kunst ja praktika » Sound Art

Tuned City Tallinn 2011

john — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 10:24:10 +0000

MoKS was the co-producer of Tuned City Tallinn along with Dock e.V. of Berlin. We want to thanks everyone for their help, participation and support for making this an unforgettable event. Below are a series of galleries showing just a few of the highlights of the event between July 4th and 10th, 2011. Tuned City Tallinn was part of the official program of Tallinn 2011 European Capital of Culture.

Gallery #1

Gallery #2

From the temporary Estonian branch of the Helen Scarsdale Agency

MoKS Artist — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 19:19:56 +0000

Near the conclusion of my residency here at MoKS, I was invited to give a lecture about my work at the Y Galerii in Tartu. One of the questions that was posited to me at the end my talk was for me to qualify the best experience of my life. It’s a question that can’t be easily answered, one that parallels the futility of pinpointing my favorite music. It changes every day. So when I think about that initial question on the eve of my departure from MoKS, the experience here is causing me to shudder. I can’t say with any honesty that this was the best experience of my life. Such hyperbole is best left to the margins of high school yearbooks. But at the same time, this short month in this foreign land manifested itself as an existential crucible of art, introspection, and ideas.

I approached the time here at MoKS as the opportunity to work in an art laboratory of my own choosing, with my own measures of success, and with no schedule expect for the necessities of sleep. There was a lot which was accomplished — two albums worth of material have been completed and soon to be delivered to their rightful publishing houses, numerous excursions into the post-Soviet landscape of agricultural and industrial ruins, a particularly gruelling bike ride out to Lake Peipsi, a huge inventory of field recordings and shortwave recordings to use as fodder for future projects, a performance in an observatory, and the aforementioned lecture in Tartu. This is more than I can typically say would amount to six months of activity in my current residence of San Francisco, simply due to all of the other commitments I have in my life. So to have this experience here at MoKS was something truly special; and I hope that I didn’t take what was afforded me for granted.

That said, I have to offer my sincerest gratitude to John and Evelyn here at MoKS, to Patrick McGinley for lending me his ear, and for Toomas Thetloff for being Toomas with all of his wit, energy, and creativity.

For those of you who might be inclined to see all of the decent photos taken during my stay in Estonia, check the link below. Note, the accompanying travelogue was written as something of a diary with particular acquaintances in mind. If there’s particular references that don’t make any sense, accept my apology in advance. www.helenscarsdale.com/eraldus

Humbly,

Jim Haynes
www.helenscarsdale.com/haynes

From Camilla Hannan & Van Sowerwine

MoKS Artist — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 12:14:38 +0000

Today is the last day of our month as artists in residence here at MoKS.

We picked wild mushrooms and blueberries in the forest. Mmmm. We drew pictures to find out that the fish van comes at 14:00 on Mondays and Thursdays. The fish was good but had lots of bones. Other culinary highlights were the rollmops and the kohuke.

Van
I discovered old magazines from the 1930s that had been left here from a collage workshop. The puppets I made from the pictures became the basis for a new work. Creepy black and white photos of children holding toys. I experimented with watercolour painting and made painted watercolour puppets.

I scoured toy shops and second hand shops and found strange plastic creatures. Growling biting dogs and demented dolls. The toy museum in Tartu is beautiful. I loved the wooden traditional Estonian toys and the doll house furniture carved by a man hidden in a potato bin for 10 years. When we read that, we initially thought he must have been very small, then we realised that in Estonia, potato bins are relatively big.

Camilla
I recorded lots of sounds from around the village. The quiet of the forest was unsettling but beautiful. The children playing in the lake. I picked up some lovely pieces of scrap metal that I incorporated into our live performance.

We spent most of our time working on a new performance work that premiered on the 25th of August at Genialistide Klubi in Tartu. In the doorway was a giant painted onion.

It’s strange how a month can pass so quickly.