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Miscellaneous expertise @ MoKS AVAMAA 2010


Next month I will be coordinating a workshop entitled Miscellaneous expertise: performance, unlearning stories and public speech at the MoKS Kunsti ja Sotsiaalpraktika Keskus AVAMAA sympsium in Mooste, Estonia.  This is a collaboration with my good friend Giles Bailey, and the workshop will take place over five days with the dissemination on the sixth.

We proposed Miscellaneous expertise as an experiment using the workshop format; we hope to explore some of the structural components of performance through a patchwork aesthetic, with a concentration on “found” materials, chance, and non-linear constructions.  One potential subtitle was “Performance for non-performers AND non-performance for performers”, though that's a bit too constrictive and I think "unlearning" is a better term to use.

The outcome of the workshop will be a panel discussion that dissects the nature of performance, which of course will itself be a performance, which of course will not be.  If you remember my post about last year’s Mutopia workshop @ AVAMAA, then you’ll know I valued the MoKS approach to creative practice, a flame that will hopefully burn through this.  

Details about the workshop (how to attend, as well as info on the other workshops and projects occurring during the AVAMAA week [Natalia Borissova’s workshop looks amazing, and I wish there was some way to clone myself and do both]) are available on the MoKS website.  If you’re thinking of participating in Miscellaneous expertise, feel free to drop me a line or comment here.  See you in Estonia!
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Ptarmigan artist-in-residency programme
Ptarmigan was funded by The Nordic Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture administrated by the Nordic Culture Point!  We will be able to offer three 2-month residencies in 2010 to residents of the Nordic and Baltic countries (outside of Finland).


In true Ptarmigan fashion, we are interested in people who do similar things to what we do.  So while we are looking for artists and cultural producers, we are particularly interested in people who have a strong emphasis on community interaction, workshops, skills exchanges, and event-driven dissemination.


For more information, or to apply, please see our call for submissions.  And spread the word!  Applications are due in just over a month and we hope to make decisions in early June.
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The 15,000 Day Boat Trip: now available!
I'd like to announce (with great pleasure) that The 15,000 Day Boat Trip is finally available! 8mm038lp

This is an LP that I recorded during my final year in Glasgow, in 2007.  It's one long piece split over two sides , and I have been describing it to people as "instrumental music".  To be a bit more detailed, Boat Trip contains similar concrète assemblages to what we did in Lied Music, but with a significantly less boisterous attitude.  I took a slow hand here and tried to focus on cohesiveness (despite the damaged/anti aesthetic) as well as providing delicate, slowly breathing spaces. If you know me, you won't be surprised to hear a lot of strings, though I believe this record is esraj-free. 

The LP is released in an edition of 300 by the lovely 8mm label of Italy/Portuguese operation (making this, strangely, the second consecutive solo release I've done on a Porto-based label [the first being the split CD with Spiral Joy Band from back in '07]).  Screened/handmade covers, hand-numbered editions, you know - the whole deal. 

This has been a long time in the works and represents a solid year of my musical life.  I'm really thrilled to have this on vinyl, and it sounds great (thanks in part to the wonderful premastering done by Rory Sanachan). 

I'm really sorry to any Americans who may balk at the high price of this.  Vinyl costs are rising, but even moreso are shipping rates, which almost seem designed to fuck over those of us who still love hearing music on wax. I have more thoughts on this (as well as the future of physical music replication for me personally) which I will spit out here some time in the future.

This should be obtainable from the usual suspects - I will edit this entry to include links to more stores as they become available. Mimaroglu Music has copies in stock and KFW has written a really thoughtful description that does a better job than I could ever do of describing my own soundworld.  Thanks!

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15,000 Day Boat Trip Band video clip

Here's the end of our set from Ptarmigan last weekend, performing the song 'Talbot' which is actually not on the 15,000 Day Boat Trip LP (available very very soon from 8mm!) but a song from my project Handshake Garden.  Blurring the lines, you know.... Please accept my apologies for how awkward it is to watch someone sing and play viola at the same time.  More live shows (with hopefully an expanded band lineup) will come in the future.  And thanks to my partner Tara for filming this and using a nice arty slow shutter speed.
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Upcoming performances this month in Helsinki
I will be performing twice this month in Helsinki.

