Sorry for not posting anything for a while. I have had things to do.
In my pursue to make art out of everything, I tried science.
Art of Science
ART? Posted on Wed, June 28, 2023 23:03:55- Comments(0) https://new.apn201.com/?p=343
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Censored Sleep
ART? Posted on Wed, March 08, 2023 12:28:53Good news and bad news. My film, Sleep was featured in an article in Slate related to the sleep streaming phenomenon. As mentioned in my earlier post, it was recommended by YouTube algorithm to hundreds of thousands users. In the end it gained 181 968 views before YouTube removed it for being against sex and nudity guidelines.
Bullsh*t
As Sleep is an art piece, featured in a film festival and covered in Wikipedia and news articles – it should match the guidelines of having nudity allowed in art context. And it is not meant to be sexually gratifying. It is just a documentary of a sleeping person.
Anyway. It was removed and appeal was rejected. Probably because it got sexual comments and was featured in an article about sexual video streams.
Who are they protecting? Why is this video more dangerous than all the other actually disturbing content in YouTube?
Will cat videos be banned if people start getting aroused by them? (some probably are)
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Things I did in 2000-2001
ART? Posted on Tue, February 07, 2023 14:02:31This might become too long article, but let’s see. Someone asked me to list all the different projects I have ever done. It’s impossible to list them, but we could go trough some highlights.
Radio Koskighetto
Somewhere back in 2001 I was living in a student flat in Kotka. Winamp was big thing and SHOUTHcast plugin allowed to host your own radio channel. I was running Radio Koskighetto from my room. Playing copyrighted music, running quiz shows and having visiting hosts. like Dj Feldis, Dr. Drunkster. There was strong interaction to the listeners via IRC channels and Messenger. Listeners could ask for songs etc. Not much survives, but the logo and some audio clips.
Kriisipuuro
Another project from 2001 was Kriisipuuro Christmas calendar. We decided to make a story about an Christmas elf and depict it in 24 photos published once a day until Christmas eve.
As usual, nothing was done beforehand. We went out every night taking the photos for next day. We had a crappy digital camera, which did not work well in winter temperatures. In the end nobody had the time and interest to shoot anymore.
Design Challenge
Design Challenge was a robot building competition held in Wilhelmshaven Germany. Basically they sent a box full of raw materials: aluminium plates, plexiglss, beer bottles etc. to the teams and they had 2 weeks time to turn it into a radio-controlled robot, which can be used to perform a specific task, like assembling a simple airplane or putting out a candle in a model house. In the competition there were always 2 temas competing against each other in a tournament-style setup.
I participated in 2001 in team “Mc Helvetinperkele”. We ended up second because our drive belt jumped off in the final. In 2002 our team was colled “ToJuMi” and we were first. Our prize was a trip to Autostadt in Wolfsburg Germany. Stating in Ritz Carlton hotel etc. Very Nice.
Some info can be found in Internet Archive. Including an Excel -file about the results.
Midnight party
Another big thing was the Midnight Party, which I organized together with my friends at my summer cottage. This became an annual tradition for many years. We had a power generator to feed the PA system for the bands. There were every year more than 20 visitors, multiple bands, a porn star etc. This was one of the events leading to founding of Liemi Ry.
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Sleep Revival
ART? Posted on Fri, January 20, 2023 22:28:35Exactly 10 years after the making of my 8-hour long Warhol remake, Sleep, it gained unexpected traction. For reasons unknown to me, YouTube algorithm decided to suggest this movie (from my dormant secondary channel) to hundreds of thousands of viewers.
Before long this abandoned channel was alive again. It was getting hundreds of followers and comments and thousands of views every day. From the comments it seemed like especially the members of gay subculture, “bears” were interested in the channel. Sleep was the champion, but my other films started also getting views – especially those where I’m naked or almost naked.
This all seems to connect with trending of sleepstreams – people live streaming their sleeping. Sleep was not really a stream, but somehow it was fitting this trend. Of course I decided to ride the wave. I’m not interested in streaming, but I figured, that somehow I need to feed the YouTube algorithm and deliver content to my new fans.
I took my camera from the closet and started shooting myself sleeping again. I did not want to make live streams. Instead I wanted to improve the concept of original Sleep – to have interesting images of a sleeping man. I used my vintage Soviet lens, sat down in my Design armchair and let the camera roll. When I woke up, I moved the camera and did it again, and again and again, until I had about an hour of material. Then I quickly edited it, applied some sounds, grain and heavy color grading and uploaded it to YouTube. The “premiere” event in YouTube gained some live fans chatting with me. Soon the video had over 5000 views. We needed more and better sleep.
