Eile, 21. novembril kogunes MoKSi Maailmafilmi festivali meeskond rasket tööd tegema. Toimub ju tuleval aastal, 18.-24. märtsini festival juba 10. korda! Nii nad siin siis sebivad aeg-ajalt maja peal, et siis tundideks oma stuudiosse kaduda. Kes tegeleb festivalikavasse sobivate filmide valimisega, kes jällegi kõige muuga, mis on festivali õnnestunud toimumiseks hädavajalik – nt rahastus- ja kommunikatsioonitöö…
Varasema kogemuse põhjal võib öelda, et kardetavasti muutuvad töötunnid üha pikemaks-pikemaks, ja öötunnid üha lühemaks-lühemaks. Kõik 200-300 filmi on ju vaja läbi vaadata ja ikka need kõige-kõige sobivamad välja valida, plaanid paika saada… Töö intensiivsusest annab tunnistust ka see, et meie keldrigaleriis olevat Meiu Mündi suurepärast näitust ei ole nad veel vaatama vist jõudnudki. Nii ma seda muidugi ei jäta!
Täpsmalt ja huvitavamaid fakte toimunud tööprotsessist ja/või selle tulemustest, on loota mõne aja pärast ehk ERMi blogist.
MoKSil on igatahes väga hea meel, et meil on sellised toredad sõbrad (filmis ja elus) nagu Jaanika ja Pille, Eva ja Siim, Taavi ja Reimo ja Maailmafilm!

“If my chief wants me to work faster, of course …” (the subtitles on the film still). Vaikelu tööstuudios lõunapausi ajal. / Still life in the studio while team is having lunch.

Yesterday, on November 21st, the Worldfilm Festival team gathered at MoKS to work here for few days. The next Worldfilm festival will be held on 18th to 24th of March 2013, and it’s already the 10th anniversary! It’s really nice to see the team members being busily around in the house, and then disappearing for hours to their working studio. Some of them are busy choosing the films for the program, from a selection of 200-300 films! The others work on everything else that is necessary for the festival to be successful (like funding and communication).
From previous experience I venture to say that the working days for them are getting longer and longer, and sleeping hours shorter and shorter… But let’s keep our fingers crossed and wish them good luck!
We are really happy here at MoKS to have Jaanika and Pille, Eva and Siim, Taavi and Reimo and Worldfilm – our friends in life and film – here with us!

[Siiri]

Thus the end of Moksville was symbolically ruled by fire and water. One after another, these two elements took power over us, and we finished our week with burning the energy tower in the morning (another Error Event) and a real shower of rain in the afternoon.

The water had really taken its turn to govern when we tried patiently to lit the maboro-ship for sending the ancestors back… from the lake to the river, from the river to the ocean… Indeed, we had been inventing all sorts of different ways to make cardboard waterproof – but by the end of Sunday’s showers, it had also somehow become fireproof!

The city is destroyed, and a new Rome will soon rise from its ashes. Yet something remains, when the Moksville is gone. Some memories with beautiful people remain, and some dreams and plans for the future. And some building experience as well.

(madli)

After a week of planning, testing and constructing Moksville was ready for its 24 hour existence starting at 14:00 on Saturday, August 18th. With a short ribbon cutting ceremony, our little village was open to the public. In the end we expanded beyond the original set of projects to include some news ones that grew out of the weeks activities at the site. Moksville was comprised of the following structures and activities:

• Jam & Co vegetarian restaurant
• The Ceramic Kiln
• A Camera Obscura
• Error Energia
• Mea Culpa pavillion
• Maboro Ship -ceremony for the ancestors
• DIPIU’ [D+] modular playground
• Quadrophonic wind harp installation
• Lastelinn -kids village
• and a Bus Stop

Based on the amount of visitors, this seemed to be a very interesting and accessible event for the public. Many of the local residents of Mooste came out to witness our creations as well as a number of around Estonia and abroad (Turkey, India and Finland to name a few). The program for the day was fairly relaxed. Besides all of the projects being open, there were a few special events like and origami workshop to prepare for the ancestral ceremony and then the ceremony itself in the evening. The modular playground transformed itself into a ping-pong table where an extensive tournament was held.

text and photos by John Grzinich

9.00 pm – screening started!

to please the local kids we started with a short estonian animation movie with english subtitles… the viewers managed to get through the green bear’s “tricks”.
The effort required by the generator started to increase, from 10 min to a half-an-hour documentary about moks ten-years activity; the crowd, after a long working day, started to feel the effort and so we saw the first ones leaving the place towards the ‘headquarter’.
Nevertheless it was quite interesting seeing the work done by moks groups and especially we discovered peculiar characters in moks community, from the ‘artist grandpa’ to ‘rockstar cook’.

after the success of this preliminary phase of moks film festival, the so much expected moment has come, Nanni Moretti is coming to Moksville with his ‘Dear Diary’ that, for the occasion, will become ‘Dear Moksville’.

