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 like in every culture, music has an important role in Finland too. But I don’t really intend to go into the details about how it all begun. First of all, I’ve no idea about it, and secondly, I don’t think you’d enjoy reading some dry history stuff. Let’s dig out the entertaining and funny tidbits instead.

There are very mixed feelings about Finnish music both around the globe, Europe and right here in Finland. Like, for instance, the annual Eurovision contest, which has due to terrible consecutive results of Finnish performers reached the level of being nothing less than a national trauma. Until, of course, this year when Finland won the contest with Lordi and surprised everyone, even itself.

And I think Lordi is a good example of how out of tune consensual Finnish musical taste is. When they won the national competition, everyone from broadsheet newspapers to yellow press and grandmas on the streets went ballistic about how Lordi will bring eternal shame to the country. Fast-forward a few months and they literally became national heroes being received by both president Tarja Halonen and prime minister Matti Vanhanen, having squares named after the band, statues erected, and on top of everything even getting their own bank card. From bitches to riches in an eye blink. And I cannot really imagine that the queen would hold a reception for the Sex Pistols at the height of their career. But then again, this is Finland after all.

OK, everyone knows Lordi and it ain’t really fun anymore now that they are swarmed with sexually explicit letters from their German fans. There’s much more to Finnish music than Lordi can offer.

Take, for example, the notorious former world-class ski jumper Matti Nykänen. His career in sports literally catapulted him (no pun intended) into everlasting bingeing, and along the way he became a stripper, a porn star and, yes, even a singer. And I’ve just scratched the surface here: he has said and done many admiringly stupid things. Even though many regard him to be a tragic character, he’s proud of it all. No, really, to do justice to Matti, I’d have to write a separate post. But I’ll stick to the topic and write about Matti some other time.

I’ve no idea why he’s so popular as a singer, but I sure noticed that sometimes it’s really hard to tell if people and media are laughing with Matti or at Matti. But at the same time, I don’t think he’s able to make a distinction either. I haven’t yet had a chance to see Matti perform live, but cannot wait for that moment to come.

So what does Matti cherish in his songs? He elaborates on V-style (jumping V-style with sexual connotations, that is), jumping and flying (in aptly named song Jump and Fly), on being Topless (I wonder which part of his career inspired this song), he confesses about a Night of surprises (I’m sure there have been many such nights during his long career) and Laps (lap as in lap dance - probably inspired by Topless). But he also touches on more ethereal topics in songs such as are Samurai, Markiisi De Sade (yes, that is Marquis de Sade), and about love and even life itself in the song meaningfully entitled Elämä on laiffi or Life is Life. ‘Nuff said, check them out and you’ll know what I mean. All those who went gung-ho about Matti here’s more. Amen.

Let’s stay on the infamous side for just a bit before we move on to hard science stuff. Are you also too young to remember why Finland sucked so bad in the Eurovision contests practically since its inception? I sure am, but that’s why I like the Internet so much as it brings back things some people would rather forget. What you are about to see is not really Eurovision material, but I cannot imagine it got much better than this. It is a music video of a song I Wanna Love You Tender performed by Finnish duet Armi and Danny that was labeled as the worst video ever. I know it was in the 80’s, but people, please. Just watch!

I’d like to know just one thing: what were these people thinking?

And now for something completely different. Even though it wasn’t really invented in Finland, air guitar is very popular around here. Actually, so popular that since the 1996 Air Guitar World Championships have been organized as part of the Oulu Music Video Festival. Pretty cool. “And just how is air guitar related to creating music?” I hear you grumble. Well, smart kids at the Helsinki University of Technology have as a part of their school project created an air guitar that you can actually play. Their Virtual Air Guitar records the movements of your hands as you do the air guitar and it transforms your gestures into sounds. Every drunk rocker’s dream just came true. Although I particularly like one kid’s honest reaction: “Look mom, magic gloves!”

The result is so cool indeed that you have to check out the videos for yourself. Especially make sure you check out the wannabe rocker professor video.

Rock on.

