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LIVE: Samara Lubelski + HTK + Sarana

Mental Alaska & Akusmata Presents:

Live:
SAMARA LUBELSKI (USA)
HTK (Halme / Tolonen / Kuljuntausta)
SARANA

Akusmata Sound Art Gallery
Tukholmankatu 7 K, Hki
Wed 5.11.2014, klo 19-22
Tickets: 5e

Samara Lubelski has long been one of the core figures in NY’s sub-underground and key players in the so-called New Weird America, featuring in the seminal works of The Tower Recordings, Hall Of Fame, Jackie-O Motherfucker, MV & EE and more, as well as releasing five albums of her own and playing in Thurston Moore‘s band. At Akusmata Lubelski plays improvised set with solo violin + electronics.

“Lubelski weaves lines of pure tone through gulping effects in a way that recalls John Cale and Brian Eno‘s Gothic chamber arrangements for Nico, as strings swarm on the horizon in hives of electronics that recall the synthesized chorales of Klaus Schulze. Indeed, the treatments and the overall approach – moving from long, sweeping bows of razzing F/X drenched wow and flutter through obsessive vortices of heavy-textural flux – recall the viola playing of Bill Breeze on Coil’s Moon’s Milk sessions. The violin has always been a sonic reducer par excellence with its capacity eternally-sounding drones and Lubelski is a goddamn master of the form, moving from the kinda deep-space lullabies of Takehisa Kosugi through power-sawing vectors that extend the whole Spencer Yeh/BXC vibe into new realms of nowhere. The best psychedelic solo violin outing since, well, In The Valley? Massively recommended!” (- from the review of String Cycle, in Volcanic Tongue 2014)

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Yhdysvaltalainen Samara Lubelski esiintyy Akusmatassa hienon String Cycle -albuminsa (2014, Ultra Eczema) hengessä ja paljaudessa itsekseen, soolona. Intiimi Akusmata galleria täyttyy viulun ja siihen kytkettyjen efektien luomasta elävästä, raa’an voimakkaasta äänestä. Lubelski tunnetaan myös monista muista yhteyksistä ja yhtyeistä, kuten Tower recordings, Hall of Fame, Jackie-O Motherfucker, Metabolismus, MV & EE ja Thurston Mooren Chelsea Light Moving. Lubelski on yksi amerikkalaisen monimuotoisen, vapaamman laidan folkin ja popin keskeisistä hahmoista.

Illan muut esiintyjät ovat HTK ja Sarana.

HTK-triossa soittavat Hepa Halme (puhaltimet), Arttu Tolonen (elektroniikka) ja Petri Kuljuntausta (kitara, elektroniikka). Trion dynaaminen improvisointi kulkee äänimaalailun ja rujojen feedback-tekstuurien välimaastossa jossa efektipedaalin läpi prosessoitu saksofoni lyö kättä kitaran sähköisten soundivallien ja tietokoneella prosessoitujen runojen kanssa.

Ambient-artisti Saranan esitys vie kuuntelijat intuitiiviselle ambient-tutkimusmatkalle äänen väriin ja hetken yksityiskohtiin. Saranan uusin sooloalbumi julkaistaan piakkoin ulkomailla, illan esitys antaa esimakua tulevasta.

Konsertti järjestetään yhteistyössä Mental Alaskan kanssa.

Mutanoid & Akusmata Concert Serie

During this season Akusmata has prepared new projects. Akusmata will open the Mutanoid website soon for the electronic instruments and Akusmata Concert Serie will start in November.

Akusmata has a new 4-channel PA-system (4x 1220 W) for live concerts. The main speakers are Electro-Voice ZX5-90 (pair) and the three surround speakers are D.A.S. M.I. 12. We have three mixers (Soundcraft Delta, Behringer 1204 FX and Fonic), Drawmer DL241 dual-channel ‘auto compressor’, Digitech 4-channel FX processor, guitar amplifiers and various microphones, like Rode NT5 (matched pair), Neumann K 84 (pair), 5x Sennheiser, OKM Soundman (binaural), AT and other stuff.

