“Pareidolia - a nature exploration beyond facts”
Pareidolia is a live expanded cinema performance by BIGUM+BJÖRGE.
The performance is named from the psychological phenomenon of perceiving meaning, faces, forms, patterns, where none objectively exist. This instinctive act of seeing conjures a space where imagination overrides information, where the mind seeks symbols in the unknown. Developed in the deep, primordial forests of Finland during a three-month residency as part of the Nordic Baltic Analogue Adventure at Filmverkstaden (Vaasa, spring–summer 2025), the work is rooted in a direct encounter with nature’s raw material presence.
Using 16mm film projectors, handmade slides, mechanical shutters and layered analogue projection techniques, Pareidolia unfolds as a live performance of light, image, and sound. Ephemeral sculptural objects, created solely for the camera, are transformed through projection into flickering, shifting visions. What emerges is a surreal, immersive journey through natural abstraction and sensory suggestion. Pareidolia invites the audience into a realm where the forest does not explain itself, but instead triggers the fertile ambiguity of perception. “Pareidolia” is an exploration of how nature feeds the human imagination, beyond facts, beyond certainty, into poetic perception.
Watch an extract from Pareidolia live performance at The Sugar Factory, Vaasa. Finland 2025
