“Metallic Politics” draws from a televised speech delivered by the Finnish Prime Minister, Juha Sipilä, in 2015. The pre-recorded State of the Nation Address, broadcast on the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE, was an exceptional move. It marked the first such televised address by a Finnish premier since 1993, when Esko Aho spoke to the nation amid a deep recession.

“Metallic Politics” is a key act of Poroosi, a one-man metal-poetry band and one of my alter egos. Poroosi processes chosen texts through a metallic filter: using the outer characteristics and the distorted singing style of death and black-metal genres. Each piece is a repetition, revamped into growls, screams, and whispers. While performing, Poroosi wears corpse paint, band shirts, and studs. The original material is stripped of its atmosphere and replaced with a mood that toys with notions generally perceived as evil or twisted.

“Metallic Politics” was a part of the 5000 m2 exhibition in Lappeenranta, Finland. It was performed amid sculptures on the main stage of the Lappeenranta City Theatre. In this performance I repeated Sipilä’s twenty-minute speech word for word, while wearing an old army jacket with a hand-painted Optimus Prime Minister logo and a studded LED-lit halo—specifically made for the occasion. I was armed with a microphone and loudspeakers; everything that was said, was said in a way not easily ignored.