On 28-30 November 2024, Brussels Planetarium welcomed the audience for a transformative journey of art and technology offered by the 10th Brussels Planetarium Poetry Fest and UTM Urban Travel Machines Creative Europe project final show which mixed live performance, storytelling, typography and immersive technology. The event brought together Europe’s top poets and visual artists to transform the dome of the Brussels Planetarium into a 360° storytelling space.
Aalto Arts Visual Communication Design lecturers Tarja Nieminen (project coordinator at the Aalto University) and Antti Hietaniemi together with four Aalto Arts MA students, Hanna-Katri Eskelinen (Visual Communication Design), Inka Jerkku (Media Lab), Milja Komulainen (Visual Communication Design) and Calvin Guillot Suarez (Media Lab) participated the event, which was a part of the 10th edition of the Brussels Planetarium Poetry Fest (BPPF). At the planetarium, the live performances showcased the projects' fifteen European poets and two visiting poets (e.g. from South Africa) with their respective 360° planetarium shows created by the students.
On November 28th, the festival at the Planetarium kicked off with the Speakeasy Open Mic event. Speakeasy Brussels invited all poets for an open mic night under the dome, celebrating local and international voices accompanied by the students of Royal Academy of Fine Arts (AP University College) in Antwerp creating #Framed Live improvised drawing.
Poets Estibaliz Espinosa Rio (Spain) and Makis Moulos (Greece-Spain) discussing after the second audience show at the Brussels Planetarium on Saturday 30th November. The 360° videos for Rio's and Moulos' performances were created in the student workshop at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp in October 2023 and shown the first time in spring 2024 in Ayuntamiento de A Coruña, in Coruña planetarium in Spain.
The poet Estibaliz Espinosa Rio (on the left) comes from Galicia, Northwest of Spain. “I write in Galician language which is in danger of extinction. Poetry and science are the focus of my work and specifically poetry and astronomy. So, to be a part of this project was a unique and special opportunity to mix up with other people because I always have done work in poetry and astronomy alone in Galicia. And here, I saw other kind of projects and dynamic visuals, that were very refined for me, I am not used to work with that. As for the Planetarium, I think it was a great show because it mixed so many different projects, six cities, two years of work and involved really high-quality participants. They are very ingenious, very different from each other in their style, rhytm, speech, visuals and music. It also offered a different point of view about poetry and science, about astrophysics, Estibaliz explains. “I like especially astrophysics in poetry. Poetry as a kind of warper of space and time allows us to work on language and meaning, and doing this here was like the greatest scenario and in the biggest planetarium in Europe. This was a very special way to see all the full-dome visuals and the work of the students and listen to the poets, their reflection - on artivism, politics, social, philosophy, astrophysics, feminism - I think it was such a great movie, a final movie in the planetarium. I hope this kind of projects will be more common, not only in Europe but elsewhere, too. I hope so since I am from the city where there is no planetarium and it was fantastic to see it and to work in it”, she continues.
Makis Moulos (on the right) worked in the student workshop production group at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp for La Coruña Planetarium shows in March 2024. “I was working with the specialists, the art students. After the discussions in the beginning, they created dynamic visuals I was super happy about. It is great to see at the end of the project all artists from all over Europe and also elsewhere to present their projects. I liked the fact that all performances were very different, I think it is the most important thing to give space for different projects. Personally, this project was very, very important for me”, Makis summarises.
Aalto Arts MA students Calvin Guillot Suarez and Hanna-Katri Eskelinen worked with the poet Giovanni Baudonck (Belgium). The Aalto Arts Media Lab student Malgorzata Nowicka also participated the production of the group's 360° video, which was shown the first time at Tartu Planetarium show in Estonia as a part of the Tartu international literary festival in May 2023.
Calvin Guillot Suarez (on the left) finds the project successful. “I think that the main take from this to me is that we can see the evolution of ourselves and the project, the poets as artists, this whole process. It is really nice to be finally here in Brussels, to see the combination of these two years and the biggest planetarium in Europe and see how our works are in final destination. The show worked really well, we saw the final product, two hours of immersive and new ways of expression which is poetry visualized. The final product was fantastic. I know that from this on, a lot of new perspectives and ideas will come up from us. Hopefully there will be new projects like this that use more traditional media spaces for new ways of expression - I am really happy about how it turned out”, Calvin states.
Hanna-Katri Eskelinen (on the right) found the project as a whole to be very rewarding and a development of her own practice. "I had to make a lot of compromises during the teamwork process and learn new techniques and ways of working. Now that I saw everyone's work together, I felt a bit utopian, this is really an interesting way to make poetry and film at the crossroads of many different cultures. The Planetarium is a really good place and interesting. I got to experience how one can do visuals in this kind of planetarium format, I had to think differently about visual form and visual language, how the material settles on a dome-shaped surface. There was even a kind of religious feeling when I watched the presentations, a kind of church feeling, people listening to somebody's words and emotions, that was great too. All in all, a great experience”, Hanna-Katri sums up.
Milja Komulainen, a VCD MA student designed the second edition of the poster/booklet presenting the poem “Radici" by Eleonora Fisco (Italy). The foldable printed matter was available at the Planetarium lobby at the time of the shows. The 360° video shown at the Planetarium was originally created by Milja Komulainen together with Aalto Arts students Erika Rustamova, Liisi Sourosh and Noa Joulin. For the Brussels Planetarium final show, Milja Komulainen updated the video for which Liisi Sourosh designed the sound.
