data leap

A new Algorave Helsinki event, a first one in five years! It’s called data leap and it takes place next Friday 1.3. I’m going to play there as Forces and I was thinking to play more rave focused set than my few recent ones. See u there!

Algorave Helsinki & WHS Teatteri Union present

data leap
https://www.facebook.com/events/699112179062871/

CASSALPOPOLO & julesvisuaalinen
codepage
Eilien
forces
Kalle Rasinkangas
OH3SD
pulu & Twilight Courier
Trauma Responses

glitchy grooves, metamorphosing melodies, turbulent textures, algorithmic ambiences and beyond!

data leap is a celebration of audio-visual art created with idiosyncratic technological methods. we present live performances and an interactive installation showcasing the creative practices of artists working with algorithms, data and electronics.

Algorave Helsinki is a community of people in the Helsinki area interested in livecoding, generative art and related topics.
we organize periodic meetups to share knowledge, ideas and personal projects.

the term ”algorave” (from algorithm + rave) was coined in 2011 by Alex McLean and Nick McCollins, and has since grown from the UK to a worldwide movement. Although our community is called Algorave Helsinki, we perform a variety of musical styles not limited to ”rave music”.

1.3.
WHS Teatteri Union
Siltavuorenranta 18
Tickets: 15 / 10 €

A discount ticket for everyone who feels entitled to a discount.

“Temporal Passage” installation open 28.2.–2.3.

new album + final weekend!

Heeyy, me and my dear friend Miša Skalskis (ang3l_sp1der) have a new album out as Angelforces! 💜✨

https://superpang.bandcamp.com/album/spaun

Two years ago we opened for Roc of EVOL at VTT and I guess he liked it enough, so he got us in contact with Chris of Superpang label.

I have been really digging Superpang for some years as it has similar computer music / experimental music vibes as early Mego records, which was an important label for me to 22-20 years ago, so it’s very nice to release the album with them.

The album consist of the improvisational livecoded base material we made for the gig. But we have slowly editing it for almost two years, making more interesting spatial / pitch manipulations, so it’s not the pure SC/synth recordings.

Thanks a lot to Roc! Also for the mastering:)

Also, the final weekend of Liminal Objects is at hand at the gallery Sculptor

Here’s Sculptor gallery’s interview of me (in Finnish though), where I explain my thoughts about the game/installation

.

liminal objects still on!

Hey, just wanted to post that my Liminal Objects solo exhibition / videogame installation is still on until the 25th of February 2024 at the Sculptor Studio gallery.

I already included the solo exhibition on my works page as well:
https://joonassiren.fi/liminal-objects/

Maybe few words more; I started thinking about this project a few years ago. I guess it boils down to that I wanted to make a playable game where u walk into a facsimile of the same gallery, where u are playing the game. But I also wanted the game taking place in the future, after maybe some catastrophic ecological collapse.

So in the game u can walk into the future Sculptor, and there on a shiny pedestal, there is a randomly spawning,
liminal object.

Some of the models are abstract shapes I have made in Blender, some from classic video games (Mario, Zelda etc), some are photogrammetrified trash from last Summer around Kalasatama, some museum collections like ancient Egyptian sculptures etcetc

I wanted the objects to create this kind large framework of different referencies ranging from art history, to artifacts of our current time whether they are virtual or “actual”. Kind of a shifting liminality of meanings projecting from the objects.

The installation part consist of garbage that I gathered last year from the wastelands of Kalasatama. Also a mound of soil which has test tubes inserted. Inside the test tubes there are dandelions picked last summer. I feel that dandelions are a very resilient flower and maybe they can survive the after an apocalypse. In the game, they are also the only flower you can find.

Here’s are some installationg picture:

 

More on the actual Liminal Objects page:
https://joonassiren.fi/liminal-objects/

And finally photographer Aukusti Heinonen’s pic of me playing the game:

If u have time, go/play the exhibition:)

incoming! gallery sculptor exhibition

Hey all, I’m atm incredible busy finishing my new exhibition “Liminal Objects”, which opens next week. The opening is at Thu 1.2. 17-19 and everyone is warmly welcome to attend!

I will post more about the exhibition, but here’s a copy paste of the exhibition leaflet from Sculptor website:

https://sculptors.fi/exhibition/liminal-objects/

Joonas Siren: Liminal Objects

Welcome to the opening reception on Thursday 1 Febuary from 5–7 pm! Joonas Siren will be present at the gallery on Saturday 3 February between 2–4 pm and on Sunday 25 February between 2–4 pm.

