BioSignals


Audio Archive 20.-26.5.
Artist talks & Aeolian Artefacts Picnic 25.5. 14:30-17:00
 
BioSignals project is a series of site-specific events that has explored the overlaps of sound art, narrations and nature-based data streams by human and non-human cultural producers involving Pixelache members and other invited guests, that began in Spring 2018.
 
The project is presented in Pixelache Helsinki 2019 festival as an Audio Archive featuring sound based pieces and documentation by last year’s BioSignals contributors such as Laura Beloff, Krista Dintere, Juan Duarte and Antye Greie-Ripatti, at Bioart Society's SOLU space during the festival week 20.-26.5. 
 
BioSignal's presence will culminate on Saturday 25.5. 14:30-17:00, with a programme themed as ‘Augmented Listening for The Bio-Community’ (* see below) in which devices that sample and amplify signals from such processes as CO2 circulation, soil respiration and photosynthesis, as well as elemental wind, electromagnetic frequencies and fluid ecosystem of swamps will be introduced by artist-researchers Teemu Lehmusruusu, Krista Dintere, and Juan Duarte as a combination of presentations and a picnic type outdoor listening event.
 
Audio Archive (see more info at bottom) will be open for the public in the premises of SOLU in Katajanokka (Luotsikatu 13). Vernissage Monday 20.5. at 17:00; Tue 21.5. - Thu 23.5. 14:00-18:00; Fri 24. - Sat 25.5. 10:00-18:00; Sun 26.5. 13:00-17:00.
 
Artist Presentations at SOLU by Teemu Lehmusruusu, about his work Maatuu uinuu henkii (Respiration Field), 2019, and Krista Dintere about her collaboration with Swamp Radio project (2018-) will start at 14:30, with approximately 30mins given to each. This will be followed by the Aeolian Artefacts Picnic featuring an informal presentation by Juan Duarte among others that takes place near to SOLU in Katajanokka, leaving the gallery at 15:30. 
 
Free vegan picnic snacks will be provided for the first 20 people.
 
 

/// ARTIST PRESENTATIONS

 
Teemu Lehmusruusu, artist-researcher
Maatuu uinuu henkii (Respiration Field), 2019.
 
Maatuu uinuu henkii (Respiration Field) is an autonomous system that functions following the CO2-breathing of the ground, in other words the soil respiration and photosynthesis of the plants. Through solar power it uses the same source of energy and day cycle as the soil life. The plants are selected based on their soil improvement qualities. The changes in the CO2-circulation affect the soundscape as well as the lighting, also subject to the predominant outdoor light situation, of the glass chambers manifesting the ground as dynamic, living entity, with which all life on land breath and live. 
 
This work is produced independently of Pixelache as part of the Trophic Verses project by Telling Tree art+rsrch and Kunstventures and financially supported by Kone Foundation, AVEK and Arts Promotion Centre Finland. The installation is also part of Lehmusruusu’s Doctor of Arts dissertation. It will be installed in the Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden at the beginning of June. During the weekend of 24–26th May, Lehmusruusu will furthermore be with his production team during Ihana Helsinki festival on site at the garden for curious visitors if you would like to learn more about the process, environmental location and installation. More information will be presented at www.trophicverses.com.
 
Keywords: Generative environmental installation, consisting of glass, CO2-sensors, actuators, led lights, mechanics, code, plants, solar energy

Teemu Lehmusruusu (b. 1981) is a Helsinki-based media and installation artist whose works examine and test the basic conditions and causalities of life in our common environments. Lehmusruusu completed a Degree Programme in Photography at Aalto University and also studied at the Berlin University of the Arts. He is currently working on Trophic Verses, a four-year artistic exploration into the life of soil. He is working on his PhD in artistic research at Aalto University.

 
 
Krista Dintere, artist & lecturer at MpLab (Art Research Lab at Liepaja University)
Swamp Radio contribution, 2018.
 