Also the audience's feedback was very positive.
Xenia Orfanos from Greece/Germany has lived in Brussels for 11 years. “This has been an amazing unique experience, it was very touching to see poetry and visual art combined in a very special space, I have never been here before. The show was very emotional, it touched me on a very deep emotional level, which I didn't expect. In fact, I didn't know what to expect. I came here without any experience, I have never seen anything like this before“, she states.
Pamela Smith has just moved to Brussels from Greece. “I thought that the performances were opening your mind to what is going to happen to the world that is changing. It was the first time in my life that I saw anything like this and I was absolutely smashed. I thought it was very unique. And poetry wise, I think it was rather telling us where we are going to, in a way, so it was very touching”, Pamela describes.
Lisa O'Sullivan Smith, a Swiss-American German standing next to Pamela Smith adds: “I am a product designer so I came because I am interested in anything that is artistic, and I really didn't know what to expect. I have been to the planetarium before and I think this space is incredible but this event really made it shine. The show was 3D in an amazing way, the moving graphics were really surprising, I loved the performances. The level was amazing, the poetry was incredible, the poets really had something to share. All in all, the show was really well done”.
Eleni Glinou, an artist and designer from Athens, Greece, is visiting her friends in Brussels. Eleni was the most impressed by the sound poetry performed by three slam poets. “I was really taken by the fact that this sound poetry was intriguing to me because there were no words, that was a surprise to me. I think that when you have words and visuals combined somehow you communicate on a very logic level, but the sound poetry takes you to the other level of conciousness. It reflects on what is going on and what poetry and technology can be together because you have no limits there. I felt that there is something primordial in all this that comes from very old, ancient times experience wise. There is something tribal in it, maybe because of the oral dimension which gives the whole experience depth. It reminds you of the kind of communication that doesn't exist anymore. These could be some in-between rituals, they remind me of contemporary ritual in a way as well”, Eleni summarises.
Philip Meersman, a poet, curatorand the head coordinator of the UTM project also found the event a success: “This 10th edition of the Brussels Planetarium Poetry Fest (BPPF): Urban Travel Machines Edition (UTM) has been the most diverse and ambitious one. The variety of creations took audiences onto a quest via a spectrum of artistic styles, from AI-generated imagery to analog film and interactive tools, making this BPPF-edition an unforgettable experience. The dedication of all team members, poets and visual artists has united a multilingual group of artists from all walks of life and pushed UTM to the boundaries of poetic expression through cutting-edge technology. I wish to express my gratitude to all participants, audiences, artists and tutors for this wonderful 360 degrees trip through language, space and time reuniting audiences and each other with the essence of all being, language”.
The art universities involved in the Urban Travel Machines project are The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp — AP University College of Applied Sciences and Arts, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture and Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw. The partner planetariums include Estonia Ahhaa, Spain Museos Científicos Coruñeses, Austria Planetarium Wien and Belgium Planetarium Bruxelles.
The three project student workshops were arranged at the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture in Espoo (December 2022), at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw (March 2023) and at the The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp — AP University College of Applied Sciences and Arts in Antwerp (October 2023).
Project initiators:
Janna Beck, The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp — AP University College of Applied Sciences and Arts
Philip Meersman, The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp — AP University College of Applied Sciences and Arts
Olga Wroniewicz, Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw, Poland
Tarja Nieminen, Aalto University / School of Arts, Design and Architecture
Project Head Coordinator:
Philip Meersman, The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp — AP University College of Applied Sciences and Arts
Project coordinator at Aalto Arts:
Tarja Nieminen, Lecturer, VCD, Art & Media
The additional Aalto Arts workshop tutors:
Philip Meersman, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium
Kristof Timmerman, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium
Jeroen Cluckers, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium
Olga Wroniewicz, PJAIT Warsaw, Poland
Ludwika Bialkowska, PJAIT Warsaw, Poland
Emilia Ishizaka, PJAIT Warsaw, Poland
Aalto Arts production poet/student groups:
Giovanni Baudonck/ Belgium with
Hanna-Katri Eskelinen (MA in Visual Communication Design)
Malgorzata Nowicka (MA in New Media)
Calvin Guillot Suarez (MA in New Media)
Eleonora Fisco / Italy with
Milja Komulainen (MA in Visual Communication Design)
Erika Rustamova (MA in New Media)
Liisi Soroush (MA in New Media)
Noa Joulin (MA in Visual Communication Design)
Sergio Garau / Italy with
Jacob Söderström (BA in Visual Communication Design)
Inka Jerkku (MA in New Media)
Iida Nurminen (Production Design, ELO Film School)
Maja Jantar/ the Netherlands - Finland with
Eerika Jalasaho (MA New Media Design and Production)
Pietu Arvola (MA Sound Design in New Media)
Jaan Malin / Estonia with
Merle Karp (BA in Visual Communication Design)
Kirsi-Marja Moberg (MA, Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art)
Yoona Yang (MA in New Media Design and Production)
For more information:
Tarja Nieminen, lecturer of visual communication at the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture [email protected]
The project was co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union
Eleven Aalto Arts students and VCD Lecturer Tarja Nieminen participated in the Tartu international literary festival Prima Vista from 9th to 13th May 2023.
Three art universities come together to create digitally visualized slam poetry festivals
across Europe.