Everything seemed set, people (or those who have not left yet) are waiting impatiently, although kids couldn’t keep up, however we think they would have left soon anyway.

Little check on the generator, setting up subtitles, and go!!

On the Vespa scooter through the streets of an empty Rome during August passing by historical and popular neighbourhoods…
Viewers keep decreasing predictably, while unexpected ones start to show up (bugs, mosquitos and possibly ticks)
After almost a hour, after visiting the suburbs of Rome and the place of the tragic departure of Pasolini, we leave the Vespa to take the ferry towards the island of Lipari.

we have to admit that the subtitles, although quite thorough, left out some dialectical details, but the very substance of the arrival of Moretti to Moksville remains..

As Nanni Moretti arrives in Stromboli, at 3/4 of the movie, a strange sound came from distance… a few seconds and suddenly the bad news… crack!!

Darkness . The generator, tired and sleepy almost as we were, could not resist the two hours and a half of the movie night, the crowd began to grumble, but eventually gave up and accepted that the unexpected can happen, even in Moksville.

We just had time to close and cover the cinema screen, light up a fire and postpone the rest of the movie to the next screening night…
In any case Nanni Moretti goes to moksville, hoping to come back again.

(Alberto, Daniela, Gabriele, Luca, Selene – italian visitors)

Photo by Ernest Truely

There was a dream in February. I was freezing and sitting beside a frozen lake in Mooste, Estonia, wondering how the lake would look like during summer. I could imagine myself coming back to MoKS in August, when there would be an interesting camp, called AVAMAA 2012. There I would be able to create my own open air kitchen for the planned village Moksville. I applied for AVAMAA and was invited to join.

This is the story about planning, creating, building and the thoughts about what will happen on the 18th of August when the grand opening of Moksville will take place.

Day 1, Saturday 11th August
Me and a member of my team, Nooralotta started searching for suitable materials and tried to recover suitable trash for building material for the kitchen. Juha, a part of our finnish team tried to find decent materials for his planned ceramic oven. We carried every piece of interesting wood, brick or metal and all kinds of other material that we found, out from the Kunsti Ait beside the MoKS building. We even found a sink!

We walked to the Moksville area, a field on the other side of an apple tree orchard. On the field was cut grass and 50 bales of hay. We walked through the gardens where the local people raise their vegetables. There in the gardens was a lady that showed us her plants and asked us to come pick up what we would need and use in our restaurant.

In the evening after a great chanterelle pie (thank you Patrick and Siiri!) I decided on a place to build our restaurant. I asked if we could build the kitchen between the apple trees near the area entrance. We could use the branches of the trees and we would be near the gardens.

Day 2, Sunday 12th of August
Juha fetched a scythe from Ahja and Nooralotta tried to cut the grass between the apple trees with the scythe. The other groups were building their buildings and local kids were helping out by planning tables and chairs for our restaurant!

I started to prepare the food for the evening. I was supposed to make food for almost 30 people here in MoKS. I went to fetch the potatoes the lady had promised to pick up for us. In the gardens I met her daughter Mari, who gave me 20 kilos of potatoes! I could take only half of that amount and luckily I had a bike to help me carry them back to MoKS! The distance between Moksville and MoKS is about half a kilometer. It was easier to leave half of the catch in our sink on the haybale in Moksville which is situated very near to the gardens. The village was forming now on the fields.

Making a huge dinner in the evening was good training for the opening of the restaurant! I cooked two trouts in the oven, served them with the vegetables from the gardens, herbs, garlic-yoghurt, chili-salsa and mashed local potatoes with pesto (made by Evelyn). The food was good and there was enough for everyone.

Day 3, Monday 13th of August
A tractor drove through our kitchen area and cut more grass beside the trees. Well, now we had at least plenty of room for the restaurant! I made a hanging basket from linen-rope. Daniela from Italy wanted to learn the knot too. I kept a workshop for those who wanted to learn the special knot for making for example hanging baskets or hammocks.

Day 4, Tuesday 14th of August
This day was spent building the kitchen. We had to carry our cooking ware and materials in several trips between Moks and Moksville. We had some problems with the hard wind. We couldn’t make the roof today. We had to cover everything that could get wet. It started raining after lunch, so we weren’t going back to the Moksville area.

In the evening I started the hammock workshop for the Italians. We try to make the hammock ready for Saturday. The grand opening for Moksville will be held then and there will be local people, people that we were invited and maybe even tourists coming to see what AVAMAA offers this year.

Day 5, Wednesday 15th of August
I saw a deer running through a tree aisle near the gardens! Jaanika arrived yesterday and I showed her the situation in Moksville today. She will also help us with the kitchen. Nooralotta and Mari painted the cardboards with linen oil, so the rain would not ruin the roof and other surfaces we need.

Local girls brought some tomatoes, salad, paprika and dill. I promised to cook for them tomorrow. I taught them to make bracelets from linen rope. We fetched a lot of vegetables from the garden lady. She also gave us lots of beans, but we just could not carry everything. Nooralotta will fetch them tomorrow. And again we invited the lady from the garden and other gardeners to our grand opening on Saturday.

