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20180703

Wrote the text “JOBINTERVIEW” on my studio wall (in cat size letters) to keep me grounded. It’s written in turquoise. If I could start over I’d write “THE DANCE COMPANY”. There is ample room in my studio so I still might.

I cycled to Manhattan today to meet other residents from Finland at the Fciny offices. Crossing the Williamsburg Bridge felt like entering a new world. The skyline was thick with smoke. Someone had written cynical words on the cycling lane pavement: “Self absorbed”, “Smothered”, “Rich”… etc. The words, written in faint white spray paint formed a welcome mat for entering Manhattan. A lot of cyclists sing while they ride and some play music from their boom boxes.. They sing to make themselves noticeable on the road – Being visible makes riders more safe (the same logic applies to working with horses). Americans speak and laugh loudly. I guess this habit could be read as a safety measure: When people hear each other perform they can locate each other and set their bearings straight. Are people who talk loudly afraid of something?

My time in New York feels like an investment. I now have 177 days to yield profits from this trip. I operate on a Day-Currency which is slipping trough my fingers when I make bad investments (like wait in traffic lights). Messaged Jesse and plotted new Ore.e Ref. services:

  1. “Product photos in New York service for Artisans”
  2. “The Temporary New York Sock Repair service”

In the first service artisans could send their craft items for me in New York to have them photographed against the Manhattan skyline. The second service is self explanatory: People could send their socks to me in NYC and I’d fix them (and take photos of them against the Manhattan skyline and wash them in the East River before sending them back).

This city is teaching me about scales. I have some ideas formulating on this matter but nothing clear yet (things felt clear for a second on the bridge but I forgot everything when I returned home).

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20180627

Updated the Ore.e Ref. Trans-Horse page. The site is now over 10 years old (earliest Wayback machine save is from 2011)! Added new texts (on top of the old), new photos and new links. Particularly the Trans-Horse link list is convincing… Trans-Horse has produced new works annually for almost five years.

I also like that teaching has been a part of the project from the start. In 2014 we taught friends how to work with horses (from the ground) and we’ve managed to scale these sessions into a full-blown educational program, with lectures, horseface-to-humanface teaching methods and texts. We should write more. I’ve been in contact with IssueX about the possibility to write about the Horse and Performance III course. I wrote a summary of this years course on the Hevoslinja blog (in Finnish).

Listening to BRMRF on Soundcloud.

Getting prepared for my 6 month New York residency is ISCP (Which is supported by the Alfred Kordelin foundation). Leaving in 42 hours. Packing my synths, prepared computer transportation, prepped my Sebago docksiders and looked up a gym in Brooklyn. I’ll be in NY this Friday and have my first meetings next Monday. I’ll be writing about horses in NY on the Hevoslinja blog (in Finnish) and about general art/city-experiences on this site. On this site I’ll use the tag New York for all residency related texts and Trans-Horse for horse stuff. It might take me a week to get an internet connection working which means that posts might be uploaded in bundles.

I was informed that Riveting hammer – Ingersoll Rand – Start 4 (a sound from the SOW collection) is used in an episode of Stories of Yore and Yours podcast (the sound is heard at 16min 15sek). The episode is a reading of a short story called Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut (1961). The episode sound effect credit list is a fun read.

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20180524

Pori Art Museum has published a report on the Creative Commons and Art seminar which I participated in with Kaino and Kalle Kuisma. My talk is recapped on pages 10-12 and I’m very pleased with my contribution. I claimed that “Artists do not contribute to the commons – They claim phenomenons from the commons” (artists taint phenomena and mark it as their own). I also claim that skills are production tool (for artists) and shed light on the ideological origins of Ore.e Refineries (and the COOL 1.0 license).

Working on our Ihme-days presentation with Heini and Leena, packing stuff in preparation of my New York visit, preparing next weeks Horse & Performance course with Pietari and writing a lecture/presentation for expo2001∞ (organised by Daniel Kupferberg) events at Kunstraum Argh15 (I’ll give “An Introduction to Horselogical thinking” over skype or wire). Aaand.. Learning how to make cheesecake.

Flashed Face Distortion Effect is interesting. Wonder if could be reversed: Images of faces would be distorted so that the faces that flash would appear normal.

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20180504

We manufactured eight Trans-Horse medals from recycled aluminium with Jesse over the weekend. I’ll send five of them to Brussels to honour the participants of the Trans-Horse Parade. The Parade was a part of a series of horse related performances we prepared for Signal #6 Festival / Cifas last Autumn. Casting the aluminium was relatively easy (we succeeded in making one medal in 20minutes!). The horse in the medal is The Awaited Son (A drawing based on the photo can be downloaded from OpenClipArt). I’m really exited to send a medal to the Cavalry department of the General Reserve of the Federal Police of Belgium! Other recipients are horse stables around Brussels and the staff of the Schaerbeek recycling center.

We are preparing the third Horse & Performance course for the Theatre Academy Helsinki with Pietari.

I’m preparing a performance for the Kone foundation Lauttasaari manor spring party with the Neighborizome crew. Repurposing an old Trans-Horse ethical infta text for a small publication I plan to share with my audience.

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20180429

Epic warning and communication arrangements are being planned around nuclear waste repositories in hopes of educating people of the future. Expert Judgement on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plan (1993) by Sandia National Laboratories for US Department of Energy is the most notorious example of how deep-time-communication efforts have been organised. They are trying to send a simple message to the people of the future:

Danger. Poisonous radioactive waste buried here. Do not dig or drill here before a.d. 12, 000.

Symbols and texts used to convey this information are difficult to design because we don’t know how people will communicate during the next 10 000 years. Questions in the Sandia report focus on whether the warning illustrations will be read from left-to-right or how people of the future will understand scale. These are problems inherent to all language translation efforts and because of these issues we should look for communication methods which use non-lingual tools. I’m reminded about the classic catchphrase told to kids learning how to edit videos and write short stories: Don’t try to explain what’s happening, try to show what’s happening and allow the audience to build their story (Show, Don’t Tell).

This is why we should make people who discover nuclear waste repositories sick from radiation as quickly as possible! This is the best way to show them that the sites are unsafe. Killing someone is a very unethical way to communicate – But it’s a more honest than trying to frame toxic waste caused by our lifestyle with educational mantras. All of the educational texts and warning symbols are just trying to hide the dirty truth: We lived at your expense. The radioactive waste is the message!

Onkalo should have a swimming pool of plutonium, made as inviting as possible. After the swim people would get sick very fast and learn that we were assholes do dump the our pollution on them. Only people who cannot read should be allowed to develop these kind of warning systems. Death is a message.