* * *
Opening LIVE EVENT on Thursday, 5.9.2019, at 18.00
illmari (spoken word)
Mikko H. Haapoja (jouhikko, soundscapes)
Elina Aho-Brennan (live painting)
How does the city sound and how does it feel to just listen the city? The Routes of Helsinki leads one to a sonic journey from the rapids of Vanhakaupunki to bright summer nights in downtown and to listen the sounds recorded inside the Hanasaari B coal power plant.
The Routes of Helsinki (Helsingin reitit) is a soundscape project created by media & sound artist Mikko H. Haapoja and it consists of various audio-visual and sound art works. The project has focused on the changing soundscapes of Helsinki since 2010, on boundaries between nature and the city. In addition to the sound art compositions and media art installations, The Routes of Helsinki offers ’Sound Landscapes’ performances with live painting, music and urban poetry.
The Routes of Helsinki 2010-2020 exhibition offers inspiring urban exploring in the form of rare and familiar Helsinki sounds, and its first installation will happen in Sound Art Gallery Akusmata in September 2019.
Mikko H. Haapoja is a versatile media artist & music professional – a producer, composer, musician and sound engineer from Helsinki, Finland. Haapoja works fluently with various music genres from acoustic folk music to contemporary electronic music, from alternative rap to indie pop.
Since 2014, Haapoja’s media & sound art projects The Routes of Helsinki & Oases from HEL have been presented in many galleries in Helsinki and New York, in Helsinki City Museum and in public city space, including metro platforms of Helsinki Central Railway station. Meanwhile, Haapoja has also recorded and mixed various global music albums like Okra Playground’s ‘Turmio’ and Nathan Riki Thomson solo LP.
ÉMILIE PAYEUR (CAN) Émilie Payeur is a multidisciplinary artist from Montreal, Canada, mainly active in experimental music and visual arts. Her music, often described as minimalist and sometimes harsh, is mainly based on the no-input technique and on risk-taking. In her visual work, she is interested in the traces she perceives as remnants of actions from the past; also in the manipulation of reality, of others views and her own view. Emilie has a master’s degree in electroacoustic music composition from the Université de Montréal and her work has been performed all over the world and has received numerous awards, both in Canada and internationally.
Émilie is a member of Dead Squirrels (noise music trio), Kohlenstoff Records (label and experimental music collective), Projet K (experimental ensemble), Moshi Moshi (experimental and Kawaii audio/visual trio) and Jeunesse Cosmique (music label and cosmic family). She also plays in the Giri Kedaton Gamelan. Émilie’s performance at Akusmata will be an attempt at going somewhere else musically speaking and hopefully magic will happen.
PROJECT VO (JPN/FI/GER)
Rieko Okuda, keys
Antti Virtaranta, double-bass
Project VO (JPN/GER/FI) is an improvising duo between double-bassist Antti Virtaranta and pianist Rieko Okuda. Since their first album, glass hopper, 2012, they have continued expanding their creative ways of navigating the free improvisation landscape. The combination of piano and bass has taken Project VO on a sonic journey that keeps pushing them constantly to new directions.
Japanese-born pianist, composer and multi-instrumentalist Rieko Okuda, have made a name among new generation of the Berlin improvised scene. She settled in Europe after MA in piano at Juilliard School of Music in New York. In the USA she worked with saxophonist and a bandleader Bob Mintzer at first, following stints with Jon Faddis and John Fedcheck. Joining a band of alto-saxophonist Marshall Allen of Sun Ra Arkestra followed, for two years, working also with Elliot Levine, cellist of Cecil Taylor, and Calvin Weston, drummer of Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time Band. In Berlin, she develops projects with double-bassist Antti Virtaranta with whom she plays in Project VO and Akvariettrio. Her another piano trio is called Cleaning Each Other, as much as collaborations with musicians like Audrey Chen, Els Vandeweyer, Susanne Zapf, Yuko Kaseki, Axel Dörner, Norbert Stammberger, and Otto Szabolcs Horvath, a.o.
Antti Virtaranta is a Finnish bassist and composer. He began his music journey at 17 years old focusing on Jazz music, attending University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Quickly he was introduced to free jazz and experimental electronic music, and this changed everything. He moved to Berlin to join the vibrant scene of improvisers, starting projects with many musicians and developing his own sound. Currently he is focused on expressing his voice in music and sound through composition and improvisation. Using his influences from jazz and rock music and self-taught contemporary music, his musical language is formed. Nowadays, his focus is on concepts and compositions for solo bass and solo electronics, and using non-conventional notations. These ideas develop and are imposed into the small groups (duos and trios) and larger ensembles that he is involved with to create instant composition in his varying projects, which include collaborations with dancers and visual artists, on top of the numerous musicians he works with.
JUKKA KÄÄRIÄINEN – NATALIA CASTRILLON DUO
Jukka Kääriäinen is a finnish musician specialised in experimental and free improvised music. Jukka’s instruments vary between plain acoustic and prepared guitar to back bag of pedals, live-electronics and bowed electric guitar. Jukka has toured many European countries such as Italy, Hungary, France, Germany, Russia and Estonia. Alongside solo concerts Jukka has been collaborating with musicians like Teppo Hauta-Aho, Emilio Gordoa, Mikko Innanen, Kalle Kalima, Paul Pignon, Harri Sjöström, Jone Takamäki, Roomet Jakapi, and Pauli Lyytinen.
