Featuring

World-renowned geneticist Aarno Palotie will take the audience on a captivating journey into the roots of the Finnish genome. He will explore how advances in technology have driven major leaps in genetic research, how studying genes could transform medicine and disease treatment in the future, and why Finnish genes offer a unique window into human health and inheritance.

Research Director Aarno Palotie currently works at the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM) and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Boston, and holds several prestigious international positions. He graduated as a physician from the University of Oulu and is one of the most internationally recognized Finnish geneticists.

Oulu Lyceum, Kaitera Talks 17th Nov (in Finnish)

Aino Toppi leads futures foresight at OP Lab, OP Pohjola’s innovation unit. She helps OP Pohjola identify emerging opportunities and changes by exploring developments in society, technology, and the economy, and their implications for the future.

In her keynote, “Foresight & Futures Thinking”, she will discuss how foresight and futures thinking help organizations explore alternative futures, identify weak signals, and build direction toward futures filled with hope.

Thursday 19th, Tarkastamo

An exhibition from Björk presents an immersive audiovisual journey into her music, including Sorrowful Soil and Ancestress, both of which were composed and arranged by Björk in honour of her mother, and Björk Orkestral. Spanning sound, moving image and spatial installation, the exhibition reflects Björk’s boundary-pushing practice, where art, nature and technology meet and converge. The sound installation Sorrowful Soil is realised using 30 Finnish audio technology company Genelec’s loudspeakers, while Björk Orkestral is experienced as a dedicated listening experience in Genelec’s state-of-the-art listening room.

Furthermore, Björk will perform a special DJ set (sold out) at the new waterfront venue Tarkastamo on 15 November, transporting audiences across genres, cultures and continents through music.

BUCOLIC – Cultural Machines is an experimental ensemble of human performers and robotic instruments, bringing traditional music into dialogue with new technology. The title comes from the Greek-rooted word bucolic, meaning pastoral. Kantele, robotic kantele, robotic cowbells and robotic shakuhachi meet live electronics, motion capture and visuals. The performance explores the musical agency of robotic instruments: what kind of performers can they become, and what can they contribute artistically to experimental and folk music. 

Tarkastamo, 17th Nov

Rather than focusing on the fixed object, sound sits at the heart of Carmen Villain’s practice as a process of flux. Using processes typical of dub, with its emphasis on echo and the dismantling of sound, she builds music that dissolves and then suddenly reappears, morphing the same material. 

At TAR Festival, Carmen Villain will present her sonic transformations during her live set at Tarkastamo.

The seminar’s keynote speaker is Dutch artist and innovator Daan Roosegaarde, whose work explores the social role of design and its potential to improve urban environments.

Working in Rotterdam, Roosegaarde is known for bold projects that bring people, technology and nature together to develop solutions for the future. His inspiring keynote invites us to imagine future landscapes and consider how creativity and beauty can transform our shared environment. (Photo: Casper Rila)

Tarkastamo 20th Nov

The keynote is supported by VALOA Design

Halina Rice is an ‘immersive first’ electronic music producer and AV artist working at the intersection of music, art and technology. Her music ranges from ethereal soundscapes to beat-driven IDM with critically acclaimed releases including latest album UNREALITY created in Dolby Atmos.

Tarkastamo, Fri 20th Oct

Heikki Rautila works as Head of Strategic Initiatives at OP Pohjola, where he leads change initiatives related to AI. In his keynote presentation “AI Transformation: Rethinking Everything” he paints a picture of the holistic operational model changes organizations will undergo in the near future.

Tarkastamo, Thursday 19th Nov

Pierre-Luc Lecours and Ida Toninato bring together the acoustic and electronic worldsthrough the encounter of baritone saxophone, modular synthesizer, and real-time videogeneration.Influenced by the concepts of balance, ecology, and the equilibrium found inthe Fibonacci sequence, they explore the intersection of nature and humanity in theirsecond full-length performance,Homeostasis.

This performance presents the artists as components of a larger system, completed byvideo projection and lighting. Images and sounds continuously recalibrate one another,renewing their points of connection. This ongoing process of creating and disruptingbalance allows both performers and audience to expand their perception of the on-stage systems.

Tarkastamo, 19th Oct

Josefina Nelimarkka is an interdisciplinary artist based between Paris and Helsinki mediating the elemental forces that underlie the ways we live, think, feel and act. Engaging with natural materials and ephemeral technologies, she explores air, presence and atmospheres of perception across transient landscapes and entangled climate futures. In her research-based practice, weather is political, experiential and potential. Through meditative installations of light, glass, moving image and sound as well as spatialised real-time data environments, she approaches atmosphere as a shared continuum holding hybrid bodies, weather systems and planetary processes together. Air becomes both material and medium, shifting between visible and invisible, between present and deep time, between environmental and cosmological possibilities.

Arctic Clouds, Culture Center Valve 13.-22.11.

