9th meething, Wednesday, November 24th

MOKS presents:
helikoosolek:tartu
John Grzinich's film Sound Aspects of Material Elements
Wednesday, November 24th, 6-8pm
Eesti Rahva Muuseum, Tartu

The 9th meeting of helikoosolek:tartu will feature the Estonian premiere of John Grzinich's film Sound Aspects of Material Elements.

The film is based on sound recordings made in Estonia and Portugal from 2006-2009. It shows a specific approach to the artistic use of sound, documenting a 3 year in-situ process of sonification, of exploring interactions between natural and man-made environments implementing numerous found objects in the context of landscapes and abandoned structures. The film employs a minimal editing style and durational shots, shifting our attention toward and extended view of time and place, of the ever changing micro-processes that hint to eternal growth and decay inherent to cycles of nature itself. The possibilities to intercept, shape, disrupt, recombine and capture the elements  through creative experiments is what this film illustrates in the interest that it may inspire the viewer to listen in new way.

Sound Aspects of Material Elements reveals how our sense of hearing can use non-linguistic signals to communicate, interpret and build relations to the world around us. Using sound as the primary signifier, the film shows a specific approach to the artistic use of sound, covering a 3 year period of the authors personal research and collaborations with a number of close colleagues. The film documents in-situ processes of exploration and sonification of the landscape along with the numerous objects and structures found there.

All the sound recordings emphasize how the combinations of certain materials (metal, wood, glass) with natural elements (water, wind fire), take on alchemical characteristics as we listen in. We experience aeolian metal wires in the wind, structures affected by fire, water, snow and the casual effects of human interventions in insect worlds. The sonic outcomes can be subtle and sometimes below our common perception so a variety of experimental recording techniques were employed. Contact microphones are placed on surfaces shifting our attention toward the internal resonances of the materials themselves while mini microphones reveal spaces normally inaccessible by our ears. What we hear is what we see, yet is sometimes translated through amplified means.

With its minimal editing style and durational shots, Sound Aspects of Material Elementsshifts our attention toward and extended view of time and place, of the ever changing micro-processes that hint to eternal growth and decay inherent to cycles of nature itself. The possibilities to intercept, shape, disrupt, recombine and capture the elements through creative experiments is what this film attempts to illustrate in the interest that it may inspire the viewer to listen in new way.

helikoosolek:tartu is organised my MoKS and supported by Eesti Rahva Muuseum, Tartu Linnavalitsus, and Eesti Kultuurkapital.


http://helikoosolek.blogspot.com
http://www.moks.ee
http://www.erm.ee

8th meeting report

For our 8th meeting we explored the Eesti Rahva Muuseum itself, experimenting with the building's sonic spaces, structures and architecture. After some initial group exercises in our usual meeting room (using the room's most prolific item: it's chairs) we broke into smaller groups for individual exploration of the building, culminating in two performances:




Our first space was the museum's coatroom; usually covered in coats, it's structure was already altered at this time of the evening by being completely bare, revealing the hollow metallic skeleton of the racks themselves. We found each hook to have it's own resonance when struck or bowed, and the hooks' numbering system (meant to help you find your coat among many) proved to be a convenient way to locate specific points and repeat resonant forms.




The second space was the small staircase area next to the bar - a varied palette of sounds came from the rotating bar stools, the staircase railing, and the museum's Finno-Ugric language display, representing each language within the Finno-Ugric group by a disc sized proportionally to the language's number of native speakers. Each disc, of course, proved to have its own distinct sound.

We finished our meeting by watching some video material of site-specific actions in Estonia and Latvia. For more information on the revenant:sound project that inspired this workshop, see http://www.revenantsound.net.

8th meeting, Wednesday, October 27th

MoKS presents:
helikoosolek:tartu 
revenant:tartu, with Patrick McGinley
Wednesday, October 27th
6-8pm
Eesti Rahva Muuseum, Tartu

revenant:tartu - site specific soundscape explorations

The 8th edition of helikoosolek:tartu will be led by its regular moderator Patrick McGinley as an exploration of group actions within specific spaces. The group will explore concepts of active participation within a space's soundscape through a series of games, exercises and improvisations in various spaces within the Eesti Rahva Muuseum itself, experimenting with materials, shapes, resonances, surfaces, distances, and micro and macro sound events, towards a series a private group 'performances' to happen around the building. All sounds will originate from materials found in-situ, and from interactions with the space itself, and no artificial amplification will be used.

McGinley will also present a series of short audio and video recordings dealing with the same topic, from the collected activities of revenant:sound, an ongoing project with open membership that focuses on site-specific acoustic actions.

http://www.revenantsound.net
http://www.murmerings.com

helikoosolek:tartu is organised my MoKS and supported by Eesti Rahva Muuseum, Tartu Linnavalitsus, and Eesti Kultuurkapital.
http://helikoosolek.blogspot.com
http://www.moks.ee
http://www.erm.ee

7th meeting report

Thanks to Natalia for preparing yet another workshop. This one being very condensed also made people focused. In just 2 short hours we created a whole ensemble of low power circuits. Most of us even managed to get a fairly diverse range of sounds by connecting the free leads to different materials and the circuits of our neighbors. After a short while its hard to know why the circuit is doing what its doing and how to control it. All good fun.

