Artist and researcher Antti Tenetz – on consequences of Earth gazing back
by Lölä Florina Vlasenko
Oulu-2026 – European capital of culture context is marked by a significant collaboration of people of science, art and local communities within ”More than Planet” project, focusing on a holistic approach to responding to climate change.
One of the biggest events in this collaboration has been ”Earth Gazes Back” seminar and photo exhibition held in Photo North premises in Valve cultural centre of Oulu.
Tens and tens of international researchers, artists and active community members gathered in Valve to witness challenges – and harmonies – of technology merging with art in the context of climate crisis last autumn, offering innovative approaches to dealing with it in non-pessimistic – creative – ways.
The event celebrated combination of trouble shooting through data analysis and artistic interpretations of the global crisis, conducted by some outstanding international experts and artists. It opened new ways of coping and artistic approaches for communities in the sake of survival and peace.
To learn how it was done, Oulu based journalist and community art producer Lölä Florina Vlasenko spoke to Antti Tenetz, artist and researcher, project manager of More-than-Planet and curator of Adaptation project by Photo North and Oulu 2026.
– ”Earth Gazes Back” concentrated on seeing, observing, understanding and in general getting the holistic view on planetary change. The underlying idea was to develop literacy of the environment – from backyards to planetary scale – to get more aware of the change and also exchange views and tools of how to cope with this change. One of the big ideas was to set new questions for the future. Maybe we don’t find the solutions, but we can discover new horisons to find them.
The thematic name for the seminar and exhibition ”Earth Gazes Back” refers to the planet observing us, while we are co-wondering and cohabiting together.
We tend to see nature as a resource, but maybe it is time to find a deeper view on nature – at least to survive (and not count on survival only due to technologies)?
”More Than Planet” has been running from 2022 to 2025 and quite deeply concentrated on how we study climate change and Earth from space and on site, with artists being mediators between different knowledges coming from local groups, academic researchers and wider public.
Artistic thinking has been in the core of it, as well as bringing culture to space – a place so much dominated by the government and big economic groups. The open dialogue has been missing quite a lot in this context, as well as the understanding that when doing anything in space, we have to have culture on board.
We don’t have a clear answer what art is, in my opinion, but it it does renovate our social and practical grouping and individual horisons. It’s incremental for survival and meaningful life, and it has been so since paleolithic time, supporting us through different kinds of socioeconomic structures, languages and groupings.
Throughout the project we have had exhibitions in Finland, Austria and Switzerland based on research together with our international partners, as well as workshops, books and online activities reaching hundreds and hundreds of people. It has been quite a big project for Photo North and our field in the north, which involved introducing artists through residencies and programmes and activities, and giving new methods, tools, philosophical backgrounds and bases to network.
We live in a technosphere merging with the biosphere, forming a hybrid sphere we are operating in. The problems we are facing include speeded up development through the carbon use and carbon cycle problems in general. Technology speeded up our evolution, and the artists are the ones carrying a critical view on it – as well as critical approach to censorship (for instance censorship of map data) and to glitches and errors in data due to the lack of technical opportunities.
Luckily, the exhibitions we held in Austria and Finland had huge audiences, and during our workshops where we shared our methodologies, we also got audience´s responses and views on different elements of how they see the planet with the holistic view and what concerns they have. Hearing people´s concerns are the steps to future actions in the context of politics and ecology. These contexts have been very much about national and international level.
Now it is more about the companies, like the ones owned by Elon Musk, building international-scale infrastructures involving battery and energy production, cars, rockets and communication through X (former Twitter), influencing people through data.
I was very concerned when he was buying Twitter. I knew that with language and machine learning systems one gets a powerful tool to see what people are thinking, especially political figures. That poses a really critical frame on how individuals and companies are having nation-state level systems through which they can influence politics and our lives.
The whole ”More Than Planet” project and ”Earth Gazes Back” seminar has quite directly been exposing people to confront the reality: we, the planet, are in crisis. The amazing working groups which included artists, researchers and scientists, did give new horisons to dealing with the crisis. But horisons don’t always mean hope. When facing those horisons, suggested by artists and philosophers, did you feel hope? And did you see hope in people who attended ”More Than Planet” events – both audiences and members of the working group?
How the whole project was unravelling, showed that we do need to find new – truthful – horisons and use research- and art-based methods in dealing with the crisis. We truly need to understand where we are now, and what the situation is.
For example, by using satellite technology in Earth observations and land-based sensor systems you can get really precise information. Combining it with personal, local experiences, observations on the ground, you can get new way of seeing the reality.
