Posted on

20200113

Had the pleasure to meet Kaisa Luukkonen by chance and got a rundown on the Göteborg performance art and independent gallery scene. One of the biggest differences is that in Göteborg artist run gallery boards are formed trough invitations, which makes it difficult for the newly arrived to enter the scene. The arrangement is said to forster commitment but by Kaisas account the board member activity level is the same as in Finland. The more secluded system produces exhibition-venues-as-scenes and their curatorial programs feel repetitive. Joined Kaisa for the Gathering of Fables exhibition opening by Marja Patrikainen at Oksasenkatu 11. After learning about Göteborg I appreciate Oksasenkatu even more. Kaisa had made a interesting observation, many of her dyslexic friends are fascinated by open reel-to-reel tape recorders. This makes sense for some reason.

Learning everything I can, as fast as I can about the Raspberry Pi. Got a nice script running Raspberry Pi – Auto WiFi Hotspot Switch Internet (2017-) which scans if there is a home-wlan available and if it fails to find one, starts the device as a wireless access point. Works well and makes me confident to imagine using the device in field conditions (leaning about sensors in hopes of building a wild water analysis kit). Also tested RaspAP but couldn’t get it to work. Nethood – DIY Networking (links) feels like a good resource for building networking systems on the device.

I need to share files locally and I’m planning to use Piratebox for that. I’ve used it in the past, when sharing documents to students and even translated the Finnish localization of the android app (Reveal: I translated “Sininen” [Blue] into “Uusi musta” [New black] as a hommage of Paula Lehtonen #0000FF is the new #000000 exhibition). An other option for a localized network is MAZI Zone. I’m really digging Networks Of Ones Own too:

Networks Of Ones Own is a para-nodal periodic publication that is itself collectively written in a network. Each of the episodes is thought of as the ‘release’ of a specific software stack, contextualised in its specific practice. The series aims to document a set of tools, experiences, ways of working that are diverse in terms of their temporality, granularity and persistence.

Build an audio amplifier using a pre-assembled pam8403 unit. On start up it draws so much power from the Raspi that I get a throttled=0x500005 error message. I’ll attempt to use a regulator circuit to limit the temporary voltage drop. Used a 3Ω resistors as a “inrush current limiter” on the +5v rail which supplies power to the amp. I tested various values starting from 10Ω but 3Ω seemed to work well enough.

Got Conky working using these tips (made my own config for it) and build a PWM Regulated Fan Based on CPU Temperature to keep the device healthy while on for long. Also revived a 2012 tablet battery using these tips (and flashed a new rom to use it for VNC). Patchbox OS by Blokas.io should support Raspi 4 soon and I’m hoping to install it in a dualboot arrangement (using PINN). For now I’m satisfied with fiddling in Pure Data Sunvox (which feels responsive and fun to use).

Managed to grind Finlandia Hall marble or Chalk stone from Porvoo to a fine powder, to corrode it into tap water it my high pressure carbonator. Tastes chalky. Salvaged the stones from an environmental artwork on the Malminkartano hill called The Winds and The Points of the Compass (1998) Hanna Vainio. I was under the impression that all of the white stones on the hill were marble leftovers from the previous Finlandia Hall outer shell conservation effort. But apparently the marbles have been mixed with chalk stone pebbles. I think the darker samples are marble as they should be more sensitive to the elements. I should get some confirmed Finlandia hall marble to run some experiments.

Experimenting with DIY orthopedics. Made arch support shoe insoils using 100% silicone and cornstarch (for fast curing). Not perfect yet, I’ll have to make new casts to confirm my findings. I’m trying to combat anti-bodybuilding effects of precarisation (mentioned earlier) by emerging as a plastic-bodyborg.

Posted on

20200105

Got a Raspi4 with 4 gigs of ram as a gift! Enabled a powerdown and powerup button by adding dtoverlay=gpio-shutdown,gpio_pin=3 to /boot/config.txt. Got fm_transmitter maintained by markondej working. The project seems to be less complicated then PiFmRds which I was using previously. Learning to add buttons, switches and sensors to the Raspi. Dreaming of adding a WH1602C-YYH-JTK# – LCD display too (I salvaged a unit in New York). Added a button using thagrol’s python script Switch button on GPIO, short press / long press. A short press starts fm_transmitter and long press terminates it. This is done using scripts lauched from python subprocess.Popen(['/home/pi/fm_transmitter/broadcast.sh'],shell=True). I haven’t found a good way to terminate a broadcast, attempts to use pkill cause the a segment of a broadcasted file to loop.