Joonas Siren’s solo exhibition at Galleria Sculptor’s Studio space is a comprehensive installation that consists of a video game made by Siren, objects collected from the waste land of Kalasatama, and dandelions preserved in epoxy resin.

In the video game, visitors can discover a 3D modeled object that is constantly changing its shape. Hundreds of different objects create their own kind of philosophy, referring to art history, commodities, other video games and artifacts in the world after climate catastrophe, among others. Perhaps the scooters lying around Helsinki in the summer will become historical treasures – something beautiful and perfect? It is in the nature of objects that their meanings and agency are in a constant process of liminality.

Joonas Siren (b. 1983) is a Helsinki-based multidisciplinary artist and experimental electronic musician. Siren graduated as Master of Fine Arts from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2013 and from the joint-study program Nordic Sound Art in 2012. Siren realizes media art installations with various digital working and programming methods, which often contain generative elements. Siren’s most recent exhibition was 16-channel sound installation Lost Time at the Forum Box gallery in 2023, in a joint exhibition with Juuso Noronkoski and Tuomo Rainio. Siren releases music under the name Forces, so far six albums on various international labels. Siren is frequently performing at experimental music events both in Finland and abroad.

forces concert at marginalen festival

One last Forces concert for this year!

I will play next Monday 4th of December 2023 in a festival called Marginalen at the Viirus Theater here in Helsinki. Here’s a link for the event:
https://www.viirus.fi/en/shows/marginalen-3

Also playing:
girlcrushcrushcrush and Tanja Valta.

I’m again building completely new set (a habit that I should get rid off as it takes too much time) and hopefully it should be interesting. Doing some kind of weird sample manipulation in SuperCollider, some cutting edge VST abuse + kind of janky and dated sounds from old hardware romplers; in this case the Yamaha RM1x. I think it’s fun to mix very different kind of tonalities and see what kind of primordial sound soup it will generate:)

Come if you are around! Atm it’s my last booked show for a while (ps. I’m available for booking:)).

forces midi saxophone themed concert at pertin valinta

I have a Forces concert tomorrow Wednesday 22nd of November at Pertin Valinta record store/gallery!

I’ll play together with Passepartout Duo and Heta Bilaletdin.

I decided to do something a bit different for this one, so I programmed a SuperCollider & Max/MSP patch which uses a very old 80s Casio MIDI saxophone as input device. All the notes from the sax goes to different MIDI channels, so I can make a rich tapestry of sounds by just blowing into the horn:). A fun challenge and I hope that the concert will be interesting as well.

C u there!

https://www.facebook.com/events/1085437109487514

sola festival 2023

SOLA festival 2023 takes over the cozy film theater / live-art venue WHS Theater Union next weekend, Friday & Saturday 3.- 4.11.2023. I have been organizing this festival with friends from the start 2015 onwards and it’s always nice to organize it again, this time for the seventh time.

If you are around, welcome to SOLA:)

https://solafestival.fi/
https://www.facebook.com/events/373694408316946

SOLA festival 2023

The yearly festival for experimental music and film returns to its usual November timeslot! The festival takes place at its usual prowling ground the WHS Teatteri Union – Friday & Saturday 3rd and 4th of November, 2023.

For the 2023 edition we have programmed again an adventurous selection of different kinds of experimental sounds plus a retrospective of the beautiful 16mm film abstractions of the US based filmmaker Jerome Hiler. Hiler’s films have rarely been shown and this is the first opportunity to see them in Finland.

The music program ranges from the multichannel computer music compositions of Kari Väkevä to the electro-acoustic treatments of a cello by Aino Juutilainen and prepared harp of Saara Olarte, onwards to the digital collage of New York City based Dilian and bio sensor aided compositions of Matilda Seppälä.

Trauma Responses (aka Johanna Sulalampi) will present a unique audio-visual performance exploring the theme of trauma through shifting perspectives. Sofia Zaiceva’s electro-acoustic multichannel concert charts acousmatic worlds where noise transforms into order. Finally the acclaimed accordionist Veli Kujala will play a special microtonal accordion performance.

