Aboagora: Void

On this year’s Aboagora the The Five Rings-series culminates in the theme Void. Void can be understood as nothingness – the total lack of perceivable elements. Void is complete otherness, incomprehensible and almost unreacheable; it can be perceived by its effects rather than by experiencing it firsthand. This exhaustive otherness has engaged the human mind throughout history. Void is the end-point of the human cycle of rebirths ordered by the laws of Karma, and it is granted only to the few enlightened ones who reach Moksha – liberation from existence as we know it and complete immersion into nothingness. Void has been called the impetus of regeneration, the source and end of life as we know it. It has been called ether in esoteric circles, Brahman in Eastern religions, or even God in our Western world. Humans have tried to reach even a brief moment of inner nothingness through meditation, yoga, alcohol, drugs, or sex, but our fascination with the void has also inspired new technologies and taken us far into outer space.

Aboagora is arranged at the Sibelius Museum August 23-25. You find the complete program here: https://aboagora.fi/programme/

The following parts of the program are open for everyone:

TUESDAY, 22 AUGUST

20:00–21:00     KICK-OFF CONCERT

Void Iteration – If I Close My Eyes, Do I Hear? – Artturi Elovirta (Media Composer), Tuuli Lempa (piano, live electronics), Ulf Långbacka (Composer, electronics), Teemu Mastovaara (cello, live electronics)

WEDNESDAY, 23 AUGUST

19:00–20:30     AGORA

On Touching the Stranger Within – The Alterity that Therefore I Am – Karen Barad

THURSDAY, 24 AUGUST

10:15–11:45      AGORA

The Way of the Unexpected – The Poetics of Being and Non-being in Early Greek Philosophy – Hans Ruin

19:00–20:00       CONCERT [at the Turku Cathedral]

Void – Ensemble MMXX (Marika Kivinen, Mats Lillhannus, Kristoffer Malm, Maikki Säikkä)

FRIDAY, 25 AUGUST

13:15–14:15      AGORA

Extinction Voids: Visualizing the Relational Holes Created by Species Loss – Dolly Jørgensen