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20190317

I have a strong urge to assemble a Elektrosluch. It is a “open-source device for electromagnetic listening”. The design is by Lom audio, which seems like a very fine organization. I’d like to attempt to develop a binaural unit and to experiment listening to the electromagnetic properties of water (when it is electrified in some way) to confirm that different batches of Faux San Pelligriano have the same consistency. I attempted to make an electromagnetic microphone last night (and to listen to it with my new Lm071 preamp) but the loose 3,5mm jack picked up more noise then the coil.

I’m feeling empowered by my new electronics skills but I lack a clear focus. I’m get inspired by everything. I’m trying to keep grounded and set my bearings by listening to still & stretched: a mute tumult of memories (2017) by Heather B. Frasch. Her gig at Control last autumn set a trajectory for my current sound work. Perhaps I should take my eurorack and other loose projects to Jesse’s smithy and attempt to formalize something in relation to the Sound of Work series. There is also the possibility to develop something with Kristian (kettlebells?) or to possibly drone out at Kontula Electronic.

I skipped the Zodiak “men’s advanced dance course” this fall. I have some plans for bodybuilding and holistic kettlebell moves. Here are some inspirational videos.

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20180423

I can’t have the unofficial page which Facebook has autogenerated in my name removed using the Report an Impostor Account tool! The page is not recognised as a “Profile” so I can’t report it. The tool would have required me to send a scan of my ID or passport to them – Which I wouldn’t have done anyway. Having the page removed is complicated. I’d need a have a facebook account to communicate with their support center and to “reclaim the page”. They have ripped all of the content from my wikipedia entry, which is distributed using the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license. This means that they have the right to use my face and the texts. I’m trying to report the page as a copyright infringement by claiming that they use my name without permission but I guess they are not legally obliged to remove it. My complaint number is “244899592919672”.

Got a response from fb:

A Community Page serves as the best collection of shared knowledge about a topic and is automatically generated based on what Facebook users are interested in. It is not intended to be the official presence of a brand, public figure or organization. Community Pages can be populated by content licensed from external sources.

[…] Under these circumstances, it’s unclear to us how the reported content, used in the manner depicted, would violate or infringe your legal rights.

If you continue to believe your rights are being infringed or violated, you may wish to seek legal guidance.

They have no intention of removing the site. Other people are struggling with similar issues. I guess this case is evidence that people can no longer decide if they want to serve big-data corporations – They can only decide how they serve them and how corporations portray them. #☭

Got a new reply:

A Community Page is automatically generated based on what Facebook users are interested in. It is not intended to be the official presence of a brand, public figure or organization.

If you object to the content on the reported Community Page, you may access the source of this information by visiting Wikipedia.

They want me to join wikipedia and change details of my the entry there or to join facebook and claim the page they’ve made in my name. I think the customer service personnel I’m negotiating with are bots. I’ve talked to Fleur and Gigi (these have to be fake names!). I wrote to them a reply:

Please understand that I’m not a public organisation, a brand or a public figure. I’m a human being, a person practising my craft to the best of my ability. I’ve been lucky to contribute to some public events and to give the occasional interview for our local news here in Finland but I’m not a public figure (as defined by wikipedia). Please Fleur, please remove the autogenerated page facebook has made in my name. I have no intention to join facebook and I don’t want the company to represent me using a Community Page.

Recovering from the Kontula Electronic, Oodi modular presentation. Kontula was fun but I was too tired to stay for the late night gigs.

Valentin Dikul remarkable power-gym-moves for the future.

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20180418

We are publishing Oodi modular video teasers in preparation of our Kontula Electronic presentation on Saturday. The first is out on Viktors youtube site and another will be hopefully published on Kontula Electronic FB-site. (I posted the video on /r/synthesizers too, people have responded to it well) My 0-coast & Arturia Beat Step Pro studies are progressing steadily. Updated the devices and build a batch using both sequencers. I’m having trouble configuring the different midi modes (arpeggiators, latching, legato etc.) on the 0-coast and Beat Step Pro is very complicated too. Fun but complicated. I haven’t hooked them up with my Drumbrute yet… But I tested the lfos of my Kastl on the 0-coast.