Natalia Castrillón is a versatile harpist from Colombia interested in improvisation and the experimental sound possibilities of the pedal and lever harp. She has collaborated with artists from different music genres and disciplines such as theatre, dance and contemporary improvised music. Natalia plays actively in different projects that include Latin American, West African, World, and Experimental Improvised Music. She graduated from Caldas University (Colombia), and also studied harp, chamber music, symphony orchestra, music theory and ear training at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Colombia). In addition, she worked as a music and harp teacher at Fundación Nacional Batuta in Colombia.
JARI MARJAMÄKI – TATU METSÄTÄHTI + RASMUS HEDLUND
+ VJ Ville Kuvaja
Wednesday, June 18, 2019.
Doors 18:30, Showtime: 19:00
Marjamäki/Metsätähti
Jari Marjamäki (Zentex) on Portugalissa asuva muusikko, DJ ja äänitaiteilija. Hän on toiminut teknotuottajana ja tapahtumajärjestäjänä, sekä suhinoinut kokeellista musiikkia soolona ja erilaisissa kokoonpanoissa jo yli 20 vuoden ajan. Tällä hetkellä hän pyörittää myös Desterro-nimistä vaihtoehtoista keikkapaikkaa Lissabonin keskustassa.
Tatu Metsätähti (Mesak) on – Marjamäen tapaan – Turusta maailmalle paennut äänityöläinen. Helsingissä nykyään vaikuttava muusikko on tasapainoillut avantgarden ja klubimusiikin molemmin puolin koko uransa ajan, ja on sotkeentunut myös nk. skweee-liikkeeseen.
Akusmatassa kaksikko esiintyy ensimmäistä kertaa yhdessä. Luvassa on ainutkertainen, elektroniseklektinen ambient-teos joka nojaa vahvasti improvisaatioon.
Rasmus Hedlund on monialainen muusikko jonka sävellyksiä voi kuulla elokuvissa, teatterissa ja kuvataiteessa. Hänen monista projekteistaan yksi tunnetuimmista lienee Ljudverket-levymerkki.
Akusmatassa esitettävässä konsertissa eri äänilähteistä pulppuavat sähkösignaalit muokataan ohjainten säätövipujen avulla sopivaan muotoon kulkemaan kuparijohtoja pitkin päätevahvistimeen, josta signaaliketjun päässä oleva kaiutin lopuksi muuntaa sen ihmiskeholle vastaanotettavaksi ääniaalloksi.
The producer of the event is Akusmata, the first sound art gallery in Finland. The event is supported by Vuotalo Cultural Centre and Nordic Culture Fund / Puls.
ARTISTS
HARALD FETVEIT
(NO)
Harald Fetveit started to play noise in the mid-eighties. He has developed a characteristic, forward-leaning sound, often full of ruptures and rapid dynamic changes. He was educated in visual arts, and has worked with site specific installations and photography, but also been involved in contemporary dance and performance art, with a.o. Baktruppen. Since 2003, he has been running “Dans for voksne”, a series for experimental concerts and related activities, and has played a major role in the development of Oslo’s experimental music scene.
His focus has always been on the live-setting. He has played with people like Junko Hiroshige, Hankli Ryu, Mattin, Lucio Capece, John Hegre, Jim Denley and Anla Courtis, with whom he also collaborates in the project DNA? AND? with kids with mental disabilities. He is currently active with drummer Thomas Oxem in their duo SKÆVV and with sax-player Dario Fariello in their duo Sciardac. “Norway’s finest improvising noise/voice duo” has been stated on his latest album with vocal artist Agnes Hvizdalek, the album was released in November 2018.
haraldfetveit.no
soundcloud.com/user-438589218
sanntidsmusikk.bandcamp.com/
SONJA TOFIK
(SE)
Sonja Tofik makes intimate and often melancholic ambient that draws upon influences from folk music and noise. Her distorted and slowly lulling synth loops are paired with folk-inspired vocal melodies and field recorded samples, a haunting sound both atmospheric and anguished. Through intimate and subdued synth music, echoing of organ harmonies, Tofik creates a realm of sonic shadows. In 2017, she released her debut EP ’Neuros’, and ’Vilar i dina spår’ together with Marlena Lampinen, both on the label Moloton. Previous shows include, among others; Fylkingen, Stockholm, Moderna museet, Stockholm, and Intonal festival, Malmö. Tofik is part of Stockholm studio collective Drömfakulteten. She lives in Stockholm and Berlin.
Fredrik Mathias Josefson has for several years worked in the area between sound art and electroacoustic compositions and questioned concepts such as installation and concerts. His artwork, performed in this concert, titled ‘What Can I Say To Convince You That All My Happiness Is In Loving You?’, is an example of this and the question is raised: what is an installation, what is a composition?
Recently, Fredrik Mathias Josefson’s focus has been to spatialize sound in compositions for high-density speaker arrays and within that format create sound environments of artificial field recordings and sound objects. The speaker elements make the air vibrate — a vibration which reaches the ears like sound. In this work, the vibrations have shifted from the air to the objects, from the intangible to the physical. The work has a narrative, but what is manifested is a short slice in this narrative. Time is frozen, but nothing is still – everything is vibrating. Josefson is active in the international experimental and electroacoustic music and art scenes with over thirty albums and over a hundred concerts. He lives and works in Stockholm and Hamburg where he is researching at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg.
BraidedSOUND is a series of improvisational site-specific experimental ensembles that operate off a graphic score designed by Jesse Perlstein. These performances celebrate collaboration, improvisation and interpretation, ensuring that each performance is a unique experiment unto itself. Braided Sound also strives to be as global as possible, connecting artists from different backgrounds, genres and cultures both musically and spiritually.
For BraidedSOUND’s Helsinki debut we have invited some amazing local musicians (and two foreign) to join the ensemble.
