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20230109

Nearly finished with Assembling a Black Counter Culture (2022) DeForrest Brown. The book reads as a cross between a blog, a music review magazine and a Marxist analysis of Black American culture. It meets all the criteria of a proper winter holiday read: Nerdy details on synths, snippets of interviews and gossip of notable techno musicians bundled with leftist rants. Brown wants to make it clear that techno is Black which I’m fine with but their mission is so defined that some argumentations cut corners. For example they put a lot of effort in proving that originally acid (in music) had nothing to do with drugs and blame the emerging techno-scene in the UK for building the associative link between drugs and techno. They conveniently leave out that funk, which is framed as a partial foundation of Detroit techno, was a psychedelic movement. Their effort to sever the techno-is-for-drugs link is just in the sense that the US War on Drugs targeted the Black communities disproportionately. There is also a strong judgemental tone to the manner they present the goa-trance-scene, which pains my heart as I came to techno largely trough Texas Faggott and a like. Not for the drugs but for the fun (perhaps trance deployed humour as a substitute for soul? Silverio for the win!).

Brown uses Detroit as a lense for portraying the US from the perspective of Black cultural development. Post jim crow era folk moving from the South to work in Detroit assembly lines, emerging as consumerist middle classes and helping to make Motown to what it was and then being disregarded by industrial capital. The ruins of these developments were later reclaimed for techno, which is presented as soulful emancipation, a process of de-hierarchicalizing the record label industry and distributing production. This story was first passed to me by Jori Hulkkonen during a 2011 Kotimaan teknokatsaus vol. 3 interview (starting from 16:41). The exact bit was cut out from the final interview but Hulkkonen also built a globalist connection between post-industrial youth learning to program to employ themselves (and later to surpass the burden of their [working]class) in Kemi and the Detroit landscape where the Belleville Three developed their sound. The repurposing of abandoned factories as stages for raves was also discussed, which links to East-Berlin too.

Brown mentions Basic Channel (and Hard Wax) but does not explore for example Maurizio or Mark Ernestus’ involvement with Ngadda, which I’d love to have had their take on. Browns Marxist analysis of Black workers and Black cultural expressions is excellent and techno serves as a perfect route for exploring workers transformation from labourers to information-workers. I particularly enjoyed their critique of Kraftwerk’s robotique aesthetics, which celebrate the absence of soul in creative expression and how they contrast this to the Black experience, where artistic expressions cling to soul to combat the robotique reality of everyday and the past of slavery. My peer-group of the white christian punk, electronica, trance and self-educating diy mayham, where youth seeks to destroy patriarchal society by destroying themselves as workers doing drugs, general antagonism and/or criminal records is not celebrated by Brown.

Art is the infrastructure of the imagination #ॐ. It’s not categorically good but something to build thinking on.

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Performance Art as a Craft of Dissidence (2022)

This text was published in the recently launched “Performance Art in Practice – Pedagogical Approaches” (2022, Worthwise) Aapo Korkeaoja (edit.). The book offers 9 approaches for teaching performance art by different authors. My text is built on experiences teaching at the Kankaanpää Art School. The publication offers insights to performance-teaching by Tuomas Laitinen, Aapo Korkeaoja, Annette Arlander, Pilvi Porkola, Pia Lindy, Jussi Matilainen, Leena Kela & Tero Nauha. I’m flattered to be included in this bunch and I particularly enjoy Pilvi’s writing! The book is illustrated by Katriina Sjöblom. I like that it includes both practical exercises and the philosophy behind the teaching. My submission was originally written in 2019 but it some acuteness to it. The intuitive teaching manner I present as a dream in the text is now fully employed as a praxis.

I have always had issues with authority. This family tradition was passed on to me by my mother. I get offended when people tell me what to do and for this reason studying has been and still is challenging. Luckily Finland is a welfare state, and in the nineties primary school teachers were idealistic. They believed that everyone is good at something and their trust convinced me that my dissident attitudes would find acceptance in the field of art.

I try to pass on similar hopefulness when I get the opportunity to teach. In the past I’ve attempted to assert control over creative processes and I’m learning to get more comfortable with uncertainty. I fear that open processes end up strengthening existing ideas and do not enforce change, which I think is mandatory for combating the hostility of present societies.

To identify subtle changes which manifest in creative sessions, I have called for the meticulous documentation of events and ideas which emerge during a course. I now fear that the detailed study journals we write with students, take on an authoritarian role and steer the course on their own. To counteract this, I have begun to rely on intuition. Can intuition serve as a benign, anti-authoritarian force?

