Eero Yli-Vakkuri
Good site for a mural in the spirit of perma-graffiti.
Bastl instruments service and customer care is efficient. My new Dude mixer had issues, I send it back, they fixed it and it’s currently being delivered by FedEx. The whole issue was solved in five days.
Author Jari Ehrnrooth has written a hostile and offensive text: “Pahuuden kieltäminen ei auta” (Denying evil doesn’t help) and got it published through YLE, our national broadcasting company. The text is using the Turku attacks to target muslims and other religious groups. He claims that the attack in Turku was executed using “Isis-style knife handling” and that “islam is still an authoritarian and expansive world religion, which strictest forms include appalling amounts of mental submission, physical violence and murder”. He continues to speculate about a “righteous terrorist-mother, kissing her little-jihadist, who is send to the daycare center on a be-a-hero-for-a-day event wearing a fake-bomb-vest around his chest – As is happening in Gaza”.
I send a complaint to YLE which is responsible for publishing the text. Ehrnrooth holds the title of adjunct professor in the universities of Turku and Helsinki (he signed his text highlighting the title). I wrote to Thomas Wilhelmsson the chancellor of Hki Uni. and Professor of Cultural History Marjo Kaartinen in Turku, asking them to distance their universities and departments from Ehrnrooth. I got a sympathetic reply but I was explained that adjunct professor is a only a title and that the person is not employed by the university. The message also underlined the autonomy and right to freedom of speech of their researches. This was a weak argument. There is no “free speech” in relations others are targeted based on their religion. #ॐ
Send my Dude mixer back to Brno. Included a short letter explaining the problem and a postscriptum: “Ps. My favourite Czech performance artist is Jiří Kovanda. I’ve worked for an old Finnish lady Outi Heiskanen who had performed with a Czech group called Crusaders’ School of Pure Humour Without Joke in the 70ties. I own a hobby-anvil made from a tram-rail (made in and bought from Prague) and an axe manufactured in “Czechoslovakia”. I’ve visited Brno once, only passed through. Here is a video of me making macho-coffee in Prague 2009.”
Forget Wall Street – Silicon Valley is the new political power in Washington by Olivia Solon & Sabrina Siddiqui (for The Guardian)
“Their theory is that democracy is an impedance to capitalism so they need as little regulation as possible”
During the 1990s, In the early days of the dotcom era, internet companies flourished in Silicon Valley by skirting the law, moving fast and breaking things. Such techno-libertarianism was founded on the belief that borderless cyberspace was separate from the physical realm and therefore not subject to the same rules.
[…] Silicon Valley’s tech leaders have a short memory: their companies were built on a foundation of government intervention and public monies.
Born Sexy Yesterday by Pop Culture Detective (Jonathan McIntosh) investigates naive-but-sexy female characters portrayed sci-fi movies and identifies them as fantasies for the colonial gaze. These characters are build on an older, racist narratives about indigenous women and white men. The interpretation feels legit.. In Finland similar characters have been written to illustrate the relationships between urban and rural communities. A male graduate from the city arrives to the countryside and meets with a farmworker girl. The graduate fights of her brutish suitors (often alcoholics) and marries the girl. These stories are not sci-fi movies but they are rooted on modernistic fantasies.
Performed at the Lauttasaari street-party over the weekend. Got on stage after a show by the Moomin characters! Our part in the event was a part of the Neighborizome project we are working on with Leena Kela and Heini Aho (recently announced on the Koneensäätiö website). We were introduced on stage by Anna Talasniemi. Some evidence on the event on Instagram. We found five potential condominium-collaborators to work with.
My Dude mixer arrived to day. I’m very happy with the quality of the sound. It amplifies mic level signals neatly and delivers a balanced stereo mix (almost makes a sm58 mic audible with out a preamp). The over-amplification/saturation sound mixing feature works with rhythmic material, it seems to follow beats (haven’t tested the feedback yet). I guess I’ll make a tutorial on how it works with different audio sources for Pietari. The only disappointment is that it doesn’t have a separate light to indicate when the device is on (Open lines are indicated with leds). There is a serious issue with channels 4&5 and I’m in contact with Bastl to have the unit replaced/fixed.
Here is a video showing issues with mics and here is a video showing issues with synths (ts & trs connectors). Leoš from Bastl-Help guided me to reheat the contacts in an effort to fix the problem. Unfortunately I couldn’t get it to work. As I was poking inside the mixer I noticed a lot of fast and dirty soldering work – Which was disappointing. Some connections didn’t seem to have any solder in them! I’m now waiting for news on how long it will take to be replaced (the delivery of this unit took two weeks). I need to have the mixer repaired and delivered by 15.9.
Read a speech written by Päivi as “a man with a moustache which looks like the moustache of Kyösti Kallio” at the RaivioBumann (Raivio & Daniel Bumann) Hiljainen vieras / Silent Guest event. The performance was a part of Patsastellaan: Parties for Public Sculpture series organized by James Prevett (Taideyliopisto). The role of being just an actor/speaker felt nice.. I wasn’t as nervous as when I perform my own material.
Bought a Bastl Dude mixer for the upcoming Childrens Techno workshop (Teknomuskari) in Turku (NPTurku covers the expenses!). The mixer can also be used in Brussels next month. Made a website for our upcoming show wheredoyouwanttogofromhere.com. The Brussel gig is causing a lot of stress.. The recent attacks in Barcelona and Turku are adding to the mix. Working with horses is stressful, working with people is stressful and working in public spaces is stressful. To top it off, we are drafting strong arguments concerning the changing nature of public space (in relation to recent attacks) and framing climate change as a weaponized method of colonial dominance.
The booklist we’ve selected as our framework requires intensive learning. We are studying classics like Foucault, new material from Butler, new materialism/anthropocene inspired texts, the history of horses in European cities, re-reading Hribal and Eyal Weizman’s theories concerning the Arab Spring (The Roundabout Revolutions, Critical Spatial Practice 6, 2015). Majority of the text deal with infrastructure and how urban structures serve as authors of the modern self-regulating subjectivity. The texts (even the history of the horses) are centered around the concept of public assembly and examining how the concept of “the people” is build and used.
I guess part of the stress is caused by the indoctrination of these texts. Changing is stressful.. And I guess developing as an artist requires constant change.
Selected 36 samples from the SOW: Blacksmith sound pack which I think are fitted for granular synthesis using the microGranny 2 (Found a good guide for mG2 sample workflow on Muff Wiggler. Also discovered a decent macOS utility NameChanger). I plan to prepare a horse sound selection which I can use as an acoustic element during Trans-Horse lectures (as seen in Pori 2014). Made a some small updates the SOW site.
Edits with FCPX are progressing slowly. Navigating between the viewer and timeline using keyboard shortcuts makes me feel like a pro.