The Experimental City Consult
Where can one find the most surprising or romantic experiences in the city, or the best places and moments to lose the sense of time? What are the elements that create firming, reckless, hilarious, scary, crystal clear, unclear or tendering experiences? How do we commit to the place we live in and how to re-do the routines?
The Experiential City Consult was created for the Helsinki Festival in 2008. Since then it has toured actively around Finland with altogether hundreds of people visiting the reception.
This live art -piece happens in a public space, and it's free for user. Each consultation takes approximately 15-20 mins, and in each session the user will fill out a form where they describe their background and choose which kind of experience they would need; unclear, artistic, firming, causing respect, strengthening the presence etc. After a short interview the consult will give them a toolbox that includes 1-5 recipes for different experiences. After doing the exercises and experiments, the users will be asked to report and share the documentation in the guestbook on the website.
Altogether there is more than 150 different experiments and exercises (cloud psychoanalysis, active wondering, bustravel art, a bird ballet etc.). The main mission is to show the possibilities of urban space, life and give tasks for everyday performativity.
At the consult's portable office there is also an assistant, who at the rush hours operates at a take away window and gives "consultation lite".
In this artwork NIskala inserts herself into role of serious status and combines this to the playfullness. This are the keyelements of her work, twisted perspectives, that sets her in the artistic canon started from surrealism, fluxus and International Situationistic movement.
