20170530

Flying to Brussels to meet horses inregards of the Signal festival.

Judith Butler’s book Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (2015).

“The people” are not a given population, but are rather constituted by the lines of demarcation that we implicitly or explicitly establish.

If performativity has often been associated with individual performance, it may prove important to consider those forms of performativity that only operate through forms of coordinated action, whose condition and aim is the reconstitution of plural forms of agency​ and social practices of resistance. So this movement or stillness, this parking of my body in the middle of another’s action, is neither my own nor yours, but something that happens by virtue of the relation between us, arising from that relation, equivocating between the I and we, seeking at once to preserve and disseminate the generative value of that equivocation, an active and deliberately sustained relation, a collaboration distinct from hallucinatory merging or confusion.

[…] we have to ask whether​ it is right that verbalization remains the norm for thinking about expressive political action. Indeed, we need to rethink the speech act in order to understand what is made and what is done by certain kind of bodily enactments: the bodies assembled “say” we are not disposable, even if they stand silently.

20170423

Listened to fffff.at/rip podcast. Surveillance state is upon us.

My talk for Hollo institute Utopia-seminar went reasonably well. I had some trouble framing the end of the talk.. I attempted to announce horselogical-pedagogy and engage in an open ended discussion but being surrounded by professors and emeritus professors the announcement came of as a joke. People laughed as I presented Adjunct Professor The Awaited Son. I laughed with them out of pity and tightened my fists. 

“So.. All of you are ok with horses taking your jobs?” I asked as people chuckled.

Currently in Oslo on route to Tromsø on a Trans-Horse affair. I’ll meet a horse today at 15:00 and perfom with it tomorrow at 10:00. The festival is called Vårscenefest. I’ll have a day for seeing the city before I return to continue work on Trans-Horse events for Sea Change by Otto Karvonen. In Vuosaari I’ll be handling horses with Susanna Airaksinen. I’ll have to travel to Brussels late May to meet with the Signal organization staff and the cities mounted police force. In June we’ll host a sound-art exhibition at Akustamata in Helsinki.

Visited Kontula Electronic and had a brief encounter with Martta Tuomaala. I didn’t get to talk about her “bodybuilding” project. She seemed to be stressed about the show. Also saw a children’s techno workshop.. It wasn’t as techno as expected. Kids triggered grooves from a launch pad, which kept the event noise free. Pop songs and kid’s toons were also played periodically. Children were dancing. I’ve been invited to host a children’s techno-workshop for NPTurku in the fall.

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.