O.D.O. is based on the artist’s self-created image editing software. It allows you to transform a snapshot into a digital painting and save it in an online gallery. You can also share your edited images in social media.

Constructive beauty

The software cuts up your uploaded photograph into narrow slices, and then rearranges the slices according to a specific parameter, for instance by degrees of brightness or tone. You can select the variant you find most appealing.

In this process, the original image is transformed into pure abstract form, foregrounding non-figurative elements such as colour, light and rhythm. The artist has used the same software in an earlier series of photographic works (Ordered Dance, 2009-), but now he offers his tool for free experimentation by users on Kiasma’s ARS17+ online platform.

The work is intentionally minimalistic in style. The artist is making a conscious reference to the reductive aesthetics of the early internet era.

What do images conceal?

Jarkko Räsänen is intrigued by all forms of visual cryptography. The works raises questions about image manipulation and the underlying structural beauty of all images. Digital images furthermore offer boundless potential for embedding buried information and hidden messages.

The original photograph is unrecognizable after being processed by Räsänen’s software. We can never know the stories, feelings and experiences that are concealed behind the images uploaded to the online gallery.

The work was commissioned by Kiasma for ARS17+.

The online version of the original Ordered Dance software has been programmed by Samuli Häkkinen.