All photographs on this page are by Antti Sompinmäki

There are different kinds of objects laid out on the table and each object has its corresponding sound. The sound starts playing when the object is placed on the elevated area in the middle of the table. More complex soundscapes can be created by placing multiple objects on the table at the same time. The objects and their sounds are divided into four different categories: Tampere, nature, work and leisure.

Video of the table on YLE Areena

More information about the project (in Finnish).

The team working on the project:

• Production: Rupriikki Media Museum (as a part of the Kulttuurikaari project)
• Producer & Designer: Niklas Nylund
• Programming & Interaction Design: Matti Niinimäki
• Sound Design: Mikko Koskinen
• Models: Lauri Karskela

Most importantly, I wanted to post something about The Race Code. An installation I made together with Timo Wright. It is currently on display at Kluuvin galleria in Helsinki as a part of Timo’s exhibition If You Tolerate This…

Timo Wright: IF YOU TOLERATE THIS…

February 17 to March 4, 2012
Wed–Sun 11-18

Kluuvi Gallery
Unioninkatu 28 B
(4th floor, courtyard)
Helsinki, Finland

Free admission

The Race Code

The Race Code is an installation that comments on the growing atmosphere of racism in Finland. The visitor enters the exhibition space where a large grid of portrait pictures of the previous visitors are displayed. The visitor can then enter a photo booth where they can have their picture taken. The software analyzes the facial features of the person and compares those features to a certain ‘ideal face’. The picture is then added to the grid. The closer the facial features are to that ideal, the higher the picture is placed on the grid, arranging the visitors into ‘higher and lower races’.

I will write about this more in detail when we have some video documentation

The original concept is by Timo Wright. Programming and visual design by me.

The Long Journey Home

The other work in the exhibition is called The Long Journey Home. A very powerful sound installation. I highly recommend listening to the stories carefully (if you understand Finnish). I wasn’t really officially involved in this project, but I helped Aki Päivärinne and Janne Koivula with the programming and electronics.

The Long Journey Home is a sound installation in which the experiences of today’s refugees’, the Finnish war children’s’ and the Karelian refugees’ are combined into a single touching experience.

The Long Journey Home

Thu 10/03/2011, 4:30 PM – Artist Talk

I will do a small artist talk/Q&A session at The Jyväskylä Art Museum. I will also do a small performance using The Beat Blender and Made In Iron controllers.

Fri 11/3/2011, 6 PM – The Future Roots & VJ Månsteri

I will be VJing to the sounds of The Future Roots in The Jyväkylä Art Museum. The visuals will be based on the cover art made by Minja Revonkorpi & Rita Vargas.

Sat 12/3 & Sun 13/3 – Arduino Workshop

On saturday and sunday I will do an Introduction to Arduino workshop. I’ll try to post some pictures about that during the weekend All the places for the workshop are reserved already.

More info about the whole Live Herring ’11 event. Lots of exhibitions, gigs, artist talks etc. Check it out.

More info:
Mediamaja
Facebook

Some of you might have seen the Animoitu liike -workshop I did in collaboration with Päivi Hintsanen and Live Herring in Jyväskylä public library (September 2009) http://www.liveherring.org/animoitu_liike/

This week I’m going to do part 2 of the workshop in Jyväskylä in collaboration with Loiskis. The Kinect sensor has greatly improved the project as I no longer need to use IR markers.

Here is a small demo. Running with a customized build of OSCeleton, Quartz Composer and Animata.

For demonstration purposes, I’m changing the character and the background by clapping my hands.

The drawings were made by students from the Keski-Palokka elementary school.

Update on the Iron project. Not perfect but it’s starting to sound pretty decent. Listen through proper speakers or headphones to hear the full effect of the bass.

Testing my new instrument and ironing my wrinkly papers at the same time. This is the beat slicing mode. Still needs a lot of work but I wanted to shoot some documentation anyway.

It’s a wireless controller for making music.

