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20190317

I have a strong urge to assemble a Elektrosluch. It is a “open-source device for electromagnetic listening”. The design is by Lom audio, which seems like a very fine organization. I’d like to attempt to develop a binaural unit and to experiment listening to the electromagnetic properties of water (when it is electrified in some way) to confirm that different batches of Faux San Pelligriano have the same consistency. I attempted to make an electromagnetic microphone last night (and to listen to it with my new Lm071 preamp) but the loose 3,5mm jack picked up more noise then the coil.

I’m feeling empowered by my new electronics skills but I lack a clear focus. I’m get inspired by everything. I’m trying to keep grounded and set my bearings by listening to still & stretched: a mute tumult of memories (2017) by Heather B. Frasch. Her gig at Control last autumn set a trajectory for my current sound work. Perhaps I should take my eurorack and other loose projects to Jesse’s smithy and attempt to formalize something in relation to the Sound of Work series. There is also the possibility to develop something with Kristian (kettlebells?) or to possibly drone out at Kontula Electronic.

I skipped the Zodiak “men’s advanced dance course” this fall. I have some plans for bodybuilding and holistic kettlebell moves. Here are some inspirational videos.

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20190128

SOW Blacksmith ed.1 spotted in the wild as a part of a Novation Circuit Sample Set! Some new entries in the Freesound.org comment page on the collection too. Feels really good to see the pack in use!

Ordered parts for a second Lorre-Mill uTone building session (more on that later – Planning to attach the unit to a 42hp blank eurorack panel). Also got parts for a PMFoundations Clock Divider (Eurorack PCB set). I now have an elementary set of modulation tools in the works. I’ll start compiling the units next month. The uTone will likely be build at Oodi. Odered parts from Digi-Key on Friday and they are already in Helsinki!

Saw dance works at Zodiak. Mira Kautto: Station to Station to Station was a faux-one-person-techno-party, framed as a reminiscence of the traces that past performances had left in the dancers body. Laura Jantunen: Talvi  was a monotonous, repetitive and pattern orientated piece. It placed human bodies and abstract electronic patterns on the same plane. I liked the experience of looking at human movement as a pattern but disliked the academic/neutral-tone of the work. For me the performance felt like a display of the concepts of repetition and patterns, rather then an exploration of them. Kaino liked work a lot and their text on the piece is a good read THE CIRCUIT I NEED: TALVI, A CHOREOGRAPHY BY LAURA JANTUNEN  (2019) Kaino Wennerstrand.

Also saw Their Limbs Their Lungs Their Legs at TeaK. I enjoyed the views and read the piece as a post-humanism for kids sort of show. The outer forms of the dancer bodies where changed with various disguises. Some parts were very humorous but it didn’t offer new insight to dance.

 

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20180627

Updated the Ore.e Ref. Trans-Horse page. The site is now over 10 years old (earliest Wayback machine save is from 2011)! Added new texts (on top of the old), new photos and new links. Particularly the Trans-Horse link list is convincing… Trans-Horse has produced new works annually for almost five years.

I also like that teaching has been a part of the project from the start. In 2014 we taught friends how to work with horses (from the ground) and we’ve managed to scale these sessions into a full-blown educational program, with lectures, horseface-to-humanface teaching methods and texts. We should write more. I’ve been in contact with IssueX about the possibility to write about the Horse and Performance III course. I wrote a summary of this years course on the Hevoslinja blog (in Finnish).

Listening to BRMRF on Soundcloud.

Getting prepared for my 6 month New York residency is ISCP (Which is supported by the Alfred Kordelin foundation). Leaving in 42 hours. Packing my synths, prepared computer transportation, prepped my Sebago docksiders and looked up a gym in Brooklyn. I’ll be in NY this Friday and have my first meetings next Monday. I’ll be writing about horses in NY on the Hevoslinja blog (in Finnish) and about general art/city-experiences on this site. On this site I’ll use the tag New York for all residency related texts and Trans-Horse for horse stuff. It might take me a week to get an internet connection working which means that posts might be uploaded in bundles.

I was informed that Riveting hammer – Ingersoll Rand – Start 4 (a sound from the SOW collection) is used in an episode of Stories of Yore and Yours podcast (the sound is heard at 16min 15sek). The episode is a reading of a short story called Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut (1961). The episode sound effect credit list is a fun read.

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20180418

We are publishing Oodi modular video teasers in preparation of our Kontula Electronic presentation on Saturday. The first is out on Viktors youtube site and another will be hopefully published on Kontula Electronic FB-site. (I posted the video on /r/synthesizers too, people have responded to it well) My 0-coast & Arturia Beat Step Pro studies are progressing steadily. Updated the devices and build a batch using both sequencers. I’m having trouble configuring the different midi modes (arpeggiators, latching, legato etc.) on the 0-coast and Beat Step Pro is very complicated too. Fun but complicated. I haven’t hooked them up with my Drumbrute yet… But I tested the lfos of my Kastl on the 0-coast.

Wrote a proposal for a techno-gig-talk at the Exhibiting Sounds of Changes seminar in Tampere (in June). My proposal for a Sound of Work: Blacksmith presentation was accepted into the program, which is nice! But I feel cheated. They made their call with an obscure text: “Participation is without a fee; however travel, accommodation and daily living are at your expense.“. I had read “[…] at our expense” – Thinking that they would have covered travel expenses and offered a lunch for people presenting at the seminar.

I’m down for throwing a gig for the love of art, research, labor issues and sounds but paying for the travel is too much to ask. Their project is founded by the Creative Europe programme and the event is organized by Werstas the Finnish Labor Museum. I send them a message asking for a confirmation on how the expenses are handled and got a reply: Speakers are expected to pay for their own participation. No food, no promises of coffee… Nothing.

Their project is about archiving and presenting sounds of work. I offered them a worker making sounds (referring to labor struggles through techno and critical views to samplers and their relationship to appropriation). The Finnish Labor Museum as a culture factory (as defined by Steyerl) producers workers as dead echoes of the past. #☭

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20180331

Sound of Work: Blacksmith is linked as a “sound publication” on the Finnish Society for Acoustic Ecology website. It’s right next to publications made by Meri Kytö – Which is very flattering! Her article on modern cities as acoustic spaces (Moderni kaupunkilaisuus akustisena järjestyksenä 2011) was a very influential text when I worked on the Hear and There+ project for Ihme-days.

Also discovered a EU funded labor themed audio archive project Work with Sound (my favorite sound is Pump). There is going to be an international conference in Tampere in June Exhibiting Sounds of Changes. I send them a proposal for a gig!

Send a grand-application for Frame. Asked for 500€ to have my Land- and Environmental Art Conservation article translated into English. I proposed to make it into a A5 size booklet (like Gastroeconomy 2014) with bw illustrations (like in Reseptejä Kemistä 2013).