Every performance is a chance to rethink the very building blocks upon which my compositional practice is founded, but invitational opportunities to perform with new creative collaborators in far away countries welcome both excitement and logistical challenges.
While this project draws on a deep familiarity with graphically notated score history, from that of Cage and Cardew and Stockhausen among many others, BraidedSOUND distances itself from the aesthetics and behaviors of “concert music” almost entirely—we are rather seeking to explore and define a contemporary use of the graphic score as a map, the compass and legend of which must be figured out with every single new performance, by every participating artist, together as a unit, in every new space and every different city, and using the hybrid sonic avenues of electronic and acoustic elements as its toolkit.
Marja Ahti‘s album Vegetal Negatives is released March 29 by the Swiss label Hallow Ground. It is a game of sonic mutations, mimicry, inversions, and association inspired by a text called “On pataphotograms”, by the French writer René Daumal – a quasi-metaphysical essay that toys with breaking the conceived separateness of natural forms through poetic imagination.
The four electroacoustic compositions on the album combine and arrange field recordings, electronic feedback, Buchla and ARP synthesizers, bowl gong and harmonium, textures of detailed acoustic sound, and sustained tones with gentle microtonal beating into a precise musical narrative. She juxtaposes recordings of rooms and empty vessels, natural and artificial climates, spontaneous and staged events. Ahti draws upon Annea Lockwood’s ideas about associative movements between sounds based on shared characteristics and sonic energy. Her approach to field recordings is neither diaristic, documentaristic, nor purely acousmatic, but rather it starts out from somewhere in between these notions: the sounds hover between abstraction and the deeply familiar, moving into a realm of poetic metaphor where they are set in relation to each other, fleetingly mirroring or shadow-dancing.
Marja Ahti (b. 1981) is a Swedish-born artist living and working in Turku, Finland. She has been an active part of the Finnish experimental music scene for more than ten years. This is her debut LP under her own name.
Kati Roover is an Estonian-Finnish visual artist based in Helsinki. In her works she approaches environmental changes through poetic imagination. Roover’s interests include human-non-human interaction, natural sciences, anthropology, special places, deep listening and documentary essay film. She works with moving image, photography, sound, text and installations.
Kati Roover will present a sound work, H2O – Creatures that was recently exhibited at Titanik Gallery in Turku. In the working process she has looked at the massive cultural changes where water’s cyclical time were condensed into simple H2O form. The mythical stories of water gave way to the linear time defined by a man. Human watery organs and the efficient processes created by them, work as modifiers of water structure and it’s flows in the environment. Water has become a commercially available, manageable and disappearing material or a hidden landfill. However, as an element, water is still like a permeable channel, a cyclical cycle of time and an all-embracing sensor: by its very nature, a state that registers change and challenges the senses to a different experience of reality.
ÄÄNIAALTO, the annual festival of audiovisual oddity, exhibits multichannel audio, VR, interactive and bioart sonic installations from Wednesday 13.3 to Saturday 16.3 at Akusmata. The official opening of the exhibition is on Wednesday 13.3 at 17:00.
We are collaborating with Akusmata to display the works of LenaoooYuki, Olga Palomäki, Otso Sorvettula and Lauri Linna. The programme also includes two live performance, Stephen Christopher Stamper on Friday 15.3 and Autotel with his Calculeitors on Saturday 16.3.
LenaoooYuki – Sonic Illustrations
The room is divided into areas, which address different momentums of senses (visual, acoustic, durational, pictorial, spatial, associative, …) in which thoughts about sounds could be crystallized within one’s mind. Different brain areas might be observed in a proprioceptive way. A sense for the notion of a virtual representation of a real object or the perceptive split when encountering a media depicted person in real life might be considered a relatively new perceptive momentum.
Thinking of how to relate to sound / sonic phenomena throughout the ever-changing ecology of perception in analog / digital constellations (after Bergson) is possible.
The VR part is through thin acoustic wires fusing a virtual space and the mostly analog experience corners of the exhibition space to symbolize a mind which might be in a future a fusion of analog and digital experiences and therefore bodily partly detached memories. The virtual reality part is a collaboration with artist / musician Carlos Ortiz (Colombia), graduate from University of Arts, Berlin.
(The installation is through its chemical compounds and emotional experience range supposed to be child friendly.)
Lena Andrea Haberberger, former exchange student at Sound in New Media (Aalto University Helsinki, Department of Arts, Design & Architecture) and graduate in Sound Studies (University of Arts, Berlin), is at the moment engaging philosophically and artistically with synaesthetic or inter-modal phenomena that might depict experiences or phenomena in a figurative and illustrative way.
Olga Palomäki – Water Connection
Water Connection (2019), is a 4-channel sound installation. The work is based on field recordings that were made in the Lofoten Islands, Norway last year. The recordings consist both of man-made and natural sounds, mostly those that are specific to the place. The recorded sounds were deconstructed and modified in the pursuit of creating an otherworldly, dreamlike and hypnotic soundscape out of them. Water Connection combines elements of sound art and experimental music. Minimalist drones, beats and harmonies, the musical elements of this three-dimensional composition, transform into a sonic representation of an imaginary place and vice versa.
Olga Palomäki (*1980) is a visual and sound artist based in Helsinki, Finland. S/he is fascinated by the lost, forgotten and the unseen. Palomäki makes experimental sounds based on field recordings. Olga’s sound works are influenced by dark ambient- and drone music. S/he captures man-made sounds and background noise, using them as instruments by modifying the recordings and shaping them into a new form. Palomäki makes videos that illustrate the sounds: music videos and visuals for performing live.
