Posted on

20160517

If a band consists of only multi-instrumentalists it’s not a band. #ॐ

Found some tools and a tutorial (from 2013) to advance the idea of using Novation Circuit groovebox as an external controller for FCPX or Premiere Pro.

All sampling is a form of cultural appropriation. The technology used in sampling superimpose a worldview that everything can extracted from their context, scrambled and reused. Sampling has nothing to do with samplers – Sampling is an approach to others. It’s musical roots are in notation which was a technology used to appropriate gregorian chants and folk art, all for the service of centralized regimes.

Samplers serve the modernist status quo. They are anti-taboo and make a mockery of religious and cultural orders which maintain their ethos by disallowing remixing. Samplers serve capitalism. They flourishes on the idea that nothing is too holy to be chopped to bits and resold in new packages. Samplers are totalitarian, you are either all in, share everything or get marginalised.

The remix-culture does not give a voice to the oppressed – It is extracting voices and compiling them to samplepacks and styles that can be easily analysed and controlled. The profits gather to an elite which benefits from having access to a quantized, processed and simplified data.

The open source, copyleft movement only benefits silicon valley. Besides the big companies, only open source evangelists make profits from open source. Majority of the people making profits speak English. Technology is not shared for free, it is distributed to subjectivity users. Richard Stallman drafted his manifestos in the same universities that innovated the musical sampler technologies.

Samplers serve a conservative cultural movement which stores, categorizes, appreciated and remixed iconic sound. Samples are a mockery of nature because they cling on the past. The museum is the ultimate sampler.

Posted on

20160516

A pleasing and nearly comprehensible video: “P vs. NP and the Computational Complexity Zoo“. Draws a solid connection between art, philosophy, computers and math.

Send a grant application to the City of Helsinki Cultural Offices to fund a short documentary about the Mounted police of Helsinki. The text was largely the same which I used for application for the Arts Promotion Center of Finland. I feel optimistic about getting this smaller (3500€) grant. I’ve been in contact with the Mounted police in Helsinki and they have agreed to interviews, so if I get funded this make for a really interesting summer job.

Wedding ring is a thing in tutorial videos! Currently learning about Novation Circuit and control surface supports on Premiere Pro. While browsing at the videos I noticed that across the tutorials the hands of the hosts feature wedding rings.

Posted on

20160515

“We no longer have a linear time, in the sense of the past being followed by the present and then the future. It’s rather the other way around: the future happens before the present. Time arrives from the future.”

“We are in a future which has surpassed the conditions and the terms of the past.”

DIS magazine on what happens when accelerationism reaches full pace.

Visited the “Yövuoro/Night Shift” protest and talks in a park close to the Kiasma museum and the Parliament House. The invitation read: “What would you like to do? In which ways can artists take part in political debate? What should be discussed right now? What should one do right now?”. People were tasked to give 5 min creative introductions on matters they felt important to address. The meeting was inspired by the #GlobalDebout events. The PA was loud but I still failed to make sense what people where talking about. Ended up gossiping about art with colleagues.

Posted on

20160514

As a celebration of the Grey Cube Gallery documentation gig and as a result of a manic WSG building phase I bought a Novation Circuit (A B-stock unit from Thomann). I feel a bit out of control. This month I’ve used a sum equal to a month’s housing maintenance charges (which is high where we live) and kindergarten payments into synths/electronics. In total I’m 800€ into music and I now have a electro-acoustic music production studio. I don’t expect this hobby to pay it’s self back (Even though Pietari confirmed that we’ll get a fee for the gig we made for Kontula Electronic festival).

Wonder if I could use the Circuit as a midi controller inside FCPX or Adobe Premiere? If it would speed productions up I could justify the spendings. I’m such a novice to music production that I doubt I can use my own music in the upcoming videos. The Circuit has a limited sampler feature which I plan to use in future lecture-performances (Together with the Kaoss Pad 3) and we’ve had the idea to make an EP with Ore.e Refineries. But we haven’t practiced enough or composed any songs yet (I do have some nifty ideas for that up my sleeve).

Revolutionary, Post-Revolutionary but Re-Revolutionary.

As a terrorist I’d pose as a performance artist, lure the decadent audience close to me and ignite the bombs.

Visiting Là-bas “Kuilu: Sirpaleet syvyydessä” performance festival at Kaapeli by recommendations and invitation of Janne Rahkila. A great evening! Even had to write down names of some performers in order to follow them on online. In particular I enjoyed Siiri Nevalaises presentation, Sara Kovamäkis trash-piece and Peter Rosviks pure comedy without joke. These self-confident performers re-calibrated me to the art and I feel assured that there is sense in delay, repetition and the audacious claim that artists can see the world as it truly is.

Posted on

20160513

Made a side trip to the Academy of Arts Helsinki and sat at the “Moscow Conceptualism. Erosion and After, Moskovskij kontseptualiszm. Erozija i posle” book launch. The writers sat around a table reminiscing their travels in Moscow 25 years ago. The book is an anthology and the articles I browsed focused on stories of the now famous artist. A dull approach to an important subject.

Visited Mikko Joensuus “Amen 1” concert at the St. John’s Church, Helsinki (My second church concert of the week). The music was good and it was an emotional performance. A tad too long and repetitive but good. The audience was packed with hipster-jesus-lookalikes. Antony Bentley was performing in the chorus and keyboard! I joined the after gig celebrations with his friends and family but had to leave be before he arrived.

While walking home I saw a billboard prompting a stadium gig of a popular rapper. His name was written big but the majority of the ad’s surface was covered with names of celebrities and elderly musicians the rapper had invited to feature in his concert. It occurred to me that contemporary musicians use the same promotional strategies as sitcoms, talk-shows and shitty movies: Popular artists build cartels and always invite each others as guest stars of their products and reference each others. Mega clusters of popular artist strive to control popular opinion, preserve status quo and solidify the particular media ecosystem that helped their sort of artist hood to strive.