Mladen

How do you know that you’re visiting Linz during the time of Ars Electronica Festival? When half of the passengers on your plane to Linz are Japanese. What is otherwise a small sleepy city in the Upper Austria, annually becomes a bustling world center of electronic and digital art for a week in the beginning of September. And it was exactly the Ars Electronica festival that has put Linz on the world map.

I’ve been coming here for quite a few years now, and whenever I’ve visited I’ve never left disappointed. Quite the contrary, this is such an exciting place that I can easily forget to eat and sleep while being here. Might be a bit hard to understand, but those who are similarly passionate (no matter what your passion is) know what I mean. And I am not the only one. During the week long festival a lot of festival goers, artists, researchers and art lovers consume art and attend lectures during the day and party hard into the morning hours.

Every year the organizers assign a topic for the festival which is then discussed in the symposia, discussions and brought to life in a variety of workshops. The topic this year was simplicity. The discussion was at all times about how the striving for simplicity in our increasingly complex world, what to do to reach it and why is it so important. An interesting topic, which has spurred many an interesting presentation and discussion.

But lectures are just a forum where ideas are verbalized. The majority of attention falls on the exhibitions. And every year the festival program is richer as more venues and events where visitors can enjoy the works of digital contemporary artists are added to the list. But, speaking about quantities is not really that interesting. I’ll rather mention details that caught my attention and which I’ve enjoyed most.

Practically all art presented at the festival is divided into six categories: interactive art, digital musics, computer animation/visual effects, digital communities, net vision and u19 - freestyle computing. Although one cannot really measure progress in arts, it seems like a certain level of achievement satisfaction can be attributed to the computer animation/visual effects category.

The works presented in this category have clearly reached an incredible level of complexity. Less than ten years ago, one could see clever works, but they nevertheless resembled garage works. What one sees at Ars Electronica nowadays is outright incredible display of high quality art and technological prowess. The viewer doesn’t have to pretend anymore that they don’t see the patched up low-tech with a good plot and a nice twist. Practically all the works are polished to the very last detail. Not in the sense of Hollywood blockbusters (although there’s every year at least few of those who get some attention too), but rather in Hollywood superficial sense. Whereas works submitted by Hollywood received a lot of attention for years, the independent or school projects now kick their ass. Hollywood should learn from these people. Thus it comes as a no surprise that the award winners in this category this year supposedly already got lucrative job offers.

It is amazing to witness how the presence at the Festival pulls artists from obscurity and into the center of digital arts scene. At the Festival almost without exception receive a whole barrage of invitations and offers.

One of my favorites was indisputably Ryoichi Kurokawa and his intensive, visually striking and musically rich audio/video performance. His incredible skill of combining sounds with visuals almost drives you crazy. The piece he has performed was both technically perfected, as well as aesthetically complex yet balanced. In fact, it was so beautiful that putting it to words comes nowhere near to experiencing it in first person. Browse around his site and try to catch him play.

Another act that really impressed me was the Graffiti Research Lab group. The Lab was thought up by New Yorkers James Powderly and Evan Roth who tend to describe themselves as not gutsy enough to do the graffiti themselves, but admire all those phlegmatic graffiti artists who are responsible for enriching our urban landscapes. But they wanted to give them a hand and augment the paint bucket and spray can. The duo came up with several immensely clever albeit simple ways of doing this. And they excel at it and even NY cops love it.

GRL guys have won the hearts of the public with their throwies: a 1 buck, 20 second retrograde hi-tech graffiti solution. By strapping together a simple consumer LED light, battery and a strong magnet, they have started a whole craze around the net and on the streets. All of a sudden they became magnetic themselves as they were approached even by the Absolut marketing machine (cooperation with which they have blatantly - and rightfully so - refused). Their throwies stick to any ferromagnetic surface and thus far have adored everything from buildings, bridges and sculptures in New York, to, after their most recent action, Linz trams. Make sure you check the videos on their site.

