Jaakko Karhunen

In Saari I will transform into a monk, an ascetic. Not in the sense that I’d worship like a monk does, no, I am more of a manuscript writing monk. A secular monk. The residence is my scriptorium, I wear baggy clothes and I sit all day. I am a scribe, and I repent when I haven’t written enough. I have a whip, I flog myself, and I kneel in front of the librarium, glorifying past authors who have provided insights into the mysteries of gnosis. The laptop is my pergament – I fill its screen in Gothic fraktur blackletter lest someone understand me. Betwixt my sessions of self-flagellation I crawl back to the mirthless desk, and pick up my quill to jot down a few incomprehensible sentences. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisci elit, sed eiusmod tempor incidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.

During the residency Jaakko works with the artistic research project Reading the enemies, besides fantasising of being a medieval friar. His project consists of workshops where invited artists and researchers present readings of their ‘enemies’ – that is, texts or discourses that they think are opposed to their own intellectual and political premises. Reading enemies is a paradox: the two notions appear to exclude each other. The research project investigates this contradiction between reading and animosity. Karhunen will also wrestle with his own dear adversary, Félix Guattari, in order to obtain the degree of Philosophiae Doctor.

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