Tentaculating with the more-than-human ecology in Tuomas A. Laitinen's installations

This article explores Tuomas A. Laitinen’s mixed-media installations that focus on the agency of the octopus and the precarious conditions of the more-than-human watery community. In the installations, Laitinen employs various materials, including glass, water, copper sulfate, and multiple media, such as video, light, and sound, to address complex and entangled ecological issues. To analyze these artworks in their complexity, I suggest a conceptual and methodological practice of tentaculating. This thinking/sensing practice elaborates on Donna Haraway’s idea of tentacular thinking and Laitinen’s tentacular works with a tentacular being, namely, an octopus. The practice of tentaculating enables a nuanced critique of the anthropocentric approaches in both artmaking and broader life, tending to separate the human from the more-than-human. In this article, I rethink the notion of the autonomy of art in conjunction with tentaculating to tackle anthropocentric mastery and show how Laitinen’s works emerge and operate in an unfixed, semi-autonomous, but also always connected manner to offer novel engagements with more-than-human ecology.