First, Friday 6 November at Kokoteatteri (Krunnunhaka), as part of Helsinki Meeting Point.  I will be playing esraj along with James Andean (piano and electronics) and three dancers (Riikka Theresa Innanen, Jaakko Simola, and Virva Talonen).  More information here.

On Saturday 21 November I will be performing as "The 15,000 Day Boat Trip Band" at the It's All In Your Mind 2009 festival, at my space Ptarmigan.  There will very possibly be copies of the record The 15,000 Day Boat Trip in my possession by then, which would make this a 'record release show'; not sure yet what the performance or "band" will entail but it will assume some similarity to the album.
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'Last Night on Earth' tape
Ikuisuus has just released a split casette between Last Night on Earth and New Yaki.

Lastnightnewyaki

I appear on the Last Night on Earth side playing esraj, along with Jani Hirvonen, Mari Imppola and Jari Koho.  This was recorded ages ago after I just moved to Finland and was probably the first time I had played with anyone in months.  I haven't heard the recording in awhile but it is available for purchase for anyone who may be interested. 

I have a few performances coming up in Helsinki which I'll post about here again when I have more details.
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New code on icewhistle.com
This site runs a custom-built content management system that I wrote when I was teaching myself Rails.  As it was a learning project, the code was full of bugs and suffered from generally poor design.  This afternoon I ripped out the guts and bashed out some new code, essentially from scratch.  The goal is reduce the ridiculous number of 500 errors that was occuring because I was aggregating too many RSS feeds together.

You may notice that this site is generally less complicated now.  I have decided to stop reBlogging -- there are already a zillion pointless sites out there where people repost other content, and most of those actually take the time to comment on what they are reposting, which I didn't even bother doing.  The old reblog data will sit in the history of the posts unless people start to find it confusing when searching, in which case I'll wipe it.  I've added my delicious bookmarks to the sidebar here which will serve the same purpose.

This "blog" will continue to exist as a place for me to write general thoughts and post news and updates about my work/projects.  I will continue to use blindness as a tumblr-style blog for quick and dirty stuff, and I will be merging the other various Wordpress installations into this main CMS.  The blog content will now be visible from the frontpage, which was previously reserved for "news" and announcement (which will now be found on every page, at the top).

Thanks for reading this far.
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Bat Tarbet 'tethered to battery' live video excerpt

Here's the video from the most recent Bat Tarbet performance, last Sunday at Koko-Teatteri in Helsinki.  Thanks to Juho Jouhtimäki for shooting and sharing this.

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Bat Tarbet 'noses' live video excerpt

Bat Tarbet "noses" from last week. We'll be performing again at Kokoteattri in Kruunuhaka, Helsinki on the 15th of March with the Shitty Listeners.
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Bat Tarbet, live in Helsinki 22 Nov 2008!

Bat Tarbet will be performing at the two-day It's All In Your Mind event, at Vaihtolava in Kallio, Helsinki.  This will be our first performance in over a year and our first performance in Finland.  We're playing Saturday around 19:30 but I recommend the whole event as there will be lots of interesting music there! 

 

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'The 15,000 Day Boat Trip' LP
8mm Records will be releasing The 15,000 Day Boat Trip LP in March, 2009.
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Glasgow live date: 13 August

Though it doesn't say so on the flyer, Neil and I will be accompanied by Laura Molloy.  Hope to see you there!

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Reblog content now here
The icewhistle reblog is now found at http://www.icewhistle.com/reblog/ instead of the old location. Please note the distinct RSS feeds for reBlog and other posts. I plan to add more features to this CMS, like searching, in the next few weeks.
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RSS feed

There is now an RSS feed available for the icewhistle.com blog posts (including these announcements).

 Coming soon will be an aggregated feed containing these posts and all of the other web projects (blindness, reblog, etc.).

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