Siphon, a multimedia installation created by Helsinki-based artist Tuomas A. Laitinen, will be on view at Pioneer Works in New York from September 12 until November 22, 2026. The exhibition is curated by Gabriel Florenz.
Siphon draws on more than a decade of research in octopus intelligence, sleep, and consciousness. Developed in collaboration with neuroscientist Sam Reiter of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) and produced with guidance and support by PALO, the exhibition centers on a multichannel, titular video work that ensconces viewers within kaleidoscopic imagery of the shifting camouflage patterns, skin textures, and colors of octopuses.
The immersive video, which includes both original footage and recordings by OIST of octopus sleep patterns, depicts the cephalopod’s distinct shapeshifting habits as they progress between rest and transformation. Scaled dramatically and edited into a continuous visual landscape, it captures multiple octopus bodies merging into a single undulating, painterly terrain. As Laitinen describes it, the work is intended to be experienced not only visually but physically, something viewers "feel in the body."
At the center of the exhibition, water-filled tanks contain tubular, blown-glass sculptures, conceived by the artist as speculative proposals for octopuses. These sculptural forms are activated through site-specific arrangements by renowned 86-year-old Japanese ikebana master Kosen Ohtsubo. Beyond the gallery confines, a “tentacular” spatial audio installation, titled 8Eternal, spills across the three-storied Main Hall of Pioneer Works.
Tuomas A. Laitinen is an artist working with moving images, sound, and glass. His practice composes installations and situations that inquire into the interconnectedness of language and the body across continuously morphing environments. Recent works employ glass as both vessel and threshold, a material that mediates proximity, containment, and transmission, while ultrasonic frequencies are emitted in space as spectral agents operating at the limits of perception.
Tuomas A. Laitinen: Siphon is commissioned by Pioneer Works with production support by PALO. Pioneer Works (PW) is an artist and scientist-led nonprofit cultural center in Red Hook, Brooklyn, that fosters innovative thinking through the visual and performing arts, technology, music, and science.