Friday, April 4, 2025 at 18-20 – free entry –
Vuotalo Culture House, Mosaiikkitori 2, Helsinki
AKUSMATA POLYPHONIC 2025 is an intensive sound art and electronic music event at the Vuotalo Cultural Center in Helsinki. The artists coming to Akusmata Polyphonic will bring new and special projects to the event, offering the audience a broad view of the latest sound expression in the fields of experimental and electronic music, sound art, artificial intelligence, brainwave (EEG) sound expression and improvisation from abroad and Finland.
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KORAY TAHIROĞLU
Koray Tahiroğlu is a musician, researcher and the founder and head of SOPI (Sound and Physical Interaction) research group, coordinating research projects with interests including AI and Music Creativity, New Interfaces for Musical Expression, Digital Musical Instruments and Sonic Interaction Design.
Tahiroğlu has performed experimental music in collaboration as well as in solo performances in Europe, North America and Australia. His work has been presented in venues such as Ars Electronica, AI x Music Festival, Sònar, STEIM, TodaysArt Festival. In 2018, he was awarded a 5-year Academy of Finland Research Fellowship. He is lecturer at the Aalto University School of ARTS.
“COMMUNAL”
Tahiroğlu’s composition “Communal” is one of a set of performances where the performer and the musical instrument work together to direct, suggest and form a transitional musical narrative. For this performance, the piece takes the form of a collective that allows us to recognise the deeper transformations in the use of AI technologies towards co-determining how music can be present for and perceived by human musicians and audience.
The piece was composed using the tools we develop as part of AI-terity and GANSpaceSynth projects. In the context of new interfaces for musical expression, AI technologies serve an integral role today, offering new perspectives to experiment on the ways in which a musical instrument manifests itself in human-technology relation, finding ways to embody itself into the otherness.
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LOOPERS’ ORCHESTRA
A Loop is a repeating section of sound material. Short sections can be repeated to create ostinato sound patterns. Longer sections can be repeated to create textures or sequence of a composition in order to play along with it, accompanying themselves. The feature to loop a section of an audio track is also referred to by electronics vendors as A–B repeat.
Loops can be created using a wide range of music technologies including looper pedals, synthesizers, tape machines, delay units, turntables, digital samplers, and sequencers, and the loops can be programmed using computer music software.
Live looping is the recording and playback of a piece of music in real-time using dedicated hardware devices called loopers or phrase samplers.
MUSICIANS
Petri Kuljuntausta, electronics & composition
Henri Lindström, percussions
Jukka Andersson, synths
Sonja Peuhkurinen, flute
Jarkko Lahti, synths
Kenneth Kovasin, daxophone
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ALPHA XIAO
Per Huttner & William Stafford & Petri Kuljuntausta
Alpha Xiao is an experimental musical group consisting of a portable electroencephalagraph (EEG) modulating designed audio samples in real time (Per Huttner) and a traditional Chinese flute called a Xiao (William Stafford). The two person constellation focuses musically on connectivity through rough sketches of compositions, sounds and themes. As brain waves influence certain dynamics of the sound, and vice versa, a type of feedback loop is generated between the activities of the brain and sound produced ad infinitum.
For the concert in Helsinki, Petri Kuljuntausta will join the group and Alpha Xiao drawn on his brain activity and musical skills through the EEG.
Alpha Xiao has been active in its musical exploration of mental and musical space since 2020. They often collaborate with other musicians and artists in different constallations. They have worked with visual artist Olav Westphalen and Sebastian Campbell of God Mother. They have also created music for Fabien Guillermont and Toan Van Che’s full-length documentary “Reality Check” in 2024. Alpha Xiao’s participation is produced by MKP and supported by the Nordic Culture Fund.