The Italians made a delicious dinner in MoKS, pasta and several pizzas! There was a real pizza-factory in a very hot kitchen!

Day 6, Thurday, 16th of August
Exiting! Today I would prepare food for the local kids. I began the preparations after breakfast and added the girls’ tomatoes into yesterdays lentil soup. I fried my speciality with olive oil (24hrs oil mixed with crushed garlic, parsley and drop of balsamico). I packed everything and Nooralotta carried the gas, stove, pans, water and all the other kitchen supplies on a bike to Moksville.

Jaanika and I lifted the roof cardboard onto our wobbly support structures and Nooralotta bravely climbed on the bar counter and bound the cardboard through holes onto the support rack. Then some nails and, ta-daa, the roof was ok! Children helped us by peeling the huge amount of beans we got from the gardens.

The gas and the stove were a little problematic and despite the hot morning the wind started to blow. So, the heating with the gas was not so easy! But I put a vegetarian pasta on the stove and finally I could serve lunch for 9 kids! Well, three of them did not like it, but they were very polite when they gave the food back to me. There was too much garlic, I think…

We have to improve the heating-system, so Nooralotta and Jaanika will start making a grill today. They are going to dig the ground and use bricks to make a grill. I’ll cook beans and think what I can make out of 8 huge cabbages and herbs and zuccinis and paprikas and potatoes. But it is only a pleasure!

At least by Saturday there will be some sort of Restaurant JAM & Co in Moksville village!

Future offerings may include the “Fuck You Santa Workshop.”.

The tick panic made a headline in the breakfast table, as it turned out that one of those “nasty bugs” had actually been found in real. They do exist, be aware.

The most impressive object on the field so far is no doubt is the Error-tower which seems to project energy already by looking at it. The wooden structure is beautiful in its technicalities which make it sound and steady (steadiness tested by villagers later in the evening – no defect on the object was detected).

The kiln stove building has taken a good opening as well, Juha and Noora made the foundation hole already in the morning, all the materials seem to be gathered together, they now only have to figure out what the exact shape will be. And last night we all got to press our fingers in a greenish wet clay while making some dishes to be burnt in the stove and used in the vege restaurant. We also got some help from Mooste kids who kindly shared with us their experience in the matter.

The camera obscura is all covered with cardboard and is now the most house-like construction. Still, as the builders said, their aim is not in the looks of the box itself, rather, the beauty, and the secret of it, lies inside. A sneak peek under the cover confirms: the insides of the box do look pretty already.

John put up the first of four poles with windharps, which, left alone on the Site for the night, made a quiet singing sound. Another way of using wind power.

The rest of the projects were developing more calmly and inwardly and will show their face to the public a little later. And even if there is a slight feel of a healthy competition in the air, there is no rush, as the chicks are counted in the autumn, like we say :)

In fact, some new ideas are hatching already. While making our clay plates, we were witnessing a preparation of costumes for a Parasite Opera, the rehearsals of which are supposedly starting later today.

The day was topped up with a beauuuuutiful dinner cooked by Katariina who worked all day to feed 35 people. Dish composed from trout, all freshly caught, (s)mashed potatoes, bean soup, and a hit of a pumpkin salad which rhymed so well with the fish dish. And of course: Garlic. Lots of it. :)

The change in the nature of efforts from intellectual to physical kind also showed in the evening when everybody suddenly disappeared by about 10 p.m. off to bed. And by the next morning, the enthusiasm got someone up and sawing no later than quarter to eight… It looks like another beautiful sunny-summery-building-day. Have fun!

(madli)

MoKS resident artist Masayo and me we were just cleaning the chanterelles when… there they were … arrived. During a few hours, the cores of all the groups. Bits of Error Collective after Playground Italians, Maboro Maiko (to accompany Masayo) after some more Error Collective. And then the CamObs Danny along with the crew – Patrick after Mari, Tuuli after Patrick and vice versa, as some of them disappeared to some more chanterelle picking in the mean time. So many arrivals! First everyone was guided to their rooms, and after they got to know their space and settled in, more and more people found their way to the dining hall.
After long hours waiting patiently, finally at half past 9 the dinner was served by the crew – delicious chanterelle quiche. And one without mushrooms, and one meal without eggs and butter as well.
After the dinner we had a greeting and introduction speech about this years’ symposium and its basic idea from John as well as the circle of „getting to know each other”. It appeared quickly that we have artists and non-artists gathered to participate this year (again?) – for example the designers and architects refused to call themselves as “artist“. We also have our own local biologist to help us out to differentiate a tick from a little spider, and in the mean time write his own blog (in Estonian).
For food we were enjoying the donations from Mari K. and her mother from Mooste garden, and a really popular red currant drink made out of juice from Tiiu working in Villakoda.

