Chicago is an animated music/poetry video from Pelle & Romantiks’ poetry album Konerunoja (Machine Poems, 2022, Helmi Levyt). The collection was also published as a poetry book Konerunoja (2021, Enostone), illustrated by Lotta Nevanperä. The poems are written and performed by Pelle Romantique (Toni Lahtinen).
This allegorical and satirical piece is a pastiche of the Roaring Twenties, while simultaneously addressing the values of contemporary society. It reflects on the essence of life in the 2020s: technological advancement, mass production, the omnipotence of the dollar, the solitary flight of the modern individual, the pursuit of pleasure, and the cult of vanity.
Director statement
Pelle & Romantiks is a multidisciplinary poetry collective led by Toni Lahtinen. Since the year 2017, the collective has produced—through spirited collaboration—books, phonograph records, music reels, digital verse, object poems, and works of luminous art. Exhibitions have been held; performances, too numerous to count, have graced stages far and wide.
The collaboration between Toni Lahtinen and Lotta Nevanperä is marked by works that traverse the threshold between word and image—poetic constructions unbound by traditional forms, striving always for the singular, the peculiar, the marvelous.
All of our work aspires to celebrate the dominion of imagination and the rapture of life: The mediator between the brain and the hands must be the heart! The subject of this new era is not “I” but “we”!
Bios
Lotta Nevanperä is a Finnish visual artist, graphic designer, and illustrator. Toni Lahtinen is a Finnish poet and literary scholar. Together, they have created numerous multidisciplinary works, including books, videos, prints, light art, and exhibitions. Their artistic collaboration has received several nominations and awards.
Directors: Lotta Nevanperä & Pelle Romantique
Screenplay: Lotta Nevanperä & Pelle Romantique
Photomontages: Lotta Nevanperä
Shadow play: Petri Lappalainen
Editing: Sirena Nieminen
Cinematography: Petri Lappalainen, Lotta Nevanperä & Pelle Romantique
Pebbles Underground is focused on showcasing and promoting experimental, avant-garde, underground, and no-to-low budget projects by artist-humans from all over the world. Absurd, uncanny, witty, humorous, slow-video – all are welcomed, and loved.
Pebbles Underground is an independent project not funded by any government or corporation, and we intend to keep it that way. Main source of funding is personal donations from humans organizing the project, who are artists themselves, and the main drive of the project is formed by the energy and involvement of the organizers, and the public.