More info about the artists and program:
www.solafestival.fi

The festival is organized in collaboration with WHS Teatteri Union and it’s supported by the Helsinki City Culture & Leisure Division and MES.
Tickets
Friday 3rd of November 10e
Saturday 4th of November 10e
Friday & Saturday 15e
Tickets:
https://teatteriunion.fi/elokuva/sola-festival-2023/

Program
Friday 3.11.
18
Jerome Hiler: Bagatelle I 2016-2018 16mm 16min
Kari Väkevä
Matilda Seppälä
Jerome Hiler: Marginalia 2016 16mm 23min
-break-
20.30
Jerome Hiler: Bagatelle II 1964-2016 16mm 16min
Veli Kujala
Sofia Zaiceva (LV)
Jerome Hiler: Words of Mercury 2010-2011 16min 25min

Saturday 4.11.
18
Jerome Hiler: New Shores 1971-1987 16mm 35min
Aino Juutilainen
Saara Olarte
– break –
20.30
Jerome Hiler: In the Stone House 2012 16mm 35min
Trauma Responses
Dilian (US)
www.solafestival.fi

Notice: no admission during the performances/screenings. Please enter between the short pauses between performances/screenings or before 18/20.30.

ule heli festival performance

Next weekend I will play two different Forces performances at Üle Heli festival in Tallinn, Estonia!

Super happy to go there and thanks for the curator/director Aivar Tõnso for inviting me!

The first performance is on Friday 20th of October 2023 where I play my more typical hi-nrgy pummeling noisey/algoritmic Forces set. I probably will use the weird E-mu Xtreme Lead-1 groovebox, which was super fun to play at the recent Drifts festival. Also playing Shapednoise which I’m super looking forward for!

https://www.facebook.com/events/1361168561188426

The second performance will be on Saturday 21st – a multichannel piece entitled “Hi-hats, Hoovers and Wavetables” which I premiered at our own exhibition “Two Million Seconds” (with Juuso Noronkoski and Tuomo Rainio) at Forum Box gallery last April. This time I will be able to play it more properly as the gallery set was very echoic.

https://www.facebook.com/events/3637270673227719/

Excited!

performance at the drifts festival

I’m very glad that I was asked to perform a Forces set at the amazing Drifts festival!

https://www.drifts.art/program-2023

This is the third iteration of Drifts and I had so much fun last year.

I think this year has a loaded lineup and I’m planning a completely new set for the festival.

Here’s my text about the performance:

For the Drifts festival Forces will make a special set utilizing the early 00s groovebox E-mu Xtreme Lead-1 as a main sound source. The performance will explore the contingencies of the SuperCollider programming language together with the Rave inspired presets of the E-mu synthesizer/drum machine.

The utopian qualities of Rave music will meet the chaos of algorithmically triggered MIDI events. The theme of Ungoverned Lives is reflected aurally; from the collapsing and unstable structures new kinds of possibilities will arise.

My set time is at 17 next Saturday (30th of September) at the Energy Hall of Museum of Techonology.

It’s a pretty unique place for a festival so looking really forward. Among the other artist playing are bela, AGF, Amnesia Scanner, Kaino Wennerstrand & Murrettumeri, An Tul and nkisi!

forces chim​æ​ras album released!

My new Forces record Chim​æ​ras is released! It came out just yesterday on the awesome slovakian label mappa

you can listen it here:
https://mappa.bandcamp.com/album/chim-ras

or from the embedded:

About the album:

I recorded it about one year and two months ago at Elektronmusikstudion EMS Stockholm where I was having a longer six weeks residency. Back then, I wasn’t really sure what I was doing there. Every day I went to the studio, and was just doing these strange jams, mostly using the forgotten hardware rack synths of the 90s and SuperCollider audio & MIDI manipulations + a few Serge and Buchla modular jams as well.

When I came back home from the residency, I started cutting-pasting those different recordings together. I tried to form tracks which would have two-or-three very different tonalities, but having some kind of inherent – but weird – logic. The topic of a chimera came quickly to mind and I decided that the whole album should be comprised of sonic chimeras.

At that time I was also reading about one of the Black-something named companies (Blackstone?), which is a huge company doing plenty of different things, and also a weapon manufacturer. I started to think about how different mega-corporations can have these chimeric limbs – each limb operating in vastly different fields, some extra sinister and some more normal household-items, and how those firms can easily hide their true nature. The tracks are named after mythological chimeras and these arms manufacturers.

