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20220211

Eco-phenomenology and the Maintenance of Eco Art: Agnes Denes’s A Forest for Australia (2021) Clarissa Chevalier. A nice introduction to discussions, and summary of approaches to land-art conservation. Chevalier refers to William Cronon who argues that approaches to the natural world which portray it “as Edenic or sublime uphold problematic colonialist ideology” (in stark contrast to what Enis Yucekoralp writes concerning the sublime). The article offers a through investigation to the condition of the artwork (building on the work Sarah Hicks and Gilbert Jock started) and calls for a change for how we appreciate land- and environmental artworks.

I argue that there is value in allowing A Forest for Australia to be gradually shaped by its environment without human intervention, as the trees extend past the planned geometry of the original planting. As Jock and Hicks note, A Forest for Australia offers a rare glimpse into the increasingly extreme weather of Australia, in contrast to the manicured suburbs and lush city parks of Melbourne. […] I believe Denes’s “A Forest for Australia” highlights the contradictions of artificially sustained urban green spaces in the face of extreme weather conditions induced by climate change.

I’m flattered by the quote from my contribution to the “Forest Dreams” seminar last year: “As performance artist, Eero Yli-Vakkuri poetically states […] approaching the uneven growth of Denes’s forests allows us a mental exercise in cultivating our appreciation of decay, of ‘failure’, of our unmet expectations of nature.'”

Turns our marble can be made into co² using sulfuric acid: From Marble Dust to Soda Water (2021) Henry Levin. I could use a part of the Finlandia hall to drink the other.

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20220121

Visited Kurängen spring with Monika. The spring looks very nice, the water looks healthy and is tasty. The moss planting process I started last year appears successful. I will have to remove the non-attached and dead parts during the spring to make room for growth during the summer. We collected 30-50kg of clay from the ditch close to the spring.

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20211020

Worked as an assistant for Simon Vincenzis FROM THE DEAD AIR ORGY: On The Nature of Things. An intensive gig. I helped in preparing the Roihupelto artist studios into a multichannel live-feed broadcast station. The daily broadcasts lasted only 20 minutes and performers were directed & their actions timed meticulous to execute partially synchronised movements and others gestures. The separate events built up slowly into a consistent mood. As a performance it felt like an ambient artwork. Not a lot of events but what ever it was it occurrent consistently and it didn’t demand an audience. It was made for algorithms and AIs too. There was partial nudity which youtube automatic sensors picked up. Imagine: Youtube has developed an algorithm which can identify penises. It was speculated that this is the most religiously motivated algorithm in existence, an algorithmic model of North-American puritanism and modesty etiquette.

Bought a la-radio (cb-radio to be specific: President Harry 2 Classic) for cheep and planning to build my own antenna for it. The model I got might be suitable for mods. The Slim Jim and J Pole calculator calculator site feels like a good resource for antennae and the cbharraste.info also offers a lot of tips (the site works better on wayback machine). My interest in radio is getting serious. Not sure what it is ultimately about. I’d like to perhaps build a digital radio relay station and I want to make sculptures which work as antennas! They would work well for tuho.org.

Received my M8 unit. Looks and feels lovely. A steep learning curve but making progress. Haven’t tested it with midi gear yet. Found a few useful resources of the M8 discord channel:

  • OctaChainer v1.3.1 Makes suitable slice files as an “Evenly spaced grid”
  • Chordmate3 by impbox. Transcribes chords to m8 FM synth hex. Short memo: Set ALGO to 0B (A+B+C+D) -> Set A, B, … MODs to 1>PIT, 2>PIT, … -> Set MOD1, MOD2, … according the heximal data Chordmate3 displays (example: D-4 00 03 0E 15)
  • m8.uvu.la for making themes.

Still expecting fairchild transistors for my PATHS. They’ve been stuck in Vantaa for two weeks. There was a clearance issue which I had to sort out. Assembled a working Aperture. Setting up a techno rig it seems (the track is pretty much based on Aperture, which supplies the kicks and the squeals). As a filter Aperture gives me the same brain tingles as MS-20. I feel the high resonances in the back of my scull.

Visited the Kurängen spring with Elina Vainio and Monika Czyżyk. We collected clay from the proximity of the spring opening and later prepared a few cups and sculptures from it. We don’t know much about the clay yet but are looking to burn in later this year. The water was clear! I visited the spring in August and removed a canvas from its base. This released mud and soil from under the canvas which contaminated the water. I visited the site later in the month and the water was still murky and undrinkable. I feared I had destroyed the water source (for human use anyway) but proceed planting a few m2 of peat, turf and moss I sourced from a swampy patch higher up in the forest valley (the entire affair reminded me of Land-Values).

