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20230125

Visited Oodi Maija-sali for the SOLA Post-Festival Club. Came late, left early but enjoyed a cinematic performance by Minerva Juolahti. They stood in front of the audience in a dark room with their back leaning against a huge black stage curtain and held a mirror which redirected a projector light beam towards the audience. An odd drone was heard and the mirror trembled a bit as they held it. The reflection which they reprojected onto the floor in front of them shivered like a tongue trying to keep still. The projector showed a slow film of intersecting squares, which corresponded with the shape and size of the mirror. One of these beams remained in place, constantly directed at the mirror. The black curtain folds bent the moving white rectangles, allowing gradients to form on the curtain velvet, which made them appear as floating metal sheets.

This scene lasted for quite a while. The floating metal sheets passed the screen and only the beam directed at the mirror was left. Juolahti then turned the mirror and directed its beam to a disco ball which re-reprojected the projection so that the entire room and everyone in the space was touched by miniscule square rays of light. The projection square then began moving upwards disappearing outside of the screen. As it rose Juolahti followed its movement with the mirror they held and as it went over their reach, they lowered the mirror and suddenly a hairly drone whipped across the room. The sound was revealed emanating from the mirror sheet. The shivers of the reprojections had been produced by a solid transducer attached to its back, which revealed the drone and the reflection being of the same.

I would have loved to listen to the gig with a light to sound device. Ilpo Numminen played the Oodi-modular and presented it as an “instrument” which was a delight. The gig explored feedback loops and krell-like patches. Looking forwards to visiting SOLA on Friday too for gigs by Tomutonttu and Tina Mariane Krogh Madsen. (The gigs where last May)

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20200102

We dismantled the Bifi Studio exhibition last week. There were just shy of 30 visitors on the last day. I spend a lot of time listening to the rotating wood-disks being scraped with different materials. The experience informed me of rotation as a medium. Vinyl records only make sound when the disk rotates, which means that the rotation (or movement) is a part or a medium of the sound. Writing this observation as a sentence feels weird but when thinking about it at the gallery made complete sense.

I took the idea to my studio and aligned a laser to a gramophone record, so that the record grooves cast a reflection. I used my Lite2Sound PX unit to convert the reflection into sound! Here is a short proof of concept video: Laser Gramophone. My plan is to build a miniature rail track around a tree and attach the laser & Lite2Sound PX to a motorized cart which drives around the hull of the tree. This device will make a tree surface topography audible. I plan to use a wireless audio transmitter so that I can use the sound in my eurorack signal chain.

A review of the exhibition in Swedish: Konstkollen – Växternas hemliga liv, skeppsbrott och annat väsen (2020) Pontus Kyander. The text commemorates the didactic tone of the exhibition and celebrates the approach as “simple and brilliant”.

Duon bakom BIFI närmar sig musik- och ljudskapandet med fiffighet och en generöst inbjudande hållning till besökaren. De hjälper till och berättar utan att man ens behöver fråga. Det är enkelt och alldeles lysande.

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20191025

Visited Monstera by Essi Kausalainen at Mad House. I liked the performance and particularly enjoyed a minimalistic stepping dance the performers executed towards the end of the show. It felt like a simplified version of cicapo or some other court dance. Perhaps something enjoyed by Carl Linnaeus in the ballrooms of his era. Linnaeus’ work in starting the modern system of naming organisms had inspired the performance and he was heavily present in a séance-like segment before the dance. In a talk before the show Kausalainen pondered if the act of naming a thing could be read as an attempt to show affection towards it. The step-dance also reminded me of compulsory or involuntary movements people perform when idling (while waiting for a bus etc). The dance informed me of a vegetative movement or motion, which is possibly intrinsic to all living things. The practice of the performers felt like an amplification of this auto-movement and when performed collectively by the group, it felt like a method of building solidarity trough the lowest common nominator (which for me is idling).

Etched and build a Bastl Skis Expander 1u and assembled a Lite2Sound PX unit by Rare Waves. I want to send audio across space using leds and laser beams. Tested it yesterday sending audio form my Disting Mk4 using a bipolar led thing I build and it works well. I’m looking for a red laser which I can use to draw on material surfaces, so that the Lite2Sound converts the shapes of the surface to sound (much like a vinyl needle). I want to hear textures. I used a fee from a wedding gig (manufactured mineral waters, read poetry and served as a bartender) to acquire a spring tank (Accutronics 9EB2C1B) and I’m making made a 1u expanded for the Spring Reverb mkII.

What does sending audio in a laser beam trough parkling water, spatialized by a spring reverb (which feedback agitates the water) sound like? What will the surface of a slab of wood sound like when played like a vinyl? Do grooves of bark sound what they feel like?