I guess that’s most what I want to say about the album:)

Huge thanks to Jakub of Mappa of taking care of everything! ❤ Really love the work Jakub is doing with the label.

Also thanks to marutonkun for the rad cover, Adam Badí Donoval for mastering and Tristan Bath for the album text at Bandcamp!

new forces album chim​æ​ras released soon!

I have a new Forces album coming out soon on the amazing mappa! The pre-order is out now (with few premiere tracks). I’ll post more about it when the actual album comes out.🙂

Forces – Chim​æ​ras
https://mappa.bandcamp.com/album/chim-ras
Pre-order, cassette, digital
Out August 10, 2023

Named after the mythological hybrid of the chimaera, Forces’ first collection for mappa was put together in a similar fashion. The sounds all stem from a fruitful residency at Stockholm’s EMS Elektronmusikstudion in May & June 2022, leading to a bounty of source material with which to build. The sounds and concept are equally chimeric, stringing together disparate and unintuitive jams, the music mimicking the multi-limbed, sewn together beasts of both creative open source coding and destructive multinational concerns who hide their cores amid endless appendages. Like Doctor Moreau, Forces – aka Finnish artist Joonas Siren – weaves wildly varying attributes into something new, from short-circuiting 8-bit dream ambience to fractured digital groans, drones, and noisy freakouts.

Recorded, coded, composed, performed & mixed by Forces (Joonas Siren)

Recorded at EMS Stockholm, June 2022, with the digital synths of the “90’s wagon” synth rack, and the SuperCollider programming language
Artwork by Marutonkun
Mastered by Adam Badí Donoval
Words by Tristan Bath
Photography by Zoltan Czakó
Released by mappa as MAP039 in 2023

prague concert!

I’m playing at MeetFactory in Prague next Monday 12th of June as Forces! After my set is the renown Polish composers Aleksandra Słyż‘s new performance “Primal Rituals”.

Super happy to go and this is my second gig actually in Prague after one in Punctum last year organized by the lovely folk of Genot Centre.

I probably will play a mixture of old and new stuff. Pretty hectic as usual. Come if you are around!:)

work for marko vuokola at taidehalli

I’m sometimes available for commission for other artists (for coding based work, sound work, interactivity and video editing), and last March -23 I did a lot of different things in a big Marko Vuokola’s exhibition in Taidehalli called “Ocean of Love”.

I actually did two different coding based works with Processing language. Firstly I did a 7 large LCD screens + Raspberry Pi / Processing called “RGB 7 x 1677716” which was based on never-ending generative flow of large color fields (RGB 256*256*256) changing randomly after 10 seconds.

I also did some sound editing, an another Processing based animation and a large time-lapse photography video/animation project called “2 x 69076”, which was series of photography of a water glass, the water evaporating during a month. It was showed with a duplicate of itself but in a reverse direction, so it created a see-saw like effect of water evaporating / filling.

All and all, I really like working for Marko and working in a big institution like Taidehalli was actually super nice experience and the staff there are so welcoming and friendly!

helsingin sanomat review!

Our exhibition “Two Million Seconds” was lucky enough to get mentioned (short review) in Finland’s biggest newspaper Helsingin Sanomat by Sanna Lipponen.

You can read the article here (only in Finnish though):
https://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/art-2000009496655.html

Here’s a quick and dirty translation though:

“The works of Juuso Noronkoski, Tuomo Rainio, and Joonas Siren are united by various digital and chemical processes. The joint exhibition of the three artists is minimalist but mind-bending. Sense of time disappears and simultaneously sharpens when traditional and new forms of photography, million-year-old water, and real-time computer graphics are presented.”

supported by kone foundation 2022 – 2023

I realized that I haven’t done a proper post about the working grant I have received from Koneen Säätiö / Kone Foundation.

December 2021 I was incredibly lucky and I got funding for two years of working with my artistic practice. I mostly applied with working with the Forces alias but I also applied for other artistic practices like internet and gallery based works.

Thanks to the grant board and the foundation, if they ever browse through my site! The grant really helps immensely as it gives a small respite of the constant grind of worrying how to survive and pay the rent. It really makes it possible to concentrate your on work so much more, so I’m grateful of this chance.

If you are interested reading my application, you should be able to find it from this search link:
https://koneensaatio.fi/tuetut/?search_key=joonas%20siren






we won the teosto palkinto / teosto prize!