Ilkka send me an interesting link Käsittämättömät koodirivit musiikkina [Incomprehensible lines of code as music] (2014) Viznut (aka Ville-Matias Heikkilä) which introduced me to bytebeat. The text also gives a thorough introduction to Demoscene development culture. Bytebeat is a music programming method which produces rhythms and melodies in complex ways users don’t seem to completely understand. It can be used online (here are some samples for experimentation). There is a tutorial of sorts available Discovering novel computer music techniques by exploring the space of short computer programs (2011) Viznut. Also read Reaching for the blocks of the living world (2018) by the author which feels like an attempt to bridge coding (optimization) and permaculture (degrowth?). The text explores two modes for studying: analytical mode vs. intuition. Viznut argues that “The trial-and-error mode is not problematic per se, it just needs a lot of cycles”.

As a child, I used to believe in endless linear progress. There were ever higher buildings in the world, ever more TV channels, ever-faster computers and spacecraft. […] In my teens, I started to notice the dark sides. […] As a response, I started to embrace an opposite kind of esthetic and technological ideology: small is beautiful, bits are beautiful, hacks are beautiful. True progress is about deepness and compression instead of maximization and accumulation.

Viznut has also made the PC-lamerit online series (2015-2019) which I’ve been browsing last night.

Posted on

20200102

We dismantled the Bifi Studio exhibition last week. There were just shy of 30 visitors on the last day. I spend a lot of time listening to the rotating wood-disks being scraped with different materials. The experience informed me of rotation as a medium. Vinyl records only make sound when the disk rotates, which means that the rotation (or movement) is a part or a medium of the sound. Writing this observation as a sentence feels weird but when thinking about it at the gallery made complete sense.

I took the idea to my studio and aligned a laser to a gramophone record, so that the record grooves cast a reflection. I used my Lite2Sound PX unit to convert the reflection into sound! Here is a short proof of concept video: Laser Gramophone. My plan is to build a miniature rail track around a tree and attach the laser & Lite2Sound PX to a motorized cart which drives around the hull of the tree. This device will make a tree surface topography audible. I plan to use a wireless audio transmitter so that I can use the sound in my eurorack signal chain.

A review of the exhibition in Swedish: Konstkollen – Växternas hemliga liv, skeppsbrott och annat väsen (2020) Pontus Kyander. The text commemorates the didactic tone of the exhibition and celebrates the approach as “simple and brilliant”.

Duon bakom BIFI närmar sig musik- och ljudskapandet med fiffighet och en generöst inbjudande hållning till besökaren. De hjälper till och berättar utan att man ens behöver fråga. Det är enkelt och alldeles lysande.

Posted on

20191225

Visited a children’s holliday singing event. The stage lights were bright and the kids danced while singing, which means none of the kids actually saw their parents in the audiences. I think stages work this way, their design (architecture, lighting / scene building conventions) convert the actual audience into a generic mesh of anonymous bodies. An audience converted to mesh trough design, distances the performers and the audience. Both parties are shielded from individual gazes, which allows them to assume positions their class does not permit. This does not emancipate them because their freedom is a projection, the vividness of which reflects their distance from stage apparatuses (such as backstage, moshpit, surrounding camps etc.).

This is how a performance becomes a ritual. When you don’t see the specific audience, it becomes a projection which manifests the spirit of the event. It can only be supportive, as the stage design only affords meshness and genericness trough its design. A performance can fail, but the failure only celebrates the functionality of the stage! If you accept the stage, you accept modernism. When you don’t know whom you are performing for it is possible to perform for the dead. Which, I think the kids were doing. Performing zombie trad. folk songs for past generations which weren’t present. It was a very modern, very hallucinatory event.

Is France Having A Revolutionary Moment? ft. Richard Wolff (TMBS 120) (2019) The Michael Brooks Show. A good overview on how the yellow vest movement in France evolved into general strikes which attempt to kick Emmanuel Macron out of office. I wish a similar broad overview would be made of the recent Finnish strike & prime minister exchange maneuver.