Horse & Performance III course for the University of Arts Helsinki (Teak) went well. We worked with 10 students and two horses, learning how to care for animals and each others. Students gained elementary skills in reading design trough poststructuralist lenses and how to think with horses. The course lasted for five days. Yesterday students presented their demo-exercises for the group and I learned a lot about horses. Pietari and I concluded the evening by celebrating the course as the pinnacle of posthumanistic artist education.
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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.
Hevoslinja: Palkintoja ropisee
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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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Read a speech written by Päivi as “a man with a moustache which looks like the moustache of Kyösti Kallio” at the RaivioBumann (Raivio & Daniel Bumann) Hiljainen vieras / Silent Guest event. The performance was a part of Patsastellaan: Parties for Public Sculpture series organized by James Prevett (Taideyliopisto). The role of being just an actor/speaker felt nice.. I wasn’t as nervous as when I perform my own material.
Bought a Bastl Dude mixer for the upcoming Childrens Techno workshop (Teknomuskari) in Turku (NPTurku covers the expenses!). The mixer can also be used in Brussels next month. Made a website for our upcoming show wheredoyouwanttogofromhere.com. The Brussel gig is causing a lot of stress.. The recent attacks in Barcelona and Turku are adding to the mix. Working with horses is stressful, working with people is stressful and working in public spaces is stressful. To top it off, we are drafting strong arguments concerning the changing nature of public space (in relation to recent attacks) and framing climate change as a weaponized method of colonial dominance.
The booklist we’ve selected as our framework requires intensive learning. We are studying classics like Foucault, new material from Butler, new materialism/anthropocene inspired texts, the history of horses in European cities, re-reading Hribal and Eyal Weizman’s theories concerning the Arab Spring (The Roundabout Revolutions, Critical Spatial Practice 6, 2015). Majority of the text deal with infrastructure and how urban structures serve as authors of the modern self-regulating subjectivity. The texts (even the history of the horses) are centered around the concept of public assembly and examining how the concept of “the people” is build and used.
I guess part of the stress is caused by the indoctrination of these texts. Changing is stressful.. And I guess developing as an artist requires constant change.