Posted on

20211114

Daily teaching at Kankaanpää Art School is progressing well. The group is acceptive to the activities I’m proposing and we are speeding along. The days are long and the weekly 6hx2 buss travels are rough but I’m feeling reinvigorated. Joined a local gym and got to perform kettlebell routines in a group. Planning to use the school facilities to build a new two row 104hp case. Sourcing wood from leftover bins.

Succeeded in swapping a busted usb-c port and changing the battery on my phone. I’ve serviced the usb port on this device twice.

The Eco-Politics of the Sublime (2021) Enis Yucekoralp attempts to reintroduce the sublime, so that we may gain a new political horizon. Yucekoralp argues that a division between humans and nature is beneficial for political decision making (citing Andreas Malm). They are calling for eco-socialist approaches instead of techno-fixes and define “climate apartheid” a political reality where the rich can keep distance from the destruction. Some parts are complicated but I think they are providing a critique of a virtuoso-male-survivalist-figure (built trough a critique of Kant: “[Who] exalts human reason to the extent that rationality is elevated to the level of transcendence”).

An eco-political sublime takes umbrage with the Kantian supremacy of reason and concludes that Nature can never be mastered. Instead, it represents a figuration of Nature that will never be totally knowable and that holds a mirror up to our own limitations of conceptualisation.

The Covid-19 pandemic represents a ‘sublime’ event insofar as its seismic calamity — by the force of its tragedy — also represents a naked revelation of societal immiserations and the possibilities for alternative socio-political formations.

Posted on

20211107

Reconnected (2021) Paris Marx is an expose of core values at the heart of the internet. The text offers a useful listing of past alternatives too. This source led me to techwontsave.us podcast series by the author. Some episodes are light leftist rants (stating the obvious) but other episodes like How Race Was Central to Prop 22 w/ Veena Dubal are great for learning specifics on how workers in California have organized against the gig economy giants and what the historical framework of the gig economy is. #☭

Feeling restless and frustrated. Assembled a Pulses expander 1u for the Turing Machine (a no-brainer to have and relatively easy to assemble). Took it on as a meditative exercise. Repeating the resistor alignment 11 times, routing the same jumper-wires 11 times, powering the IC and reading the schematics like a holy book (tracing the signal paths over and over). Worked without a plan for the build but it turned out better then my previous expanders/1u thingamajiggies. Inspired by gnsk style approaches. This style for electronics is an acquired taste and I’m growing into it. I like the potential of errors and fear when plugging it in to the system. The mess which is not a mess.

Sent three Fairchild transistors to grm to be used in a RYO Paths build and was gifted two forestcaver / Benjolin PCBs and a voucher to their bandcamp in exchange. A nice realisation of the electronics as a social network approach and a sonic expansion for the initiative. Got in touch with the Benjolin PCB layout designer who consulted me on the VCA chip and acquired two Forrest Baer faceplates. Looking forwards to building a Rob Hordijk design and in preparation digging their text from 2009 The Blippoo Box: A Chaotic Electronic Music Instrument (The more I study the Benjolin, the closer it feels to SoftPop).

The digital heritage aspect of the Fairchild initiative led me to the inspiring compudanzas project: “explorations of computing at a human scale / explorando computación a escala humana”. I’m hoping to learn more about how computer logic could be performed as dance. This approach would work well for internalizing the transistor functions. Korsnäs wool coat patterns also look beautiful. Particularly live the weaving pattern which is performed in groups of three. Perhaps there is a base, collector, emitter logic at play there?

Preparing for a six week long gig at Kankaanpää Art School, I’ll be teaching first semester art-students “The Basics of Performance & Live Art”. Instead of infusing participants with texts, I’m trying to build their awareness of performance art praxis by using mostly other artworks as references. We’ll be analysing documented performances from the T.E.H.D.A.S ry D-Ark archive and the movement based exercises I’ve planned are linked artworks I’ve seen recently. The references and history of the art are introduced trough movement! The travel from Helsinki to Kankaanpää takes six hours. This is going to be an exhausting gig (leaving on Sundays, returning for Thursday nights and repeating the cycle for six weeks).

