28 August, 2008

It's 6.30 am. Raining. Woke up few moments ago, read few pages of Icelandic Arnaldur Indridason's police novel. Grim Northern stories. Now I watch the grey sky and listen to coffee pot gurgling on the stove. Should go to seaside today, west of Helsinki, to talk about sound and noise for a radio programme. While Janne is finishing building the exhibition.

It's 7.30 am. Raining. Go back to bed for an hour.

27 August, 2008

Today I painted two orange crosses. The lines of those crosses aren't even, I guarantee. Before that I bought a headphone amp and orange paint, of course. Meanwhile Janne was answering phone, keeping books, jumping here and there etc: typical producer's work. When I left Janne stayed. Well, there was also our magician Pietu installing videoprojectors & other technical equipment. And Hannu preparing the exhibition dvd's. Shortly, Amorph!08 exhibition at Muu gallery opens tomorrow.

26 August, 2008

Today seminar at French Cultural Institute. Bon Bon. David led it with nice touch. And artists succeeded in talking clearly. We had also some audience. And wine.

Afterwards we went to Huvila tent to listen to Hilja Grönfors and Yasmine Levy. Beautiful music from two minorities; gypsies and sefardi jews.

Must say that I escaped during the main act. Home to rest. Tomorrow some cross-painting waiting for me.

25 August, 2008

It's Monday. Pietu came to build the exhibition. Before him I moved four huge walls with Lauri and Tomi. It was impossible to get them quite in the same line because they have lived. But Pietu is a magician.

In Saturday evening we had club at Dubrovnik. Pietu was our magician also there; we had hired him as Finnish-French dj, he ended up being mainly sound technician who also played records and tuned the lighting. Well, for that he's been educated.

The program in Saturday night was great! From lesbian politics to up-dated folk music to art punk. And the dot above the letter i was Mimosa's & Viviana's bearded ladies.

On Sunday we went to excurse Suomenlinna. Had nice lunch at Bar Valimo, walked around the island and got wet. Today it's sunny again.

21 August, 2008

It's different now when we are in Helsinki. This curator has a lot of other things also to take care of. Tuesday night I sang some poetry in the Helsinki Festival tent. Tonight a friend has church concert, inspired by Brueghel's paintings; I'm borrowing him my mixer and loudspeakers plus will record piano.

Meanwhile, I made English version of the Amorph sound logo. And check how things are going with our artists. Everybody's working, their studios at the Academy of Fine Arts and Theatre Academy are good. The schedule of the performance weekend keeps moving, but slowly towards its final form. The Saturday club, too.

There are people working busy at the Muu office. Now I go to the field to see how things are going there. It's sunny and rainy.

18 August, 2008

Last night at Helsinki airport, our French artists came from domestic side! With really light luggage. Later we found their bags. Janne took care of Charlie, Viviana and Carole, while I drove to my place with Christophe. We drank some pastis to celebrate the great coming-together.

At noon meeting at Muu gallery. Jouni sms-d that he was stuck in Lahti but would come later in the night, for sure. Good old Jouni, he never lets you down! After coffee from Muu's brand new espresso pot, we walked to Ruoholahti metro station via Hietalahti flea market, seaside and Ruoholahti channel. That will be the art place.

Metro to Hakaniemi. Walk to theatre academy where Essi & Carole have their studio, and to Academy of Fine Arts where the others are going to work. That's the place for Erkki's workshop as well.

Lunch at Istanbul. The others stayed for Finnish tango at near-by park, while I went for other businesses. All are enthusiastic because of the work ahead, but all above they want to go to countryside for few days; lake, sauna, forest, vodka.

14 August, 2008

What's Amorph!08 curator's work like? Painting beautiful crosses.

I've been lazy all summer. Went to Muu office couple of times. Janne has been doing all the work. Hey, that was the plan, wasn't it? He's the producer, I'm the artistic curator.

Sunday night arrive the artists to Helsinki. Quite exciting.

8 june sunday

in the morning i was a bit tired.

went for morning coffee. saw puti who said that they were driving with
ludovic in his car to les lilas. joined them. bumping is the word in
parisian that means how you get out and into a parking space.

spent the whole time at pessi & christophe's performance at parc lucie
aubrac in les lilas. lots of people. positive curiousness in the air.
olivier and his people from khiasma were doing a great job. food and all.
and it was warm, not raining. meanwhile i called janne and heard that
everything was going allright in saint ouen.

in the evening we met at viviana's. i was supposed to go to fondation
cartier to see ted milton but couldn't leave the party. we had really good
session in paris. helsinki, we're coming.