Palomäki’s works have been on display in several solo and joint exhibitions, radio shows and sound art/experimental music events, film and video festivals and screenings in Finland and other European countries. Palomäki has perfomed live at different venues in Finland and abroad. S/he graduated from Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Fine Arts Programme in 2007.
Otso Sorvettula – About Time
Sound has an inevitable relationship with time. Even when recorded and played back, sound is sensed at the present moment, one tiny chunk at a time. Sound exists only when it already ceases to exist. Light seems less tied to the dimension of time. Light can be recorded for years and the recording can be sensed at a glance.
The starting point of the work is the relationship between sound, light and time. Lamp cycles through different stages and light creates a sound that exists only at the moment of hearing. Observer inevitably affects the events by being present.
The work consists of a lamp and an array of light sensors. Sensors transform the emitted light into electrical voltage. The voltage then controls an analog synthesizer that creates the soundscape.
Otso Sorvettula is a media artist, maker and designer from Helsinki working with experimental media, sounds, visuals, DIY instruments and software. He is interested in mistakes, interference, aberrations and surprising harmonies. His works range from interactive installations to educational workshops exploring creative and expressive possibilities of both new and obsolete technologies. Currently Otso is finishing his Master of Arts degree at Media Lab in Aalto School of Arts, Design and Architecture.
Lauri Linna – Plants Pushing Buttons
Plants move very slow and usually we humans don’t see it happen. The installation “Plants Pushing Buttons” offers plants buttons to push. As the plant moves on top of the button a sound is played. It’s unclear can the plant understand the connection between its movement and the change in the soundscape. But what is clear is that when a plant is introduced to a button it likes to press on it. The plants also get bored and don’t push the button if the sound file of the button isn’t changed once in awhile.
Recent research has found that plants react to the sounds of running water and caterpillars munching on leaves. Another research found that plants also emit some kind of vibration that travels in air. Maybe insects and other plants hear it? Maybe it affects us too?
Special thanks to Marloes van Son for electronics coaching.
Lauri Linna is a Helsinki based artist. He works with plants, gardening, moving image, sound and electronics. Since 2014 he has been studying carrot – human relationship in his project PORK KANA CAR ROT. Other fields of interest are plant behavior and intelligence, plant – machine relationship and plant related technology. Linna is a recent Master of Arts from Aalto University’s Visual Culture and Contemporary Art (ViCCA) program.
Stephen Christopher Stamper: Live Concert
Friday 15.3.2019 at 18:00.
For this intimate performance, Stephen will be using the open-source audio and video programming environment Pure Data to generate and process acoustic feedback from an unamplified MacBook Pro.
Stephen Christopher Stamper is a British-born artist and immigrant living and working in Helsinki.
Through sound work, installation and performance, Stephen has explored themes of decay, memory and obsolescence, the body and its relationship to illness, the manipulation and execution of code by machine, and extreme metal music culture.
Autotel & co: Live Concert
Saturday 16.3.2019 at 18:00.
Autotel invites anyone interested in generative and electronic danceable music to jam with him and his Calculeitors. You can jam with Autotel’s Calculeitors or bring your own synth, just don’t forget your cables! This jam will be the closing ceremony of ÄÄNIAALTO sound art exhibition.
Autotel is an art engineer & electronic musician. On his current project, Autotel is exploring how music can be composed in the spot, according to the flow of the party. For this, he has created a unique live setup that he virtuously performs in the stage, capturing people’s attention. Autotel’s style is recognized as strongly rhythmic and organic. Depending on the audience, music may go along the lines of house music or dive into techno.
DARIO FARIELLO
MIKAEL SZAFIROWSKI
PETRI KULJUNTAUSTA
— 3 solos / 1 trio —
Wednesday, February 27, 2019.
Showtime: 19:00
Dario Fariello: sax
Mikael Szafirowski, guitar
Petri Kuljuntausta: sound installation + guitar
Supported by FFUK and Norwegian Jazzforum.
DARIO FARIELLO is a saxophonist devoted to improvised music. He studied musicology at the University of Bologna and co-founded Multiversal, a nomad festival series featuring an international network of improv and noise musicians. Now based in Oslo, his current projects include: ZGB, Sciardac, Farantimm, Resurgam, In Its Own Tempo. With Norbert Stammberger he organises the yearly Tubax Festival in Munich, dedicated to the tubax saxophone and other special instruments. In the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, Dario has played with Gino Robair, Eugene Chadbourne, Jonas Kocher, and Renato Ciunfrini.
https://soundcloud.com/dariofariello
MIKAEL SZAFIROWSKI is a Finnish guitar and player currently residing in Saint-louis, France. He is markedly working on expanding the vocabulary of amplified string instruments by way of extended playing techniques, as well as exploring new forms of structure and sound in music. Having lived his formative years in the realm of jazz music, he is looking at other avenues of expression, such as noise, free improvised music, contemporary classical music, and a mix of popular and world music. His guitar technique is highly personal, using harmonic feedback and various preparations to feed his musical curiosity. Mikael has played and collaborated, among others, with Han Bennink, Ab Baars, Luc Ex, Wilbert De Joode, Oscar-Jan Hoogland, Yedo Gibson, Gerri Jaeger.
Petri Kuljuntausta: Bass Guitar (2018)
On Tuesday, February 23, 2016, an electric bass was stolen from the music rehearsal room of Helsinki City Media Library. The thief traveled to Nurmijärvi where he started to destroy places with the bass. At first the police got a call that a man is crushing window of a shop with bass guitar. After the windows were destroyed, he detached a post box and threw it inside the store. When the police arrived, he was gone.