Posted on

[Fi] Esiintyminen ja solidaarisuus -kurssipäiväkirjat

Esiintyminen ja solidaarisuus -kurssi toteutui Kankaanpään taidekoulussa. Ohjelman kesto oli 90 tuntia ja toimintaan osallistui viisi opiskelijaa. Kurssi kuului esitystaide- ja tila opintokokonaisuuteen, jonka vastuuopettaja toimii Aapo Korkeaoja. Ohjelma koostui erilaisista yhteistä päätöksentekoa tukevista performanssiharjoitteista, joiden avulla pohdittiin miten voidaan tuottaa toisia huomioivaa ja tukevaa taidetta. Luento-osuuksissa käytiin läpi performatiivisuuden teoriaa ja toiminta päättyi harjoite-kavalkaadiin, jossa jokainen osallistuja ohjasi oman harjoitteen koko ryhmälle.

Kollektiivisesti kirjoitettu kurssipäiväkirja on ladattavissa: 2019_esiintyminen-ja-solidaarisuus-kurssipaivakirjat_kankaanpaan-taidekoulu.pdf (9,4mb)

Toiminnalla oli kolme kulmakiveä

  1. Keholliset harjoitteet
    • Kahvakuula voimistelu Kankaanpään liikuntakeskuksessa. Tavoitteena oppia suorittamaan vieraalta tuntuvia koreografioita yhdessä, oppia muilta seuraamalla ja totuttautua tekemään jotain vieraalta tuntuvaa. (Vähän vahvistua kanssa!)
    • Grid-työskentely. Hitusen kontakti-improvisaatioon kallellaan olevaa yhdessä liikkumisen malli, joka tavoitteena on kehotietoisuus ja tietoisuus oman kehon suhteesta sekä vaikutuksesta muihin/tilaan. Erikoisuutena harjoittelu kännyköiden ja näyttöjen rajaamassa tilassa.
  2. Lukeminen ja kirjoittaminen (katselu & kuuntelu)
    • Luimme kurssin aikana yhden valikoiman artikkeleita Pontus Purokurun Täysin automatisoitu avaruushomoluksuskommunismi (2018) kirjasta sekä Peggy Pierrotin keskustelupiiri ohjeistuksen (2017).
    • Kirjoitimme päivittäin kollektiivista kurssipäiväkirjaa (verkon yli Google docs).
    • Katsoimme videotaidetta ja tanssia, joka komppasi viikko ohjelmaa.
  3. Näkymätön käsi (lautasen rikkominen) ja äänestyskävely -harjoitteet (esitelty tarkemmin kurssipäiväkirjassa).
Posted on

20190223

Returning from my one month Kankaanpää Art School teaching gig with good vibes. I only had five students but they were committed. I’ll prepare a summary of the course in Finnish for next week.

Send an application to the Kone foundation community art triennial open call.

Met with Binna Choi by introduction of Frame. We had a fun chat about workshops (as art), metalwork, crafts and horses.

Preparing to swap my Zoom cdr70 to a QuNexus and build lid-locks and a handle to my eurorack case. It looks very cool. I still have a clock divider module in the works. I only bought a pcb for it and sourced the components.

I have untill Tuesday to finish my review of the Oodi Library’s Other Intelligences events (mentioned earlier) for Mustekala mag. in Finnish. Barely enough time for fact checking.. I’ll visit the library again on Monday.

Posted on

20190216

Successfully build a Bastl Skis module. Spend my evenings in Kankaanpää Art School by building a scrap-plywood 104hp eurorack case with space for 3u and 1u modules. The case has adjustable support legs, so that it can be worked from an ergonomic position and a lid which can be closed with patch cables attached.