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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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20171207

ERD/WORM an eurorack module with soil as one of the components announced by artist Martin Howse. He is also running interesting (but expensive) Wormed Voice -workshops in London.

Took part in the independence day protest events with Pietari. We followed the mounted police through the night. The evening was uneventful and I have a hangover.

Preparing my presentation for the Creative Commons and Art seminar tomorrow at the Pori Art Museum.

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20170904

Forget Wall Street – Silicon Valley is the new political power in Washington by Olivia Solon & Sabrina Siddiqui (for The Guardian)

“Their theory is that democracy is an impedance to capitalism so they need as little regulation as possible”

During the 1990s, In the early days of the dotcom era, internet companies flourished in Silicon Valley by skirting the law, moving fast and breaking things. Such techno-libertarianism was founded on the belief that borderless cyberspace was separate from the physical realm and therefore not subject to the same rules.

[…] Silicon Valley’s tech leaders have a short memory: their companies were built on a foundation of government intervention and public monies.

Born Sexy Yesterday by Pop Culture Detective (Jonathan McIntosh) investigates naive-but-sexy female characters portrayed sci-fi movies and identifies them as fantasies for the colonial gaze. These characters are build on an older, racist narratives about indigenous women and white men. The interpretation feels legit.. In Finland similar characters have been written to illustrate the relationships between urban and rural communities. A male graduate from the city arrives to the countryside and meets with a farmworker girl. The graduate fights of her brutish suitors (often alcoholics) and marries the girl. These stories are not sci-fi movies but they are rooted on modernistic fantasies.

Performed at the Lauttasaari street-party over the weekend. Got on stage after a show by the Moomin characters! Our part in the event was a part of the Neighborizome project we are working on with Leena Kela and Heini Aho (recently announced on the Koneensäätiö website). We were introduced on stage by Anna Talasniemi. Some evidence on the event on Instagram. We found five potential condominium-collaborators to work with.

My Dude mixer arrived to day. I’m very happy with the quality of the sound. It amplifies mic level signals neatly and delivers a balanced stereo mix (almost makes a sm58 mic audible with out a preamp). The over-amplification/saturation sound mixing feature works with rhythmic material, it seems to follow beats (haven’t tested the feedback yet). I guess I’ll make a tutorial on how it works with different audio sources for Pietari. The only disappointment is that it doesn’t have a separate light to indicate when the device is on (Open lines are indicated with leds). There is a serious issue with channels 4&5 and I’m in contact with Bastl to have the unit replaced/fixed.

Here is a video showing issues with mics and here is a video showing issues with synths (ts & trs connectors). Leoš from Bastl-Help guided me to reheat the contacts in an effort to fix the problem. Unfortunately I couldn’t get it to work. As I was poking inside the mixer I noticed a lot of fast and dirty soldering work – Which was disappointing. Some connections didn’t seem to have any solder in them! I’m now waiting for news on how long it will take to be replaced (the delivery of this unit took two weeks). I need to have the mixer repaired and delivered by 15.9.

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20180828

Anti-Calisthenics (2017). The workout video of the century! Shared-Bodyweight training as a model for bodybuilding.

Visited Tuomas A. Laitinen Thermoscene exhibition at Sinne. Heard the end of the Biitsi performance. Came too late to form an opinion on the music. The piece we saw with Pietari was some kind of poetry jam.