Genocide

A year inside new geographies

Happy new year!

As we transition into a new year and, hopefully, toward a more Earth-based world (colourful, dynamic, intelligent, creative, cooperative, egalitarian, disharmoniously peaceful), instead of some escapist ideological fantasy cloud bubble (wars, ecocide, climate breakdown, genocide, inequality, greed, capitalism, racism, post-truth), a couple of brief reflections related to my practice: 2024 has been the busiest and most productive year of my life to date.

A year of new cartographies, geographies, stories, possibilities, if you will.

This year saw the release of two albums of mine, Bloom and Earth Variations. While Bloom emerged from the desire to hear a certain kind of “sensuous, tender, fragile electronica” that I felt was missing from the contemporary releases I kept coming across, it obviously represented a kind of beat-based electronic music I’d already left behind; Earth Variations, on the other hand, is something I’m very excited about and proud of: the result of a very long and arduous multi-year process, its every listen still keeps taking me to these novel landscapes, terrains, territories, geographies, stories, possibilities! To me, it’s such a unique global record (pity that the music media ignored it completely).

Fresh from finishing Earth Variations, I embarked on the most laborious yet most fulfilling and thrilling project to date: PIENIÄ TOSIASIOITA (‘small truths/facts’), a generative sound-poetry installation and composition, keeping me largely occupied for the rest of the year. Featuring nine contemporary poets from Jyväskylä FI, it was originally supposed to be “only” a site-specific installation at Taavettilan riihi, the oldest building in the Jyväskylä city area; yet it then found an afterlife as acousmatic performances at the Writers’ House and the City Library in Jyväskylä, eventually transforming into two contemporary dance performances at the Villa Rana cultural centre in the city, all thanks to the choreographer and dancer Saga Elgland as well as to the participating partners Keski-Suomen Tanssin Keskus ry, Keski-Suomen Kirjailijat ry and Kulttuuritalo Villa Rana.

Regarding all the work I’ve ever done, I’m most proud of this one. PIENIÄ TOSIASIOITA presents a kind of musical future I’m yet to hear elsewhere and which I’d like to most explore from now on. Its combination of generative (self-organizing and -evolving) poetry, voices (spoken word) of the poets, and the music made of transformed environmental sounds, creates a very unique and immersive experience that exists between spoken word, opera, field recording (environment) and ambient music. “Meditative opera”, as some listeners commented. I want to make this a more multilingual and multicultural experience in the future.

Amid developing the infinitely playing PIENIÄ TOSIASIOITA, I spent two months at the wonderful KulttuuriKauppila artist residency in Ii FI, creating a new 20-minute site-specific composition and performance titled SIINTO (‘shimmer’, ‘dawn’, ‘reflection’ or ‘glow’): it’s made mostly of the environmental sounds recorded around Ii, the voice of a dear friend born in Ii, and processed recordings of Ginette, originally performed by Petteri Mäkiniemi. It’s the most demanding piece I’ve ever had to prepare, with so many contrasting layers having to come together. After its successful performance as part of the Evenings of Art & Culture in Ii in August, I thought I could forget all about it: it has now become the basis of my next album Siinto, out next year!

My another long-term album Radiant City is also slowly falling into place, out next year.

The beautifully frozen Winter (-42 C) and sunny Spring at the refreshingly quiet and isolated Frosterus artist residency in Kärsämäki FI saw me applying for the docARTES doctoral studies in music and sound art at Leiden University NL and Orpheus Instituut, Ghent BE. And here I am, successfully lamenting about the drizzly and downcast Belgian winter! Where the f*ck is the sun?! (+-0) Once here, we were told that getting into the docARTES programme was the hardest part, now things should be getting clearer and sunnier.

Due to the programme, I had to cancel a very exciting artist residency in Amman and Wadi Rum, Jordan, this autumn, courtesy of Remal Lab/Studio 8 (Israel committing genocide and other war crimes in the neighbouring Palestine was also one troubling factor). I hope to attend the residency in the coming years when my study schedule allows and the current Israeli government is rotting in jail/hell.

Toward a new, hopefully more colourful, dynamic and civilised world!

Palestinian Genocide (by Israel)

One of the most horrendous atrocities of our time is the continuing occupation of Gaza and the inhuman treatment of its citizens by Israel.

Israel is operating not as a democracy or a civilized nation but as a criminal, apartheid terror regime, and its government should be prosecuted for its genocide of Palestinians.

These are not any extreme words and views, but a common human sense; sensible reaction to Israel’s actions.

For there really is no sensible nor factual arguments for Israel’s actions, only those of subjective extremist beliefs based on an ideology.

To justify the occupation and illegal settlements, the imprisoning and killing of innocent civilians including children and women, and so forth and so forth, by Palestinians having shot rockets, exploded bombs, throwing stones and demonstrating peacefully…well how on earth do you expect people under oppression, illegal imprisonment, slow genocide, and with their land stolen etc. etc. react? Should they just politely and silently accept their unnecessary situation, without resistance? How would YOU react if your land was stolen from you and you were separated from your family and friends, and sent into a concentration camp with no freedom nor future? Wouldn’t you object?

To claim an ownership to a “homeland” is one of most ridiculous and juvenile things one can ever hear. [oh dear humanity, will you please grow up] There is no such a thing as ‘homeland’ or ‘ownership’ – these are all just man-made inventions, forms of ideological extremism. Life is an accidental emergence in this particular universe, and we are all made of specks of dust scattered around this universe, living on another, slightly larger speck of dust we call Earth. We are all made of the same matter, and we happen to inhabit the same solid rock in this particular solar system. Earth is our home, our shared home. There are no homelands or sacred lands or nations or borders – just a rock planet with billions of species. What matters is how we share this space, not who owns what.

We have the potential – skills, willpower, consciousness – to live as an enlightened, cooperative, sustainable species on this tiny orb filled with the wonder of life. But for some reason we continue to let the juvenile, imbecile, unimportant and totally unnecessary whimsies of some ephemeral ideologies dictate our survival and future potential on this unimaginably gorgeous planet.