I have been producing weird beats for the underground experimental rap star (and my dear friend!) Draama-Helmi since Helmi’s first record in 2015 and I’m incredible happy to announce that we won the prestige Teosto Prize this year!

The prize was for the the last Draama-Helmi album “Draama-Helmi kuistilla“. I made the beat for “Ennustus” track, you can hear the whole album from the embedded player! The production team for the record was: Helmi herself, Miikka Sipilä, Tuomas Närvä (tumoas), Jonna Karanka (Kuupuu), Toni Korpi (Kanttoripoika), Heikki Kivelä (Hex Viihde) and me (as Forces)!

The two other Teosto prize winners are Mikko Sarvanne Garden’s “Heräämisen valkea myrsky” album and Sanna Ahvenjärvi’s & Tapio Lappalainen’s compotisition “Water”. Both super cool as well!

Here’s the Helsingin Sanomat news article about Helmi’s work:
https://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/art-2000009534310.html

and here’s my prize:)

16-channel sound performance at Forum Box. Also Marcin Pietruszewski!

I played a concert through my sound installation last Sunday 23rd of August ! As I had a 16-channel sound installation setup, it was pretty easy to also play a Forces gig through it. I approached the Äänen Lumo / Charm of Sound association and together we managed to get the great SuperCollider composer Marcin Pietruszewski to also to come and play through my system. I had a blast and also a nice turnover!

Small glimpse of the set, courtesy of Taras:

 

FB event link:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1492331697963850

New exhibition! Two Million Seconds by Noronkoski/Rainio/Siren

I have a new joint exhibition with two friends Juuso Noronkoski and Tuomo Rainio at Forum Box gallery. It’s called Kaksi miljoonaa sekuntia / Two Million Seconds and my piece there is a 16-channel generative sound installation called Kadonnut aika (Lost Time). The sound is controlled by parameters which are tied into the computer clock values, so time itself is changing the piece. I will post more about my piece in the future, but below you can read our general take about the themes of the exhibition. The exhibition is open Tue-Sun 12-17 until 30th of April, welcome!

“A joint exhibition by three artists at Forum Box explores the relativity and temporal asynchrony of different durations. The artists, who all work with different media, focus on the dialogue between material processes. Digital processes construct and deconstruct the image and stretch sound, while chemical processes shape photographic paper. Water, stored for millions of years, evaporates invisibly during the course of the exhibition, in about two million seconds.

A time series of three photographs by Juuso Noronkoski serves as an introduction to the exhibition. The building in the photographs is a reference to the visible world, a place, a city somewhere in the distance. As the fog thickens and moves in front of the building, the view becomes more abstract. The event continues elsewhere in Noronkoski’s photographic works, where the shadow of the window refers to the descent of the fog curtain, to the sun, and finally to the photographic image itself. In the artist’s studio, the sunlight has traveled to a piece of paper placed opposite the window. The frame of the window delineates an event in which the light itself becomes the image.

In Tuomo Rainio’s works, temporality and duration are expressed through the abstracted human figure and through the technology that explores the recording of light. The final work, a collaboration between Tuomo Rainio and Janne Pulkkinen, will be shown at the back of the exhibition space, where the technology developed for the work records light volumetrically – as a spatial mass. The video work focuses on light and its various manifestations as grainy noise, rays and curious clouds of fog. Where attention is usually focused on things in terms of the light they reflect, the work opens up perspectives on how light invisibly radiates through the air between things, objects and people.

In Joonas Siren’s work, sound progresses through Marcel Proust’s series of novels In Search of Lost Time. The temporal structure of the mammoth 148-hour audio book thickens and expands, while it spreads through the gallery space, pulsing through it, from room to room. Parameters tied to a computer clock shape the work, creating its own temporal structure. On a daily basis, the computer moves on to the next part of the book series and spreads its temporal reach, most often slowing down the time or speed of the narrated text.

What the works in the exhibition and the artistic thinking of the authors have in common is focusing attention on something seemingly empty and in-between, on individual sounds in the middle of words. At the same time, the works open up interpretations of the relationship between light and time, exploring the slowing down of their movement. The fog obscures the simple expression of the photograph and shifts the gaze on to the event itself. The passer-by takes a step, space-time bends and the granite underfoot passes 20 years in a blink of an eye. “