I attached the patchwork quilt peat-slices using wooden anchors (tree branches), so that they could stick to the spring base (it floats) and establish roots which could contain the soil. While working on site I spotted two frogs (I drained the 200 litre spring to attach the peat). While visiting the spring early October the water appeared to be cleansed! I could see some parts of the turf in the middle of the spring had turned grey (possibly died) but as the water in the spring is clear, light can access the base and the plants can grow further. We spotted two tadpoles. The water tasted like a mild forest tea. Good and as cold as ever. The forest skin (peat, turf and moss) transfer method seems to work.

The placement of the canvas had formed caveats to the forest base and sledges to the west side of the spring opening. This side appear prone for erosion. I will continue investigating if the west ledge of the spring should be reworked. The north-east side looks equally troubling. The canvas placement has made the spring too deep, like a bathtub of sorts, from where the access water is released into a very muddy swamp opening. I think the spring base should be somehow lifted higher to prevent the water from swamp opening from keeping contact with the water in the spring.

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20210907

Preparing a workshop for Pori Art Museum. I’ll host a seminar for kids about p3rm46r4ff171 and serve them dirty waters. Later this week I’m running a workshop for Frame at the Experiments on Togetherness: Herding in Helsinki Central Par event. Exited to present my work in junction with Mari Keski-Korsu’s herbal-horse audio-meditation session. I’m preparing light gymnastics bundled with horse-behavioural theories and anecdotes about the Helsinki Mounted Police. The mounted polices night shift are planning to pass by to offer their greetings. The upcoming RH3 Frame publication, where I contributed a text titled “On the Other Side of the Paddock”, marks the closes I’ve gotten to Eyal Weizman. We are listed as contributors on a list which is organized alphabetically. Being the two last entries, we are only separated by the conjunction “and”, which is more then a comma but feels more intimate.* I’m referring to Weizman in two upcoming texts (the other will be out on the 17th and the later published in a book on performance pedagogy).

DIY electronics are way more expensive then buying instruments used. I will have to put this hobby on hold. I decided to build Paths RYO a cycling sequential switch for developing my system towards a cybernetic device, possibly using the electronic qualities of different waters as inputs. I sourced the pcb from an online shop in the US, electronics from Digikey, some rare components from Banzai Music (Germany) and odd bits and bobs locally from Uraltone. Just the mail, vat & service fee expenses of the packages would covered the costs of a used unit. Making by hand is more expensive then getting the same factory built. It might also be more ecological. I think I’m diy-ing stuff only to make myself feel better about being a consumer. Also sourcing parts for an Aperture unit (and I want it just for fun).

DIY-ing new modules
to hide all traces of my
consumerism

Today is an anniversary of EWS 1# and someone called “Petsamo” has added it as a tourist attraction to openstreetmap! I’m proud to say they have classified it as an artwork (a mural to be specific).

*edit. Got to ask Weizman a question on a Frame/RH3 related discussion & chat! Bassam El Baroni conveyed my question: Does intuition have a role in investigation? Weizman explains that they don’t know what intuition is but that investigations are involved with imagination. They explained that truths are simple and lies require imagination. Does this make counter-investigations processes where imaginative effects are removed? They continue depicting imaginations as having a fogging characteristic, which is obstructing the truth. I’m disappointed by the response. I don’t think truths are rational (simple) #ॐ. I don’t think counter-investigations necessarily reveal  rationalities (indoctrinated racism and biases etc.), they reveal something horrible: War machines are not liable because they don’t make any sense.

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20210802

Visited Ambient Arkipelag 2021 in Tenhola over the weekend and heard Lau Nau & Minea perform in an old church.

Made a well planned build of the Trigger-to-Switch Project by Thomas Henry. This time the circuit is used to power a 12v water pump when the unit receives clock pulses. Works well (and way cleaner then my previous attempt)! Now I have an artificial artesian spring which follows my bpm in my disposal.

Spend a night at the Kurängen spring. Slept in a hammock. Or didn’t sleep rather, woke up at 5 to cycle home due to thunderstorm. Performed restoration work on site by removing a worn canvas from the spring base. The canvas had been set (in the 90ties I suspect) to keep the water clear but over the years naturally eroding top soil, decaying plants and other debris had rendered it useless. It was essentially blocking moss & other plants from establishing roots and preventing sunlight from accessing the bottom of the spring. The mud below the canvas smelled rotten (and was possibly a reason for the faint rotten smell of the water). I’m hoping that by planting peat and moss, which I’ll harvest from a swampy patch higher up the forest, I can establish a natural filter for the to the spring base. The filter is needed to keep the clay and mud settled. There is a lot of grey clay in the spring and I took some with me for experiments. I removed mud and all the debris I could catch during the night.

The spring was revealed over a meter deep. I suspect it has been the “eye of the swamp” which the long ditches in the little forest valley have been dug to dry out. Also found the car mentioned in Metsäauto ja lähde: miete maastoisesta suunnassa-olemisesta [Forestcar and spring: though on being on track in the ] (2015) Marko Leppänen. Dreaming of cutting a piece of the car panel for a spring water related electronics build. It feels prestigious somehow and disturbing it might be a bad idea.