MULTIMEDIA

The Attraction of Innovations and Progress

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When computers evolved in the early 1990s to suit image processing, Marita was taken along by the stream of digitisation. She could use computers to do exactly what she had always wanted to do. Digitisation, however, was not just a medium of art for her. Instead, she recognised its social impact and wanted to work to promote this field.

‘I realised from an early stage that information technology will change the globe and my own skills, studies and range of talent suited it. I felt that I could finally realise myself as a whole person. I also thought that once I learn to use computers I would never be an artist out of work.’

Her first contact with computers was in theatrical work in the 1980s.

‘I was working with light and sound designer Ilkka Volanen, and computers were introduced very early into lighting design. I went on to write, make graphic design and process images with a computer. I remember that it had 4 MB of internal memory.’

Another realisation of the usefulness of computers came in a doctor’s surgery.

‘I became seriously ill, and the doctor said that I had a 50/50 chance of losing my hands and feet. In order to think of something else, I asked the doctor what he does with the computer in the room. He discussed my diagnosis with a doctor in Arizona using the Internet. I realised that you don’t need hands and feet for that and that you can be in contact everywhere.’

By the 1990s, computers had evolved and opportunities for graphics and interaction had improved. Made at the very beginning of the decade, Jackpot was Marita’s first digital and interactive work of art.

‘A multimedia period began that replaced everything else. I fell in love with computers, their speed and with what I could do with them. The camera was still my basic tool, but it was accompanied by graphic design and painting with a computer.’

Multimedia, the combining of pictures, text, sound and the moving image into an interactive whole was the sensational innovation of the period. Some people spoke of it as hypermedia, referring to a non-linear structure, moving within content with the aid of links, now familiar to everyone from the Internet. For Marita, the notion of multimedia itself was not new, it only acquired a new method.

’Before the present concept of multimedia was known, the stage provided an opportunity to work in a way that combined different forms of media, in other words to join text, images, sound and light. My first works in the early 1980s were in fact in theatre. It was easy to move on to computers from the multimediality of the stage. I realised in 1990–1991 that the computer is a miniature theatre, where everything is possible in its virtual world. Programs and hardware were introduced as if to allow me to do what I like with them. Programmers and engineers who came up with the realisation of my ideas became the most important members of my team.’

Marita envisioned a future where computers would be introduced in all fields and she wanted to promote this in other ways than her art alone. She was already familiar with working for the common good from activities in the ELMU association for live music and the MUU art association.

‘Skills in information technology would be needed in work and women should not be left out. I lectured in various places from America to Japan about how women could improve their lives by taking computers into their use and control. I also spoke about computers and the disabled. I represented Finnish business culture and social thinking.’

‘I believe that politics is personal and everyone can make a difference with their actions. The great changes of history originate from individuals’, she says.

To Marita, the art world seemed conservative – and opposed outright to change – amidst the new enthusiasm. This is still the case. She says that she still meets artists who regard it as a matter of personal honour not to even use email.

‘That’s why I didn’t want to operate in the art world. I wanted to be where innovations and progress were to be found. I followed the new media closely; I know all the people of that generation.’

The 1990s were a highly international time for Marita. She made her main works in English and French, since France was Europe’s leading country for producing multimedia at the time. Ambitious Bitch and Son of a Bitch received prizes in the Prix Möbius multimedia competition in France, among other events.

‘I was asked if there were more things like this in Finland and I said there were. I set up the Prix Möbius in Finland.’

The competition expanded to Scandinavia and the Baltic countries. Along with her own works, the prize also needed to be funded. The amount of work continued to grow.

‘The decade was exciting but also hard. Alongside my own demanding work, I had also done a great deal of work for free as an expert, and then I had a burnout. I felt that I should have spent that time on my own art.’

The work had also become physically strenuous and Marita’s both wrists were operated on because of working with computers.

Finally, there was also a setback with technology. Her earlier CD-ROMs could no longer be used in new computers.

‘The interactive period ended with Apple’s decision in 1999. It would have been too expensive to remake the works for new generations of hardware. For the past century, it has been possible to transfer a film by Chaplin from one format to another, but interactive works cannot be moved to new formats; they have to be completely remade. That was a hard blow.’

At the beginning of the 2000s Marita decided to change course, concentrate on her own work and on intellectual matters. She went to France to write the script for Tarot. This was a sound decision. She did not yearn for the period of the interactive CD-ROMs.

‘That work had been done and I didn’t grieve for it. The only thing that grieves me is that they can only be displayed with the original hardware and virtual software. The positive side of this setback was that it made me move me ahead again: I decided to make works of such multimedia type that one of their formats would always survive. Marita Liulia Tarot came out in due course as a mobile game, exhibition, web game, book and packs of cards. And it was translated into ten languages. I also had the opportunity to appear as my Tarot characters around the world, and I once again felt the appeal of the theatre.’

Marita returned to the beginning with the idea of multimedia, to the stage, but renewed from the 1980s by including computers, which she had learned to use in the 1990s. In the 2000s the digital image became part of new live performances. The most recent of these is collaboration with Kimmo Pohjonen for Golden Age.

She still thinks of the common good as well, and is now working on a book of instructions for young artists.

‘So that you don’t have to learn everything from mistakes. Many careers are undermined by mistakes at the beginning. Back in the day, I would have liked to have read the book that I’m now writing.’