More information on the upcoming activities will be published soon here…

Petri Kuljuntausta: Magnetism

Akusmata Mobile presents:

MAGNETISM
sound installation by Petri Kuljuntausta

at MEDIA ART UP! Exhibition
Puristamo & Valssaamo, Kaapelitehdas Helsinki

18.9. – 28.9.2014
Opening hours: Mon – Fri 12-18, Sat – Sun 12 – 16

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Magnetism is a class of physical phenomenon that includes forces exerted by magnets on other magnets. It has its origin in electric currents and the fundamental magnetic moments of elementary particles. These give rise to a magnetic field that acts on other currents and moments. All materials are influenced to some extent by a magnetic field. The strongest effect is on permanent magnets, which have persistent magnetic moments caused by ferromagnetism.

In order to translate an electrical signal into an audible sound, speakers contain an electromagnet: a metal coil which creates a magnetic field when an electric current flows through it. This coil behaves much like a normal (permanent) magnet, with one particularly handy property: reversing the direction of the current in the coil flips the poles of the magnet.

Inside a speaker, an electromagnet is placed in front of a permanent magnet. The permanent magnet is fixed firmly into position whereas the electromagnet is mobile. As pulses of electricity pass through the coil of the electromagnet, the direction of its magnetic field is rapidly changed. This means that it is in turn attracted to and repelled from the permanent magnet, vibrating back and forth due to Faraday’s law of induction.
The electromagnet is attached to a cone made of a flexible material such as paper or plastic which amplifies these vibrations, pumping sound waves into the surrounding air and towards the ears. [physics-org, wikipedia]

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Media Art Up! exhibition contains also works by Andy Best & Merja Puustinen / Biotaiteen seura / Delicode oy / FIXC cooperative / Veli Granö / Kallio Kunsthalle / Kokeellisen elektroniikan seura / Albert Laine / Kristina Laine / m-cult / Marjatta Oja / Annika Rauhala / Markus Renvall / Seppo Renvall / Maija Saksman / Milja Viita / Äänen Lumo ry

Kaapelitehdas

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Martins Rokis: Biomimesis VII

BIOMIMESIS VII
multichannel sound installation

2.5. – 10.5.2014

Opening hours: Mon – Fri 14-18, Sat 14-17

Biomimesis is a serie of works that can be realized as site-specific installations, performances, multichannel compositions or something in-between. Custom-made software generates sound structures, which are based on ‘nature-inspired sound design’, models and processes. These sounds evolve in a spontaneous manner, they have not been composed, or follow any strict musical laws. Rather, they simulate a soundscape of some acoustic everyday space — the one on the street, in a forest or elsewhere, where sounds, according to John Cage, ‘live their lives’.

These ‘field recordings from nonexistent places’ without clear origin or context seem recognizable and familiar, evoking personal associations and cultural projections, yet in the same time alien, otherworldly and unidentifiable, blurring boundaries between what we consider natural and artificial. Listeners can ‘zoom’ in or out on various elements that make the whole soundscape, segregating or integrating them, discovering new details or subtle changes.

Martins Rokis is working with sound and visuals in different contexts, forms, crossing boundaries between so-called computer music, psychedelic noise and abstract sound art, blending generative strategies with improvisation and also occasionally making sound installations or works for multichannel systems.

http://www.martinsrokis.com/

Taina Riikonen: Skin Archive

SKIN ARCHIVE
sound installation

6.3. – 31.3.2014

Opening hours: Mon – Fri 14-18

Skin is the largest organ in human body. It senses temperatures, pressure, pain and pleasure, and preserves vast of memories, feelings, and stories. Today, the pervasive presence of skin is evident; skin is both an object of constant control and aesthetic modification as well as a crucial signifier of difference in the diverse cultural negotiations.