I made another one when I sleep on a small sofa. I added more scenes and faster cut. It become 1½ hours long. I set it premiere in a couple of days time (Saturday 21. January) so that possible fans can make the time to watch it.
Next night I set my camera up again. This time I decided to sleep on an old Persian rug. This time I graded it differently. I did not desaturate the colors that much. Just enough to catch the night atmosphere and vintage feeling. I can not wait longer, so I set it to premiere on Sunday a day after the sofa movie.
Let’s see what happens with the premieres and how long I have the interest in filming myself sleeping. Maybe when I have 8 hours of footage, I can edit Sleep 2023 – a sequel, to celebrate the 10th anniversary.
My main focus now is the World Premiere of Natura in IFFR Rotterdam next week. Therefore I decided to harness the success of my sleep to promote Natura. It has worked quite well. The Natura trailer in IFFR YouTube channel has already 1000 new views now. You should watch it and comment it NOW! (Or even better come to the world premiere in Rotterdam 29th January 2023)
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Rotterdam, we meet again
Uncategorised Posted on Fri, January 13, 2023 23:15:01Back in 2015 I was in IFFR (Rotterdam International Film Festival) with my 8-hour movie, Sleep. It was amazing experience. Now after all the years I’m going back. I did the role of cryptomillionaire in Matti Harju’s dabut feature film, Natura. The movie will have it’s world premiere in Rotterdam January 29th and I will be there together with Matti. It’s amazing movie. I wish everyone could join the premiere.
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Digipukki TV appearance
ART? Posted on Thu, December 22, 2022 19:19:35Digipukki show now visible on YLE Areena web service.
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Digipukki.com
ART? Posted on Wed, December 14, 2022 22:03:22
Reality is sometimes mimicking art. Back in 2020 in the middle of Covid pandemic, I decided to try something new. Zoom -meetings were a big thing and people even organized parties over video, because of the lockdowns.
I had been doing some live Santa gigs when I was young. That’s a big thing in Finland. Families pay big bucks to strangers in shabby costumes coming to perform poor stand-up comedy in their homes. The kids are too excited to care about the quality – and frankly there is a limited possibilities to evaluate it. You just get a phone number from classified ads, or on supermarket bulletin board.
Anyway I decided to give it a go. I ordered the costume from webshop and created my own website digipukki.com. I even added a e-commerce module, to make it possible to pay with credit card. There were options for recorded and live calls of different lengths. I did not want trouble, so I even registered it as a business in the tax office. Problem was to somehow get customers. I made some Facebook ads. Additionally I made some teasers in Youtube. To get a bit more content on the Facebook -page I also made a 24-part “Christmas calendar” -series, where the Santa was telling bad jokes in Finnish.
Additionally I made a couple of “music videos”, where I sing a traditional Finnish Christmas song “Joulupukki Joulupukki” over a different famous melodies from artists like Dylan, Nirvana, Dr. Dre and Sex Pistols.
Christmas came. I did not make much profit, but it was fun. After the lockdowns were lifted, there was no need for such a service anymore, so I abandoned it. The content anyway remained in Internet.
Come 2022. Finnish national broadcasting company YLE was looking for people to participate as guests in one of their Christmas programs. Idea was to talk about Christmas, life, everything between 4 strangers. I contacted them and mentioned my Digipukki project as a reason why I would be interesting guest. I did not fit the group, but later they contacted me and asked if it was possible to come to the studio and perform the punk song. I told it’s fine, although I’m obliged to inform them that I cannot sing and I have 0 experience of performing the song anywhere. They said it’s not an issue, so one Friday morning I took the train to Tampere and we shot a hilarious special guest appearance by Digipukki.
The show will be available in YLE Areena, live TV, and possibly also YouTube. Article (in Finnish) about the TV programme here.
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Dark Room
ART? Posted on Wed, August 10, 2022 14:45:02A family is inside a freestanding room-sized camera obscura by a small lake. They observe the image projected by the pinhole, when suddenly something scares them.
After participating in another movie project, I got inspired to make my own film as well. I have owned a Pinhole Pro S lens for a while, but had forgotten about it. I wanted to make a film as a timelapse from a series of pinhole images.
Although the film is an experimental study about the capabilities of using pinhole photography in film making, I did not want it to be a pure technology demo, so I wrote the script around the theme of camera obscura – a dark room. The film is currently in post production. It is planned to premiere this autumn.
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