based in Helsinki, Finland
john@ptarmigan.fi
Biathlon is a series of tools designed to facilitate cultural production via a decentralised logic, using blockchain and open-source technologies to reduce administration and empower more inclusive content. It operated for one year at Temporary, a platform for experiments in participatory trans-disciplinary culture, located in Helsinki, Finland. It later relaunched as Kuusi Palaa, which decentralised the financing into a cooperative model. The Biathlon project is currently on hiatus.
Pixelache Helsinki is a trans-disciplinary platform for experimental art, research, and activism. Festival co-director (2015), member 2012-2017, board member 2013-2015. Project facilitator, digital culture specialist, web maintenance, curatorial guidance. Organiser of AMRT (Alternative Mobility Research Triangle) project, 2014-2015.
Co-founder and constant volunteer. Ptarmigan was an artist-run project space in Tallinn, Estonia and a venue (later a mobile curatorial platform) in Helsinki, Finland. Ptarmigan aimed to create space for participatory cultural projects and adventurous, challenging scenarios, usually the form of workshops, art/sound/performance events, discussions, education-orientated events and unusual social interactions. Ptarmigan organised over 400 events, operated a residency programme and instigated numerous collaborations and projects.
Facilitation of collaborative creative forms in trans-disciplinary, post-subcultural space. Workshop facilitator, including Grawlixes, Ptarmigan (2013); DIS/Orientations, La-Bas biennale, Helsinki (2012); Space is the Place, Kuvataideakatemia Helsinki (2012); Miscellaneous Expertise, MoKS (2010). Organising of regular events and projects: workshops, reading groups, seminars, and non-institutional environments for sharing skills and perspectives via Ptarmigan and elsewhere. Various and scattered involvements: production and organising, creative work, various participations. Also see 'Various musical projects' and output.
Member, organiser or otherwise involved with numerous projects and networks. More recently: Pixelache (Helsinki); Migrating Art Academies; Open-Sourcing Festivals; Artist Initiatives Meetings network; Alternative Mobility Research Triangle. More distantly: Triple Canopy (New York); Robin Hood Minor Asset Management (Helsinki/worldwide); Slothrop's English Bookshop (Tallinn), Blind Carbon Copy; Due Diligence Development Circuit.
Liminal Images was a 'film' / video series that looks at the transformative movements in film culture in the 20th century, specifically in the realm of experimental cinema. Each month, we screen selections from a time before the moving image was all-pervasive (ie: nothing from the YouTube era, and only early, experimental video work). The selections range from classics of early 20th century surrealism to 1960s agit-prop, structuralist and material cinema, and other such (anti-) classics.
Solo and group recordings and performances including groups Bat Tarbet (Helsinki/Glasgow) [video 1, video 2], Lied Music (Glasgow), Intro to Pterodactyl (Providence, RI), Land (Pittsburgh, PA). Solo projects as John W. Fail, Oakwhistle, Handshake Garden, The 15,000 Day Boat Trip. Many brief collaborations and workshops. For recordings and performance history, see 'outputs' section. An overview (2007).
Tiib was a visual art space in the Pelgulinn area of Tallinn. Over a temporary lifespan several exhibitions and events were organised and curated by Ptarmigan in collaboration with Flo Kasearu.
Helsinki franchise of international open education model: "THE PUBLIC SCHOOL is a school with no curriculum. At the moment, it operates as follows: first, classes are proposed by the public (I want to learn this or I want to teach this); then, people have the opportunity to sign up for the classes (I also want to learn that); finally, when enough people have expressed interest, the school finds a teacher and offers the class to those who signed up." -- TPS site
Ownership and operation of independent label focusing on avant-garde and experimental music. Releases include CDs and LPs by Car Commercials, Burning Star Core, Eyes and Arms of Smoke, Scatter, Arco Flute Foundation, Earth Trumpet, Need New Body. Curation, production and marketing of releases.
Svamp is a regularly-scheduled workshop for music improvisation in Helsinki, Finland and Tallinn, Estonia. It does not involve money, careers or obligations -- only interpersonal and sound relationships. Svamp sessions may range from collective improvisation to directed exercises or game-playing.
CD-R and cassette label for limited production of art-edition releases. Includes releases by John W. Fail (solo and with Ben Reynolds), Oakwhistle, Minn Minn Lights, The Good Anna, Nonhorse, Matt McDowell. Distribution throughout US and Europe.
'Over the Volcano' (essay) servus.at, April 2021Critical reflections on blockchain technology. Available online here.
Essays on various topics (music, literature, culture) on Onlyfans platform.
Seventeen Years of Media Consumption (2002–2018) (books) Scarlatti Tilt, January 2020Three-volume set of books of media/cultural criticism.
Occasional audio podcasts under the SI banner.
Installation from hybrid visual art/literature work in progress.
Open-form workshop exploring cultural behaviour
Facilitated working group seeking experimental approaches to festival documentation and non-fictional collaboration.
Live museum installation at festival.
Presentation of Biathlon project as part of Kompass series, presenting urbanist projects to Riga.
Workshop/game based on urban experiences and art production in Helsinki.
performer in live broadcast of radio play
facilitated collaborative workshop creating fictitious art collective, with public presentation in symposium format
live show, interviewing performance artists and other creative actors. Also appearing IHME Päivät festival (April 2016). Also member of Mad House working group (2016-present). 16 episodes, viewable via seriousintrospection.fi.
Festival co-director (with Agnieszka Pokrywka); theme 'Living Spaces'.
Kompass (un-conference) Ptarmigan, Tallinn, August 2014Two-day un-conference for Latvian and Estonian cultural activists to organise around the topic of 'public space'. Organised with Kaspars Lielgalvis.