Skin Archive sound installation listens to skin through the touch it senses. The archive, which usually is understood as an official and formal categorizing and storing system, is in this case treated as unofficial, highly selective and as constantly flickering on pleasure/pain axis.

The sound material is created of recordings that are made i.e. at the boxing club, in sauna, at the tattoo studio and under the water. In these recordings the skin becomes porous as sweating, palpated, stroked, rubbed, sucked, pierced with needle, and scratched.

Skin Archive is a collection of selected ephemeral touches, and it invites the listener/spectator to recall also her or his own skin/touch stories and histories. The spoken narratives are written and told by students of Aalto University, Pori Unit of the Department of Art.

Special thanks to Marianne Decoster-Taivalkoski, Heikki Kossi, Tero Nauha, Merja Pesola, Elina Saloranta, Hannu Vuorinen and the students at the Aalto University, Pori Unit of the Department of Art: Pauliina Koivunen, Ismo-Pekka Heikinheimo, Suvi Härkönen, Gerardo Montes de Oca and Kristiina Saloluoma.
Image: Pirjo Mönttinen

Taina Riikonen is a Helsinki-based sound explorer who works with sounds and texts. Her current interests are diverse bodily sounds, machine sounds and urban vibrations. Riikonen’s work history includes radio works, sound installations, live performances and soundscapes for business purposes.

http://nomadicbreathhelsinki.wordpress.com

David Rothenberg: Insect Sync

INSECT SYNC
a multichannel installation

8.11. – 15.11.2013

Opening hours: Mon – Fri 14-18

David Rothenberg, author of the recently released BUG MUSIC (book and CD), turns this work into a new sound installation Insect Sync for Akusmata, based on the two basic ways insects synchronize their sounds: overlapping irregular rhythms, and overlapping songs that blur into a drone. The drone sounds are based on the song of the seventeen year cicada, and the rhythmic patterns are based on the song of the snowy tree cricket.

The multi-channel sound installation also includes sounds from other surprising insects: Uhlers Katydid, said to have the most complex of all insect sounds, the Common True Kaydid, and the Pine Sawyer Beetle.

Additional synthetic sounds, inspired by the insect world, are added from computer and iPad.

T.G. Forrest, image

www.bugmusicbook.com

Jacob Kirkegaard: Koirohi

KOIROHI
15.10. – 20.10.2013

Koirohi is created from sound recordings from the active nuclear power plant located in Olkiluoto, Finland. With sensitive contact microphones and accelerometers placed directly on turbines, boilers, and thousands of meters of pipes above and below the ground, vibrations from the production of nuclear power can be heard. Since all these elements vibrate at very different rates and through different materials the sounds are rich in overtones, and have an almost dreamy or unearthly quality. Akusmata gallery premieres a 4-channel realization of the work. Koirohi means wormwood in Estonian, like Chernobyl means wormwood in Ukrainian.

Jacob Kirkegaard’s (*1975, Denmark) works are focused on scientific and aesthetic aspects of sonic perception. He explores acoustic spaces and phenomena that usually remain imperceptible to the immediate ear. Kirkegaard’s installations, compositions & photographs are created from within a variety of environments such as subterranean geyser vibrations, empty rooms in Chernobyl, a rotating TV tower, and even sounds from the human inner ear itself.

Jacob Kirkegaard website

The exhibition has been arranged in cooperation with
Nordic Music Days 2013

Jari Kauppinen: EOUBBN


ENCYCLOPEDIA OF URBAN BROADBAND NOISES

six-channel sound installation
22.8. – 30.8.2013

The installation is part of the Night of the Arts (Taiteiden yö) / Helsinki Festival programme

en·cy·clo·pe·dia
\in-ˌsī-klə-ˈpē-dē-ə\
noun
a work that contains information on all branches of knowledge or treats comprehensively a particular branch of knowledge usually in articles arranged alphabetically often by subject
(New Oxford American Dictionary)
Noise is bad. Urban noise is even worse. But is it possible that amidst the unwanted and irritating might be something beautiful and soothing? The aim of EOUBBN is to examine the aesthetic qualities of various readily encountered urban broadband noises recorded in Helsinki metropolitan area. It is striving to get beyond the usual good/bad, pastoral/urban, natural/artificial juxtapositions and present the captured noises in their most engaging form. The sounds come and go, like clouds, one after another, taking the installation space into their possession.

