Mikko Niemistö: Odd Meters

Odd Meters* by Mikko Niemistö is based on the dreams he saw at the Bjällansås farm in Uddevalla, Sweden in summer 2018 while in residency there: the intertwined layers of natural cycles, dancing, and 4G connectivity to newsfeeds and entertainment, seeped into his night-time reality.

Odd Meters explores a human body that is alienated from itself and its environment; it is lost in obsessive dreams, adventure fantasies of the digital realm and the polyrhythmic labyrinth of an illogical relationship with nature. In this intersection the chronic insomnia of a thoroughly technologized era collides with its own impossibility.

The work desires to bring the experience of the dream to public circulation while working from a non-linear understanding of time. The performer is wide awake but simultaneously channelling unfiltered impulses swelling from the memories of REM dreams – fragments of stories where the narrator is not in control of the narrative.

*Odd Meters is a musical term used to describe untypical time signatures.

Mikko Niemistö is a choreographer, performing artist and curator who works in Helsinki and abroad. He has created both solo performances and multidisciplinary works where different forms of art engage in dialogue. He has graduated as a Master of Fine Arts in Choreography from the New Performative Practices MA program from the School of Dance and Circus in Stockholm in 2017.

In his works, Niemistö explores the relationship between the human body and its environment and probes the human body's conscious and unconscious physical connections to the structures of the society. He is especially interested in silent physical knowledge, the background noises of the body and accumulations of bodily memories. He currently focuses on the blind spots and shadow zones of everyday reality, like dreaming, protesting and the digital world.

www.mikkoniemisto.com