Conference attached to Water Tower Art Fest
Moderated panel on alternative financing ideas for artist-run culture initiatives.
On the possibilities of self-designed economic structures to benefit culture organisation.
Improvised music performance
Group collaboration exploring open-ended narratives, environmental perception, and object reinvention.
Workshop on "creative profanity"; multicultural deconstruction of language/obscenity, improvisations and collaborative writing.
Ongoing performance/action booth (with Ptarmigan, 2012); meeting moderator (2012-2014); presentation/talk on AIM Project (2013), panel discussion (see above, 2014, 2016), general staff.
Moderator and co-organiser of 'core workshop' January 2013; producer of 'Wall Street Parasites' seminar and 'Temporary public circuits' workshop.
Hosted three hour public talk show at KIM?, interviewing various artists, curators, urbanists and thinkers.
Co-designer and facilitator (with John Grzinich and Sari Kivinen) of workshop investigating misunderstanding, confusion and sensory deprivation via performance and action. (info)
Process-exhibition at Kaiku-galleria addressing space, organisation and the unfolding of culture. Co-led workshops on writing as response, zine publication, sound improvisation, and artistic self-management. Contributing editor to zine publication. [ Download ]
'Everything is Tentative and Possible' (essay) Mount Analogue, 2011Account of my experiences with Ptarmigan from the beginning until the opening of the Tallinn space.
Lost Lake (Vinyl LP sound recording) Shadazz, March 2011Second collaborative LP with Vernon and Burns, released as Vernon and Burns meet Lied Music.
3-day reading group on the topic of 'rhythm'
5-day workshop with Giles Bailey on performative practice, curation and miscellany
The 15,000 Day Boat Trip (Vinyl LP sound recording) 8mm Records, December 2009ECDL '08: Proceedings of the 12th European conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries [link]
Pores in the Porch and Puddles Beneath (CD) Soopa label [Porto, Portugal], January 2007Collaborative CD with Spiral Joy Band
Oakwhistle tour (performances) , October - December 2006European tour including festivals in the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway; additional dates in Sweden, France, Italy, Poland, Germany.
Other Green Worlds (Master's dissertation) University of Glasgow, September, 2006subtitled: Accident and articulation in Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, and Peter Greenaway’s The Falls" [pdf]
In India: audiotourism.2004 (Art booklet with CD-R) Sharks and Pfennigs, May 2006Field recordings of India, recorded and compiled with photo essay.
Lied Music UK tour (performances) , March 2006Live dates in Newcastle, Edinburgh, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, London, and Brighton.
Lied Music vs. Boy-Band Tax Returns (LP) Ultra Eczema [Antwerp, Belgium], March 2006Collaborative LP with Boy Band Tax Returns.
The Icewhistle (CD-R) Sharks and Pfennigs, March 2006solo disc of israj improvisations
[pdf]
The Frozen Musics 1999-2005 (4xC-10) Dronedisco, July 2005compilation of 8 projects: Land, Intro to Pterodactyl, Scandalous Falls, Come Cry, Fail/O'Keefe, Handshake Garden, God's Horn, Fail/McDowell
(self-employed)
Various locations - Helsinki and elsewhere
Artistic work. Organisation and production of creative projects. Organisation of project spaces, artist-in-residency programmes, creative development. Workshop facilitation and instruction; sound recording and performance; freelance writing (creative, technical) and copyediting. Website development involving database creation, customised design and functionality, content management. Textual assistance, criticism and copyediting.
For projects, clients and affiliations see 'projects' above but also including: Bioart Society/SOLU, HYBRID_MATTERs [full-stack developer], 101 Kaikkien Puolesta [full-stack developer], Supermarket Art Fair [meeting and event facilitator, developer],
Frontiers in Retreat (HIAP) [web developer], MoKS [web developer], SLED [full-stack developer], Slothrop's [store founder and development of digital infrastructure], Triple Canopy [development team 2008-2010],Version [development]
Kolmas linja 7 / Helsinki / 00550 / Finland
co-instigator
Development of Biathlon toolkit. Design, production and operation of Temporary project space (curation, production, facilitating). See 'Projects', above.
Kaasutehtaankatu 1/33 / Helsinki / 00540 / Finland
Festival co-director, 2015
Co-director of Pixelache Festival 2015, 'Living Spaces', producer of AMRT project, and digital infrastructure.
Helsinki and Tallinn
Toom-Kooli 13 / Tallinn / 10130 / Estonia
Chief Cultural Strategist
Co-founder and Chief Cultural Strategist of Ptarmigan (see website and 'Projects', above) which functioned as my primary artistic practice and platform. Creative development, organisation, management, everything really -- but with many others!
Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute
11 University Gardens / University of Glasgow / Glasgow / G12 8QH / UK
HATII Systems Programmer
Development of arts-based systems for academic and research purposes. Participation in digital preservation programming and research. Workpackage leader on Preservation Planning workpackage of Planets Project. Contributions to 3D-COFORM project. System administration, infrastructure and maintenance. Database development, expansion and support.
Sample output:
- NICE Paintings [development, design, administration]
- DMP Online [development, administration]
As organiser, producer, curator: what's the difference, really? Programming and execution of ephemeral/event-based arts experiences; organisation of ongoing public projects, hosting of artist residencies, booking of sound performances, art installations/exhibitions, workshops, classes. And so on.
Javascript, VueJS front-end, Node.js, Express/Koa frameworks + development with Electron, JQuery, etc.
Web3/blockchain: Ethereum smart contracts (Solidity), web3.js, integration with other platforms (Rails backends).
Additionally: PHP, Perl, and *AMP apps (web/database integration), GTK3 interface building, UNIX/Linux system administration, basic hardware and electronics design.