Posted on

20170325

Visited Mikko Kuorinki’s “LEG SLEEPS DROP DEEP” exhibition at SIC last night with Topi. The presentation felt unfinished. Haven’t read the catalog texts yet. Olli Keränen presented works in the SIC main hall. His pieces felt hastily made. Their artworks appeared similar. Both artists evade simple solutions but as they presented​ works in the same space the combination felt like trickery. Their artworks require simple and pretty art around them – They exist in contrast. At the SIC event they couldn’t find their momentum. Had a pleasant chat with Josefiina Nelimarkka.

Visited Leena Kela’s Alphabet’s  of Performance Art at Mad-house. The piece was presented as a part of the Hurraa children’s culture festival. It has a perfect. Kids age 3-10 were taken by the performance. Kela presented a critical analysis of the history of performance art and studied how its aesthetics have been standardised. Kids were laughing and commenting the show. The event proofed that conceptual art works for kids. I was reminded warmly with my ÄLÄ OLE LAPSELLINEN article from 2013.

Nice video on BASTL instruments by Cuckoo.

Posted on

20161215

They want us to use our bodies as keys. Fingerprints and iris scanners open doors.

The Cruel Radiance of What Is course came to an end. My last teaching gig was on Monday but all of the students skipped class! Only 2-4 students attended the course in general so their absence didn’t feel like a protest. People who joined the kettlebell workout were really delighted of the style of teaching I’m currently into. We met with Mikko, Miina & Arttu and two students yesterday for our final joined meeting. We ended up talking chop but the event was fun.

Visited Perfo performance event in Tampere on Thursday. Saw performances by Asko Nivala (a “failed Hannibal Lecter” / meet-is-murder cabaret), Suvi Suvereeni (a very fluid collaboration with Siri the intelligent personal assistant. A low key, personal approach to the technology yielded revelations on how the technology perceives us!), Tuuli Tuikka (an anti-art & anti-capitalism manifest on how nature and creative experiences are commodified. She shredded and packaged a flower into plastic containers) and Joulumaa (a four member noise ensemble doing a faux-ritualistic, holistic noise show. The sounds were too orchestrated for my taste and their stage work came of as flamboyant. I did get to see a 16 channel mixer being used as a percussion instrument, which is a novel sight).

After the festival I chatted with Janne Rahkila about rejoining the Perfo crew for next year. I’d continue working with the streaming system.. I’m hesitant about the gig. I don’t believe in live-video streams anymore. Perhaps I should make interviews of the artists as text and brief synopses of their performances instead. Also met with Timo Bredenberg and we had the last meeting of our “In the Flow” (Groys 2016) reading circle (some ideas in the book are useful but the authors style is too tandy).

I’m now preparing for a grant award event at the Taidehalli. I got a “The Young Artist Grant” from the Finnish Art Society. Also got a techo gig (with a workout theme) for next years Kontula Electronic. I’ll likely be joined by Kristian Ekholm (and Pietari if he finds the time. I haven’t talked about this with him yet). Also got news from Antoine that our Trans-Horse proposal for Signal festival is being processed by the production crew.

Uplifting news all around.

Posted on

20161109

I’m happy to see the world burn. In 2002 I made a watercolour for my friend Kalle Salonen in celebration of the end of his military service (and short career as army staff). I wrote a poem into the picture too. The poem speaks of a wall which is being build. It will cover the world and we’ll be caught inside. Towards the end people will gather around faint fires, which will warm us like wetting our pants. Donald Trump’s presidency will change what is understood as “a Trumpet”. Brassy music for our last post.

Met with “The Cruel Radiance of What Is” course teacher crew (Arttu&Miina and Mikko) to finalise our schedules and plans. The course is build in a poetic tone. The educational acts we’ll engage with the students resemble performance art pieces. Instead of pumping students with facts or developing specific creative skills, participants will be invited to think about “stuff” which inspires them and build artistic agency in relation and about “stuff”.

“As part of the modern capitalist society music is in danger of perishing in random samples, data, markets, instrumentation patterns, institutions and computer nets, or of suffocating in the gigantic tautological machinery of the media industry, that continuously sends back the opinions of the masses, that they, as media, formulated.We need music that is the differential, that neither compromises or thinks of surrender, but carries on even in the shadow and disguise like the guerrilla fighters and draws active disappearing lines in the fields of society. We need music that is a labyrinth, a rich ensemble of relations; diversity, heterogeneity, breaks, unexpected links and long monotonies. It is the vision of a life that opens the ways and allows the horizon of resistance to light up.”

Writes Dror Feiler in MUSIC, SOUNDS, GARBAGE, NOISE and POLITICS post from 2009.

Posted on

20161029

​An incredibly cynical video detailing the future of urban life and warfare made by the American military complex: Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity. 

A nifty text on cultural imperialism by Pilvi Porkola What is ‘esitys’ on the University of Arts “How to do things with performance?” project blog. She is critical about Richard Schechner’s “Performance Studies. Introduction” which I’ve been studying in preparation of our upcoming Art School Maa course. 

I should make a kettlebell out of Snellman’s head. 

Visited SIC 2 gallery spaces opening exhibition The movement that didn’t have a dog and a stick… The exhibition was curated by Mikko Kuorinki and Diego Bruno who have been working together on a project they call Ruler. My favorite work was “Joycean Society” (2013) by Dora García. In discussion with Topi Äikäs I came into the conclusion that the exhibition was fuelled with sincere trust for the arts. Topi and I had difficulty in participating in the feeling because we know that the production of such exhibitions is always messy. Messiness is the opposite of Accountability. I have trouble trusting mess (even if I know that art is at it’s best as mess). 

We chatted about the 9/11 events in USA. Topi gave an honest account on how he felt after hearing about the attacks. His honesty cleansed the air and I suddenly remembered feeling suppressed delight. At the time we had been both excited about seeing the imperialists twin towers collapse and celebrated the attacks against the high standing symbols of global capitalism.

Posted on

20161024

Preparing for the Art School Maa: “The Cruel Radiance of What Is” course which we’ll host together with Miina Hujala, Arttu Merimaa and Mikko Kuorinki. Updating my approaches to performativity.

Performative acts against precarity!: “There is no freedom that is not it’s exercise. Freedom is not a potential that waits for its exercise. It comes into being through its exercise”. A brilliant talk by Judith Butler – From Performativity to Precarity. The talk also gives a glimpse on what kind of worker’s right issues will emerge in Europe as a result of the refugee situation: “How does the unspeakable population speak and make its claims?”.