Radio came to town. Yes, the one invented in the 19th century. Until just a few days ago besides the building’s constant humming, there was practically nothing to cling to aurally. Tired of all those too many times heard mp3s, it was about time to get a radio. Before I’ve only managed to steal a few moments listening to Radio Helsinki over the Net. In spite of getting those waves wirelessly, I’ve been spatialy confined to a seriously limited listening area. But radio, come on, doesn’t it feel like the beginning of the 20th century again. Nostalgia? No, futurama. If only Internet waves were as ubiquitous as radio-waves are.

And in those brief three days I’ve been able to enjoy much wider variety of radio programs than I could ever have imagined. It’s no joke. In this ‘not enough room to swing a cat’ apartment, sound waves in Finnish, Romani, Samí, Albanian, Kurdish and Persian bounced off the walls. I’ve even listened to news in Croatian, Serbian, and Serbo-Croatian, all at once. Just imagine, it felt like the 1980s again–so Yugo-nostalgic. And all this without touching the dial once, courtesy of Sveriges Radio P2. And nevertheless, it is the Swedishness I am much more exposed to. A whopping 10% of total Swedish population comes from abroad or has origins outside of the country. Swedish national radio station P2 couldn’t reflect this fact better.

On the other hand, I’ve almost already forgotten what it feels like to overhear a conversation in a very familiar language in a foreign land (not in boring English). But here, on more than one occasion I’ve had a chance to listen in unintentionally. Particularly memorable was a middle aged lady in the metropolitan bus explaining in Bosnian to the party on the other side of the phone connection how her partner doesn’t know how to do anything, not even drill a hole in a wall, not to mention that he’s not able to hit a nail with a hammer; all he does is watch TV and surf the Net all day long. He must be lucky, I thought.
Here’s a more gripping evidence of cultural patchwork in the city of Göteborg. Sure there are many Chinese, Thai, Indian, Japanese, Italian restaurants and Kebab stands, but most of them are purists, serving only one choice of food. Catering to a niche. How about Sushi-Pizza, Steak House, Asiatic BBQ specialized restaurant? Not a slightest problem. I guess I should have a lunch there.

Another cultural ephemera which made a lasting impression I’ve found at a second hand store nearby the just mentioned restaurant: old Swedish bands’ records. I was sifting through some useless junk and these turned out to be one of a few gems found there. I’m pretty sure that we have all at some point admired the abominable hairdos of a few decades ago, but please, just take a look at these covers for more than their hair. Hilarious.

And this is just the top of my rambling iceberg. More gems from Sweden coming soon to a blog near you.

Mladen

Whoever was in Helsinki last Friday had a chance to attend a special edition mass, a heavy metal mass, to be precise. The Nordic countries of Finland, Sweden and Norway have over the years fostered very diverse heavy metal scenes. Norway brought up a satanist who was burning down old wooden churches, Finnish heavy band Lordi won the whiny Eurovision contest and I shouldn’t forget to mention a Finnish urban legend about a grandma ordering The Children Christmas Songs CD through a catalogue sales, but received The Children of Bodom CD instead.

Grandma probably complained for receiving a CD she didn’t ask for. However, I can imagine that in the near future such mistakes might even be appreciated as they open a new avenue for older music lovers. Besides, the North is breeding a new generation of grandmas. From what follows it seems that The Children of Bodom might not be that far from The Children of Christmas anymore.

A few heavy metal blokes from Finland came up with an idea of holding a heavy metal mass–in a church, evangelic lutheran Church or Finnish state Church. According to the information on their Metallimessu website they thought it was about time to take over the J.S.Bach’s monopoly in Church music. They were not the first ones to think so.

Already in the 1960’s there have been talks in the Finnish Church whether the guitar should be allowed to be used during the service. And it was. But since the 1980’s pop and rock music have become a standard installment during some of the services. Not much later even gospel style music was approved by the Finnish Church as an aid in delivering the mass.

In times when many popular music movements often resemble religious movements, I think that Christian heavy metal masses were only a step away from those offered by The Church of Elvis. Which is not at all surprising as religious services today are a non-divisible hodgepodge of business, personal guidance, childcare, education and religion. And as Finnish Church lost the record amount of followers in 2006, the embrace of the long standing no-no music in Christian circles became inevitable.

On the other hand, heavy metal music is now more popular than ever. Long hair, black shirts and chains have conjuncted with our everyday. Everyone can name at least a few heavy metal bands as they take main stages of popular concerts around Europe. Why not harness the popularity of heavy metal for a church service? The organizers of the Metallimessu addressed that question exactly. After all, music itself is neutral, it is the words that carry the meaning, they maintain. Could have they chosen a better place to win over their and Church fans than the Helsinki’s Tuomiokirkko cathedral? Hardly.

Suits me. I just can’t wait to hear Laibach perform God is God and their other gems in a cathedral. You name it and I’ll go. Although they probably would have to alter their lyrics a little bit, at least for now.

