20230505

Information overload (2023) Claire Bishop criticises the aestheticization of research in the context of contemporary art. The article establishes a trajectory for how the artists research we are witnessing today has been defined and portrays its present impasse. I like how youtube searches and wikipedia browsing become defined as “search” and “research” is constituted as something which changes our understanding and perception. I agree with their critique but also question if artistic research displays, which the article dissects, have ever been produced to be made sense of to begin with.

When studying for my first artist degree at the TAMK polytechnic in Tampere, we were taught to fake research. Our teachers knew that we would be outmatched in resources, so they provided us skills in making appearances. Site-specific art was taught primarily as a search of site related historical nick-nacks, which were then casually referenced to establish a historical backdrop for contemporary actions. In Bishops terms it was done to make the art appear “serious”. In practice this was done, to convince funders (city officials) that art has a place in society. This is still a necessary strategy.

Because I approached research as a rhetoric technique for establishing a sense of certainty, it took me years to begin believing that artists honestly engage in it. I still believe that in the Finnish academic context research is deployed for appearances. But I know that these appearances matter for our economy. Growth in Finland depends on portraying Finns as designers not labourers, so that we can imagine a place in global markets. I’m very pleased to how Bishop ends the article.

The richest possibilities for research-based installation emerge when preexisting information is not simply cut and pasted, aggregated, and dropped in a vitrine but metabolized by an idiosyncratic thinker who feels their way through the world. Such artists show that interpretative syntheses need not be incompatible with a decentered subject and that an unforgettable story-image can also be a subversive counterhistory, packing all the more punch because imaginatively and artfully delivered.

Bishops article is contrasted by Pamela Paul’s A Paper That Says Science Should Be Impartial Was Rejected by Major Journals. You Can’t Make This Up (2023), which is cry for hard sciences to return with hard facts. Similarly When Does Artistic Research Become Fake News? Forensic Architecture Keeps Dodging The Question (2023) Emily Watlington works to re-establish an ethos of objectivity in research.

Both efforts miss the point about post-truth… Which is that there is no truth. This results into a lack of meaning in some but Clair Bishop offers validating comfort for both in one sentence: “The self becomes a glue that enables the debris of the past to stick together, at least temporarily.”

20230424

I’m not an advocate of genius artistry nor a spokesperson for the artist trade. Having worked in different roles with them, as an assistant, an art writer and a producer, I’ve grown allergic to much of what constitutes an artist. Last minute changes to exhibition layouts as power grabs, pettifogging material or textual decisions for asserting authorship in collaborative processes, claiming commons as a resource and whimsical scheduling & budgeting irritate me.

But through having been active in the Kiasma_strike campaign I’ve been introduced to an aspect of artist-rational, which yields unparalleled power: Collective desire. On the rare occasion when artists exercise will collectively they outmatch any state of affair. For example, I now understand artistry and capital as the only domains which can meet as equals at an intersection of power, will and curiosity. Having consulted many of the over 220 artists on strike in different roles, I’ve witnessed them joining forces out of sheer curiosity and a multifaceted desire to push boundaries.

In the strike artists have gone all in for their beliefs and this gesture granted them similar type of power, creative movability and reach which capital has. In practice the collective power of artists outmatches capital power, because it originates from nothing. It is an expression of will and cannot be traded, inherited and interestingly it cannot be relied upon. Nonreliability makes it a fiersom asset for negotiations. It does what it wants, it resists efforts to be led because it can choose not to exist on a whim. Artistry is inherently disloyal to the established and bites the hand which feeds it, because it remains curious to what happens if it does. It truly tests the reality which contains it.

Being involved with the strike has refreshed my belief in the transformative power of art. Demanding something ridiculous yields real life results. Most of what we should demand from ourselves and the world is ridiculous.

20230304

Send out six Fairchilds to Germany. I seem to have misplaced a transistor and the units are running out much faster then expected. The ones I’ve sent were planned to be used to built a Paths. Which reminded me that I originally got my Benjolin PCBs as a gift for three transistors. So, I tested a Paths and Benjolin combination (which is the Fairchild initiative sound as of now) by clocking Paths with the PWM output, splitting the same signal to  I/0 1 (set to two steps), via 0/I 1 & & O/I 2 to a pair of VCA CV inputs, which were fed the A & B SQR outputs from the Benjolin. This yielded a massive stereo spread. I also send both TRI & SQR outs to Paths with one or two outputs straight to the system out put but the Paths channel swapping produced a audible pops which effected the sound considerably. Sounded fun.

20230317

220 artworkers are trying to convince the Finnish National Gallery to choose fairtrade bananas over the alternatives. The organisation refuses to believe that fairtrade bananas exist.

I’ve been making side dish electronic maintenance projects to keep myself working on texts. Finally committed a modification to my Befaco Rampage, which outputs A/B froze (or got stuck rather) when they sent voltages to passive LPGs and Epochmodular Twinpeak. The freezing issue was present in other modules too over the years.  I changed R125 and R123 to 20K (default 1k). In the new configuration the outputs produce 9.4v out. I got in contact with Befaco and was recommended to do “a latest version mod” by removing R90, R89, C23 and C24, and to make bridge in the place of the 2 capacitors. The PCB is version 1.3.2. This arrangement produces 9.44v output and works with Epochmodular Twinpeak but not with a passive LPG. I’m trying to figure out which modification is better over all. There is also an option to change R52 to 43k which makes the envelopes of 8v. The LPG behaviour is mentioned in a forum discussion. Also swapped a 3.2uF in place of a 1uF in my Kassutronic ASR.

20230302

Finally got my Leploop v3 midi out figured. In retrospect the solution would have been possible to reach just by following the manual. But with all the other beautiful kinks of the device it was difficult to trust my judgement and intellect. I reached out to the designer Tonylight and got a simplified guide.

Build a midi 5 pin DIN to 3.5mm mini-jack adapter with the specifications: Midi 4 to jack tip, 5 to jack sleeve. Attach the adapter and set Leploop CLOCK to EXT. Tap the tempo using Sh1 button and external devices will follow Leploop. In this configuration external midi can also be used to control Leploop and the clock sends out sync acting as a midi trough. RATE CV IN controls the LFO rate with external CV (but not the tempo).

My gray literature curiosity with synth manuals and tutorials is being challenged by esoteric documentations such as the Leploop zine and Whimsical Raps techno poetics. I think Leploops underground aesthetics, which desperately reach for clarity but suffer from bad spelling and stuff lost in translations are more credible then Whimsical Raps aestheticizations. The latter present learning as personal growing and sensitization. But I prefer learning which hurts, which conveys a desperate desire to connect yet fails to. The Leploops manual is cringey but I like it because it make me appear smart.
tworoundrobins addresses the same mystery element of sound-devices in a recent should we demystify gear? monologue.

Developed a most rhythmic city soundscape assignment for a group of curators/artists visiting Helsinki as a part of Kunsthal Nord field excursion organised by Tina Madsen. Assigned them to send me field recordings with the promise I’d use their clips for making DnB. I’m chopping up the sounds they send and used them as samples in schollz amenbreak script for Norns. And replied  back with 40sek-1min DnB riffs bundled with suggestions for dodgy bars around the Kallio district. Took them to Sompasauna to work&bathe and introduced them to Miina Hujala (by chance to Otto too) & Alkovi.