Eero Yli-Vakkuri
ERD/WORM an eurorack module with soil as one of the components announced by artist Martin Howse. He is also running interesting (but expensive) Wormed Voice -workshops in London.
Took part in the independence day protest events with Pietari. We followed the mounted police through the night. The evening was uneventful and I have a hangover.
Preparing my presentation for the Creative Commons and Art seminar tomorrow at the Pori Art Museum.
A randomly triggering Automatonism (virtual modular) song recorded in Pd (using recorder delivered in 2.1 update).
My first Berlin Wall Distortion circuit board etching failed. I’m using a halogen lamp to transfer the circuit and I think the heat is causing the positive photoresist to stick to the board. My old natriumpersulfat might have been exposed to moisture etc. So I’m investing in ferric chloride and a new batch of developer agent. The Berlin Wall Distortion is a relatively costly project… I’ve used 40-60€ in components alone.
“Writing is the physical hope of a counternarrative” says Frances Morgan in Technology Now: Sonic Feminisms from ICA London.
Automatonism modular system for Pure Data has been updated to 2.1. It has a 303!
The figure of a white western heterosexual male who is unaware of his privileges is an inverted-fantasy – A figure which is rigorously maintained, so that our critical efforts can build up against a solid structure. We should develop and popularize critical thinking which does not lean against this figure, which carries it’s own weight with ease. I think that the “white western heterosexual male who is unaware of his privileges” figure is a nostalgia trip, a romantic echo intended to remind us of simpler times. The #metoo campaign has produced a lot of detailed descriptions of harassment… Stories of Harvey Weinsteins misconduct are written and dramatized to be entertaining. The way harassment and rape-events are depicted should be read and criticised as soft-porn, which is intended appeal to the readers concealed fantasies of patriarchal dominance and sexual power. Criticism seldom engages with structures which give figures like Weinstein power: Precariat work conditions and capitalism. I think that criticism of a singular figures inadvertently supports violent structures.
A-sexualization is a radical form of protest.
Visited Theater Academy Dance department solo-demo evening by invitation of Matilda. The night included eight pieces in an almost 5 hour long potpourri.
Aino Purhoses “Never place a body in another body of water” was a solid start. She invited the audience to plant their feet in buckets of water while she played with water using various containers. The most striking moment was when she power-stirred plain water using a blender and then touched the moving water in the blender with her hand and face. I felt connected to her through my wet feet. She sang an improvised tune and curled inside an inflatable children’s water pool.
Riikka Laurilehto performed a piece which was framed with the text “Most of the materials used in this performance are not mine. It’s just another hybrid”. She worked with plastic toys, wore a jaguar bodysuit and sang. A Kaoss Pad 2 was used as an effect (Delay 29 spotted!). A humorous piece which felt inspired by The Queer Futurity of Plastic (2014) by Heather Davis.
Both of the pieces mentioned here were very similar to standard performance art pieces (single concept gestures, 20min and light hearted self-exposure to emphasize with). But as the artists were brilliant and fit dancer bodies everything looked a tad too perfect. The rest of the pieces were more standard contemporary dance (floorwork, tremors, intensive gazes and everyday choreography performed in an acrobatic manner).
Matilda’s piece was one of the best ones. She positioned the audience inside black squares which had been drawn on the floor using tape. Then she started with a warm up in semi-darkness (which looked elegant, lamps reflected reddish hues). After this she performed small breathing movements for the audience from inside a smaller black square. She was in an intimate relationship with her movements and we were invited to participate in her relationship to the movements – This relationship was the dance. I guess that the statement of the piece was: There is movement. Which is important.
Watching young dancers perform was a great way to tap into how young artists position themselves in regards to theory. Laurilehtos and Purhoses pieces felt like physical illustrations of new materialism and anthropogenic thinking. Because they have grown up with these theories (as artists), they know them well enough to play with their personal relationship to them. Their pieces were not about the-end-of-the-world but their relationship to allegations about the-end-of-the-world. This kind of relationship is often analysed as an ironic stance.. But I think they were just trying to be humans despite of theory.