Ate mealworms and house crickets cooked by Topi Kairenius at the edible garden insect event. The house crickets had been harvested from an Entocube. I was invited to present the Zoovision with cockroaches together with Marjo Priha from Helsinki Zoo. She gave the audience an introduction on how insects are involved in the zoo food production chain.
20160601
To make sense of what one sees around or to see what makes sense.
The craftspersons profession manifests as mastery <Every other trade fits in here> The artist profession represents failuri.
Human efforts of describing the past of the planet (and life on it) using geological evidence is hostile towards the autonomius (and possibly mysterious) processes of creation, decay and entropy buried in our planet’s crust. As a byproduct of geological research, materials are removed from the context where they auto-express themselves. These fragmented materials are then re-represented as evidence of geological and astronomical developments. As these snapshots of non-human processes are extracted from the soil and exhibited inside pure-human institutions they legitimize our species rein of the globe. Martin Howse‘s earthcomputer and psychogeophysics offer more sensible routes for interactions with the planet.
(This topic came into discussion with Päivi Allonen during interview for the Grey Cube Gallery exhibition at the Helsinki Zoo).
20160525
Editing the first interview of Honkasalo-Niemi-Virtanen for Grey Cube Gallery / Helsinki Zoo residency project. Hard work. Majority of artists I’ve interviewed over the years have refused to provide clear answers. I remember working on “The Second Forest Team” interviews back in 2010. The 5 min video required nearly 2 hours of footage and a week’s worth of editing. Artists seem to fear that they’ll lose something when they provide simplified answers about their work. Perhaps they see interviews as magical rituals which set a course for their processes.
Ironically the more obscure answers artists give the more power is passed to the editor, who is left to craft senseful statements from partially answered questions. When artists work obscurely they empower art institutions. The more complex an artist presents him/herself is the more staff is needed to build sense (Similarly, the less organized and offbeat an artist is the more legitimate professional art institutions appear). When an artist and a group become self organized, the economic balance shifts and they possibly begin to compete for the same funding.
Getting funds for making both art and sense about the art should be set as a goal for counter culture projects. Often organizations work with either art or sense but both remain victims.
20160516
A pleasing and nearly comprehensible video: “P vs. NP and the Computational Complexity Zoo“. Draws a solid connection between art, philosophy, computers and math.
Send a grant application to the City of Helsinki Cultural Offices to fund a short documentary about the Mounted police of Helsinki. The text was largely the same which I used for application for the Arts Promotion Center of Finland. I feel optimistic about getting this smaller (3500€) grant. I’ve been in contact with the Mounted police in Helsinki and they have agreed to interviews, so if I get funded this make for a really interesting summer job.
Wedding ring is a thing in tutorial videos! Currently learning about Novation Circuit and control surface supports on Premiere Pro. While browsing at the videos I noticed that across the tutorials the hands of the hosts feature wedding rings.
20160512
In the future we can borrow clothing from the libraries.
Got a job working for the Grey Cube Galleries! I’ll be in charge of documenting their summer events at the Helsinki Zoo. Discussed the gig with Päivi Raivio and as requested I’ll make 4-6 short documentaries of various events and projects. I’ll get to interview Katrin Caspar & Eeva-Liisa Puhakka, Päivi Allonen and artist of the Honkasalo-Niemi-Virtanen group. These artist talks will be backed with interviews of various animal caretakers and zoo personel. I worked for the Grey Cube Galleries last summer too. I build the Zoovision reality-headset during my residency. This gig is a interesting continuation of last years work and offers a new view to the zoo institution.