Next police got a call that a man is crushing a car with a bass guitar. He was still hitting the car with the electric bass when police arrived. Police captured the man and took the weapon, the bass guitar, from him. They found drugs from his pocket. The man was arrested and the remains of the bass was returned to library. The library donated the instrument to me.
In the concert, I am using this bass guitar as an instrument.
An evening of video art, music, sound, performance art, design and conversation.
Special guest: video and performance artist Barbara Rosenthal (USA).
ARTISTS
Video + Sound, performance – Barbara Rosenthal Co-hosts – Charlie Morrow, Maija-Leena Remes * * * Video graphics + Music – Otto Romanowski Sounds – Juhani Liimatainen Sound poet – Juha Valkeapää Video + Sound – Petri Kuljuntausta Video, new city project – Martti Aiha Video + Multitrack sound – Olga Palomäki Turntable – Harri Koskinen Video + Sound – Remes & Morrow 3D sound-masking, soundscapes – MorrowSound
SOUND POETRY Juha Valkeapää & Juhani Liimatainen: Winter Birds Charlie Morrow: Arctic Sounds (video+audio)
VIDEO WORKS Barbara Rosenthal: Two Mediated Performances: 1. I’m Growing Up (using projected masks) 2. Existential Photo-Run (blind scrambles through her own projected, distorted photographs)
Martti Aiha: Sculpture Dance & UrBaana Petri Kuljuntausta: Handshake (with live soundtrack) Remes & Morrow: Two Cellos 1-2 (performers Juho Laitinen, Seeti Laitinen) & Time Spiral (Hannu Kähönen, designer) Olga Palomäki: Parallel Landscape I-II Otto Romanowski: Border
DESIGN Harri Koskinen: Turntable (the performers will play the instrument during the evening).
DISCUSSION All artists.
Barbara Rosenthal (born in the Bronx, lives in New York City) is an American avant-garde artist, writer and performer. Her existential themes have contributed to contemporary art and philosophy. Her pseudonyms include “Homo Futurus,” taken from the title of one of her books, and “Cassandra-on-the-Hudson”, which alludes to her studio and residence since 1998 on the Hudson River in Greenwich Village, NYC, and “the dangerous world she envisions”. Rosenthal is idiosyncratic and prolific. She is known for often revisiting past works, recombining old elements with new, and often appears in her work in some way. These may include x-rays, brain scans and clothing. Sometimes she utilizes physical or textual elements from her journals. As a creative artist within the fields of surrealism and existentialism, Rosenthal brings existential content, via the subconscious, to conceptual art and is known for her intense introspection. and by using herself “as a guinea pig”, explores what it means to be human. Her personal vision evolves with advancing technology. As an artist, Rosenthal is known as an Old Master of New Media because of her long history in media including photography, video, performance, projection installation, interactive, electronic and digital media, text, collage, prints, artists’ books and objects. Almost all are produced in editions. Most combine camera, text and performative aspects. Elements of Rosenthal’s body of work, “Surreal Photography” are often present. http://www.barbararosenthal.org/
Note: On Monday 28.1.2019, 18:00-21:00, Barbara Rosenthal event is at Vuotalo, Vuosaari Helsinki. Discussion at 17:00 at Vuotalo Cafe. See more about the event.
Charlie Morrow (born in Newark NJ, based in Barton, Vermont and Helsinki ) is an American sound artist, composer, conceptualist and performer. His creative projects have included chanting and healing works, museum and gallery installations, large-scale festival events, radio and TV broadcasts, film soundtracks, commercial sound design and advertising jingles. He holds patents in immersive sound method and believes: “the future lies in composing environments as well as music as we know it: bringing the skills of composition to where we live, work and circulate, as in a city.” Born to a family of doctors and inventors, Morrow uses his creativity to make tools to share with others—not only musicians and sound artists, but teachers, architects, and engineers – “so that they might create positive spaces for work, education, and healing.” He is creative director of Charles Morrow Productions LLC CMP PBP. www.charliemorrow.com, www.morrowsound.com
Olga Palomäki is a visual and sound artist. S/he is fascinated by the lost, forgotten and the unseen. Palomäki makes experimental sounds based on field recordings. Olga’s sound works are influenced by dark ambient- and drone music. S/he captures man-made sounds and background noise, using them as instrumenta by modifying the recordings and shaping them into a new form. Palomäki makes videos that illustrate the world created by the sounds. Palomäki’s works have been on display in several solo- and joint exhibitions, radio shows and sound art/experimental music events, film- and video festivals and screenings in Finland and several other European countries. Palomäki has perfomed live at different venues in Finland and abroad. S/he graduated from Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Fine Arts Programme in 2007. http://olgapalomaki.net/
Maija-Leena Remes is editor, writer and translator in multiple languages. She creates and develops MorrowSound presentations, exhibitions, installations and business in Europe and in the USA. She has produced 3D sound recordings, videos and interactive media. She created the Modern English libretto and subtitles for MorrowSound’s DVD Beowulf, featuring Ben Bagby singing solo in Old English. She edited the MorrowSound Empire State Building audio tour script and supervised its translation into seven foreign languages. She is editor of medical, technological and literary texts for various international clients. She is literary translator of essays and 30 books for numerous publishing houses. As a permanent free-lance journalist of the Finnish Broadcasting Corporation, she translated, edited and directed production of subtitles and voice-overs, ranging from plays, movies, songs and documentaries to children’s programs. Her hobby is music and she is an amateur violist. As a child she was singer and performer on YLE Radio. With Charlie Morrow, she is co-producer of video works including Two Cellos and Time Spiral.