7th meeting, Wednesday, September 29th

MoKS presents:
helikoosolek:tartu
with Natalia Borissova
Wednesday, September 29th
6-8pm
Eesti Rahva Muuseum, Tartu

This edition of helikoosolek:tartu will feature a visit from current MoKS resident artist Natalia Borissova, who will give a 'Hands-on (your neighbor)' workshop with audio amplifiers adapted into homemade 'crackle' devices - simple, but expressive interactive instruments. The human body and any conductive matters become part of an electric circuit (or the other way around) and determine the range of sounds possible.

Everything conductive found in a room, including the bare skin of your neighbour, can be wired and played in a short collective sonic cross-performance, after building our own 'crackle'-circuits and figuring out what/who is conductive and why. Eight circuits can be temporarily constructed and played collaboratively. All parts will be provided, but please bring a 9V battery.

Nata(lia)sha Borissova is Moscow born, Munich/Berlin-based media artist/organizer working with (s)low-tech in a DIY, explorative, and process-related way. Since 1995 she has been experimenting with visual media while living in Moscow, Berlin, Stuttgart, Buffalo, NY and Munich. She has spent some time as a visiting professor, lecturing on Motion imaging, at New York State University/Buffalo (SUNY), and has been selected for several grants and artists' residencies in Europe. Since 2006 she has been independently running aa-vv.org - a migrating workshop-zone for informal audiovisual education and experimentation, trying to keep both change and continuity in setting up creative workshops, as well as instigating those self-(de)constructivist, experiment-based, temporal norms-forms abandoning situations. Gradually her main interest is shifting from motion to stillness, from showing to looking, from hearing to listening, from art to life, from life to... the dead frog.

http://www.aa-vv.org/about-natabor
http://www.aa-vv.org

helikoosolek:tartu is organised my MoKS and supported by Eesti Rahva Muuseum, Tartu Linnavalitsus, and Eesti Kultuurkapital.
http://helikoosolek.blogspot.com
http://www.moks.ee
http://www.erm.ee

6th meeting report

Some nice discussion generated by the work of Yiorgis Sakellariou this month, including questions of field-recording in live performance - is there a conceptual or preferential difference between live software processing and simple listening session playback? We had both in this edition - Yiorgis played a live set using field-recordings made in and around the small greek village from which his family originates (with a few recent recordings from Tallinn thrown in for good measure), and also played us a few long duration untreated recordings from the same location, including one stunning recording of the mournful funeral bells of the village church (where he was recently offered the job of village priest, apparently).  We moved this meeting to the floor this time around, borrowed some filled hemp sack cushions from the museum's exhibition, making the room a bit more comfortable.

Next month we'll have a visit from MoKS current artist in residence, Natalia Borissova.  Stay tuned for more details.

6th meeting, Wednesday, August 25th

MoKS presents:
helikoosolek:tartu
Mecha/Orga, with Yiorgis Sakellariou
Wednesday, August 25th
6-8pm
Eesti Rahva Muuseum, Tartu

This edition of helikoosolek:tartu features a visit from Greek artist Yiorgis Sakellariou.

Yiorgis Sakellariou is involved with the contemporary and experimental music scene in Greece through his CD-R label “Echo Music”, and as a member of the Contemporary Music Research Centre, and the Hellenic Electroacoustic Music Composers Association. He is also a participant in the Ear to the Earth organization and he has composed music for film and theatre plays. Yiorgis recently spent a month in the village of Abeliona, in the region of Peloponnesus, in Greece. During that time he made a series of field recordings, including thunderstorms, funeral church bells and used the  material to compose an album.

Mecha/Orga is the project and recording name of Yiorgis Sakellariou. Since 2003, 2 CDs and 5 CD-Rs have been released and Mecha/Orga has been presented live in Greece, The Netherlands, the U.K., France, Belgium, Germany, Russia and Switzerland. Mecha/Orga’s music and performances are mostly based on field recordings (from passing trains to waterfalls and from refrigerator drones to desert winds), which are filtered and mixed in real time, with the use of a laptop.

During this edition of helikoosolek:tartu we will have a performance/listening session, and Yiorgis will lead a question/answer session and discussion based on his work. Participants are encouraged also to bring any field recordings of their own that the group can listen to and discuss.

For more information on Yiorgis' work, please see:
http://www.mecha-orga.com
http://thenoisehitthemastheyopenedthedoor.blogspot.com/2010/08/yiorgis-sakellariou-abelionas.html
http://blog.noise-below.org/tag/field-recording-mini-series/

helikoosolek:tartu is organised by MoKS and supported by Eesti Rahva
Muuseum, Tartu Linnavalitsus and Eesti Kultuurkapital.
http://helikoosolek.blogspot.com
http://www.moks.ee
http://www.erm.ee