
Assistants: Jana Fagerholm, Olivier Loudin
Thanks to: Mäntymotelli, Tapani and Lysa Brotherus.

3 projections, duration of each loop 13'56"
DV PAL 4:3, silent

Baigneurs is a 3-channel video installation that portrays nude swimmers in Finnish nature. The form is cyclic, repetitive: a swimmer plunges into water and returns, waves hit the shore; only the places and figures change. The bodies are simultaneously beautiful and banal.
Baigneurs examines beauty through the (National) Romanticist landscape and the classical bather motif. The water plays as important a role as the figures: its colour, the reflection or rippling of the surface.
Baigneurs is a "sister work" to my photographs of the same theme. It is interesting to compare them to each other. The still photographs easily fall within the the bather tradition in painting (nude by the waterfront), whereas the movement in the video brings in uncanny realism which is absent in photography or painting.

Direction, camera, editing: Elina Brotherus

Duration of loop: 0'21", DV PAL 4:3, stereo.

Attends-moi je t'aime (Wait for me I love you) is a small love declaration. It makes reference to Claude Nougaro's song from 1962, where a man is running after a girl through Paris and finally reaches her at the Place de la Concorde.

Direction, camera, editing: Elina Brotherus
Music: Extract from Claude Nougaro: Une petite fille (2.07), 1962 Phonogram. Claude Nougaro / Jacques Datin. Editions: Chiffre Neuf / Sidonie.
Thanks to: Olivier Loudin.

Duration of loop: 2'25", DV PAL 4:3, silent.

Miroir is an investigation of a process that takes place in time. Vapor on a mirror disappears and reveals the mirror image, the portrait. The video Miroir is a moving image counterpart to my photographic work Le Miroir, a series of 5 photographs. It can also be seen as an allegory of Photography, which in its origins (daguerrotype) was a mirror (a copper plate coated with silver) where an image gradually appeared during the developing.

Direction, camera, editing: Elina Brotherus

Part 1: Rain, Part 2: Oak Tree Forest, Part 3: Flood.
DVD loops, DV PAL 4:3, 6.1 sound.

The video installation Spring is about the culmination of all longing and desire: waiting for the reappearance of light after the dark winter. Each part of the triptych presents a horizon, which makes reference to my photographic work about horizons, but here the horizon is moving. The landscape flows by the spectator in a continuous, calm, never-ending movement. All three projections are looped, and as they differ in length, the work produces new combinations all the time.
The 5.1 sound coming from all directions is composed with different wind and rain sounds, with a short notion of blackbird and skylark.
Spring was a commisioned work for The Wapping Project, London, and first performed there as a site-spesific installation in 2001.

Direction and camera: Elina Brotherus. Production: AVEK, Women's Playhouse Trust. Sound: Epa Tamminen.
Special thanks to: Jules Wright / The Wapping Project, Pro AV Saarikko, FRAME, Robert Brotherus

DVD loop, 8 min 45 sec, DV PAL 4:3, stereo.

Lesson deals with cruelty, the use of power, and criticism directed towards the physical attributes of a person. A woman performs a short and simple ballet series over and over again. She is not a dancer, so even though she tries her best, the result doesn't look good. Lesson examines in direct takes, without warning or rehearsing, what it feels like to get rude and humiliating response and not to be able to reach the ideal. The voice belongs to a professional dancer Vera Nevanlinna.

Special thanks to: Vera Nevanlinna, Petri Mäkitalo / UiaH Medialab, Suomilammi Oy, FRAME, AVEK.
English translation: Movision 2002.
Music: Beethoven, Ecossaise, Paul Badura-Skoda (Für Elise, Kleine Stücke grosser Meister, Europa Klassik 514040.4)