Martti Aiha is a widely acknowledged artist, not least for public sculptures in Helsinki such as the starkly monumental Rumba (1992) at Salmisaari and the more ambient Länsilinkki (2011), an artistic articulation of a bridge for the ‘Western Link’ highway. Aiha’s idiosyncratic mix of frivolous automatism, reliable craftsmanship and heavy-duty construction became a hallmark of Finnish art in the 1980s and also earned him a following in the other Nordic countries. He was, for instance, awarded the Prince Eugene Medal in Sweden in 2013. His new book- Martti Aiha: Drawings published by Parus Verus.
Otto Romanowski has studied the theory of music, computer music and composing at the Sibelius Academy, in addition to musicology at the Helsinki University. Romanowski is one of the most notable Finnish authorities in computer music. His works are essentially interdisciplinary and inter artistic, and since 1990 he has concentrated also on creating computer graphics and multimedia. Romanowski is a renowned lecturer in music technology and is currently employed as a lecturer at the Sibelius Academy Department of Music Technology in the University of the Arts Helsinki. http://romanowski.art
Border, (video+audio) In the concert, we will hear version with real-time improvisation. Total dur. about 5-7′. Border is simple by definition, but many borders are actually very complex (mentally, culturally or politically). Hopefully world and people would need less and less borders.
Juha Valkeapää & Juhani Liimatainen
Juhani Liimatainenis a Finnish sound designer and sound artist who worked as a sound designer at Yleisradio (Finnish Broadcasting Company) between 1974-2002, and as a professor of sound design at the Theatre Academy of the University of Arts, Finland. At Yleisradio he maintained and developed the Experimental Studio, taught composers and musicians, and oversaw the design and execution of live electronics for studio and concert productions. He has done studio work with composers such as Paavo Heininen, Magnus Lindberg, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Kaija Saariaho, and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Since 2002 Liimatainen has been professor of sound design at the Theatre Academy of Finland. He is a longtime member of the Toimii Ensemble, where he has been responsible for sound reproduction, live electronics, tapes, and videos, and with which he has appeared frequently as part of the solo group in Magnus Lindberg’s Kraft. He has also worked with the Avanti! orchestra and the Finnish Theater Orchestra, among other ensembles, and has performed with the groups Free Okapi, Son Panic and HumppAvanti! Liimatainen’s sound design and compositional work includes numerous theatrical productions, operas, festivals, and recordings.
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Juha Valkeapää is a vocal artist and performance maker with a 25-year long career of performances, installations, radio pieces and soundscapes – solos and various group works – vocal & sound & performance art, theatre, music, dance. The key elements of his art are voice / sound, presence, space and improvisation. Juha is more than a vocal artist and performance maker. The subject sets the form: most of his art is based on sound and performance, but if the subject demands a three-meter high wooden guy, he will sculpt one, and if it needs a book, he will write one. Wooden Guy is a sound sculpture. He performs with it in A Guy and a Wooden Guy. And he has written a booklet, with the same title, of the process of making it & other stuff.
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Winter Birds
The duo creates a scenery of everyday and mythological birds, like sparrow, great tit, starling, pigeon, seagull, swan, eagle owl, raven, loon, cuckoo, phoenix, and Tux penguin. Juhani plays synthesizers, Juha his voice. And they dress in feathers. The Bird Concert’s first version was performed at Saaren kartano in May 2018.
Petri Kuljuntausta is a composer, improviser, musician, and sonic artist. He has performed underwater music for an underwater audience, improvised with the birds, and made music out of whale calls and the sounds of the northern lights. As an artist he often works with environmental sounds, live-electronics, and installation art. Kuljuntausta has performed or collaborated with Morton Subotnick, Atau Tanaka, Richard Lerman, David Rothenberg, and Sami van Ingen, among others. He has made over 100 recordings for various record labels in Australia, Colombia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Sweden, UK and the USA. Star’s End and Inner Space radio shows selected Kuljuntausta’s ”Momentum” as one of the most significant CD releases of the year. Kuljuntausta has published three books on Sound Art and Electronic Music. In 2005 he won an award, The Finnish State Prize for Art, from the Finnish government as a distinguished national artist. http://kuljuntausta.com/
Harri Koskinen has an uncompromising, bold design aesthetic that has gained him international renown since the early days of his career. Practicality, a spare style and a conceptual approach to product and spatial design are Koskinen’s trademarks. Founded in 2000, Koskinen’s creative industrial design agency Friends of Industry Ltd. is involved in concept and product design. In 2009, Koskinen launched his first namesake furniture collection, Harri Koskinen Works. Koskinen’s works have been on display in exhibitions around the world. He has been awarded several major design prizes, such as the Kaj Franck Design Prize (2014), Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize (2009), the Pro Finlandia Medal (2007) and the Compasso d’Oro prize (2004). His clients include Alessi, Arabia, Artek, Cassina IXC, Design House Stockholm, Finlandia Vodka Worldwide, Gallerie Kreo, Genelec, Iittala, Issey Miyake, Montina, Muji, Panasonic, Seiko Instruments Inc., Swarovski, Venini and Woodnotes.
Six days of adventurous music and sound art for adventurous minds!
POLYPHONIC is an intensive sound art and electronic music event at Vuotalo Cultural Centre in Helsinki. Invited musicians and performing artists are from Nordic countries and Finland, offering for the audience wide spectrum of new sonic expression from the fields of experimental electronic music, sound art and ambient. The program includes electronic music, do-it-yourself musical instruments, sound performances, and improvised music. A sound installation is open in the gallery. The producer of the event is Akusmata, the first sound art gallery in Finland. The program and updates will be published at akusmata.com and Akusmata’s facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Akusmata. The international artists are visiting as a part of the Puls concert program / Nordic Culture Fund.