The sleeping time seemed to start quite early for everybody. I guess for waking up next morning to the smells of Mari’s porridge and Siiri’s coffee. For this breakfast we had to be grateful for other supporters – some oat flakes for porridge and super special apple-zuccini-lemon jam from Liilia, and wonderful black currant jam from Mari’s granny.
10.30, according to John’s schedule, the Mooste tour started. If usually the guided tours here are all about the manor and the old times – when things were built, for what purpose, and what are they used for nowadays –, then on our walk the culturally interesting objects included: trash wood sticks pile next to old piggery, all-kind-of-trash on many other spots around the manor, The Site (becoming Moksville), allotment gardens, directions to The Café (our lunch place for most of the days), and trash wood sticks pile next to the kindergarden.
While back to MoKS, one could see really serious working mood all over the house – I spotted Noora and Juha first seriously discussing and drawing in the eating hall and then very soon in the basement trying out smth mystical with strings, Justin setting up electronic workshop on the other side of the basement. Italians remained more hidden – only after the nice lunch at Mooste Kohvik I spotted two of them also drawing or writing smth at the eating hall. And even more hidden remained the sweet Japanese girls. Probably they are developing the concept and prework, and also waiting for their volunteers – Tartu art school students – to arrive on Monday to help them out. On the first full-day, naturally, not much else is there to be seen yet but the huge sparkle of excitement in everybody’s eyes, and some serious thinking can be concluded, as the questions have started to merge and sound – about the additional supplies everybody have spotted still laying seemingly deserted, without an owner, all around the old agricultural / collective farm surrounding.

The italian group is building a MoKS playground, which is based on a well engeneered and easily modulable structure, ready to be used at will, as a pingpong table, a video screen, or anything that comes in mind. (members: Alberto Olcese, Gabriele Molfetta, Luca Raffo, Selene Vacchelli, Daniela Venturini)

The Japanese/Estonian group’s minds are inspired by the shape of a Maboro-ship, a phantasmagoric ship that takes a form of a shadow theatre scene, but is again open for many different uses. (members: Masayo Kajimura, Maiko Date, Anna Hints +2 volunteers from Tartu Art School)

The camera obscura project includes a movable two-meter high black box with a tiny hole in the wall (size calculations show 1.7 to 3 mm) to make the light waves appear on the opposite side as a perfect image of the world outside the box. Hopefully also a good tool for documenting the event. (members: Daniel Allen, Lauri Laanisto)

The Error collective (Ernest Truly, Justin Tyler Tate, Päivi Raivio, Mikko Laajola) is experimenting the local energy ressources by constructing a windmill which would generate energy for the village. Naturally, there’s some room left for Error to happen.

Finally, the kiln stove project combined with the organic vegan restaurant bring the flying ideas back closer to the ground, offering tasty healthy locally grown and cooked food (donated from the gardens just next to Moksville). (members: Nooralotta Ikonen, Katariina Hillo, Juha Hilpas)

***
First drawings have been made, first pieces measured, and first bonfires lit. And what could be better for creating ideas than a good Saturday night sauna. Some groups like to start off with a good theoretical basis with thorough calculations, others concentrate on inventing in practice and go along as the work develops. But all are open for inspiration to come along the way and exchange of ideas.

(madli)

***
PS. Here’s a little soundscape on the Site before we arrived. (recording by Danny)

Vaata pildigaleriid kogu ettevõtmisest – kohtumisest, tutvumisest, värvimisest ja veel ühest olulisest päeva osast – villavahetusest!

