East by northeast : or performing the (mega)city : movement of a body through transportation networks

Abstract

This thesis deals mainly with my final artistic research work East by Northeast which was conducted across two continents, took several months and involved dozens of people. The project consists of photos, videos, audios, writings, maps, performances, discussions, presentations, artist talks, and one workshop. The main (impossible?) goal/research question was finding ways how to articulate, how to perform (mega)cities through the movement of the body through their transportation networks. I have worked with and within (mega)cities of Moscow (Russia), Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) and Beijing (China). In each one of them, I stayed for approximately one month. An important moment of the research was also a presentation of selected materials in the form of an exhibition in the Space For Free Arts (Vapaan Taiteen Tila) in Helsinki during June 2018. There are many differences between the three selected cities but also several important similarities. They are all interconnected by the Trans-Siberian Railway, the largest transportation network of its kind on Earth. They are all capitals, core cities in which the need for both the efficient urban planning and control over the movement of crowds are very high. All share a socialist past and all were strongly influenced by the Soviet urban planning. Finally, all are currently experiencing impacts of a certain kind of free-market economics. Aside from the micro-level movement within cities, the issues of global mobility and tourism are also important for the text. Why, where and how do people travel and what are the factors influencing their mobility? What is my position as a white European male researcher-tourist in the context of global travel and how can I move around the world in a non-exploitative, non-offensive, environmentally justifiable way? Apart from trying to find new ways of how to 'perform (mega)cities', some of these issues appear and disappear throughout the thesis.