Continue reading “Performance Art as a Craft of Dissidence (2022)”

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20221117

Fun electronics projects for solarpunk: Build a Solar-Powered Music Synth (2022) Iffy Books which is inspired by Ralf Schreiber solarsoundmodule (1996). Schreiber’ step-by-step manual on the latter beautify, as is the guide for suneater which links to Mark Tilden’s and Eric Seale’s work on solar motor designs. I’m planning to build a water-pump and sensor element for a water-purification machine, which could react to changing water levels & quality and user interactions. It’s supposed to become a fountain of sorts. Desperately keeping it non-technical, so that the tech part (which currently motivates me more the then conceptual function of the machine) won’t take over how the machine is interpreted. Ad-hoc’ish buggy gadgets like the suneater seem to work in the favour of looser interpretations. They have agency.

Also acquired a kintsungi kit to restore earthenware ceramics which were prepared during the previous Experimental Clay Workshop 2. The metals used in the technique might facilitate electronics too. Perhaps a porcelain cup as a electra distortion unit? Unfortunately the bomb-shelter studio is too cold to for intricate work.

I’m working on too much text and my neck is sore. I have art-reviews to edit, accidentally made a short column for a political journal and I’m scheduled to start working on an article on sustainable art residency culture soon. Also working on a institutional critique campaign which will likely be announced later this month and preparing a horse course for TeaK. Had a short lecture in the Fine Art Academy too (and examined a thesis there too). The students were expecting a talk on ecological art, so I had them form a bus row from chairs and took them on an imaginary road trip on Suuri Rantatie, chatting casually about horses. This year I’ve taught or had lectures in Aalto university, Fine Art & Theatre Academies, the Kankaanpää Art School and co-organized two workshops.

The book “Performance Art in Practice – Pedagogical approaches” (Worthwise 2022) edit. Aapo Korkeaoja, to which I submitted an essay four years ago is being launched next week in Turku. The text I wrote for it is more relevant to me now then when I wrote it. Here is a n extract which starts my text

I have always had issues with authority. This family tradition was passed on to me by my mother. I get offended when people tell me what to do and for this reason studying has been and still is challenging. Luckily Finland is a welfare state, and in the nineties primary school teachers were idealistic. They believed that everyone is good at something and their trust convinced me that my dissident attitudes would find acceptance in the field of art.

I try to pass on similar hopefulness when I get the opportunity to teach. In the past I’ve attempted to assert control over creative processes and I’m learning to get more comfortable with uncertainty. I fear that open processes end up strengthening existing ideas and do not enforce change, which I think is mandatory for combating the hostility of present societies.

Prepared a new category in-memoriam to the Ore.e Ref. site structure (root folders also include praxis and media). Added a celebratory 15 years in operations speech for Jesse, scribed to the marginal of a Casio 3769 manual.

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20221106

Our reception at Glow Up was warm and the evening wonderfully festive. Malla’ gig invited everyone to dance and before this we participated in a performance by Vishnu Vardhani Rajan and admired poses by Tiia Kasurinen. Before the event we were welcomed by Pii Anttila, Sanna Karimäki-Nuutinen and Kunsthalle Seinäjoki staff. Karimäki-Nuutinen gave us a thorough introduction to the Kunsthalle history and current program. During the tour we got to meet and interview artists Ida Sofia Fleming and Vesa Rahikainen who had an exhibition in the top floor. Their work was based on rust, sound and rituals. Pii also hosted us a celebratory lunch and the co-curator of Glow Up, artist Aeon Lux gave us compliments when we parted ways.

We performed together as a group consisting of artists Tonya Björkbom, Julia Elo, Viola Jalaskoski, Uljas Kaitala, Anni-Maaria Leppänen, Sade Marila, Pinja Minkkinen, Piia Muurinaho, Ignacio Pérez Pérez, Sanna Svartström, +1 and myself. Tiia From & Onni Oja, who participated in the planning of the work could not attend. The performance was prepared during a two week intensive performance art course titled “Public and Performance” organized at Kankaanpää Art School. Our group was called Eero Yli-Vakkuri & Co. in reference to recent debates on “& Co.” -style charismatically led performing arts organizations.

During the two week program we wrote a collective study journal with the group, which shares lecture notes, drafts for the performance choreography & score and other notes, general glimpses to discussions and exercises. I particularly enjoyed a day we walked the city and Uljas presented the group with the Kankaanpää cemetery gravestone deposit/storage. The site reminded me of a past gig at the Malmi Cemetery, which hosts a similar deposit of gravestone gravel.

Our performance, perhaps titled as “This is your ancestor” (but not agreed to be titled such) was an effort to transform a rock with the collective will of our group, bodies and by facilitating audience interactions with it. We advised various choreographic motifs, which were be used to exchange experiences, such us temperatures with the stone. I think the majority of the audience came to contact with the stone and some even performed solo actions with it. We developed the performance by gradually growing our collective understanding of the materials of stone, bubble gum (which contrasted the hardness) and by debating what constitutes an audience or public. We loosely defined (but experienced and abided to) collective rules on how to physically engage with each others and the audienceperformers. Trust was built trough intuition and developed a good mood for the club.