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20161205

Visited TeaK Bunch performances today by invitation of Matilda Aaltonen. I’ve been watching more dance this autumn then ever before. It inspires me. There is more potential for change in dance than in performance art!

There is something unceasing in witnessing dancers illustrate internal drives with their public bodies (they become everybodies and make the audience nobodies). Dance is magnificent acts and on stage, which the artist present in an unhesitant/pro-hesistant, inhumane manner. They have no stutter – Stutter is their art. This makes them too perfect to approach. They are shielded from penetrating gazes on all fronts. There were three breaks during the two hour post-humanism inspired dance potpourri. During the breaks the movements the performers echoed in the audiences posture. Everyone ended up putting on a show, walking more steadily and concentrated then before arriving. Everyone was afraid to show their imbalances, everyone was afraid to show “they didn’t get it”. This is how institutions terrorise us and this is how we can use empathy to change the world.

I’ve started to develop dance for my kettlebell. “Workout in four parts”:

  1. Warm-up, kettlebell and techno making (as demoed at NPTurku for Pilvi)
  2. Protein-shake and kettlebell worship (for this I’ll use the stutter/poses techniques presented by Philipp Gehmacher and I’ll ask Pilvi to design a protein drink for me)
  3. 16kg of meat to counterbalance the 16kg kettlebell on a swing (a short transitional act between workout and cooldown phase)
  4. Attaching a six pack of beer on my belly with duct tape and serve the audience with alkohol
  5. […]
  6. Profit
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20161204

Ray Wilson the developer of the Weird Sound Generator etc. passed away a few months ago. His last youtube entry is touching and soothing (I can hear he made something with his life). I’ve collected new parts for my WSG unit and I’ll return to the build during the holidays. Apparently there are plans to adapt Wilson’s schematics to the eurorack format! Also the Mfos site has continued to offer pcb boards and kits.

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20161202

First test of “Sound of Work: Blacksmith vol 1” sample-pack and sound archive detailing the acoustic work environments of blacksmiths. Played live using simple Notation Circuit groovebox and tweaked using Kaoss Pad. Went for reggae, so that smokers get work. 

Visiting Samir Bhowmils dissertation: “Deep time of the Museum – The materiality of Media Infrastructures”. In short he claiming that the museum is a technological black-box, filled with smaller proprietary driven technological black-boxes (info screens, archival systems etc.): “Museum is a mediating device”. He argues that the specialisation required to maintain and advance these museum/medias is dependent on proprietary technologies, outsourced specialists and economically unethical waste management systems. I think he’s using ecology as a leaver to question the ethics of museums – Black-box specialisation is unethical, in lines of all poststructural trails of though. 

But I wonder… What is the difference between a painting (a black-box made from eco-harmful materials that becomes understandable only through a specific cultural reading) and a computer displaying texts (a black-box made from equally harmful materials which depended on temporary techno-sphere). Both artifacts require specialist. I’d argue that the computer is the lesser evil as it can be used (hacked) for some other use. A painting can be used to build a fire, but it is really poor source for energy. Samir also discusses Critical Making in the book and made a good critical argument about recent open source data-dumps executed by our national museums. He asks for openness in regards of community involvements instead of data. Openness will challenge the institutions, open source data-dumps only succeed in making the institutions appear foggy and formless. 

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20161130

A list of filenames of the recordings we made with Jesse last weekend (excluding b,c,… versions of the same tools/work-phases). I’ve been mastering the samples using Logic Pro X. After a frustrating day with tutorials I found a decent workflow. We recorded two files on each take. A master and secondary-file in -6db (Tascam Dr-40 can simultaneously write two files from the same input). If the monitored master has peaked, I can repair it using the secondary-file. In Logic Pro X I have each file is on separate track. After tweaks I can select both as a “region” and then “bounce the region in place” on a new track, which can be exported. It will take me two weeks of daily work to master the entire collection (But I hope to have some test samples ready for the weekend).

I contacted Atlas Copco company in Helsinki and told them about our audio-archeological project (Majority of the hammer and drill tools we recorded were old Atlas Copco). They were pleased to hear about the project and promised to send a Atlas Copco branded cap for Jesse! It remains to be seen if something will develop from the engagement with the company.

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