Features include:
- 6 different modes
- A mega wobble bass generator
- Beat slicer
- Sampler
- ???

Tech specs:
- Senses the grayscale values of the surface
- Accelerometer
- Tactile feedback (vibration)
- RGB LED
- Completely wireless

Stay tuned for more.

Also on YouTube (for slower connections)

Feather light or deadly serious? 


Ville Walo’s solo performance, Mortimer, is a contemporary circus theatre performance where juggling and electrical sensor technology come together. The focused, subtle performance juggles sound and video projections, brings small fluffy things to life and laughs at mortality. The performance’s soft hint of breath brushes the viewers’ skin.

Walo juggles with video projection and plays music by juggling objects equipped with movement sensors. Sensor technology and programming turn the stage into an interactive electronic instrument that reacts to Walo’s movements in perfect unison. Although the performance relies on sophisticated real-time computer controlling, its visual style is far from technology oriented sci-fi aesthetics. The stage is filled with humanely warm and clumsy everyday objects and jerky hand-drawn animations that create an intimate atmosphere.

Although Mortimer is a solo performance, Walo is by no means alone is the stage. He communicates with the objects he holds in his hands, with the puppet figures that share the stage with him, peculiarly assembled form various bits and pieces, with the skeletons and birds of the projected animations. Together they form the population of this special universe.

It’s a twisted little fairy tale world filled with death, naivety, playful cruelty and dark humour. Mortimer is a performance that provokes silent internal laughter.

Mortimer was first performed on the 16th of September 2010 in Kiasma Theatre, in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland.

Creation: Ville Walo, Anne Jämsä
Performer: Ville Walo
Lighting design: Meri Ekola
Music and sound design: Samuli Kosminen
Programming and projection design: Matti Niinimäki
Set design, costumes and drawings: Anne Jämsä
Choreographic assistance: Jyrki Karttunen

Kallio 26/8/2010

Image by Kirsi Tuura

We couldn’t do a rehearsal on Wednesday so I was a bit worried about how everything would go down on the first night. Everything had worked fine the week before in Tapiola, so I was still quite comfortable… At least I was until Mr. Murphy once again proved that you should really take his law seriously.

Problem #1

No signal to the projector with a long VGA cable, so I had to move all my gear to a different location in the last minute and setup everything again. That left me no time to properly test the motion tracking and everything else.

Problem #2

All of the dozens of WiFi networks on this particular street corner disturbed our wireless network we had set for sending data and pictures. This increased the delay between the tracking and animation to several seconds instead of the normal tenths of a second.  It took me a while to figure out that this was the problem and of course no ethernet cables anywhere. Fortunately, Severi – our technical producer – somehow got a hold of a cable and we finally got the tracking working quite smoothly in the end.

We still had a problem with the communication between my computer and Markku’s laptop, so we couldn’t really update the character as it was planned. Somehow, we still managed to limp through the night and the last hour was actually quite enjoyable.

Emmi Vainio and Kalle Kuisma shot some documentation video.

Giants of the Hoods, Kallio 26/8/10 from Giants of the Hoods on Vimeo.

Kontula 27/8/2010

Kontula worked out a lot better technically as we had ironed out all the problems in Kallio. The mood was also quite different as we had a lot of children coming to dance and also because of the commitment of the people that took part in the workshop some weeks ago. It was also the “Night of the Arts” in Helsinki that day and I think it was nice that we did this in the suburbs of East Helsinki and not downtown where everything else happened.

Giants event in Kontula from Giants of the Hoods on Vimeo.

Tapiola 28/8/2010

Technically, Tapiola worked the best, but there weren’t that many people around. The cold and windy weather was against us, but we still had fun and it was nice to see some people who had been there the week before also when we did some testing.

No video yet, but i will add it here once it’s online.

Next

We are doing two more shows this week. On Wednesday, we are at the Aalto University Opening after-party in Otaniemi and on Saturday we have the event at the Lasipalatsi square. For more details: http://www.giantsofthehoods.com/