Eero Yli-Vakkuri
Counter bodyweight training session I guided for HULLABALOO Club at NPTurku Festival.
Data is the new lifeblood of capitalism – don’t hand corporate America control (2018) Ben Tarnoff.
Letting capital run wild across the globe hasn’t exactly produced the best of all possible worlds. It’s strange to think that letting data do the same would yield a different result.
Visited New Performance Turku, assisted Tomasz Szrama to walk on the ceiling, received rough critique of a performance/publication made seven years ago, attended a very boring “How To Do Things With Performance -seminar”, witnessed a shouting performance by Hiroko Tsuchimoto and finally a salad ingredients voting performance by Denis Romanovski.
And that’s were it happened.
Romanovski placed various ingredients on the table. He talked about soviet traumas after which each audience member was given a vote. We were granted the right to vote on the ingredients of the salad. Majority of the ingredients were vegan friendly with the exception of eggs and mayonnaise. I gave my vote for the potatoes. As it was time to select whether or not to include eggs in the salad a shouting contests erupted.
Jesse and a person sitting next to him were the only ones to vote for eggs. Vegans were protesting and people started laughing. Someone rushed on stage and stole the bowl of eggs. While there was a lot of commotion and laughing I thought it might be fun to portray myself as an egg-rights advocate.
“Hi, I’m Eero. From the Egg-party. Have you considered voting our candidate Mr. Egg?” I asked a girl sitting next to me. She casted a weird smile. I thought she didn’t hear me so I continued louder: “Many consider voting mr. Egg to be in bad taste but I can guarantee that our representative mr. Egg is fresh!”. She smiled awkwardly. Everyone else was enjoying the commotion. Eventually the eggs were returned to the table and added to the salad despite the protest.
Then it hit me.
Egg translates as “muna” in Finnish which has a double meaning – It also means “balls”. Which meant that my joke on the election processing was most likely understood as a glorification of my genitalia. By the time I realized my error she had disappeared and I was stuck drinking beer with Jesse and eating democratically crafted Russian Salad.
I saw the girl later during the festival and felt like apologising. She bought a salad at a museum canteen and was walking to her table. I thought it would be best to clarify that I didn’t mean to bother her with my jokes the other night. “Hi!” I started joyfully. She was looking happy and I suddenly thought that maybe I was being paranoid with my interpretation. To steer away from a weird conversation or to save face I continued “Let me know if you want egg with you salad!”
No. 52 (Part One): How Globalization Changed China—and Its Art (2017) The Artsy Podcast concerning an exhibition Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World in Guggenheim.
Documentation of my favorite work from NPTurku 2016 by Sandrina Lindgren Olympic Shames is online.
Wavelings was recorded at Wäinö Aaltosen museum as a part of the New Performance Turku festival 2017. The band consisted of 18 artists who were taught to use synthesisers during a two hour workshop. Members were divided into two group and trained to recognise the sounds different synths produce. Songs Hear – Redo, Ou-Ou, How can you eat juice? (my personal favorite) were recorded during these small group sessions. Songs Mister Noa Moa, Play echo and One for the parents were recorded during a 30min gig were all of the musicians played together for the first time. The audience consisted of art lovers and the parents of the band members. Special thanks to Ida Martikainen, Leena Kela & Christopher Hewitt, Anni Välimäki (NPTurku) and Susanna Hujala (WAM).
Visiting Turku in preparation of the WAMbience/NPTurku Teknomuskari gig. Paid my respect at the site where the stabbings took place.