Wrote a proposal for a techno-gig-talk at the Exhibiting Sounds of Changes seminar in Tampere (in June). My proposal for a Sound of Work: Blacksmith presentation was accepted into the program, which is nice! But I feel cheated. They made their call with an obscure text: “Participation is without a fee; however travel, accommodation and daily living are at your expense.“. I had read “[…] at our expense” – Thinking that they would have covered travel expenses and offered a lunch for people presenting at the seminar.

I’m down for throwing a gig for the love of art, research, labor issues and sounds but paying for the travel is too much to ask. Their project is founded by the Creative Europe programme and the event is organized by Werstas the Finnish Labor Museum. I send them a message asking for a confirmation on how the expenses are handled and got a reply: Speakers are expected to pay for their own participation. No food, no promises of coffee… Nothing.

Their project is about archiving and presenting sounds of work. I offered them a worker making sounds (referring to labor struggles through techno and critical views to samplers and their relationship to appropriation). The Finnish Labor Museum as a culture factory (as defined by Steyerl) producers workers as dead echoes of the past. #☭

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20180416

Wearing my spring jacket which I surface treated using a boiled linseed & beewax mixture. Spring rain doesn’t penetrate the cotton cloth but the downside is that the jacket smells faintly like freshly cut grass. The wax-coating made the denim fabric darker and the jacket looks cool. Droplets of water stick to the surface, I feel like a cowboy or sailor. Tuned an old hoodie too, lengthened its sleeves and replaced its backside with a lighter fabric (for better ventilation). The jacket and the hoodie work well together.. Only the front and top of the garment is waterproof and the backsides allows inter-garment climate control.

Collected synths and controllers for our Oodi modular presentation from Pasila library. I received a Make Noise 0-Coast and a Arturia Beat Step Pro. They are the first instruments of the Oodi modular system and I’m the first person to loan them! We will use them with Viktor at Kontula Elektronic to demo services that Central Library Oodi studios will offer for library users. I have week to learn how to use them. I’m now a (fake) synth-expert, demoing instruments which I don’t own. I hope someone will make musicmesse-style awkward interview of us.

Preparing for a live radio interview regarding our work (Neighborizome) at the Kone foundation Lauttasaari mansion. I’ll have 5min of airtime to introduce people to Performance Architecture (I’ll refer to Alex Schweder if possible). Used the little time I had to build a case for “new mansion culture”.

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20170407

Brown and gray colors schemes used by early 1900 Finnish artists served as tools for our nationalist agenda, argues Irmeli Hautamäki in Kansainvälisyys ja kansallisuus suomalaisessa taiteessa (In Finnish). I don’t agree.. Dull tones (best manifested by the November-group) protest against glamour and they taunt the bourgeois aesthetics of impressionism – Globally. Framing the brown-and-gray movement as nationalistic dissolves it’s critical agenda. November is the post-revolution month. Žižek asks what happens after the revolution.. Brown and grey happens.

Critics from Edit-media Rosa Kuosmanen & Tuomas Laulainen hit hard against the Ars17 exhibition in Hello World! – Goodbye kuratointi (Fi.). They blame the exhibitions awkward feel on curatorial decisions and argue that the fetishizion of art objects (performed by the museum through their exhibition architecture) detaches the artworks from the social and technological reality they are intended to touch and interact with. The critics state that the internet has changed the way we make art but Kiasma has failed to evolve and to change the way art is presented. I agree full heartedly but I think we should also criticize at the way the artist exhibited their works. Majority of pieces were presented carelessly (like at a hobbyfair), projected on walls without effort and they looked as they were installed by robots. Perhaps this attitude was a form of protest against Ars17.

We are backing down from Kontula Electronic gig. The schedules are too tight.