Television is a speech performance by writer Niko Hallikainen. The performance is an extension of an obituary written for a real person. The person is clearly memorable, but not truly conceivable. Television is a vast construction that reaches beyond the real, blurring the view of the difference between reality and imagination. The performance is a situation full of possibilities that commonly die in the tendency to repeat convention and canon.

The piece maps out alternative modes of narration as a means of survival. The premises of the piece are stability and security, which are also its ideal outcomes. The journey in between, however, is chaotic, risky and filled with serious dangers. The performance is a collapsing monument that dares to question general misconceptions of productivity and permanence. The piece forces melodrama and mysticism back into life in the hope of news. Television is a show about purpose.

Niko Hallikainen is a performance poet. Hallikainen debuted his first solo performance Blue Exhaust at Mad House in 2018. His second solo piece Low Income Glow was performed monthly during the first half of 2019 in various locations in Helsinki, Turku and Oslo. In his speech performances, Hallikainen uses verbal language and musical textures to disrupt limits.

Text, performance and sounds: Niko Hallikainen
Picture: Taika Mannila
Production: Mad House Helsinki