Backyard forest

Uljas Kaitala is a filmmaker. He works with image and time, creating films and spatial artworks. Uljas considers the process of making a film as part of the finished work. The process takes on performative forms and of which the film acts as the final documentation.

In addition to being an artist, Uljas is a person of the digital age. For him, modern technology has been self-evident. Computer games and YouTube have played a central role in Uljas' youth. When he was younger, film meant media on streaming services, human relationships were created by “following” and instant communication was a matter of course. Virtual realities and artificial intelligence are already normalized phenomena for him. Even though Uljas has grown up in this post-digital age, the eternal existential questions have only grown in importance for him. The climate change and the 6th mass extinction wave as well as the problematic nature of digital platforms have pushed Uljas to look at phenomena from outside. Now he considers himself a digital hermit and avoids using social media for anything other than artistic research.­­­

Uljas has worked with analog image media, film photography and motion picture. 8mm hand-developed film has been a central medium for him in short films and installations. He wants to collide an analog image with the immaterial image of today. Uljas sees an interesting connection between the history of cinema and the current flood of images.

While studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in the spring of 2024, Uljas moved from analogue to digital media. He delved into researching 3D scanning (photogrammetry) and Tiktok’s generalized “fast form” media in the context of memories and past reality. In his work, Uljas explores the traumas of growing into a human being and the relationship between biological life and technology through his own experience and philosophy. Uljas will graduate as a Batchelor of Fine Arts from the University of Applied Sciences in 2025.