PROGRAM
Monday January 14, 2019 | 18:00-20:00
Jaakko Penttinen
Jesse Juup
Tuesday January 15, 2019 | 18:00-20:00
EsaRuoho
Sarana (Janne Särkelä)
Wednesday January 16, 2019 | 18:00-20:00
Jonas Olesen & Sandra Boss (DK) Vuosi (Ilpo Numminen ja J. Koho)
Thursday January 17, 2019 | 18:00-20:00
Bjørnar Habbestad (NO)
Mats Erlandsson (SE)
Monday – Saturday, January 14-19, 2019
Petri Kuljuntausta: POLYPHONIC. Sound installation for 100 ticking clockworks at Vuotalo gallery.
The installation is open during the opening hours of Vuotalo.
Electric muscle stimulators, sleep machines, tuning forks, bells and tone generators are some of the ingredients in this installation-performance, where obsolete sound apparatus come to live again in new musical narratives. The piece examines the therapeutic, hypnotic and telepatic potential of these lost apparatuses.
“Answering machines, electric muscle stimulators and sleepers are obedient in design, but they have a very specific function that Jonas Olesen and Sandra Boss distort in their audio montage. The machines have served their purpose and are now ready for a media archaeological excavation, where the found sound objects arise from the dead with stories from the other side. It was never meant that the muscle stimulator should be listened to as music. It is not in its design. But have we ever asked the muscle stimulator what it wants? Is it at all interested in human anatomy, or has it always been possible to play in a band? Maybe we never know what a machine’s function really is before we ask the machine yourself?” – (Jonas Olesen & Sandra Boss: An introduction to mechanical therapy and other audio sources that were not intended for music.)
The performance is supported by Puls / Nordisk Kulturfond.
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JONAS OLESEN is a Danish composer and sound artist. Jonas works mainly with physical media manipulations and obsolete electronic equipment. He runs the BIN label that specializes in peripheral audio. He is also active in the group Institute for Danish Sound Archeology. totem.menneske.dk
SANDRA BOSS is a composer and sound artist based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her work often evolves in the intersection between performance and installation, where machines and instruments becomes sculptures of sound. She explores the overheard sounds of diverse sound sources such as antique tone generators, hearing test machines, bird flutes, children choirs and elongated accordions. Sandra Boss has studied at The Royal Academy of Music in Denmark. She is currently working on a artistic-based PhD on sound art at Aarhus University, Denmark. www.sandraboss.dk
BJØRNARHABBESTAD
Flutist, composer and sound artist educated in Bergen, London and Amsterdam. Works as a soloist, chamber and ensemble musician in Scandinavia, Europe, Asia and the US, covering musical grounds from classical contemporary to noise, electro-acoustic and free improvised music. Habbestad has collaborated with a a range of composers and improvisors in both the acoustic and electroacoustic domain and is responsible for the Norwegian premieres of works by Sciarrino, Ferneyhough, Nono and others.
Recent activity includes a commision for the opening of the Borealisfestival with Pascal Baltazar and Benjamin Maumus (FR), the solo part in Luigi Nono`s epic work “IO – frammento dal prometeo” at the Bergen Festival and a collaboration with Berlin based percussionist Burkhardt Beins. Habbestad is Artistic Director of +3DB records and a former curator at Lydgalleriet, a Bergen based gallery for sound art. He currently works as a PhD fellow in Performance Practice at the Norwegian Academy of Music where he researches the relationship between experimentation and sonic developments in contemporary music. http://www.bjornarhabbestad.com/
The concert is supported by Puls / Nordisk Kulturfond.
MATSERLANDSSON
As a composer, musician and sound artist, Mats Erlandsson is part of the vibrantly reemerging field of drone music in Stockholm, Sweden, and is known for the extensive use of sustained sound. In 2016 he released his first two releases at the prominent label for experimental music Posh Isolation. Selective Miracles is characterized by the spacious, almost sci-fi, over-driven synth notes that submerge you in sound with rattling basses and slowly emerging melodies. If the emotion on his first release is inspiration of awe, then his second release Valentina Tereshkova, named after the first woman cosmonaut, gives the impression of conflict. The sound is even more distorted and heavily textured drones are almost oppressive. Both releases are vast sonic journeys, where noise, melodies and drones are expertly compressed to struggle for presence. In 2017 he released a collaborative album Negative Chambers at Miasmah with Yair Elazar Glotman. They set out to record with several different acoustic instruments an album, “an imaginary, dislocated “folk” music for the current dark age“.
Erlandsson has undergone studies in composition in Stockholm, where he received a Master’s degree in Composition of Electronic Music. In addition to his own artistic practice, Erlandsson holds a position as studio assistant at the world-renowned Elektronmusikstudion (EMS) in Stockholm. Erlandsson presents his work both as a solo artist and in collaborations, most notably together with Yair Elazar Glotman. He has performed his work extensively, most recently in Berlin (The Long Now), Seoul (ACC), Norberg (Norbergfestival), Stockholm (Fylkingen, Sound of Stockholm, Audiorama), Malmö (Intonal festival), Copenhagen (Mayhem) and in Avellino (Flussi Festival). https://matserlandsson-poshisolation.bandcamp.com/
The concert is supported by Puls / Nordisk Kulturfond.