7 june saturday

the big day. first stop les lilas. atmosphere in the park was nice. pessi,
christophe and olivier were arranging a table for equipment: spy-ears,
questionnaires, pencils. garden people were having pique-nique, and many
people passed by on their way to shop or home. but then i had to run to
saint ouen for jouni & charlie and viviana & mimosa. hanna came with me.

jouni's and charlie's work was not there where they wanted it to be - in
the middle of the antique market. it was a bit away from business hassle,
in small yard. they sit on their chairs for 1,5 hours; charlie stayed
almost clean, jouni had lot of ice cream on him. the audience, few people
who came to see the show and quite a lot of passers-by enjoyed the scene.
especially a dog who kept coming back to lick ice cream from the pavement.
beside the dog, only me and mathieu from mal au pixel had courage to push
our fingers to ice cream.

during jouni & charlie's performance, i got a message saying that viviana
& mimosa can't do their show there where they had planned, under the
bridge of boulevard peripherique. that bridge-under is private area for
black market, fake belts, sunglasses, hash, coke and other refresments.
big bunch of morocoan and algerian salesmen had chased them away, saying
that you disturb our business. after jouni & charlie's a new try at porte
de clignancourt. three different spots, crowd of interested people,
laughing and astonishment.

at seven windy riverside of la seine at pont de sèvres. 20 people (us &
few from la generale) watching how essi & carole stand on a long pier
looking at each other. then one goes under a blanket. after a while the
other follows. then one stands up again. almost for two hours. a
beautiful, meditative piece with gorgeous view to the river and many
buildings on the other side of it. in the end somebody came to record
water, standing in between the two women, totally ignoring them. later i
heard that women knew the guy, he had been interested in their
performance.

after our bunch took metro to republique and we went to celebrate carole's
birthday. she taught me a handy phrase in french: je suis un legume
degeulasse.

6 june friday

oi, weather forecast says that tomorrow will rain. sunday will be cloudy
but not rainy.

in the morning talk about amorph helsinki with janne and hanna. many good
things coming.

lunch with puti and terhi from institut finlandais. delicious food in
beautiful art nouveau restaurant. bit arrogant waiter, though. after we
bought present for carole who has birthday tomorrow. happy bday carole!
long walk with janne to the arch that is at the end of champs-elysees. the
name in finnish is riemukaari but in english?

janne and hanna stayed queing tickets for campbell-lanegan concert at la
cigale. i left. want to go to la générale to see aadam's bosch duett.
before that, short nap, maybe. with french soap in tv.

5 june thursday

in the morning i had 3,90 € in my pocket. it was enough for croissant from
bakery and cafe au lait in the corner café.

christophe called and asked what we do if it rains heavily on sunday like
the weather report (one of them) says. they have electric equipment in
outdoors park. well, electric equipment doesn't like rain, and there won't
be any people there if it rains. we cancel it, if it rains heavily.

went with janne & hanna & jouni to mains d'œuvres. met isabelle who showed
us around the house. well, i'm kind of regular in the place but janne &
hanna were there first time. talk with isabelle about weekend's
performances. it seems that we have an agreement - great! after we sat two
hours in the resto, first talking & waiting for it to open, then eating
quite good food.

at institute finlandais nox borealis, installation by kaija saariaho,
jean-baptiste barriere and unto k laine. it was nice lying on the floor.

again to mairie d'issy. tried ivo flammer's and wolf ka's MYHT, meet your
heartbeat twin. you get strap around your chest, gps transmitter around
your arm and cell phone in your hand. found my green spot but then didn't
know what to do. went back and learned that they forgot to tell me that on
the green stop, i should have had my heartbeat over 110 to launch the
game. too bad. my friend jens tried the game already two times with no
success. while nicolas from south was winner, finding his twin in record
time.

saw essi and her yesterday-arrived boyfriend mikko in the street. essi
told that their work is becoming less and less - minimalistic. they had
been rehearsing all day on the pier, with paddlers, children and lot of
other people. essi was a bit afraid that they are doing too refined
gallery performance, and that they should take a rougher road. but essi
and mikko looked so happy! oi, you romantic fool.

sitting on bed in my tiny hotel room, skyped with viviana "how was their
day?" listening to isobel campbell & mark lanegan, who play here tomorrow,
and a child who's crying somewhere in the neighbourhood.

miraculous day! in bed at 22h, and not a drop of alcohol in the whole day.
did you know that a 40-year-old man can spend a (work) day in paris sober?

