Attention Spa, 2016
Installation, performance and a programme of events with Jenna Sutela
Painted wood, water, aquatic plants, artificial jellyfish, projection, embroidered bathrobes, towels, sound

Attention Spa installation acted as a contemplative assemblage and departure point for a series of public events. The pool was activated through a performance as well as an invited program including a performance by musician Tomoko Sauvage and a lecture by researcher Lisette de Senerpoint Domis. A custom moon clock quantified time until the next event. The idea was to gather an audience together with their feet in the water - forming a pool of attention and energy exchange – to test out new forms of togetherness, mutual dependency and networked relationships. In her performance, Puolakka narrated the situation from the point of view of you, an anonymous audience member who relates to the situation through subjective observations in real time. The possibility of using human sensorium to reach beyond the borders of both informationalism and individualism, towards collectivity and a more embodied, embedded (Rosi Braidotti: The Posthuman, 2013) and leaky (Elizabeth Grosz: Volatile Bodies, 1994) existence was explored.

The work was commissioned by curators Jesse van Oosten and Johannes Niekolaas Lekkerkerk as part of Spending Quality Time With My Quantified Self group exhibition at TENT Rotterdam | Thank you: Tommi Vasko