We have had the approach to think abstract, out of human sensorial boundaries, for a long time. Take shamans, who had access to what could be referred to as the underworld, to the ground, and also to the water and air, spiritually ”diving” or ”flying”. In other words, ancient practices were about getting to broader territories than the physical scope allowed. People have always had to find ways to improve the situations they faced. Now we have technology for that.
However, technology is dual in that sense. It generates problems in many ways, but also suggests ways out of them. If we change the way we think, we can use technology to deal with the planetary crisis. Technology on itself, without a thought behind it, is not the answer. Hope comes from changing the way of thinking.
In the reality we are living in, I see things from dystopian perspective. The hope arises from the sheer fact that we are still existing and thriving on survival and meaningful life.
People tend to find hope even in concentration camps. We are adaptive and intelligent species. The reality check is important.
Building up hope happens of course on an individual level, but especially through grouping and forming different connections.
In the audience I noticed people who felt almost exhausted from the amount of information and data. The line-up of speakers of international level was remarkable and seemed to surprise local people in good ways. I believe we therefore succeeded in our goals.
The first day of the conference in Oulu was dedicated to exploring how we observe the planet observing us – gazing back. The second day was more about possible solutions.
Panel was long and good. We had politicians on board, and with museum and research station heads, we really managed to dwell on how we all could make the change happen.
For the hope to be sustainable, we have to mature. Cultural sector has to go into the society and defend groups more. We have to do it in a way that we keep our independency and critical view at the same time. This approach is quite strong, because it is based on reality check and on science and research.
Science comes first, then technologies are built, and the socioeconomic system is functioning through those. We need system-level change. It doesn’t come from some artist doing something with some researcher. It is more on the level of policies and politics, so the decision-makers should be waking up and changing the system.
That is also a challenge for Oulu 2026. There is a lot of talk about cultural climate change. I am really hoping we could reach the level of including political figures into the agenda, giving them hints and possibilities for wider scope approaches to finding solutions.
I have hope, but sometimes I feel exhausted. I try to limit things that I don’t follow up much, like social media and news. Sometimes I just concentrate on doing my things, hoping my expertise could contribute to building a better future. It also informed my career as an artist, researcher, curator and facilitator. I am not anymore a 20 year old artist wanting to be the best, whatever that means (smiles).
We artists have to serve other people through integrity and individual views that we have. The change is happening anyways, and the next generations will be facing consequences. We have to be wiser and try to leave the world at least in a little better condition than the past generations did. Now we have the knowledge of their mistakes, so change is indeed possible.
Art is something that makes change tolerable. It also is a vehicle for critical thinking about the thermometre of the change, and its paths.
Art provides utopian/dystopian exploration of realities, including practical knowledge and science fiction novels. Inviting all forms and layers of creative thinking is how we can revitalise the whole society. The collage of creative approaches helps.
You referred to artists as to mediators between the academic world and audiences. Do you think they are also mediators between these two groups and the very concept of hope? Another thing: you shared an observation that some people were surprised with the amount of data “More Than Planet” has been providing them with. It has been a disturbing tendency, when people, to protect their own mental health, quit on the news instead of finding safer ways to receive information. A little bit like a toddler closing her eyes and thinking nobody can see her. Bad things don’t stop happening if one stops reading about them. You saw some people overwhelmed with information, yet they did consume it and feel at least glimpses of hope. Has it become art on its own – communicating (quite urgent and disturbing) information?
Art brings hope, perspectives and experiences. There is a benefit of art making in terms of concentration on a theme. An artist can work with themes and aspects for a long time. Researchers can too, but they are often more limited in their practices.
Artists can freely be astronauts of new things, especially hope. They are like canary birds and pathfinders of change. We tend to change the way we live, build our economy and see the future based on our practices and approaches.
Hope comes maybe through artists having a wider scope of ways of how we can do things together.
Hope based on real possibilities is the key. As well as observing and understanding where we are. We are more than a planet.
As to information consumption, it can be overwhelming, but it is very important to see the reality, especially through getting information from a wider scope of resources. There is not going to be any change if people don’t recognise and understand the reality. It is better to see the storm on the horison, than watch the sunshine here. Trying to avoid things that are going to happen anyways doesn’t help. Facing them and trying to be relaxed even though you can´t change them immediately, helps consider the means for change. People should be more active, also in finding the ways for dialogue. The exhibition and seminar were attempts to build up dialogue between different disciplines and layers.
The strength of artists is that they have time to contemplate and explore.
Democratic societies are driven to freedom, in many ways, through art. It is the artists who give critical voice. Art is a joker of the society. Clever politicians understand this. Artists also open up the horison for researchers – in collaboration with artists, they slowly start to see beyond the spectrum given by academics or established patterns in society.
