Aaro Murphy at Kunsthalle Turku
5.5-23.6.2023
A multimedia installation that explores the potential of Air as a means of communication and data transfer. The installation consists of a series of glass and metal flutes that are coded to play together using a pneumatic air system. Shifting between robotic entities and scientific instruments the sculptures begin to play and operate seemingly in their own time frame. Gentle bursts of air merge together with field recordings of transit networks, machines and human voice, with a constant attempt to communicate. The materials are glass, compressed air, metal and aroma molecules.
Aaro Murphy has developed a large part of the work during the Tokyo Art & Science research residency in 2022, organised by the Bio Art Society & Finnish Cultural Institute of Japan. The work extends Murphy’s research into machine olfaction and air technologies into material form, speculating on science fiction like scene, a phantasmagoria of machines. The project extends Aaro Murphy’s previous material exploration with glass and metal from ‘Running Idle’ & ‘Echo’, 2021, into a larger scale spatial form.
About the artists
Aaro Murphy (1991, Finland) is a visual artist working across media such as sound, video, 3D animation and smell. Murphy creates time based sculptures and kinetic installations that question boundaries between the animate and inanimate, the organic and synthetic. A recurring theme in his practice is the ability for machines to adopt performative potential and augment space. The sculptures he creates often act autonomously in their own time shifting between robotic beings and instruments, from the musical to the scientific.
Murphy is currently a research fellow at the Studio for Immediate Spaces at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, researching architectural olfaction and digital scenting systems – speculating on the current and future possibilities of smell as airborne data. In 2022, Murphy was selected for the Tokyo & Art Science Research Residency, hosted by BioClub Tokyo in partnership with the Finnish Institute in Japan.
Learn more about the Aaro Murphy’s work.
Practical Information
5.5-23.6.2023
Kunsthalle Turku
Vanha Suurtori 5, Turku
Open Wednesday to Friday at 12–18, Sat and Sun at 12–16