At this years’ Ars Electronica I have also immensely enjoyed works by Zachary Lieberman. Besides the performance/lecture done in collaboration with artist/engineer Golan Levin and media archeologist and Finnish star professor Erkki Huhtamo, Zach had three of his works at Ars: drawn, The Manual Input Station and Messa di Voce (the latter two done in collaboration with Golan Levin). Although all these works are interactive and children love them, they are also ingenious visually elegant sound works. They all demand interaction from the audience and are great for jamming. But I have to say that seeing Zach and Golan perform with their creations was truly inspiring. Especially make sure you check out the videos on the sites of these projects, since it’s all in the interaction.

Then there were the nerd-retro Papierpixel and PingPongPixel; the unbelievably cool self-destructive (but also self-assembling) Robotic Chair; undeniably cool Khronos Projector and Hello World!. I think I could go on and on about all the projects I have liked. If you’ve never been to Ars Electronica, you should go. So far I have not met anyone who wouldn’t have fun there.

But Ars Electronica is also all about networking, partying and hanging around with the most creative people in the digital contemporary arts.

Later tonight I’ll update the gallery with a bunch of images from the festival. Make sure you check it out as there’s some pretty nifty stuff there too.

Mladen

As most of you have probably already heard from various media, there will be a second round of presidential elections in Finland next Sunday. Heidi Hautala, Bjarne Kallis, Arto Lahti, Henrik Lax, Timo Soini and even prime minister Matti Vanhanen were knocked out by Tarja Halonen and Sauli Niinistö who will run for the presidency in the second round of elections. Although for many the outcome of the first round came as a surprise as they expected Tarja to win, it is rather a surprise to read and hear that even Tarja as the first female president of Finland might be a one-time phenomenon. Recent polls show that Niinistö is mere 6% percent behind Tarja and has the support of 47% of voters.

Quite interesting but not really surprising as in the first round jettisoned and defeated current prime minister Matti Vanhanen announced the very same moment when it was obvious that he won’t go into the second round that he personally and his party will support Niinistö in the second round. Extremely smart move at the exactly right time - election prime-time when the whole nation was watching. It gave right oriented Niinistö an immense boost.

I already wrote in my last week’s post about the efficiency of Finnish voters. Now I can admirably say the same thing for their administration. All votes of the first round were counted and statistics available just a few minutes less than two and a half hours after the polling stations were closed. With one word: amazing. I have never encountered such efficiency of the administration.

That said it’s interesting that the independent candidate Arto Lahti got only 0,4% or 12.989 votes, while it is necessary for independent candidates to gather 20.000 citizen signatures to become eligible candidates. I just wonder how and where did he gather those signatures. Friday and Saturday night at 4 am in a bar? And although there are again no data how many people voted for Aku Ankka, I should mention for all his fans that there were the total of 8.805 invalid ballots. Lucky Donald, as he is the only privileged candidate to run in the second round as well. For all the statistics geeks, the official statistics can be found on the page of Tilastokeskus. Go crazy with those numbers.

Another interesting Finland’s presidential election tidbit is that the ABC talk show host Conan O’Brian discovered a striking resemblance (according to his opinion, of course) between himself and Tarja Halonen. Now, he openly admitted that he has absolutely no clue what her politics are about, but that he has decided to support her efforts running for the presidency. You can only imagine how far the lunacy of the US TV talk show can go: they have recorded a “Vote for Tarja” election advertisement in proper Finnish with strong American accent and even ad hoc performed the election song in support for Tarja. The show was broadcast on SubTV commercial TV channel in Finland with a delay of few days and Conan will come to Finland a few weeks after the second round of elections. I’m speechless.

OK, Conan is Conan and he’s part of his own show. What a bit more unconventional for the topic at hand is Tarja’s own election campaign events. The campaign is obviously geared towards younger generations as one of the events it consists of is a touring rock festival properly named Tarja Rock where, quite obviously, Tarja herself shows up as well. However, more out of this world is Tarja Rap: the official Halonen’s election song rapped by, get ready for this, the SDP (Tarja’s party) parliamentary candidates. It is the Social Democratic rap version of the old communist song “The slaves of work rise from the night of oppression” (translated from Finnish, so I’m not sure if that’s the official name in English) performed by Nine for 9 & Jouni as the SDP parliamentary members call themselves. You can read more about it here, and of course the direct link to the video is here. Check this out. I promise that you’ve never seen anything like this.

Mladen