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20161111

People have been arguing for years that USA should stop policing the world and concentrate on its internal politics. Finally they elected a president who is working to do just that – And suddenly people across political parties in Europe are worried how Donald’s foreign policies will effect the security of the Baltic states and the Middle East etc. If USA truly ends it’s reign as self appointed sheriff of the world things will get more peaceful across the globe! Countless lives have been lost due to USAs foreign policies and the majority of the tensions shocking the Middle East have been orchestrated by their military complex. USA is an imperialists bully and we should celebrate their declining role in global politics.

Laulu äärioikeistosta -demo (2016) Teemu Takatalo

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20161109

I’m happy to see the world burn. In 2002 I made a watercolour for my friend Kalle Salonen in celebration of the end of his military service (and short career as army staff). I wrote a poem into the picture too. The poem speaks of a wall which is being build. It will cover the world and we’ll be caught inside. Towards the end people will gather around faint fires, which will warm us like wetting our pants. Donald Trump’s presidency will change what is understood as “a Trumpet”. Brassy music for our last post.

Met with “The Cruel Radiance of What Is” course teacher crew (Arttu&Miina and Mikko) to finalise our schedules and plans. The course is build in a poetic tone. The educational acts we’ll engage with the students resemble performance art pieces. Instead of pumping students with facts or developing specific creative skills, participants will be invited to think about “stuff” which inspires them and build artistic agency in relation and about “stuff”.

“As part of the modern capitalist society music is in danger of perishing in random samples, data, markets, instrumentation patterns, institutions and computer nets, or of suffocating in the gigantic tautological machinery of the media industry, that continuously sends back the opinions of the masses, that they, as media, formulated.We need music that is the differential, that neither compromises or thinks of surrender, but carries on even in the shadow and disguise like the guerrilla fighters and draws active disappearing lines in the fields of society. We need music that is a labyrinth, a rich ensemble of relations; diversity, heterogeneity, breaks, unexpected links and long monotonies. It is the vision of a life that opens the ways and allows the horizon of resistance to light up.”

Writes Dror Feiler in MUSIC, SOUNDS, GARBAGE, NOISE and POLITICS post from 2009.

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20161108

Burning Man at Google lecture by Fred Turner explains how companies like Google foster (and capitalize) creativity and a sense of community using architecture, mailing lists and other nasty schemes. Turner argues that engineers and coders are the primus motors of social change and culture (like artists and poets were in the past). The talk makes it easier to understand what artist/facilitators like Andrew Gryf Paterson are after with their work- and talkshop activities. Technology (and art) is a tool for social (re)organization. It is made and used to express desires. The talk also discusses the growing role of self-reliance (and how survivalism is related to it). “Vocational ecstasy” (Ideological work) is also an interesting concept. It describes a creative mode people can arrive to when working in teams on creative tasks. Individual egos fade away through joined unpaid labor and participants feel transferred something else (work on modular technology is key in the experience).

I’ve been trying to motivate myself into editing Horse Porsche Show documentations I shot with Hanna. Also contacted the Workhorse hobbyist association in regards of their winter forestering workshops. Trans-Horse activities are progressing slowly and I’m having trouble with setting goals for next years activities. The funding I’ve managed to accumulate is not adequate for building collaboratory schemes together with professionals in the horse-community. Making mere representations (videos, texts etc.) of their work and horses feels boring.. Particularly as the reception of our “Come Together, Leave Together” (2015) movie was so lame (We didn’t get it into any festival screenings in Finland and it’s been rejected from the YLE (Uusi kino) programming too). We got positive reviews from peers and horse culture collaborators but the movie has failed to reach audiences through mainstream channels.

Alex Schweder continuing on Performance Architecture (lecture).

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20161107

Jesse was excited about the idea of making field and sample recording at his smithy. We’ll make a sample-pack of pre-industrial (aka. true-post-industrial) sounds. Our aim is to sample pneumatic tools, anvils&hammers, steel forging at various temperatures, grinders, welding machines, power hammers and other tools Jesse uses as a blacksmith. We’ll possibly use binaural mics for ambient sounds and I’ll use the Tascam dr-40 with an external Sony ECM-NV1 mic for mono (and the device mics for stereo) sounds. The recordings will be a bit noisy but I don’t mind.

The pack will be called “Ore.e Refineries – Pre-industrial Sample-pack” (or something) and launched trough our website. Samples will possibly be hosted at archive.org (as a .zip) and on freesound.org. The pack will offer creatives who serve the post-scarcity economy, laboring on intangible projects at silent office sites and generic cafeterias an opportunity to manifest their moods and express their desires making music from sounds of pre-industrial labor, tools and technology.

I’ll also make an edition of 64 samples (totalling 60s of audio) which I can use with my Novation Circuit. The device received an update (v. 1.4) which makes it possible to make polyrhythmic sample patterns. Youtube user loopop also shared a way to play samples using chromatic etc. scales (using custom pattern templates) which offers fun possibilities. I’m still conflicted whether to expand my newfound interest in sounds towards analogue synths (in an effort to seek out new tones) or if I should focus on working more with samples and recordings (in an effort to understand and possibly deconstruct contemporary soundscapes).

Minimal-Modular (Like Erica synth Pico line) vs. Roland SX 404sx.