4 june wednesday

the big seminar day. only one question floating or hanging in the air.
will anybody come? 50 minutes before institut finlandais is quiet and
peaceful.

seminar was good. interesting talks that david analytically put together.
we should bring david also to helsinki. the french learned two words in
finnish: roskajoukko (racaille) and huora (putaine?). not much audience
but we didn't expect that. it was middle of the week, and children's
day-off from school. afterwards few glasses of wine.

later in the evening big finnish crowd of us went to morocoan / marocaine
restaurant to eat. the hit of the night was hanna's "i will go and take a
foam bath"!

3 june tuesday

in the morning we checked the technical equipment for tomorrow's seminar,
all ok. then we installed pascal & minna's conversations. first the other
loudspeaker was not working, but after eric's magic it went working.

then we started our parisian tour with erkki. first to la generale where
we drank coffee with aadam, watched the exhibition from marseille & saw
finnish live art coming from television in the corridor. next stop was
issy, where the festival of digital arts, cube, started today. an old
friend, jens brand, was playing the earth there (www.g-turns.com). jens
got us free festival food in the staff tent. imagine, the promised land of
plastic bags had paper and cardboard and wooden kitchenware in use! are
they more nature-friendly than plastic ones, don't actually know. you
easily find a person who claims that, while the other claims this. then
erkki said that his 12-year-old son wants to have a 3-d tour de eiffel. so
we took metro to shopper's paradise, lafayettes, but didn't find anything.
after lafayettes janne called me that they want money from essi & carole
for the studio at la generale. well, it's not good to be without money and
we obviously bath in it. next stop le lilas's park. today paris is cold
and rainy. where is my pullover?

bus to porte de clignancourt. walk to mains d'?uvres to see frederic
acquaviva's electro-poetic concert. before i read emails. one says that
the place viviana & mimosa have chosen for their show is dangerous and
risky, full of drug dealers, thieves and whores. that there will be
problem. that they should change place. it makes me a bit concerned, well,
the place is not nice but it's mid-afternoon, lots of people pass it,
there must be police somewhere watching etc. the concert was not great.

hotline number 4 back to the city. a salty crepe for supper. now some
french from tv for lullaby.

2 june monday

nuutti's, my younger son, 8th birthday. happy birthday, nuutti!

morning exercise: rode viviana's moaning bike uphill back to her place.
sent two sets of ads by email. lunch with isabelle from fondation cartier.

institut finlandais is closed on mondays, still i went there to check
whether miracle had happened and the what's live art in finnish dvd's sold
out. nope. but terhi had glued the performance program on the wall beside
the orange cross. well done, terhi! one of the morning emails went to
institut & muu stating that their websites should have amorph-links.
(yesterday i was a bit confused explaining the festival to a french
curator, giving him the invitation with net addresses, saying that there
you find more precise information, and realising that there are not big,
eye-catching amorph links there. now they are there! terhi and timo, great
work once again. i'm not a professional curator, but only an artist.

now i'm waiting for janne, the amorph producer, to arrive to this hotel.
then we head to christophe's for a meeting about wednesday's seminar. will
there be any people there? just called janne and heard that they are still
waiting for their luggage, plane was 2,5 hours late.

finally janne and erkki made it, and we had fine finnish-french
coming-together at christophe's. now we know how the seminar should go.
cheese, lettuce and tomatoes with david's dressing of secret recipe,
bread, pie, dark chocolate and wine of all colours. at midnight we took
the hot line number 4 back to the city centre.

31 may saturday

in the morning emails. then i went to institute to get some flyers & check
that all is running smoothly there. yes. metro to porte de clignancourt,
short tour on fleamarket where i met jouni & charlie too. to charlie's
studio at mains d'?uvres. guys had built helmets of polyurethan. i acted
as guinea-pig and wore the helmet that was a bit wet inside. got my hair
stuck and had to cut it. curator's work.

opening at betonsalon. lots of people, wine and ham. french are real
carnivoires. met julien previaux whose work is in exhibition. we will show
his short video "crash test" in helsinki amorph. met also anu pennanen
who's been to paris six months now.

metro to belleville to eat vietnamese. now to bed. tomorrow morning i have
laundry-breakfast date with jouni and pessi. let's see what happens.