Sustainability is shaped by how we build and transform systems. In this keynote, we explore how art, artificial intelligence, technology, and human interaction are interconnected, and how we can design these relationships in more sustainable ways. Layers of the Peace Machine serves as an example of systems-driven artistic practice: how AI, data, collective decision-making, and audience participation shape and influence one another.

The keynote is presented by Ekho Collective’s data scientist Vertti Luostarinen and choreographer and interaction designer Iina Taijonlahti. Layers in the Peace Machine is an interactive and participatory work by Ekho Collective that combines art, AI and data. The artwork explores peace as an evolving, collectively constructed process, and is on display at Oulu City Hall as part of the Oulu2026 cultural programme.

Vertti Luostarinen & Iina Taijonlahti, Ekho Collective
Tarkastamo, 18th November

What happens when mobile networks learn, anticipate and adapt? Laura Karjalainen from Nokia explores the invisible world of radio networks and how AI is shaping their evolution, from today’s mobile experiences to the possibilities of 6G and connecting intelligence.

Tarkastamo 19th Nov

Michelle Rocha is the Co-Head of International at Factory International (UK), that operates Manchester International Festival and Aviva Studios. She is currently the Co-Chairperson of the Board of performing arts company Quarantine. Her work spans across performing, visual, digital arts and immersive experiences. Notable artists she has worked with include Ryuichi Sakamoto, Wayne McGregor, Rafael Lozeno-Hemmer, Luke Jerram, Phelim McDermott, etc. and pop artists including Linkin Park, Jamie xx, Oasis and more.  She has led presentations of major works and training programmes in New York, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bergen, Brussels, Sydney, Johannesburg , etc., and is currently leading on a few multi-lateral international creative producers exchange programmes supported by the British Council and European Union National Institutes for Culture.  

Siamäk Naghian on yksi suomalaisen teknologiateollisuuden arvostetuimmista johtajista. Genelecista on kansainvälisesti tunnettu edelläkävijä, jonka kaiuttimia ja äänentoistoratkaisuja käytetään studioissa, konserttisaleissa ja mediataloissa ympäri maailman. Naghian tunnetaan pitkäjänteisenä uudistajana, joka korostaa laadun, vastuullisuuden ja henkilöstön merkitystä menestyksen perustana.

Puheenvuoro tarjoaa ainutlaatuisen mahdollisuuden kuulla suomalaisen kansainvälisen menestystarinan rakentajaa ja näkijää, joka uskoo, että parhaat innovaatiot syntyvät ihmisten yhteistyöstä, uteliaisuudesta ja rohkeudesta ajatella toisin.

Tarkastamo 17.11.

Communications Director

Takashi Kudo was born in Tokyo in 1977. He grew up in Abu Dhabi, and graduated from Waseda University in 2000 with a B.A. in Literature and Philosophy. After working as the Editor in Chief for a video game magazine in Stockholm for 4 years, he returned to Japan to join teamLab.

teamLab (f. 2001) is an international art collective that seeks to navigate the confluence of art, science, technology, and the natural world. Through art, the interdisciplinary group of specialists, including artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians, and architects, aims to explore the relationship between the self and the world, and new forms of perception.

Tarkastamo 19th Nov

Sustainability is shaped by how we build and transform systems. In this keynote, we explore how art, artificial intelligence, technology, and human interaction are interconnected, and how we can design these relationships in more sustainable ways. Layers of the Peace Machine serves as an example of systems-driven artistic practice: how AI, data, collective decision-making, and audience participation shape and influence one another.

The keynote is presented by Ekho Collective’s data scientist Vertti Luostarinen and choreographer and interaction designer Iina Taijonlahti. Layers in the Peace Machine is an interactive and participatory work by Ekho Collective that combines art, AI and data. The artwork explores peace as an evolving, collectively constructed process, and is on display at Oulu City Hall as part of the Oulu2026 cultural programme.

Vertti Luostarinen & Iina Taijonlahti, Ekho Collective
Tarkastamo 18th November

Marcos Katz, Professor, Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Finland

Prof. Katz has edited and written six books in different areas of wireless and mobile communications, published by Wiley and Springer. He has published more than 170 journal and international conference papers. Prof. Katz is the single author and co-author of more than 50 patents in the areas of analog circuit design, multiantenna systems, cooperative communications, network synchronization and others.

Tarkastamo, 18th November 

Mark Fell, the Rotherham-based electronic pioneer, built his reputation as part of the SND duo in the mid-1990s, breaking down compositional conventions in digital music by exploring, with an almost academic rigour, unorthodox approaches to soundmaking using complex computational systems that bridge experimental and club music.

Mark Fell and Rian Treanor represent a genuinely rare example in the field of experimental music: a father and son whose musical dialogue has become as aesthetically and conceptually strong as their individual practices.

Mark Fell b2b Rian Treanor, TAR Festival

Mika Johnson is a multimedia artist, meditation coach, and Somatic Experiencing® practitioner. His work spans filmmaking, photography, and immersive installation, exploring the overlap between ecology, ritual, embodied practices, and contemporary life.

