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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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20170807

Ima Iduozee talks about radical dreaming, afrofuturism and dance on the Ruskeat tytöt blog. He focuses about the experience of alienation and presents social hacking as a tool for integration. The portrayal of hacking as integration is clever.. Perhaps social hacking would offer a more effective framework for developing cohabitation skills in general. Integration policies currently expect people to transform themselves into Finns. The hacking approach would allow them to stay as they are, while making the system work for them. He credits his time in the military as an eye opener: The uniform alienates (from a personal body) and grants access (to a general body). This aspect of the military would be very interesting to explore. Iduozee is hosting courses at Zodiak in the Autumn and I’m tempted to enroll.

But.. I wont have the time. My autumn is going to be very intensive. I’ll be leaving for Brussels in a month, stay there for two weeks and three days after returning perform in NPTurku festival. After Turku I’ll work as a workshop host for youth in Hyvinkää while working edit +20 hours of video material of the Mounted Police force of Helsinki and preparing for a show in Vuosaari with Vili Mustalampi. I’ve reached the point where I’d benefit from an assistant (and even afford to pay them).

Ruskeat tytöt blog has interesting new entries. Afrosuomen historiaa etsimässä (“In search for the history of Afro-Finland”) podcast investigates the history of Finnish colonialism and racism. Maija Baijukya demonstrates how Finnish colonialism begun early 1600. This is evident through figures like Clas Fleming and Hendrik Carloff. Finns were also present in the Belgian Congo starting from 1890 onwards (See Kongon Akseli for details) and in Namibia. The topic is very important but I think shes cutting corners. She makes a striking claims that the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission in Namibian helped to support Nazi eugenic experiments.

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20170323

Float like an artists, sting like an institution. #ॐ

The SOW: Blacksmith ed1 metadata .cvs asks for intensive work but I’ll try to have it ready by tonight. Witness evidences of labor online.

Shot video at the Helsinki mounted police crowd control training session in the morning. Inhaled training mace spray and horse manure. Horses marched through smoke and flags were waved. A gun was shot at random. The sun was low and the officers backlit. The event looked like a buddhistic ritual. I was offered the opportunity to join their training sessions with the defence forces. Unfortunately the session will take place on the same day as our Kontula Electronic gig. Morning with the horses and evening with techno. Art, spring, stress.

Dance lessons were fun and intensive. Learned some Pilates movements but hurt my wrist (The pain comes from poorly executed kettlebell lifts and unergonomic phone handling). Mr. Pilates believed that modern work and lifestyles have weakend our bodies and to fix us into shape he develloped the practice of Contrology (know today as Pilates). 

During the process of disemboweling charismatic authorities as political organizers – A mass of physical authorities telling us how to live in our bodies has a emerged. 

Wonder if there is some sort of Anarcolates out there which would aspire break our bodies? Movement is always relational (to body parts, others and spaces) which makes autonomy as a body impossible. Anarcolatic exercises would attempt to replace current relations with new codependencies. Such new codependencies should be toxic and work to free us from the temporality (history) of the body. Perhaps technology could be used to mutate us! A dancer providing and controlling the oxygen flow of an other with a pump serves as an simplified illustration.

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20170317

Studying at Zodiak Men’s Contemporary Dance classes has been fun. The movements we’ve practiced serve as brain-puzzles. So far the series we’ve done have not been very complexed or physically intensive. I’m using the opportunity to learn how to teach movement. Both classes have offered tricks for ground work. The official host Andrius Katinas was sick last night and we were taught by Ima Iduozee.

“By losing our notions of universality, transcendence and ultimately the notion of the real we have also lost the ability to change.”. A Star Wars Utopia and the Slow Cancellation of the Future by Zero Books.

Midway through the SOW: Blacksmith edits. Exporting the files too. The entire project will be around 1gb! Found a decent looking tool for adding metadata Kid3 – Audio Tagger.