I see informative symposium as a space for very good communication between different groups: it is way more dense content-wise than most of the things people are facing. We live in such fluffy environments. There is good journalism of course, but also a lot of totally strange stuff. I am still struggling to explore the common information space of ours.
I told my son we are doing a book about ”More Than Planet” and he asked: ”Who reads books anymore?” (both laugh) He is fifteen, quite good at school and interested in politics. What would you prefer, I asked him. But he had no straight answer. I wonder how to reach the younger generation. Is it all about TikTok videos now?
We used a lot of online activities, artists used new technologies and AI based systems in clever ways. We seem to be on the right track…
What are you especially proud of within communicating “More than Planet” concepts and practices?
Some best practices from our workshops and lectures included using data from satellites. I had showed an image of our summer place taken from the satellite. One can see stones around the island. My son connected all the data, realising why I do certain maneuvers with our motor boat to get to the island. These are practical ways of connecting the data of available satellite images and the environment. This combination develops a holistic view on the planet.
Then, let’s take Apollo mission to the Moon. It is interesting to see how the research and technological approach is united with the imagery approach. Technologies become extensions of humans in a sense of realising ourselves on the planet and coexisting with it. Satellites are extreme examples of this extension.
Technologies become substitute or surrogate bodies or visions of us. As artists we can use them in broader ways than humans are used to.
Watching the sky and the stars to develop navigational advice and narratives about constellations – these human practices were also about developing technologies on generational levels. Through biological ways the knowledge transfers technology. Map making is deeply rooted in us. What used to be images of bears in the sky is now Google interactive maps.
We are trying to understand the surroundings through maps. Mapping is also a power making tool to realise resources and potentials of the neighbours and ourselves. Kings and rulers were using maps for keeping and increasing power. Maps were used to control, as satellite and personal data is being used nowadays.
Another important example is a 1854 map of cholera epidemic cases made by a physician and medical hygiene developer John Snow. He tracked the cases which showed how cholera spread through feces mixing with drinking water and helped stop the epidemic. Practical, medical and geographic based approach helped observe and build up actions based on this knowledge. It saved people.
Earth observation also includes waves. We see a tiny spectrum of visible light and also 90 percent of wavelings, infra and UV. We communicate mainly through radio waveling. Remote sensing technologies help systems build operational images that are not made for our eyes. We as humans can see through technology if we can´t see through our own eyes. A lot of technologies are open to the public, although it may seem they are mostly aimed at companies. It is important to remember that technologies are developed in the first place with public money.
The duality is challenging: military and security usage vs uncensored data revealed to us.
There is a lot of colonialism in space imagery and space research in general. On the one hand, it is available. On the other, in certain circumstances you can get to jail for ”jeopardising the state´s safety”. One of the art pieces on the exhibition, the censored 3d model of a piece of land in Greece, was a powerful example of that. And then one wondered, when witnessing another art piece on the exhibition – a model of a rock from Mars – is this censored or did they just not have enough data to depict it in detail?
They are trying to find life on Mars, and a huge amount of data and photographs are publically available. People are speculating, but things will be relieved one day. People get easily to depicting things which cannot be proved. So it is good to stay research and forensic based on those things.
There are also limitations in our perception – because we are limited by the technologies and methodologies we have. We see what we have been learning to see. It is hard for us to see beyond our capabilities. Maybe we see phenomena we cannot explain in rational scientific ways, because we are not at the end of the spectrum of exploring the reality. We are still in the medieval era in a way.
Young species we are (both laugh). ”Earth gazes back”, in one sentence, has been a very deep, creative, scientific and artistic reflection on the urgency of climate change – and a very international one, with participants from many parts of the globe. Have you noticed that here in the North the awareness of climate change is a bit better than elsewhere? Or is it a bit of hysterical optimism?
In my perspective, climate change effects are more visible here in the North than in more urban central European areas. It is about geography and the way the planet operates. As temperature keeps rising, we see change immediately on snow and ice. We are more bound by this change. Without building any romantic notion of finnishness or northerness, we are more connected to nature and environment than people in southern or central Europe. We use satellite tracking, but we also literally see things here with our own eyes and we go to the forest and see how animals behave. We are used to consult our backyard all the year cycle through, seeing how snow comes and melts and how nature wakes up.
It gives the advantage of understanding the climate change and the patterns.
It also gives us the advantage of partnering with big EU projects. And a big result of the seminar and the exhibition is that we were (hopefully) heard by decision makers worldwide. Together, we can face new possible futures.
At least the project gave new horisons to new projects which we continue, with research, residencies and art.
The main result, however, is that there is anyway more agency built, so that we can see, observe, understand and take action – within everyday life, satellite data and politics. Agency is in us. It is not up there in high political levels. It is us who inform them.
