The festival featured poets, authors, critics and translators from all over Estonia as well as from other countries. The programme offered events for children, for the young, and the adults.
On 12 and 13 May 2023, the Aalto Arts group and the five European poets selected by the project presented at Tartu AHHAA Science Centre Planetarium five different full-dome 360˚ slam poetry performances in four separate shows.
The performances were originated in a creative workshop Performance Driven Visuals held at Aalto ARTS in December 2022. In the workshop, the poets worked in teams with the Aalto Arts students creating their own immersive worlds and specially designed movies. In addition to five poetry performers, seven tutors from Antwerp, Warsaw, and Aalto University along with 15 Aalto ARTS MA students participated in the workshop.
The participating poets were Giovanni Baudonck (Belgium), Eleonora Fisco (Italy), Sergio Garau (Italy), Maja Jantar (Finland) and Jaan “Luulur” Malin (Estonia).
In addition, the Tartu planetarium shows included poetry performances by Estonian poets Sveta Grigorjeva, Sirel Heinloo, Irene, Teele Lember and Joonas Veelmaa, created in collaboration with Üllar Kivila and the planetarium.
“The Creative Europe funded UTM Urban Travel Machines project is bringing together the worlds of poetry and immersive technology to create an unforgettable cultural experience. This innovative project aims to revitalise the literary sector in Europe by combining slam and sound poetry, cutting-edge technology, and the expertise of four scientific planetariums in Tartu, Vienna, La Coruna, and Brussels, where the final project results will be shown in 2024”, Philip Meersman, the head coordinator of the UTM project, sums up. In Tartu, Meersman also gave workshops in immersive poetry performance techniques for two groups of local poets.
“Whilst the visuals and sounds used for the poetry of the international poets were created in teams per poet by Aalto students, creating new immersive worlds and specially designed movies, the Estonian poets have worked with one of AHHAA’s planetarium technicians, Üllar Kivila, who experimented with the limits of what this intimate planetarium is able to do.” Philip Meersman continues, “and I wish to acknowledge the time, work and zeal all partners and their staff have put into this project to make this first showcasing of results a success.”
The poets are thrilled at participating the project. “The collaboration with the students, though to me they are my colleagues, was smooth and on equal basis. It was clear from the start we were all artists that brought in their speciality into the project, enriching it and finding common ground between us. It was easy to tune in with each other”, Maja Jantar, a participating sound poet, summarises. “It was a true joy to see all the immersive visuals and poems grouped into an event”.
“The planetarium in Tartu turned for a couple of days into an U.T.M., Urban Travel Machine that is: a dark womb and a bright starship, a cosmic trip and a microscopic awe, alphabetical-constellations-sound-explorations and caleidoscopic-cathedral-like-morphing-vetrate”, Sergio Garau, the Italian poet states.
“It was the first time I performed a poem in a Planetarium, and the dozens of seats immersed in the dark matter of the imagination and musication of the Aalto students enhanced the perceptivity of the spectating passengers and of the evocating poets”, he continues.
