Mark Niskanen & Jani-Matti Salo

Mark Niskanen & Jani-Matti Salo: Clare
Three-channel sound installation, 2021

Clare is a sound installation that creates intimate moments of hypotheticals. Clare filters thoughts from a 14-year archive of tweets and organizes them according to the psychoanalyst Karen Horney’s theory of inner conflicts.

The first part of the work, Compliance, refers to the need for affection, approval, and kinship. These needs emphasize interdependence on others.

The second part of the work, Aggression, refers to the need for power, recognition, admiration, and achievement. These needs emphasize competition and hostility toward others.

The third part of the work, Detachment, refers to the need for independence, discreetness, and perfection. These needs emphasize separation from others.

The work is named after an alter-ego created by Karen Horney, with whom she had internal conversation. As early as the 1930s, Horney described in her works the ‘idealized self’–a product of a competitive society to which no achievement brings satisfaction. 80 years later, social media is providing the stage for satisfying our thirst for perfection. Clare asks, however, whether the idealized self is worthy of pursuit.

Forum Box
2.-25.4.2021

Free entry