[caption id="attachment_920" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Danny, Madli, Tuuli and Patrick have just started ..."][/caption]
On 2nd of February 2012 we started a new monthly gathering in MoKS – the Serious Tinkering Club (Leidnikerdajate Klubi). This club is all about inventing, tinkering-reusing-sharing knowledge and appropriating. At the first meeting Tuuli Tubin led a workshop in making wallpaper out of old fabric. It was really inspiring to see how all of the participants had very different approaches:
Madli having the most fantastically colourful picture, rich in additional details;
Danny continuing in the mood of tonal nuances that you will all be able to see in his exhibition soon in our basement gallery (the product of his residency at MoKS);
Patrick going much more geometrical and teaching all of us an important lesson – not all the fabrics stick with the 'seinaliim' glue used;
and Siiri thinking a bit too much while planning the composition – but being very excited herself to practice (and Tuuli was the best advisor there):

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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

Results of the animation workshop given by MoKS Nordic/Baltic resident Elin Grimstad made is cooperation with 5th grade students from the Mooste school. Its a warm winter so the story is quite true.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiFutKeTNJE[/youtube]

[caption id="attachment_901" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Madli pilt Mooste koolist"][/caption]

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!

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MoKS was home to the Public Office for Architecture during the whole month of August as part of the X_OP residency program. The nomadic architecture project was accompanied by Kid Space Kabinet, a continuation of Fantasy World Workshop by artist Cristina David.

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.

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[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="420" caption="the serious side of Dan and Trish Scott"][/caption]

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.

GROUND is a collaborative project supported by the EU life-long learning programme, Grundtvig. It is a collaboration between MoKS, Art School MAA of Helsinki Finland and the Art University of Poznan Poland.

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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.

We were fortunate to have a (short) visit by Stuart Hodges and Yelena Popova from the UK. Yelena screened her recent film "UNNAMED" about the forbidden city in Russia where she is from. You can view the film here:

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/19847305[/vimeo]

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

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzVJaCyKihI[/youtube]

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

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2z-NjUoSSk[/youtube]

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

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Gallery #2

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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

*image* 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 a 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