Krista Dintere's contribution to Swamp Radio project is a collaborative sound composition exploring the relations between factuality of field recording and the fictional soundscape created by transmitting field recordings through the circuitry of modular synthesizer. The sound composition merges samples of amplified and recorded audible ecosystem of Liepaja lake wetlands with purely electronic sounds generated in studio while revisiting the factual sounds and creating a sonic narrative. This project tries to communicate between different species while granting a voice to those previously unheard - organisms living in swamps and wetlands. Collaborators from MpLab (Art Research Lab at Liepaja University) include: Krista Dintere, Ieva Viksne, Diana Mikanova, Paula Ostupe, Kaspars Levalds.
 
The Swamp Radio project is a part of earlier creative research of Biotricity by artists Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits at RIXC. Biotricity sonifies and visualizes the fluctuation of bacterial electricity generation, and artistically interprets collected data from the environmental monitoring. In spring of 2018 Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits expanded their Biotricity research into water reservoirs and marshlands creating the Swamp Radio monitoring and transmitting environment in the Boston area, for the wetlands of Venice and in Kemeri bog near Riga, Latvia, as well as opened-up the project for collaborations on sound compositions that would explore the main concepts of Swamp Radio. 
 
Krista Dintere is an artist from Latvia working between the fields of Sound Art, Experimental Composition, Media arts and creative research. In her works she focuses on Sound as a material in Arts, explores the borders of physicality of sound and how sound is communicated. Recently she is focusing on site-specific installations and experimental compositions which try to reveal the relationship between factuality of  field recordings and fictional sonic worlds created by means of artistic interpretation. Krista Dintere has participated and her works have been presented in media art and sound art exhibitions, projects and light festivals in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Poland, including RIXC Gallery and “Staro Riga” lights festival in Riga, Art Research Lab MpLAB in Liepaja University,  Art Laboratory Berlin, project "Swamp Radio" Lithuanian national pavilion in Venice Architecture Biennale.
 
For more information about Swamp Radio see: http://smitesmits.com/SwampRadio.html
 
 
Juan Duarte, artist-researcher
Aeolian Artefacts Picnic, 2019.
 
A sound device that enables an experience of Augmented Listening of wind forces, in which subtle changes in an outdoor environment drive generative soundscapes. The use of wind-sensitive systems, are used to detect orientation and speed of the wind, and acoustic events, that are registered and processed as a generative sound piece by a network of sensor networks. The work takes as a reference an ancient instrument that is known as the Aeolian Harp (cf. Kircher, A ca 1650.), that was used as an object that enabled holy spaces, such as mountains and temples, to "speak" with human beings, according to a mechanism that self-played through strings and resonators by the aleatoric forces of wind.
 
Within the audio archive there is this an audio-visual presentation of BioSignals, an ongoing documentation that registers the interventions produced with the device and field recordings to review the outcome from experiments between soundscapes, radio signals, and live sonification of sonic events. The locations of recordings include Virtsu - Estonia, and Soca - Slovenia, between June to August 2018. For the culminative event of BioSignals programme, Mikko Lipiäinen proposed a picnic, to invest some attention also to the nearby Katajanokka soundscape.
 
Juan Duarte Regino, Mexico City (1985), media artist statement: I work on interactions as a tool for generative art experiments . The exploration of digital and analog platforms as agents to transform that express sonically and visually materials. Meanwhile, a hybrid engagement between environment, users with artefacts and interfaces can work to explore new realities. The exploration of sonic experiences put in public space may bring an opportunity for a ludic and cultural approach on technological exploration. My work has been presented in CTM Festival 2015, Spiral Gallery,, AAVE Festival, Bonniers Konsthall, Rundum Showcase, ICLI 2014 , Ljudmila, Radio and TV Museum of Lahti, Centre for Contemporary Art - Ujazdowski Castle, Mänttä Art Festival. Since 2014 I am part of Pixelache - art and activist group based in Helsinki. Bringing media art practices for social engagement, and technological appropriation. 
 
