Mixed Media Artist, Producer and Art Lover
FRUIT HOUSE
The Fruit House is a neon light installation for kids and kids at heart. A combination of smart home technology and a children’s playbook. We invite viewers to imagine things that not yet exist, play with high tech with ease, and have fun.
Fruit House is an interactive neon light installation - a futuristic smart house looking like an exotic fruit. Viewers can play with it and add parts of different fruits to the house exterior. It is fun, game-like and suitable for all ages.
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OUR VALUES
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With the art work we aim to promote child-like joy to adults, and dissolve three key social fears of today - globalisation, technical illiteracy, and automation replacing people. Additionally, we want to advertise healthy fruits as something cool and appealing, especially for kids.
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CALL FOR PARTNERS
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We invite you to get involved into our project and make the art happen! Fruit House is happy to be a part of your like- minded initiative, an event or a marketing campaign. Read more about partnership opportunities below.
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MESSAGE
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The World has changed and will do even more so in the years to come. While we humans still love the same things - art, games and fun. We want to bring the childhood joy back to adults. We selected 3 contemporary fears we see around and created a fun interactive game to dispel them.
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1
Nowadays TECHNOLOGY is invading the World around us, and it may sound scary for many. Earlier, it was hard and for the experts only to use it, but in the PEOPLE-CENTRIC age we now live in it is no more. Smart solutions are there to assist people while being seamless, intuitive and fun. Fruit House installation has a vast technology spell behind it, and yet is immediately engaging, and is extremely easy and fun to play with for anyone.
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2
Finally, GLOBALISATION is here, and some might still hesitate to enjoy it. Food is one of the oldest topics we humans think of - it is easy to relate to and it takes an important place in culture. We selected local and exotic fruits for our artwork to promote DIVERSITY and intercultural communication. We believe that as much as mixing different fruits together, interacting with people of different backgrounds is a truly exciting and fun experience.
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3
As the raising AUTOMATION takes the boring jobs away from fellow humans, many get stressed. We believe, everyone is talented, and there is more and more need for creative skills and out of the box thinking. Unlike many might think, INNOVATION is a pure fun to work with! Fruit House invites you to expand your imagination beyond the existing - what would a mix of ananas, pitahaya and an apple taste like? You decide!
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ART WORK
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Fruit House is an interactive neon light installation. It is a combination of children’s mix-and-match activity book and a smart home concept. Interacting with the art work visitors can change the appearance of the House. We’ve used basic application techniques and kept the overall style child-like - hand-drawn and simplified - across the artwork to present it as how kids would see it.
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THE STORY
The Fruit house is a smart house from a dream that looks like a fruit. It has three floors - the appearance of the branch top is controlled from the attic, the inside of the fruit - from the main floor, and the outer shell - from the ground floor. Similar to household appliances in a real smart house, visitors can switch on different fruits from the floor plan - and see how the house changes.
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INTERACTIONS
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Waving in front of the fruit figures on the floor plan switches corresponding fruit elements on the light installation. When one element switches on, the concurrent ones turn off automatically. Once switched on, the element remains on until another overlapping element is selected. Therefore, there is Fruit House is always visible - also between the interactions with the viewers. The installation is 2D and looks eye-catching from both sides.
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AUDIENCE
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The art work is intended for a wide audience of all ages. There is many aspects to the ideas we present, and we hope everyone can find something appealing. We would like the audience to have fun and associate the art work with some of their own good memories. We relate to childhood - the period when they played fun games, learned new words, every food was new and the world around full of exciting discoveries. If the grass was greener back then, there’s nothing that stops us adults to become happier again now. We think that along with art lovers of all kinds, also people fascinated with food, technology enthusiasts, and families with kids will find our art object interesting.
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LOCATION
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The installation is first on display in the very heart of Helsinki city center in Tiedekulma, located at Yliopistonkatu 4, 00100 Helsinki. Neon lights look great in the dark, and the installation will be on all the clock round. The place of the next exhibition is open. Please, let us know if you are interested to host the artwork in your premises.
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INSTALLATION
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Fruit House installation is made of neon lights of 6 different colours, motion sensors, electronic controlling unit, and a transparent plexiglass base frame. We’ve used in total 35 meters of neon lights, 17 sensors and 2 months of inspiration to make the project happen. We used fluorescent paint for the printed elements to also glow in the dark. The installation is standalone, hang from the top, and low power consuming - it only needs one electric outlet to work.
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VENUE
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The installation consists of two plexiglass sheets 160 x 100 cm each hang from top, and a hardware box. The artwork is for indoor use, and can be exhibited fully inside or in a the street-level display window - for visitors to see and interact with it from outside, through the glass.
TEAM
MARIA KONONOVA
“Born in Saint-Petersburg, I’m in love with art, people and culture since my early childhood. Living in Finland expanded my interests into contemporary art, technology and cognitive sciences. I enjoy the experiment and thought that is behind the art work - with mixed media art I create, I aim to convey ideas to viewers in a fun and interactive form.” “Food is always close to human culture - especially plants that grow in particular area - and we’ve chosen fruits to illustrate diversity. I like cooking myself, and I’m happy to promote healthy food and wellbeing.” Along with art and design, Maria has experience with project management, marketing, high-tech products, and organising events. “Even technology has changed the way we think, we all have good memories and dreams to relate to. Bringing up the topic of childhood in my artworks, I aim to inspire kids and bring child-like joy back to adults.“
ARTO KINNUNEN
“Coming from Finland, I have passion for engineering, will to explore and a strong doer attitude. I have chosen technology for my career path, because I’m strive to understand how things work and make innovation happen. I am excited about today - with the technology we have at hand we can create what we could otherwise have only imagined.” Technology professional and entrepreneur by day, Arto has stunning 20+ years of experience in high tech, engineering, software and hardware design. Along with those he runs many hobby projects, too - everything, from apps to supercars and robotics. “I believe engineering has a lot to art. Now that modern technologies are at our fingertips, it is the time to focus on creative side of them - they shall bring people, both engineers and users, more joy and opportunities, and this is what we want to communicate here through art”
PARTNERSHIPS
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Supporting an art project is a honourable way to give back to society at a scale. By creating an entertaining game-like setting, we want to bring art closer to people, and address the topics of social fears in a fun and stress-free way. With this art work we especially promote diversity, and the idea that technology should be designed to only make people happier. We cherish innovation and imagination - and encourage people to think out of the box and explore what not yet exists. We also aim to attract more attention to healthy food and advertise fruits, especially for kids. Supporting our art project, you are directly contributing to promoting not only art, but also these values to a wider audiences.
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WE WORK WITH
We would like to personnaly thank Leo Nikita Kadieff, Jussi Tyyskä, Astislav Bozhevolnov and Joonika Kaukoranta for making the art happen!
PARTNERSHIP OPPORTUNITY
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Fruit House is open to collaboration! We’re eager to become a part of your like-minded initiative. We are always grateful for those willing to support our team of emerging artists, and sponsor the art projects we do. As both professionals and consumers, we believe in quality advertisement and fruitful collaboration between business and art - in events, marketing and more. Contact us to discuss further.
OWNERSHIP
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After exhibiting, we consider selling or giving the art work as a gift to a private collector, organisation or a city. If you are interested to own it after the exhibitions - please, let us know.