ESARUOHO
Esa Ruoho, better known as Lackluster, is a Finnish electronic music producer and performer from Kontula, Helsinki. He is also known as Esa Ruoho, XLLV, Can’O’Lard and Kökö and the Köks. Since 2000, Ruoho has played numerous musical performances as Lackluster, Esa Ruoho and HLER in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Ireland, England, Austria, Poland, Russia, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania and Ukraine. Current totally: 154 live performances (as of 1 August 2018). Ruoho has also played as warm-up support for numerous famous electronic musicians, such as Biosphere, Petri Kuljuntausta, The Orb, Mixmaster Morris, Brothomstates, Aleksi Perälä/Astrobotnia/Ovuca, Cylob, Wevie Stonder, Machinedrum, Jimmy Edgar, Move D, Jimi Tenor and Bad Loop.
Esa Ruoho started composing electronic music in the mid-1990s and, after 2000 has been releasing recorded music (remixes, compilation-tracks, original work) on dozens of labels, full-length CDs on such labels as deFocus records (Great Britain), Merck Records (Miami, Florida, US),[4] U-cover (Belgium), Psychonavigation Records (Dublin, Ireland), New-Speak Records (Stockholm, Sweden). He has since 2007 worked with SLSK Records from San Francisco and Nice And Nasty from Ireland, the San Francisco-based netlabel TwoCircles Records and the Argentinian netlabel Igloo-Rec, and the American label JellyFish Frequency Recordings. https://www.lackluster.org/
SARANA
“The silence is not disturbed, but augmented as if the music would have always been there, waiting to be found and presented. In there, an emotional connection – an interference of waves – the shift between being a listener and a performer: a metamorphosis of sounds and the stillness of time.”
SARANA is the musical dimension of Janne Särkelä, an ambient and experimental artist and sound designer from Finland. Janne has performed intuitive and meditative ambient sets at Finnish and foreign underground techno and psychedelic trance parties, art galleries and urban culture events. Janne’s live ambient sets have been heard at Boom 2012 in Portugal – where he performed a three hour sunrise ambient set; at the Ambient Music Conference of 2014; in 2015 he played a two hour live late morning set at Yaga Gathering in Lithuania. In 2016 and 2017 Janne performed at festivals in Indonesia and in the USA, to celebrate total solar eclipses.
SARANA has released two albums, produced by Vir Unis under his Atmoworks (USA) label. Third album will be released by Erototox Decodings (USA), EP from Voyager 1 (FR) is coming up. Many tracks and remixes have been included on releases by various artists and labels. The ambient live sets are held together by self-built and off-the-self computer based tools, and realized by a mobile and portable collection of synthesizers, effects and controllers. The set length has generally been 1 to 4 hours. Janne’s sound installation work has been presented at many art events and festivals. https://soundcloud.com/sarana
JAAKKOPENTTINEN
Jaakko Penttinen is an electronic musician from Turku. In addition to his solo performances, Penttinen has a background in various bands and he is well known for his ambient/space music project Galactic Travellers. Penttinen works in the Turku Synthesizer Society, curates the Experimental Music Club in Turku Bookstore and makes music in the E-Musikgruppe Lux Ohr, Function Wellenform and Kühl Shot.
At Akusmata’s Polyphonic event Jaakko Penttinen presents his work entitled ‘Abstraction – Geometry – Music’. Penttinen’s performance draws on the techniques used by US minimalists such as La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass to create a restful and static sound where is also room for randomness. https://www.discogs.com/artist/2078327-Jaakko-Penttinen
JESSEJUUP
Jesse Juup is a finnish electronic musician, producer and improvising performer. Usually he is seen performing with some of his bands – Ritarikunta, Konekonekone, Kühl Shot and Tervakello, but this time he is performing solo. His style is usually hypnotic and slowly evolving mutating soundscapes. The instrument palette consists of a modular synthesizer and guitar pedals, each time being unique and tuned to the performance environment. Jesse Juup is also a founding member of Turun syntetisaattoriseura. https://soundcloud.com/top10
VUOSI VUOSI is a collective focused on experimental music and sound art, founded in 2014. Vuosi has performed in different parts of Finland, has released recordings and built sound installations.At Polyphonic event in Vuotalo, the members of the collective Ilpo Numminen and J. Koho, perform as a duo. http://vuosikasetit.blogspot.com/ http://www.vuosi.bandcamp.com/
PETRI KULJUNTAUSTA: POLYPHONIC
Materials: 180 clockwork.
POLYPHONIC sound installation explores the various dimensions, obscures and strange features of the time. A hundred clocks give the space a subtle sound field. Since every clockwork is a mechanical and incomplete device, one is slightly slower and one faster, their time is not exactly the same. As a result, the relationship between the ticking clocks is constantly changing. Sometimes the tickings comes together, making an accent that creates a rhythm. In the next moment, the rhythm disappears and the ear will figure out the new rhythm in the other area. Over time, ticking of clocks produces endless variations.
PETRI KULJUNTAUSTA is a composer, improviser, musician, and sonic artist. He has performed music for an underwater audience, improvised with the birds, and made music out of whale calls and the sounds of the northern lights. As an artist he often works with environmental sounds and live-electronics, and create sound installations for galleries/museums.
Kuljuntausta has performed or collaborated with Morton Subotnick, Atau Tanaka, Richard Lerman, David Rothenberg, and Sami van Ingen, among others. He has made over 100 recordings for various record labels in Australia, Colombia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Sweden, UK and the USA. Star’s End and Inner Space radio shows selected Kuljuntausta’s ”Momentum” as one of the most significant CD releases of the year. Kuljuntausta has published three books on Sound Art and Electronic Music. In 2005 he won an award, The Finnish State Prize for Art, from the Finnish government as a distinguished national artist.