30 may friday

in the morning i visited pascal lièvre's ateljé-home in the 16th arr.
beautiful.

at 2 pm lunch meeting with artist pairs. each pair told what they are
doing and how etc. we ate mimosa's delicious pea soup!

louise bourgeois exhibition at pompidou. just stood there front of small
painting that has words "i love you do you love me suicide threat",
thinking that she was 76 years old when she painted that. after we had a
long night with jouni. pessi joined us later.

the weather is nice, warm, but nadal beated nieminen. too bad

29 may thursday

it's friday already, oops, what happened yesterday? i moved to hotel from
christophe's flat. oh, christophe, your flat was nice.

at la generale there was no videotheque there. so i went to see essi &
carole. they were working, yes, language language. recording important,
significant words. then i went back to corridor and tv had appeared.
dominique gave it to the project. merci beaucoup! then aadam came carrying
dvd player, and suddenly we had "what's live art in finnish" rolling
there!

to viviana's to meet viviana & mimosa. they had costume ready. two
different performances. gypsy wasteland and under-the-bridge before the
fleamarket. i borrowed viviana's bike and rode downhill to the hotel. i
wonder who will take the bike back? me, maybe.

later i went to see ornic'art performance to menagerie la verre. ornic'art
is a group from marseille. nude people, kind guiding, erotique energy etc.
cosy and comfortable. but lots of french language. bon nûit.

28 may wednesday

after yesterday's garden party i had a tiny hang-over. it was a national garden party day yesterday. even the 14th arrondissement's mayor visited it with his assistants. many people wanted to talk to the guy who's taking care of rental of apartments. today is sunny, warm day. and jarkko nieminen won!

metroed to khiasma with christophe. pessi came too. we met olivier, the khiasma boss. pessi and christophe have a plan. olivier calls some people and organize meetings with them. seems that things are rolling into some direction. good.

took bus pc3 to porte de clignancourt and walked through the closed fleamarket area to mains d'œuvres. i had a plan to eat there but found a chaos instead. film session going on, resto closed. went to isabelle's (my contact there) office, talked to her a bit, ran stairs up and down with her, came back to the office, read emails, made couple of phone calls, and was hungry. i left and joined charlie and jouni who were finishing a rabbit in nearby bistro. charlie's going to move a day before their performance. perfect combination: planning and preparing a performance and move at the same time. they told me that they have been eating chocolate and drinking coffee. and jouni didn't want the hat charlie gave to him. maybe they can do their work at the fleamarket. maybe.

essi called that they bought a dictaphone without my permission. well, she tried to call me before, but i didn't hear the phone ringing. so i gave them my permission afterwards.

27 may tuesday

this morning i dared to take the velib bike and rode to institut finlandais. it was NICE. when parking i forgot my bag of dvd's in the bike's basket but luckily they haven't vanished.

at institut i painted - with eric's help - the amorph!08 cross to lobby's wall, just front of reception desk. it may not be perfect but hey, who's perfectionist? now it's there, with the "what's live art in finnish" videotheque beside it. soon, it'll work as amorph!08 ad board.

now chevre salad with glass of white wine and then to la générale to put up another videotheque. and see if essi & carole are working hard. it is raining enough at the moment. i wonder whether they can play tennis in this weather.

yesterday i bought orange pre-paid sim card, made three local calls, sent couple of sms and now i'm out of credit.

at la générale someone had taken essi & carole's studio. our main man there, vladimir, is currently in congo. but e & c found pierre and marc moret, and finally they got three studios, each for four days.

vladimir had also promised that there would be monitor and dvd player for  "what's live art in finnish" videotheque in la générale library. there weren't and the library was occupied. but with help of marc moret and aadam wassef we found a solution. maybe tomorrow we can enjoy the videotheque at la générale, too!

tonight there is garden party at christophe's place. it is raining.

25 may monday, first day of amorph!08 paris

(yesterday evening we came late to paris, at 10 pm.) i'm staying at one of the artists, christophe. he and his family are taking good care of me. although i haven't seen his daughters yet.

morning started nicely, bought carte orange for smooth transportation and pre-paid sim card for my mobile phone. then we drove to viviana's where we had the first coming-together of finnish-french artist pairs. the drive with christophe's vespa took one hour, viviana is not of french origin but argentinian, and neither is charlie who is british and who didn't show up, but all went fine, drinking coffee and eating dry rye bread with chocolate and bananas.

then i got a call from finnish institute and ran, or metroed there. we spoke things through once again - tomorrow i'll put the first videotheque up with eric - what's live art in finnish - and paint an orange cross onto the wall. after that i can say that amorph!08 has landed to paris!

evening should have seen a conference with our seminar commentator david zerbib, at fondation d'entreprise ricard (yes, the pastis brand, mmm), but there was no conference, only pastis. pastis is good. still, you can take look at www.freshtheorie.fr