Petri Liimatta works as the Technology Exploration Lead at OP Lab, where he paves the way for future solutions. As a technology research professional, he investigates and applies emerging technologies to OP’s business while steering experimental development at the cutting edge of innovation. In his keynote “Experimenting with Futures,” he discusses how experimentation helps identify meaningful technologies, integrate them into business contexts, and put solutions into practice.

Tarkastamo, 19th Nov

Visual and multimedia artist, physicist, and university professor. 

His practice spans audiovisual performance, immersive installations, and contemporary composition, exploring the evolving dialogue between sound, image, and algorithmic structures. Using generative systems and real-time digital manipulation, he creates sound-reactive environments and media sculptures in which visual and sonic elements unfold as interconnected, living systems. 

Giovinetto’s solo project FEMINA debuted at the opening night of POSTCITY, Ars Electronica Festival 2023, and has since been presented at L.E.V. Festival, MUTEK Montréal, Videocittà Rome, and Sonica Glasgow, among others. In January 2026, FEMINA was presented at the Philharmonic de Paris as part of the closing program of the NEMO Biennale.

His istallations have been exhibited in international contexts, including the NEMO Biennale in Paris, the LINK Festival in Oviedo, and the Museo Santa Maria della Scala in Siena, with works frequently shaped by the conceptual underpinnings of FEMINA – a project that explores the idea of grace and the gaze that defined it during the Renaissance.

In December 2024, FEMINA received the Videocittà Award for best AV Performance and in October 2025 he won the City Digital Skin Art Festival Awards with “Intarsi”. 

In 2010, he co-founded OZMOTIC, a duo merging electronic and instrumental music, collaborating with artists such as Christian Fennesz and Murcof. Theis albums are published by the London Label Touch. Alongside his artistic practice, Giovinetto teaches Acoustic Physics and Sound Design at the Scola di Alto Perfezionamento Musicale in Saluzzo and SAE Institute Milan. 

Tarkastamo 18th Oct

Rosa Liksom is a renowned artist who has received the J.H. Erkko award, the State Prize for Literature, and the Swedish Academy Nordic Prize, among others. She was appointed an Honorary Doctor of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Oulu during its 9th conferment ceremony in 2013. She was also awarded the Finlandia Literary Prize in 2011 for her novel Compartment No. 6, which was adapted into an award-winning film. In addition to novels, plays, screenplays, and short story collections, she has also published comic books and children’s books. Her works are in public collections at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the Oulu Art Museum, and the Finnish Museum of Photography. She has been awarded the Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland, and she is an honorary doctor in the Faculty of Art and Design at the University of Lapland.

Award-winning author and visual artist Rosa Liksom speaks about how her understanding of “sivistys” (a Finnish term that spans a multitude of meanings, such as ‘education’, ‘learnedness’, ‘sophistication’, ‘erudition’, and a broad understanding of humanity and culture) has changed over the course of her life.

Kaitera Talks, Oulu Lyceum, 18th Nov (in Finnish)

Sami Heikkilä is Bank Director of Corporate Banking at Pohjolan OP. With more than 25 years of experience in corporate banking, sustainability has been a key part of his work for many years.

In his keynote, How to Make Sustainable Tech Business from Art, Heikkilä explores the relationship between technology, creativity and responsibility. In his keynote he examines how ideas emerging from art and creative thinking can drive innovation while addressing societal challenges such as artificial intelligence, energy consumption and wellbeing.

The perception of sound is bodily; it is not just a range of frequencies perceptible to the human ear. Any sound is an acoustic pressure and spatial phenomenon, and as such, it affects the whole body. This forms the basis of the practice of the Berlin-based Brazilian low-frequency sound artist and composer Stefanie Egedy. By using subwoofers, she creates temporary environments where the physicality of extremely low bass and infrasound meets analog synthesis, microtuning, and the acoustic and architectural limits of the room itself.

This state of becoming one comes to TAR with a commissioned work for 16 subwoofers, which will premiere in the newly built black box of Tarkastamo.

TAR Festival

Professor Timo Muotka is Professor of Aquatic Ecology at the Ecology and Genetics Research Unit, University of Oulu. He is one of the university’s most distinguished ecologists, with expertise focusing on biodiversity loss and the restoration of stream ecosystems, as well as stream-forest interactions in the boreal region. Together with his research group, he has successfully integrated the strengths of long-term ecological monitoring and experimental research in his projects.

There is no data from the future. So if we only look at what we already know, we are unlikely to create anything truly new.

In his keynote, Avidly’s Chief Creative Officer Tuomas Tikka looks at creativity through four different dimensions and asks what creative thinking means in the age of AI. Creativity is not just about coming up with ideas. It is about seeing things differently, choosing a direction, making decisions without knowing all the answers, and turning ideas into something real.

The talk looks at the relationship between strategy, creativity, technology and execution – and why curiosity, courage and human judgement may become even more important as AI makes more things faster, easier and cheaper.

Tarkastamo 19th