Värvimisprotsess ise oli kummagi värvi puhul erinev.
Kask kuldkollane …
Tuuli, Kata ja Felicity korjasid eelneval õhtul kaselehti, rebisid neid katki ja panid likku. Enne värvima hakkamist kuumutasime need 80 kraadini ja kurnasime vee lehtedest. Seejärel panime lõngavihud tunnikeseks sellesse värvivette (lehtede ja lõnga koguse suhe kaalu järgi võiks olla 2:1). Lõngad olid eelnevalt peitsitud ilusa, selge kollase tooni saamiseks 4% viinakivi ja 14% alumiiniumsulfaadiga. Need ained tuleks peitsima hakkamisel korralikult ära lahustada ja keema lasta. Siis võib lisada eelmisel õhtul likku pandud lõnga/villa, lasta segu keema ja võtta seejärel tulelt ära. Siis ongi kiud peitsitud ja valmis värvilahusesse panekuks. Tulemuseks saime säravkollased lõngad (värv tuleb tunduvalt pruunikam, kui kaselehti kõvasti keeta, st temperatuur värvivee tegemise ajal pikaks ajaks üle 80 kraadi lasta).
Sinitaeva sinivikerkaar
Sinerõikaga värvimiseks lõnga eelnevalt ei peitsita, küll aga leotatakse, vähemalt tund, aga veel parem üle öö. Sinerõikapall tuleb kergelt lahti murda ja sellele veidi vett peale panna, et see pehmemaks muutuks. Seejärel tuleb katta pall umbes 2 l keeva veega ja jätta umbes pooleks tunniks vette. Seejärel vesi kurnata ja sinerõikatükid korraks ettevaatlikult kõrvale panna. Lahusele tuleb lisada 40 g pesusoodakristalle, et see leeliseliseks muuta. Seejärel tuleb vedelik korralikult läbi segada, et ained selles lahustuksid. Lahust võiks umbes 15 min jooksul valada mitu korda edasi-tagasi ühest ämbrist teise või vispeldada, et vedelik seguneks ohtra hapnikuga. Seejärel tulebki sinerõikalehed tagasi lahusesse panna, ja natuke võib veel edasi vispeldada. Hapnik vabastab sinerõikalehtedes oleva sinise värvipigmendi – indoksüüli. Kui vedelik on korra korralikult õhuga segunenud, peab lisama 25 g naatriumvesiniksulfiidi, et nüüd kogu see hapnik jälle värvilahusest eemaldada (siis kinnituvad vabastatud sinise värvi pigmendid täielikult lõngale). Seejärel võibki lõnga ettevaatlikult lahusesse asetada. Nüüd ei tohiks seda enam segada ning värvimisnõul tuleks hoida kaas peal. Soojenda sinerõikalahust püsival kuumusel 50-60 kraadini ja jäta vill umbes tunniks ajaks lahusesse. Kui vill seejärel välja võtta, näeb kõige põnevamat osa kogu värvimisprotsessist – esialgu määrdunud kollakas-roheline lõng muutub kohe õhu kätte jõudes ilusaks siniseks. Seejärel võiks kõigepealt lõnga kuivama riputada, ja pärast seda pesta piisavas koguses soojas, kergelt villapesuvahendises vees. NB! Villa pesemisel võib vee temperatuuri varieerida külmast soojani, ent mitte kunagi ei tohiks panna tulist lõnga jääkülma vette, v.a juhul, kui eesmärgiks on villa vanutamine! Kõige õigem oleks püüda hoida kogu villa pesemiseks kasutatav vesi enam-vähem ühe ja sama temperatuuriga. Töötoas värvitud sinised toonid tulid plassimad, hallimad, kui varem tehtud proovivärvimisel. Ilmselt võis seda põhjustada see, et naatriumvesiniksulfiid sai lisatud ühe korraga, ja enne seda veel vähese veega segatuna; või siis seetõttu, et panime koguseliselt rohkem villa värvilahusesse. Täpset põhjust me kahjuks ei teagi.

Vaadake kindlasti ka Felicity enda blogipostitusi töötoa ning kogu Eestis viibitud aja kohta (leiate sealt koguni 7 postitust, “Landing” võtab kokku kogu kuuajalise seikluse).

MoKS ja Felicity Ford tänavad kõiki toredaid inimesi, kes töötuppa tulid ja oma väärtuslikke kogemusi, oskusi ja ilusaid emotsioone jagasid. Peale selle täname südamest oma toetajaid Briti Nõukogu, Eesti Kultuuriministeeriumi ja Kultuurkapitali, ning lõngaga varustanud Blacker Yarnsi.

Leidnikerdajate klubi koguneb kord kuus. Selle eesmärk on kasutada ära vanu materjale või katsetada kohalikke ja/või looduslikke materjale; leiutada uusi n-ö kiiksuga esemeid ja kohandada mis tahes olemasolev materjal, esemed vajaduste järgi, kasutades selleks loovust ja ilumeelt. Jälgige ikka meie kodulehte, kus ilmub info järgmiste põnevate sündmuste kohta!

From February 19th-24th, MoKS organised another GROUND workshop. It was 2nd time in Mooste and 4th GROUND workshop in general (2 more to come in Poznan and Helsinki).
This workshop focused on fieldwork- 16 participants were given possibility to develop a work or research in public institutions of Põlva, Ahja and Tartu. Our collaborators this time were Ahja elderly home, Ahja Youth Center, Estonian National Museum and Põlva Art School.
Though participants had to face several limitations, hardest of them were probably time, language barrier and novelty of a situation, there were strong connections and works developed.

AHJA ELDERLY HOME
Group: Epp Kubu, Lumi Kylm, Iina Ukkonen
At 1st sight most difficult and depressing place. Elderly home is located on ground floor in one of the block houses in Ahja. 15 inhabitants between ages 59-93, all in very different physical and mental conditions.
Epp, Lumi and Iina approached the inhabitants of elderly home with great sensitivity and openness, using different ways to get closer to the place and its people. Eg drawing and everyday chatting. Their research is concluded in a tear bringing short-film Nooruse 2, where you get to know some inhabitants of elderly home. Men and women are portrayed while listening to their favourite music from their youth.

ESTONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM (TARTU)
Group: Tanel Rander, Katariina Hillo, Piotr Gasiorowski, Susanna Jurvanen
Young and eager team of curators and organisers from Estonian National Museum offered for a GROUND group possibility to interact with their new exhibition. It was the show about consumption culture in Estonia in the turn of the century. As the exhibition was all ready, the GROUND group felt pressure of adding something meaningful for the show.
The exhibition is dominated over 3200 drawings by kids about their most liked and unliked presents. As the exhibition represents and analyses mostly views of active and potential consumers, the GROUND group felt that something is missing- namely the voice of people who are not anymore the targets of marketing. So they conducted a series of interviews with Tartu and Ahja elderly home inhabitants, asking about their youth-hood consumption habits.

