Posted on

20210719

Talked and played waters at Kiilan äänipäivät. I had a wonderful time, stayed up way too late and made new friends. I enjoyed all the performances. Particularly liked Ahti & Ahti (perfectly lowercase guitar tremors) and .oO ensembles interpenetration of the four scores they had commissioned. Out of these a poem by Pauliina Haasjoki was my favourite and I also liked Leena Kelas piece titled “Ode to Soil and Elegy for Extinction”. In their interpretation the ensemble focused on distance, perhaps to draw emphasis to our experiences of the phenomenon of extinction. The performers were really far (across the wheat field) from the audience. Three small black dots in a vast plane. They begun executing the score but what they actually performed was impossible to see or hear. Suddenly they produced a lot of noise banging metal barrels and right after a sound clip of generic audience applause was played. The clip was treated with a phaser effect and slowly morphed into a squarewave bleep. This amplified our the distance to the performers. The field felt like a stadium concert. From a far the loud noises they had performed were effected by the wind and atmospheric gasses, which made the noise they produced wavery. Phaser effect morphing to squarewave was a nice discovery. The score for the piece (revealed later at an after party at Kiilojentalo where we hear two compositions by Pauline Oliveros, interpreted by the Truckfuckers) was very detailed and revealed that the drumming segment was produced from the prompt “AIM FOR JOYFUL CACOPHONY”.

I performed with the Kiila village spring (60.2372, 22.8633) which is a plentiful water source that produces drinking water for the village. It is situated between two fields (wheat and rye) and produces a small creek heading towards the sea. The spring opening is protected with five big concrete rims (covered by a plastic lid) and the enormous overflow (from under the rims) was covered by willows. Roope said the spring has a chalky taste… I think there was clay in it too. I think there were over 50 audience members and I had to use the full range of my voice to be heard. Felt messianic to shout next to a flowing creek. Water Lab (version 2) operated very well using batteries. I chained two lantern 6v’s (for 12v) to power the VC122 Gieskes which produced a small water jet by interpreting the amplitude of the voices the system produced (I’m pushing my usb power supply to ~410mA! and the only error is occational drops in the output when there is no signal). I polished my diy allflesh pads before the gig, felt like a proper way to prepare (also made a special t&r unit). I passed the map which the director of the Kurkijoki village museum drew us to the audience but I didn’t receive it back. The revolutionary dance poses and stretches were well received and the entire audience partook in my efforts. Being inspired by the The French Revolution, Pt. 1 & 2 podcasts by SRSLY WRONG I added French revolutionary poses to the mix. They worked great as bodies are off balanced and facial expressions amplified. See the statue for the French Revolution in Maubeuge as an example. The legs are arched back and if the riffle would be changed to a guitar the pose could be from a stadium gig. The revolutionary stretches feels like a worthy physical activity to explore further (also reminds me of Shadow Boxing Revolution, 2010).

Handed out a few copies of our (by Tea Andreoletti, Thomas Berra & me) Tasting book which is now released as a part of Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto’s Shift Key: Protection Spells program curated by Native Art Department International (Jason Lujan and Maria Hupfield). Bundled the booklet with a plastic knife which the audience could use to tear the sheets open and to perform one of the recipes in the book (also had some Sriracha sauce available). Tasting is the process of comparing two or more ingredients to each other (2021) is available for view for two weeks (and after this on youtube).

Posted on

20190808

Participated on my second Performing the Fringe walk/un-conference last weekend in Vilnius. The project is organized by curators Inga Lāce & Jussi Koitela. On site we were also hosted by Ula Tornau from the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC). Hooked up with old friends I met in Stockholm (Andrej Polukord, Flo Kasearu, Jon Benjamin Tallerås) and I was introduced to new friends Lara Almarcegui and Michele Matyn. The visit was eventful and tightly scheduled. Upon arrival we gave short introductions to our work and sociologist Siarhei Liubimou presented his research. He had identified that soviet nuclear power-plant workers form tightly related groups and resemble an ethnicity. The workers are highly specialized and under the states protection. They can carry out their entire working careers in relation to different power-plants, live in semi-closed communities and their offspring often continue the work.

Liubimous talk on how people moving daily between European cities for work, can be understood as the core of the emerging pan-European population, offered an interesting framework for viewing how the temporary Performing the Fringe artist-network is organized: Our group was brought together trough synchronous movement, which was steered by abstract spatial targets (instead of articulated aims). Example. In Vilnius we attempted to reach a TV tower by foot and in the process the entire landscape we passed, merely facilitated our joined movement. Our movement made the city into an abstract surface, which I believe we read primarily in relation to our joined movement. Relationships in the group were informed by the landscape but not defined by it.

The next day Lina Albrikiene took us on an emotional walk in her childhood surroundings. Later she took us on a walk in Lazdynai, a district supposedly modeled after Tapiola (I made a video about their relationship 2012). Kipras Dubauskas took our group under the city, we walked a kilometer in old rainwater tunnels. Some parts of the tunnels were build using bricks and others were made from newer materials. It was a time-trip of sorts – The city felt like an organism. We visited Delta Mityba in the evening for the exhibition and eating. We were kindly hosted by Robertas Narkus who gave us a tour of the space and shared his experiences in combating gentrification. The next day Vitalij Cerviakov took us on a toxic-walk to the “most polluted” parts of the city. As we walked the landscape revealed itself like a narration. A notable vista opened when we approached new grave yards, which were situated between a barren wasteland and an Ikea, our movement felt like a movie. I think that the banks, national internet server facilities and parliaments are more toxic then the route we took. Our group talked non-stop during the trip (expect on the latter walk which was a silent) and we spend the nights visiting art events around the city.

Through Cerviakov’s toxic-walk, I arrived to the understanding that the contemporary art we saw in the city was trying to develop a narrative or some other reasoning, to explain the current state of affairs. Experiences of city habitats and creatives are not commonly known and people we met exhibited a strong desire to share their story or present how they had come to terms with the post-state of affairs. I could feel the weigh-of-the-west forcing people to articulate their desires (even though most desires are best left unarticulated, this does not mean unexposed). It felt like artists were defined by this forced-reasoning-process, either trough their protest against it or skills in aligning with it. Nostalgia that looks to a future, which failed to arrive is a viable form of protest: Some future communists want only wool shirts, yogurt and to share the faint heat of their shelters.

Watched Rocky VI (1986) by Aki Kaurismäki after the trip and understood better: Beating the referee and the audience is the only way to win and winning is nothing. I was very inspired by the event and I’ve scribbling notes frantically since my return. The project will continue 2020.

Performed at Lal Lal Lal: Neptunalia 2019 at Tenho two weeks ago. Got on stage with Regular Dog, Pauliina Haasjoki, Reijo Pami, Sara Milazzo, Arttu Partinen & DJ Paukku. I presented a mineral water lecture which I brightened up using live fizzy water sounds (used an amp I build earlier). Ended my talk by preparing a batch of faux s.pellegrino using chalkstone from an ammonite fossil (talk notes in Finnish). My talk resonated particularly well with Haasjokis geological-poetry. Pami used a bucked of water as a sequencer, Partinen played moody ambient using cassettes, Milazzo had an array of tech on stage which she used to probe the dynamics of space and deep water exploration. Regular Dog was cute – Bought their cassette.