For more information about Aeolian Artefacts see: http://juanduarteregino.com/Artefactos-Eolicos
 

 

/// AUGMENTED LISTENING FOR THE BIO-COMMUNITY

 
When situated in a landscape, Juan Duarte's Aeolian Artefacts, Teemu Lehmusruusu’s Maatuu uinuu henkii (Respiration Field), and the Swamp Radio project can be considered as examples of an artistic and scientific instrument that function as potential communication media between agents in a surrounding ecosystem. As such they make an intentional gesture comparable to bird song that is exposed to not only one species, but to possible inter-species meaning-making.
 
By translating its surrounding signals into others, the Aeolian Artefacts' interface generates a musical blend of environmental forces and sounds, becoming a potential communication and mis-communication device between multiple agents and species. What is communicated then? Although the Aeolian Artefacts - and the aeolian harp which it refers to - has its sphere of meaning among human culture that directs its human interpretation and use (as a device deepening the human-nature relationship with a certain esoteric dimension it is used as part of a ritual, a moment of contemplation of invisible forces made audible), its interfaces with other spheres of signification, including non-human ones, make one wonder whether it can resonate with other species' minds as well? In order to do so, what should the harp communicate? 
 
If, in the case of the Respiration Field, the ‘breathing’ of the soil is something that we can sense aurally and visually, does it help us humans find affinity or attention to this fundamentally important ecosystem process? How might other beings or systems adapt with this stimulus? It is also about relations and causualities. From an anthropocentric, or human-centered point of view, we seem to find it interesting and delightful that also soil breathes, when the case is, much more accurately, that we humans breathe also. The modern era's idea of human's separateness from ‘nature’ sits tight in our everyday perceptions, and we need to work on it habitually. 
 
On a much more abstract level Krista Dintere's contribution to Swamp Radio project can be seen as giving a voice to species misheard by the naked ear. By using hydrophones (hearing under water), contact microphones (hearing vibrations in matter) and amplification of signals in the form of field recording the sound composition becomes a tool for broadcasting live and living signals from the wetlands. The process of sampling and adding an artistic level of interpretation of the signals in studio brings the ecosystem of a wetland more comprehensible and evokes imagination and empathy towards other species. 
 
(Collaboratively written by Mikko Lipiäinen, Teemu Lehmusruusu, Krista Dintere and Andrew Gryf Paterson)
 
 

/// AUDIO ARCHIVE

The following selected items are presented as listening stations in Bioart Society's SOLU space as part of the festival's collective exhibition:
 
Laura Beloff - Bioacoustic Experiments: Hearing Test 13m:39s (looped)
 
The Hearing Test is a part of a Longer artistic research project that investigates plant intelligence. The Hearing Test ironically asks: will humans ever be able of a reciprocal communication with another species, or even capable of 'hearing' another species that differs from us - such as a plant. 
 
In the focus of the project is a detection of high frequency clicking sounds emitted by the plants' roots. The project has been inspired by scientists who have been researching acoustic emissions in plants and their possible meaning and use as a communication by plants. They claim that plant roots produce high frequency clicks between 20 and 300 kHz by bursting of air bubbles. This can be compared to the general hearing range of young humans that is between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. 
 
In my experiment the clicks are detected in real time with contact microphones that are carefully attached to the roots of the plant. The clicks are further down-sampled to a human hearing range. However this does not mean that the plant will produce clicks on demand.
 