AHJA YOUTH CENTER
Group: Nooralotta Ikonen, Anna Kolacka, Dawid Marszewski, Madis Kuningas
The place what seems to have most possibilities and openness, turned out to be a real puzzle for our GROUND group. Tens of kids, all listening to their own music, playing it from headphones, or playing it out loud from small phones or mp3 players, all doing their things, running here and there. How to get them focused? How to cross the language barrier? During the week Nooralotta, Anna, Dawid and Madis tested different ways- playing drums, drawing a common drawing, building a snowtown…
In the final presentation visitors entered the space, what had no kids, but sound, lot of different sounds, recorded during the week in the Youth Center.

PÕLVA ART SCHOOL
Group: Kristiine Špongolts, Hannes Einpaul, Adrianna Borucka, Sylwester Piasecki, Kaisa Karvonen
Põlva Art School is run by an energetic woman called Anne Prangel. As this was very busy week at school, she gently directed our GROUND group to explore the rest of the house where the school is located. The school is on the top floor of the castle-looking Põlva Culture Centre building. Built in 1980ies, the house was meant to be the main cultural centre for the Põlva county, hosting theatre plays, rock and classical music concerts, conferences and fairs. The current situation is different, Põlva cultural centre has definitely the biggest house, but it is one among many others in the area. That means high competition for resources and struggle for finances. Where one has to make a decision whether to put most of its finances into heating and lighting up the giant culture building or developing its programme.
Kristiine, Adrianna and Hannes conducted a series of interviews inside the culture house and outside around town, asking people about their relationship with that building. Sylwester developed a performance, where one could see a man inside a structure, walking with it around the room and trying to get out from the room.

Yes the time was short for developing meaningful relationships and works, but both sides (hosts and artists) could take it as an exercise for creative everyday living and bringing sense into daily routines.

We would like to thank all participants and our collaborators from the locations, particularly Piret Palm from Ahja Youth Center, Milvi Groznõi from Ahja Elderly Home, Anne Prangel from Põlva Art School, Maire Pedras from Põlva Culture Center, Siim Angerpik, Jaanika Jaanits, Pille Runnel and Taavi Tatsi from Estonian National Museum.

Supported by Grundtvig Lifelong learning programme.

photoes by Siiri Kolka and Evelyn Müürsepp

Danny, Madli, Tuuli and Patrick have just started ...

The general technique is rather simple: you need old fabric for your composition, plastic mesh (and old newspaper to put under it to protect your table/floor), the white wall(paper) glue (‘seinaliim’), spatulas to spread the glue on the fabric.
While we were rehearsing the basics, Tuuli herself experimented with a technique of cutting the fabric into tiny pieces, mixing it into a mass with glue, and spreading this over the mesh. This also seemed to have a really nice outcome.

You are all welcome to join in next time and bring your ideas with you – which means also proposing your own subject and guiding other tinkerers! For example, at some of the next meetings we are probably going to experiment different techniques to tie-connect-glue cardboard with environmentally rather harmless materials (avoiding nails or staples, for instance) to make sculptures or – why not – some useful objects for the household. This will also serve the much bigger MoKS plan that you will hear more about soon – just to keep up the excitement!

The next club is planned for the 1st of March, the doors open at 17:00 and the tinkering foes on until 20:00.
The cost per club night is 3€.
Info: moks.ee
moks_at_moks.ee

Click here to view the embedded video.

Madli pilt Mooste koolist

During these very grey November days, hoping and waiting for the snow and sunlight, the matchbox camera workshop was held at MoKS. The good reason for this was having someone practiced in the mentioned craftwork – Daniel Allen – here as part of a two-month residency at the end of 2011.
So as planned, on Saturday the 26th, a small group of people gathered to learn the secrets of this strange craft. See the gallery below!

The process itself is not actually very complicated – just fairly. Here are main supplies you need:
- an empty matchbox – to cut different size of holes in different parts;
- a little piece of foil (stronger than cooking foil) and a pin to make a hole;
- a black pen to colour the inner parts of the box to avoid any light being reflected anywhere;
- some card to build the shutter;
- a film, of course, and also one old empty film cassette;
- black tape to make your camera fully lightproof;
- and a bit of sponge and half a clothes peg – for spooling the film from one cassette to another smoothly and successfully.

