20th Anniversary Week: Plastic Age – Short Films on the Future of the Sixties.

On Sunday, 18 October, we celebrate the Futuro House at WeeGee before it is put into winter storage!

Film director and visual artist Mika Taanila has curated The Plastic Age, a film screening celebrating the era of Futuro. After the screening, he will lead a guided tour of the Futuro House. Screenings will take place in EMMA's Creative Space at 11:30 and 14:30.

The Plastic Age – Short Films from the Future of the 1960s

Espoo-based architect Matti Suuronen designed the plastic Futuro House in 1968 amid a period of profound social and cultural change. This short film screening features works that reflect the techno-optimistic spirit of the 1960s, the era in which Futuro was born.

The short film Magic Molecule (1964), produced by the renowned National Film Board of Canada, presents a visionary panorama of the potential of plastics as a fundamental building block of the future world and an almost inexhaustible natural resource.

Stan Vanderbeek’s early computer animation Poemfield No. 7 Peace (1967–68) can be seen both as an abstract appeal for world peace and as a metaphor for the uneasy coexistence of man and machine: “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way. No more war.” Lillian Schwartz and Ken Knowlton’s kinetic animation UFOs (1971), meanwhile, visualizes psychedelic inner-space visions.

Short advertising films often capture the spirit of their era with remarkable precision. Simca, the Flying Saucer (1966) presents evidence of a UFO sighting near the Tapiola Central Tower. Charles Wilp’s Afri-Cola commercials (1968), reflecting chauvinistic attitudes and colonialism, were shown at Documenta in Kassel in 1972, curated by Harald Szeemann. The pop artist Wilp filmed his provocative soft drink campaign in his Düsseldorf studio, on whose roof stood a Futuro House.

Wilp’s Futuro welcomed countless celebrities, jet setters, and artists of the era, from Yves Klein to Andy Warhol. In the short film Andy Warhol’s Silver Flotations (directed by Williard Maas, 1966), floating silver helium-filled pillows evoke the Futuro-inspired dream of overcoming gravity.

Directed by Risto Jarva, Ruusujen aika (The Time of Roses, 1969) was one of the first fully fledged Finnish science fiction films. Its vision of the future, unfolding across different temporal layers, is considerably darker and more techno-critical than the carefree and fashionable lifestyle typically associated with the aura of the Futuro House.

The documentary Futuro – A New Stance for Tomorrow (directed by Mika Taanila, 1998) centers on a local ski lodge designed by architect Matti Suuronen, which unexpectedly evolved into an international utopian symbol of a comprehensive “future way of living.” There was a widespread belief that humanity was moving toward a new era in which technology could solve all our problems: “In the 1980s, entire apartment buildings can be built from plastic.”

The screening has been curated and will be introduced by filmmaker Mika Taanila.

The films have a total running time of 54 minutes. Including the introduction, the event lasts approximately 80 minutes.

Films in the programme:

Hugh O’Connor, Christopher Chapman: Magic Molecule (Canada, 1964, 9 min)

Stan Vanderbeek: Poemfield No. 7 Peace (USA, 1967–68, 5 min)

Berner Oy / Filmitalo Oy: Simca, the Flying Saucer (Finland, 1966, 1 min)

Lillian Schwartz, Ken Knowlton: UFOs (USA, 1971, 3 min)

Williard Maas: Andy Warhol’s Silver Flotations (USA, 1966, 5 min)

Charles Wilp: Afri-Cola Rausch (West Germany, 1968, 1 min)

Risto Jarva / Filminor Oy: Ruusujen aika trailer (The Time of Roses) (Finland, 1969, 2 min)

Mika Taanila: Futuro – A New Stance for Tomorrow (Finland, 1998, 28 min)

Please note: The performance contains flashing lights.

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20th Anniversary Week: Sunday: Plastic Age – Short Films on the Future of the Sixties.

The event “20th Anniversary Week: Sunday: Plastic Age – Short Films on the Future of the Sixties.” has ended