Mladen

Just a few weeks ago I wrote about how Finnish dairy company Valio places lovely cows and heartfelt poetry on their milk cartons. Even though in Sweden the range of diary products is much wider, it is not as ingenious. Or is it?

Recently one of the Swedish supermarket chains begun an usual campaign. As a part of their membership program they offer their member consumers free milk. Not free as in freedom, but free as in free beer. Although it does come at a small price, but I am sure that for many consumers this makes no substantial consumption restraints. Milk cartons containing free milk carry an add that obviously pays for each carton’s content. The way I see it is if the ads’ content is appropriate for the context, I don’t see why not go for it.

True, enjoying art even on milk cartons is refreshing and inspiring–it is what art does best. But even though this Swedish food store chain might have not turned simple everyday consumer products into true Pop art, I definitely like the idea of getting free milk. Hopefully it’s only a question of time before they start offering free chocolate.

Mladen

The second day of Transmediale was packed with interesting speakers. I’d particularly like to draw attention to two events that made my day yesterday (besides those couple of hours I took to drift around the city): Warren Neidich’s short lecture and Stelarc’s session. I’ll let the climax build.

Artist Warren Neidich participated with Ingeborg Reichle in a panel titled Unfinished Creation where he spoke both about his works and cognitive issues and quirks he has encountered while developing his work. What made his part particularly interesting was how he converged the accumulated cognitive research results and philosophical questions arising from these scientific conclusions. I particularly liked his remark that it is interesting how among the most interesting philosophical discussions and questions today are brought up by scientists and not so much by humanists.

Another point brought up by Neidich which as a researcher in digital contemporary art I found particularly interesting was how ideas influence the material and how material in return influences ideas, with the process practically continuing ad infinitum until the work is finished. Once such a statement is uttered it sounds obvious, while building a taxonomy of art makeing is tedious and difficult to describe, specifically the complex process of the development of an artwork, which take place between the initial idea and the final work.

Large part of his presentation, however, Neidich was talking about his views on neural darwinism and neural constructivism. Particularly compelling was his pondering on genetic vs. brain connection changes, where genetic changes take a very long time, while brain is able to adapt to changes very, very quickly building up new connections and killing off unused even before we are born and practically until we die. Of course, this rises the question of what good do all these elaborate brain connections do to the human race if they cease to exist with the death of the individual both producing and carrying them, thus unretreivably obliterating the knowledge of the individual who carried them.

Still, it seemed like Neidich at least a little bit believes that individual’s experience and knowledge contribute to the genetic evolutionary processess; extremely slowly, but changes do occur over long periods of time. The gist of his justification wa based on the example of language development (which in itself is rather difficult to prove in the first place). Neidich contends that the individuals who had genetic predisposition for the developing of lanugage had a better chance of survival, and reproduction than those who lacked it. In a similar way, Neidich claims, even our contemporary culture is influencing us in the same way. Unfortunately he did not touch on what exactly are our genes preferring culturally today that would make a significant genetical change, which would implicate the development of a human brain over a long period of time.

Stelarc on the other hand mostly spoke about his work, both past and present. Even though he has performed in Ljubljana several times, this is the first time I have seen him live. First impression: he has a very wicked laughter and obviously audience found it very amusing; it somehow puts into context his work. Anyway, Stelarc’s entertaining and insightful presentation lasted for two whole hours that passed in an eye-blink.

In the packed auditorium of the Berlin Akademie der Künste Stelarc spoke about everything from his suspended bodies works (you can read an insightful text on the series of works here) to stomach sculpture and the third hand. But by far the most interesting was one of his most recent experiments with acquiring an extra ear. It borders on insane, especially once you hear what he went through to get the ear.

Initially he had the idea for the third ear already in the mid 1990’s but it was not realizable. One of the reasons being that he wanted to have it on his cheek, right in front of his other two ears. He dropped the idea only after doctors told him that as a result of the operation part of his face might be paralyzed. Although it seemed like he had found the idea that his third ear would be wiggling as he moves his jaws much more off putting.

As bio-technology for growing living tissue improved in the last decade so it seems his idea of getting an extra ear progressed. So in 2006 he had begun materializing it. The process begun when he went through the process of growing excess skin on his left forearm where the ear shaped mold on which the ear would grow was later inserted. He already had the ear inserted by his surgeon friends and wore it until the bluetooth microphone which was inserted alongside with the mold caused an infection. A bluetooth microphone? It was only naturally for him to insert a microphone, as it was an extra ear, afterall. He envisioned that the wireless microphone would enable the curious to listen on what his new ear is catching. At this point I begun wondering what’s the point as it seemed that he is doing this just because he can do it, but without a developed concept supporting his actions.

Anyway, Sterlarc’s keynote was full of videos and anecdotes. The first complete miniature ear his friend had grown for him on a mold needed some special attention. Besides having to feed it regularly, it had to be kept at a constant 37C in order to survive. A machine was taking care of that. But when his friend had to fly across Australia on a four hour flight, the ear would die if it was not kept at body temperature. So his friend carried it “in his panties.” I can imagine how the airport security would freak out if he had to go through a body search.

Mladen