Erik Alalooga "The Cabinet of Kinetic Curiosities"

ARS Project Space 17.–31.01.2026

Mon–Fri 12–18, Sat 12–16

Exhibition opening: Friday, 16. January at 18:00

“Kineetiliste kurioosumite kabinet” (The Cabinet of Kinetic Curiosities) is an exhibition that began with a broad-based casting call, in which a significant number of prominent figures of western culture participated. The winners of the intense competition were Archimedes, Isaac Newton, Léon Foucault, Thomas Alva Edison, Luis Buñuel, Marvin Minsky, and Nikita Hrushchev. The iconic images they left behind in history became the processual input for the exhibition. This was the extent of the cultural icons' role, and they were allowed to return to their well-deserved rest. Many thanks to them for participating. Next, the laboratory work will begin, pressing the collected material through subjective and arbitrary interpretive filters. Inventions, discoveries, artistic designs, performative presentations, but also subtle deceptions are embodied in kinetic machines. The choreography of moving artificial bodies has been refined into clear mechanical gestures. The original input images, borrowed from the classics, retain their presence but do not become a reflection of events or a visual dominant. Seven new objects begin to live their own kinetic lives in the exhibition space.

Erik Alalooga is a hopeless machine addict. No matter what he undertakes or touches, the result is always a machine. His performances with self-made analog machines can be seen as an anti-progress manifesto. His machine creations do not participate in the technological race. They celebrate intuitive dilettantism. His machines only have meaning in the context of a specific work of art.

Erik Alalooga is a director, performer, sound artist, teacher, and cultural organizer living in Tallinn. He is best known for his research and application of analog technological solutions in his artworks. Since 2005, he has focused on exploring the immediate relationships between humans and machines. His artworks fall within the realms of installation art, sound performance, and object theater.

Born in Tallinn in 1974, Erik Alalooga graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a bachelor's degree in sculpture and a master's degree in interdisciplinary arts. In 2023, he defended his doctoral thesis in theater arts at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theater. From 2006 to 2010, he worked as an associate professor at the IDK department of the EKA, and from 2010 to 2013 as the head of the performing arts (TK) department.

In 2023, he was awarded the main prize of the Estonian Cultural Endowment's Visual and Applied Arts Endowment.

Exhibition supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Estonian Artists’ Association.