Jari “Suopo” Kauppinen is a sound artist and sound designer. He had his first solo sound exhibition ”The Phantasmagoria of Sound Physiology” in 1997. He has worked extensively with sound and music as an independent sound artist, composer and musician creating a multitude of works in the fields of sound art, music, radiophonic works, site-specific sound art, sound installations, performances, electronic instruments and so on. He has also been taking part in the work of numerous production groups, theatre and dance companies by designing and realizing soundworlds to dozens of theatre and dance productions, performances, installations, exhibitions and spaces. Currently he is a lecturer of sound design in the University of the Arts Helsinki.

Olga Palomäki: Manipulated

MANIPULATED
3.5. – 30.5.2013

Noise pollution is a global environmental problem. It causes severe mental and physical illnesses to people, and it can be fatal to the ecosystems all over the world. The long-term effects of being exposed to noise are unpredictable. It alters the special behaviour of animals, and  it may even lead to extinction of many species. The constant background noise in urban areas is inescapable, and it was impossible for me to cope with. Therefore, I adapted a new approach towards the urban soundscape. I started listening to it, as if it was an uncontrolled composition, with a music-like structure.

1. Re-Manipulated, sound installation (2013)
2. Manipulated (Sounds For Headphones), soundscape collection (2012-2013)
3. Manipulated 1-4, CD cover layout (2013)

Manipulated (Sounds For Headphones) is a collection of soundscapes based on field recordings. I focus on the constant background noise in urban areas. I record man-made sounds – the electric buzz and hum, the industrial beats of the machines and vehicles – sounds, that are easily ignored because of their banal or irritating nature. I de-constructed the field recordings into fragments, and explored them, in order to re-shape them into a new form. They transformed into soundscapes of a parallel reality. Manipulated (Sounds For Headphones) is a suggestion on how to perceive the urban noise in a different way. Re-Manipulated is a sound installation created especially to be played in a gallery.

The exhibition has been supported by Paulo Foundation and
Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
The Soundscape collection will be available on CD in 2013. It will be published as a limited edition of 100 copies; each CD comes with an unique cover sheet.

Olga Palomäki (*1980) is a visual artist based in Helsinki, Finland. Combining several different mediums, her work often deals with social issues and taboos, such as the concepts of alienation, otherness, loneliness, and death. Palomäki has had many solo exhibitions around Finland. She has participated in various group exhibitions, and film- and video festivals and screenings in Finland and some other European countries.

www.olgapalomaki.net
www.soundcloud.com/olgapalomaki

7K (Group Exhibition)

7K

Group Exhibition
4.4.–26.4.2013


Sound art: art about sound, using sound as both its medium and subject
Sound artist: a person who utilizes sound as a medium/subject in his/her art
Sound art gallery: a space that exhibits sound art

7K is a proposition on what sound could be in a gallery context, made by seven artists. The exhibition asks what kind of ways of representation sound art has and what sound could tell us about space and place. As a result to these processes the exhibition introduces seven works to the public.

The thematic basis for these seven works is the actual exhibition space, Sound Art Gallery Akusmata, as a space, place and time. The works take different approaches in dealing with the characteristics of Akusmata as a physical, historical and social space. The exhibition explores sound as art and as a medium for information and also deals with the relationship between the exhibition and the one experiencing it.

The artists of 7K:

Ina Aaltojärvi

Ilpo Heikkinen

Markus Heino

Viljami Lehtonen

Joonas Outakoski

Aki Päivärinne

Johannes Vartola

The artists of this exhibition are MA-students majoring in Sound Design in the Theatre Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki.