What it interesting about the system behavior of a performance, is its instability. This also has to do with the concept of a work being constantly renegotiated. For instance, my performance Only for the Money (1995) hinted at how social, psychological, ideological and political practices deal with art as production and as a relationship with a customer. The space of a performance work can be a distraction to the presentation of contentment in culture. An artist needs the creative ability read the ongoing process in different contexts. This is also connected to the question of the artist’s relation to audience.
Instead of paradigmatic regulation, the relationship can be alive spatially. Whether the space is a black box, a gallery or a street concludes nothing. What is conclusive is the motive for action – an intention which transcends and surpasses the obvious and the formulaic. Significance comes from separating oneself from fixed structures of presentation.
For festivals, events, galleries and cultural centers, often organized or maintained by artists, various environments and locations have been found, for instance in old industrial milieus. I mention one example, an old aluminum factory occupied by workers in Buenos Aires, to which the occupiers had invited artist to organize a cultural center. I performed there in 2004 at the festival In Transit.
Of more withdrawn places in the countryside I recall a crater of an ancient volcano in Transylvania, in which Living Art Festival AnnArt took place. I performed there in 1996 and 1999.
In situations like this, an artist, through a work, connects with a lived space, which creates planes for perceptions and conclusions. Discussions start among artists, emphatic situations involving artists and local people occur. Possibilities for communication outside the institutional channels of the art world develop. It is not necessarily about projects but rather friendship. Performance lives like the Fluxus tradition, based on interaction.

Of our world

These contact situations occur in a world shaken by massive crises and problems, in the center of which is the effect that the market forces and exploitative economics of global capitalism are having all over our planet.
The maelstrom of militarism is also everywhere to be seen. To me it was very moving and meaningful to see the artists of the 5th Nippon International Art Festival (1998) visit together the memorial built for the victims of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Oppressive control and harassment practiced by authorities and police can also be strikingly prominent, like I have seen when performing in Byelorussia, South Korea, United States or Mexico. It causes special problems for performance artists trying to transport their work materials and equipment across borders. In Israel, militarism is everywhere. To add to that, the Israel embassy in Helsinki asked me for interrogation after my visit to Israel, something I have never experienced before or since.
I have also witnessed the enormous problems caused by population growth and concentration. Ecological, socio-economical, infrastructural and logistic problems escalate both in small and in great dimensions. Like in South China, where I performed at the festival Guangzhou Live (2010), two hour’s train journey away from Hong Kong, a route by which hundreds of millions of people live. Performance artists witness and experience a process that puts the value of Earth’s biodiversity at stake.
The struggle to correct this catastrophic development is on. It is a movement for preservation of life. My personal conviction is female-optimistic. My creed is reflected in performances with which I have participated in interdisciplinary, critical discourses. I am fond my memories of Open Hills Festival (Bulgakova, Kaluga, Russia, 2009), a festival of alternative culture, just to name one example.
Personally, I have been willing to act as an organizer of contact situations and provide forums for them: I was twice the organizer and curator of the Amorph! performance festival (1998, 2001). With my son Lauri Luhta, I started Là-bas→, a permanent project, structure and platform for performance art and new live forms of media art. Là-bas→ has been active for 12 years in the form of events, festivals, workshops and lectures. Biennale Là-bas→ Concept of Performance, the second Là-bas→ biennale, takes places in Helsinki, April 25–29, 2012.