I would say the most difficult part, requiring most assistance needing, is getting the size of the pinhole (aperture) right – to be able to match it later with the approximate shutter speed in certain light conditions.
One of the most beautiful things about taking the photos with such a camera is the game between predictability and unpredictability. One takes pictures of the chosen subjects usually very consciously and also recognises most of these things later on the photos. And there are some extras as well that appear as certain effects (which can emerge from the “mistakes” made while building the camera). Actually there’s hardly any outcome that wouldn’t have these extras – in most cases, I would say, enriching the results.
It should be said that once the film is full of pictures, the camera has to be destroyed to get out the negatives. The good part of this is, however, that if you became good friends with the relations between aperture, light evaluation and shutter speed, you can re-use the same pinhole – as you remember, it’s the hardest part – to build the next camera.

And some more good news is that if you are interested, then please keep an eye on MoKS’ activities in winter-spring 2012 – we are planning to have more of these workshops!

The Public Office for Architetcure explores the link between private and public interest in the practice of architecture. A temporary architecture office was established at MoKS, open to the public and free of charge. The public was invited to consult any architectural needs or questions they may have. In return every project that was taken on by the Public Office added one component to the program of requirements that was decidedly of public interest, initiating a dialog between private needs and public needs in the dynamics of architectural services. Four distinctly different projects were taken on by the office while in Mooste which will be followed up over the coming months.

The Public Office for Architecture is conceived as a nomadic project that will span over several years. The inaugural project hosted by MoKS was followed by Public Office for Architecture at Galeria HIT in Bratislava, with several projects planned for 2012. The accumulated work will serve as a collection of case studies to argue for a revision in the client-architect relationship within the practice of architecture as a service industry.

Public Office for Architecture is generously supported by MoKS, Galeria HIT, CECArtsLink and the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts. Many thanks to Evelyn and Siiri from MoKS and to our fabulous assistant and translator Iris Allese.

the serious side of Dan and Trish Scott

MoKS September residents from the UK, Trish and Dan Scott set up the PAIR WORK blog for their collaborative experiments. Please have a look to see just how productive they were.

This 5-day intensive workshop focused on Strategies of Culture, Collaborative Methods and Site-Specific art practices. We focused on the theme of ‘Narratives’ that includes three areas; the personal, the larger social and site or object narratives. The idea of narrative was explored beyond the basic notion of stories, where we looked at what constitutes the foundation or conditions that allow narratives to develop. The week activities consisted of practical fieldwork and exercises, artist presentations and discussion rounds in an open setting of international artists and students. We want to thank the 20 participants for their time and energy for a very productive week. We are looking forward to the next meeting in Helsinki.

Click here to view the embedded video.

They also documented some events. This is a lecture/performance by Stuart:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And here is a video document of the final performance of Bruno Humberto’s workshop at AVAMAA 2011:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Gallery #1

Gallery #2

For the second year MoKS has hosted the ‘summer practice’ for students from Tartu Art College sculpture department. The aim is to allow students to experiment and gain practical experience in a non-school setting. The weeks activities were guided by John and Evelyn who led a series of exercises that focused on the idea of site-specific environmental art. Using the greater context of Mooste village and its surroundings, the students were also given time to develop their own works. They also had a chance to learn about the practices of other artists who were in the residency at MoKS and to get a historical overview of site-specific art practices from historian Maarin Ektermann. Despite the changing weather conditions, it was a productive week overall and we hope to host another group of creative people next year.

Special thanks to Veljo Runnel for leading an excellent workshop on Nature Sound Recording, sharing his experiences from the last 10 years and extensive knowledge on bird species. We enjoyed having Danny, Evelyn, Eve, Taavi, Patrick, John, Ignaz, Maria and Aivo to come out and participate. The group spent one early morning and one full evening out in the field, analyzing and collecting sounds. We then listened to the recordings that were made an identified the animal species that were heard. Comparisons of different recording setups were helpful to in defining both aesthetic and scientific approaches to the sounds that were captured.

Recording nature sounds

This is a list of problems and challenges experienced by the participants during the workshop. Overcoming these issues are key to improving your skills

• the sound of ones self -whispering, rustling clothes and hungry stomachs can easily show up in your recording interfere with your interest to capture natural sounds.
• to plan or not to plan -research is important but sometimes random situations can also bring success. how much planning is needed?
• finding a good location -certain factors like flora and fauna types, distance from inhabited areas, proximity to lakes and rivers all contribute to the wildlife you may find in nature and the sounds they make
• knowledge of equipment -for getting good recordings, everything depends on your technical setup. knowing what types of microphones work best for certain situations, charging batteries and maintaining your equipment is essential in being prepared to capture the right moment.
• consider the whole sonic environment -noises from other creatures like insects and dogs can interfere with what you want to record. birds often change their position, a robin sitting in from of your microphone will mask more distant sounds. learn some tricks on how to deal with these situations.
• patience and persistence is key -finding interesting subjects to record rarely happens easily. sometimes you may need to follow a sound source carefully to get close to it, yet often in the process animals can easily be scared by your presence
• coordinate when recording in a group -make sure agreements are made about when to be quiet, how long you plan to record, and when movements can be made. not considering these details will often cause unwanted noises in your recordings.
• be prepared personally -bring food to feed a hungry stomach. wear the right clothing for recording, sitting still may need extra layers for warmth. get into the right mental state for listening carefully, recording sounds in nature demands your full attention.
• familiarity with the subject -start to learn about animal species and the types of sounds they make. in noisy environments (morning bird chorus) it can be difficult to distinguish one bird call from another
• laziness -its hard to get out in the field. forget the excuses, get off your bum and get out to record

identifying the species heard during the morning chorus

Future goals

What do the participants aim for in their future practices?

