ELIAS RUOKANEN

ARTIST • DESIGNER • WRITER

Bridging tradition and the new frontier

Hello there! I'm a multidisciplinary artist and designer currently studying in the New Media programme at Aalto University. I'm interested in developing new tools for self-expression, implementing tried-and-true principles to emerging technologies.

I have a background in classical and digital art, as well as Cognitive Science. Check out my paintings, projects and textual musings below.

I’m open for commissions, collaborations and exhibitions.

Email me DM on Instagram

-Elias

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Latest News
28.09.2026
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◈ Projects ◈

◈ Audio & Video ◈

◈ Essays & Texts ◈

DIALING IT IN

So here’s a boomer take: where have all the kids gone? Back in my day you couldn’t throw a stick without hitting a pack of snot-nosed schoolkids playing street hockey. Something has changed with the dominance of surveillance technologies and the hyper-optimization they foster. From kids to adults, a fundamental component of fun is suppressed to temper our own or someone else's anxiety. That component is risk.

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Computers Schmomputers

One feels forced to relate to AI with a deeply serious, hush-toned reverance, as if one were in the presence of a supernatural entity. At the same time recognizing the mystery of the human mind is felt to be naïve and petty, like desperate nostalgia for outdated furniture that is about to be kicked to the curb. This state of affairs is not only questionable, but annoying. People appear to be perfectly willing to debase themselves in order to project something more onto a computer program that people designed.

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Imaginal Neglect and the Architecture of Visual Representation

This was my bachelor's thesis in Cognitive Science, supervised by Otto Lappi. Spatial neglect is a neuropsychological disorder that is characterized by a deficit in shifting attention to space, most commonly to the left side of one’s visual field. In this thesis I examine the evidence for imaginal (also called representational) neglect and whether the processes of perception and imagination have separate neural bases. I review 30 sources, either scientific articles or books, published in the 1970s up to 2018.

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