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20170805

Interesting experiment with mG2! Made a piano roll in Logic X which triggered samples (through midi) that I chopped from an interview of my grandfather. mG2 can play 6 samples per bank but it accepts program changes to access new sample banks (I think it can have over 60 banks). I wrote program change messages in the piano roll so I could access all of the interview samples through Logic X. I could experiment chopping an interview into samples (which I would keep in the synth) and edit the interview using some kind of (partially automated) drum system. Instead of editing an interview this approach would synthesize the voice of a person. As discussed with Pietari editing an interview can be approached as some kind of narrative-granular-synthesis.

Succeeded in building an almost functional midi clock sync between Automatonism and external midi gear!

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20170803

Omar Souleyman’s Björk – Crystalline remix (2012) is the future. His new album To Syria, With Love is available on Soundcloud. Es Samra is my favorite so far.

A new episode of Somewhere I’ve Never Been by Steph Kretowicz & Kaino Wennerstrand is available on Mixcloud. Apparently they are publishing each episode through a different channel. I guess it’s fitting to the theme of the book. I’ve enjoyed the episodes so far and I think they should translate it into Finnish and sell it to Yle. The Ableton Live automations on Kretowicz’s voice could be easily used for an actor speaking Finnish. Sari TM Kivinen would have the perfect accent.

All of the episodes of Pietari’s podcast series Pietari K. kävi täällä for Yle are now online. The episode on Kalle Päätalo as a cyborg is particularly fun. Lawrence Lek’s Sinofuturism (2016) is mentioned.

Returning soulfully to Soundcloud with a mG2 fuelled moods.

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20170404

Major updates at Ore.e Ref. main site (10 years of celebration!). The biggest structural updates are internal: Cleaned dead links, re-organized the folder structure (./media, ./praxis) and relinked files to corresponding .html pages. Also added company staff (Eleonoora Lundell, Päivi Raivio, Hanna Karppinen & Pietari Kylmälä) and reframed Ore.e Ref. as “a public utility company”. While working on the site I found a lot of cute stuff (like a copperplate sale announcement and an attempt to make an interpretation of the company logo from 2011). Also noticed that NO-CHAIR-DESIGN in featured on a top 100 design manifestos list. The site is still missing an announcement of the Meta- Collection. I’ll start working on it during the summer. I guess it will be hosted on the “projects” page.

Got a call from a random English speaking copper scavenger asking if I could buy his 100kg batch. Referred him to Niemen romukauppa and provided him with the addresses, contact details and bus schedules. This isn’t the first time Ore.e Ref. has caused strange enquiries. Once I got a call from Rick DuBois a Sea captain from Imperial Yachts. He wanted Ore.e Ref. to repair a ventilation ring while the boat was docked in Helsinki (Unfortunately Jesse was busy at the time so forwarded the commission to Kylmateras.fi). Ore.e Ref. website might look shady for creatives but it spells P-R-O-F-E-S-S-I-O-N-A-L for people who need of custom metalworks.

Visited Homage 1 at TeaK yesterday. The piece was choreographed by Janina Rajakangas, featured nine dancers and it dealt with emotions. Rajakangas explained that she was exploring dance as a stylized convention for movement which is primed by the dancers desire to portrays emotions/feelings on stage. The approach was analytical. Dancers working on stage presented themselves as emotional teflon by swapping their moods and gestures impulsively. In a dicussion after the piece Rajakangas talked about “tunteet” and “tunteiden esittäminen” but I’m not sure if she was talking about emotions, moods or feelings. The audience (consisting of dancers) talked about the piece using weird vocabulary. They asked Rajakangas if she was interested in “liikkeen laatuisuus”. This apparently meant “the formal structure of movement”. “Kehon laatuisuus” was also to describe specific muscular tensions. People were trying to sort out if the emotions the dancers portrayed were real of formal representations emotions. I don’t know.. Everything looked fake to me.

I read the piece as a critique of contemporary dance. It’s statement was: If artists can acquire​ emotional-teflon-skills and they truly can swap their emotions on cue or if the dancers can make the audience believe that their emotions are true by using specific gestures… Then it must mean that the emotions they perform on on stage categorically fake or that the audience is gaullable (or crazy).

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20161215

They want us to use our bodies as keys. Fingerprints and iris scanners open doors.

The Cruel Radiance of What Is course came to an end. My last teaching gig was on Monday but all of the students skipped class! Only 2-4 students attended the course in general so their absence didn’t feel like a protest. People who joined the kettlebell workout were really delighted of the style of teaching I’m currently into. We met with Mikko, Miina & Arttu and two students yesterday for our final joined meeting. We ended up talking chop but the event was fun.

Visited Perfo performance event in Tampere on Thursday. Saw performances by Asko Nivala (a “failed Hannibal Lecter” / meet-is-murder cabaret), Suvi Suvereeni (a very fluid collaboration with Siri the intelligent personal assistant. A low key, personal approach to the technology yielded revelations on how the technology perceives us!), Tuuli Tuikka (an anti-art & anti-capitalism manifest on how nature and creative experiences are commodified. She shredded and packaged a flower into plastic containers) and Joulumaa (a four member noise ensemble doing a faux-ritualistic, holistic noise show. The sounds were too orchestrated for my taste and their stage work came of as flamboyant. I did get to see a 16 channel mixer being used as a percussion instrument, which is a novel sight).

After the festival I chatted with Janne Rahkila about rejoining the Perfo crew for next year. I’d continue working with the streaming system.. I’m hesitant about the gig. I don’t believe in live-video streams anymore. Perhaps I should make interviews of the artists as text and brief synopses of their performances instead. Also met with Timo Bredenberg and we had the last meeting of our “In the Flow” (Groys 2016) reading circle (some ideas in the book are useful but the authors style is too tandy).

I’m now preparing for a grant award event at the Taidehalli. I got a “The Young Artist Grant” from the Finnish Art Society. Also got a techo gig (with a workout theme) for next years Kontula Electronic. I’ll likely be joined by Kristian Ekholm (and Pietari if he finds the time. I haven’t talked about this with him yet). Also got news from Antoine that our Trans-Horse proposal for Signal festival is being processed by the production crew.

Uplifting news all around.

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20161112

“Don’t work for the job you have. Work for the job you want”. (2016) Pietari Kylmälä. #ॐ

Joined “Amen 2” launch gig at Konepajan Bruno by Anthonys invitation. The album is the second instalment of Mikko Joensuus Amen trilogy which is published by Svart Records. Amen 1 concert at the St. John’s Church left a good expression. A sample on soundcloud offers a glimpse to the massive sounds. 

Guitars glimmering and people crying. A group of young men were talking about the moment they felt the touch of god for the first time (at home while watching TV). The gig felt more produced than the first concert and unfortunately the flow of individual songs came off as repetitive. The tones were made to shed tears. Anthony was playing Prophet 6 and singing.

There was a special guy in the audience. People shot video of the events highlights (visuals were a bit dull). Suddenly this guy lifted his hands and posed in a gesture as if he had a phone between his hands. He kept his empty hands in the pose trough a song and made a mental recording. This made very one shooting video look ridiculous.