Laura Beloff (FI/DK) (PhD) is an internationally acclaimed artist and a researcher. Her artistic research is located in the cross section of art, technology, and science. The recent investigations and art projects are focused on the merger of the technological and biological matter and intelligence. Currently she is Associate Professor and Head of the PhD-school at IT University in Copenhagen. http://www.realitydisfunction.org/
 
 
Interview with Laura Beloff at Puhtu, near Virtsu, W. Estonia (2018) 25m:41s (looped)
 
In early June, Finnish artist-researcher Laura Beloff, associate professor at IT University in Copenhagen was invited to join the Toortuumik nature and media art festival initiated by Lilli Tölp (Maalabor ) for a short week long residency to continue her bioacoustic experiments. As one of the participants with the most knowledge about biosemiotics in the group, she accompanied Andrew Gryf Paterson to Puhtu peninsula nearby for a key interview in the BioSignals project telling about her inspiration from biosemiotics in her projects.
 
 
Antye Greie aka [AGF, poemproducer] - Sonic Wilderness Workshop presentation at Sound Days Festival 34m:40s (looped)
 
Antye Greie-Ripatti aka AGF held a Sonic Wilderness workshop in Liepaja as part of Sound Days Festival organised by Art Research Lab of Liepaja University. During the Sonic Wilderness Workshop participants explored the sound of matter and environment of Liepaja – beach, wind, post-soviet post-industrial building leftovers etc. – by sonifying objects that seem silent for a naked human ear. Music making outside the studio, in tune with nature was the aim of this workshop, and to reach it participants were introduced with various tools for sonification. The recording of the public presentation on the 28th May shares description and outcomes of the workshop including student participants who created short sound and audio-visual pieces.
 
Antye Greie aka [AGF, poemproducer], an East-German artist and producer, settled for some time on Finland’s Hailuoto Island. AGF assumes a multiplicity of facets and roles – sound sculptor, poet, composer, gender activist, sound and new media curator. http://www.poemproducer.com/
 
 
Swamp Radio - MpLab Contribution (2018). 6m:24s (looped)
 
Krista Dintere - "This is my contribution to Swamp Radio project - a collaborative sound composition exploring the relations between factuality of field recording and the fictional soundscape created by transmitting recordings through the circuitry of modular synthesizer. Collaborators from MpLab (Art Research Lab at Liepaja University) are: Krista Dintere, Ieva Viksne, Diana Mikanova, Paula Ostupe, Kaspars Levalds. Created for Swamp Radio in 2018." 
 
Biography as above.
 
 
Juan Duarte - Aeolian Artefacts (2018). audio-visual work (looped)
 
A sound device that enables an experience of Augmented Listening of wind forces, in which subtle changes in an outdoor environment drive generative soundscapes. The use of wind-sensitive systems, are used to detect orientation and speed of the wind, and acoustic events, that are registered and processed as a generative sound piece by a network of sensor networks. The work takes as a reference an ancient instrument that is known as the Aeolian Harp (cf. Kircher, A ca 1650.), that was used as an object that enabled holy spaces, such as mountains and temples, to "speak" with human beings, according to a mechanism that self-played through strings and resonators by the aleatoric forces of wind.
 
For this presentation of Bio Signals, an ongoing documentation that registers the interventions produced with the device and field recordings to review the outcome from experiments between soundscapes, radio signals, and live sonification of sonic events. Locations of recordings include Virtsu - Estonia, and Soca - Slovenia, between June to August 2018.
 
Biography as above.
 
 
Further related BioSignals curated or produced material may be available in the exhibition, and will also be available online in due course.
 
For more information about last year's BioSignals programme see:
http://pixelache.ac/projects/biosignals
 
 
 
 
/// SUPPORT
 

The BioSignals process is supported by Nordisk Kultur Kontakt Culture and Art programme, funding cycle 2/2017.

 

Photo Credit: Andrew Gryf Paterson

 

/// DRIES DEPOORTER - Quick Fix /// VARVARA AND MAR - Data Shop /// BIOSIGNALS - Audio Archive /// HEYON HAN - Instant Materialisms /// Solu, Luotsikatu 13, 00160 Helsinki Finland, Katajanokka /// 20.5 - 26.5 /// Vernissage 20.5. at 17:00 // Opening hours: Tue - Thu 14:00-18:00 Fri - Sat 10:00-18:00 Sun 13:00-17:00 //