• learn about animal identification -some understanding of species differentiation is helpful and needed when you want to search for special sounds. This also helps in understanding the environment you are in and your relation to it.
• learn and consider the geographical aspects of the environments where you plan to record -think about the acoustic properties of natural habitats. not every forest sounds the same, what environments are interesting for capturing a good soundscape
• improve recording technique -invest in some better equipment (mics/recorder) and making regular use of it
• make time to record -preparation and travel add extra time, making the whole process rather lengthy
• be more conscious of surroundings -you can’t hear nature if you’re not listening to it
• find a creative response to nature sounds -can the recorded sounds be used in a dance/movement piece for example.
• edit, clean and archive the recordings -it is easy to forget what and where you recorded
• cooperate with other field recordists -it helps to share knowledge and techniques. plan more regular excursions.
• reach out to the public -look for ways to share your recordings and build a wider audience. see how nature sound recording can be more than a hobby.

listen to mix of four recordings by John Grzinich

1. creaking tree and morning birds by the Ahja river
2. lone Tangmalm’s Owl (Karvasjalg kakk) in the forest
3. Spotted Crake (Täpikhuik)
4. Morning chorus near Ahunapalu with Cranes

Following this research phase we are entering the period where we need to visualize the data, that is, translate it into a visual form in order to graphically lay out the information for the printed form. Carsten Stabenow and Andreas Töpfer will be designing and editing the final design of the map, but in order to do so we needed to brainstorm what a printed sound map could look like and edit some of the data collected and shape it into a usable form.

See the Tallinn Sound Diaries by Andreas Töpfer.

“Lokaalne ja globaalne MoKS” for SIRP (Eesti keeles)

English version on ARTISHOK

GROUND is an exchange project between MoKS, MAA Art school of Helsinki and the Art Academy of Poznan in Poland funded by Grundtvig life long learning programme. GROUND as a project focuses on Strategies of Culture, Collaborative Methods and Site-Specific practices. During a 2 year period, groups from each of the partners will make 2 visits to each other partner. The local host develops a theme and a program for each meeting. In the case of this first meeting the theme was “environment” and the students were given an open canvas as how to interpret that.

Two options were given as starting points:

• choose and “environment. make and analysis of it. work with the phenomenon of that environment
• create an “environment”

Over the week the students formed into small collaborative groups or worked as individuals and developed site-specific installations, performances or multi-media works. From the Estonian side we had: Mari, Patrick, Kersti, Kerstin and Indrek.

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Evelyn and the board

A number of officials and past figures came out to show their appreciation.

Piret Lindpere from the Ministry of Culture speaks

Two excellent artistic performance were given in the new ‘common’ space on the second floor.

Patrick McGinley aka 'murmer' creates a live feedback performance with audience participation

Mari Kalkun charms the space with voice and kantele

The event also opened and exhibition of works by artists involved with MoKS.

Mari Jõgiste exhibits her visual works in the cellar gallery

large scale drawing works on display by Evelyn Müürsepp

Here is a photo gallery of the various spaces at MoKS (studios, kitchen, cellar, sauna).

MoKS annual summer art symposium AVAMAA took place from August 16-21. The biggest challenge this year was to conduct the symposium almost without being able to use MOKS. With the exception of using the basement for 2 of the workshops, the building was pretty much unusable because of the current state of intensive renovation. The same could be said for the final concert event, Mesi Kõrvadele which was supposed to be held in the new Mooste concert hall (folgikoda), but was held in the Kultuurimaja instead also because of renovation work. Given these conditions we still managed to pull everything off, hosting and feeding all 37+ participants for a week creative endeavors in the Mooste schoolhouse. Details of the workshops, projects and week long program can be found on the MOKS website.

We would like to thank the MOKS team and all the participants for their creative energy this year: John W Fail, Giles Bailey, Natalia Borissova, Selda Asal, Cem, Marko Kosnik, Monica Glahn, Lara Tau Viera, Michael Saup, Di Clay, Nick Clay, Goncalo Leite Velho, Andrus Kallastu, Hans Gunter Lock, Leonora Palu, Indrek Palu, Kai Kallastu, John Grzinich, Evelyn Müürsepp, Maarin Ektermann, Mari Jõgiste, Patrick McGinley, Jaanika Jaanits, Piibe Kolka, Tom Grzinich, Leela Elison, Toomas Thetloff, Siim Tiirik, Mari Kalkun, Taavi Tatsi, Kaisa Sammelselg, Grigori Lotman, Caleb Waldorf, Piret K, Maria Rõhu, Kurt Korthals, Andreas Leo Findeisen