The weather in Helsinki is crisp and sunny, but there's an uncomfortable amount of street dust in the air. A steady, 5-10 m/s west by southwest current of air makes cycling into and out of the city a bipolar experience.
Pixelache festival is almost finished now and I've been around sporadically. At presentations, technical glitches are commonplace as ever. Wireless network doesn't work, display resolutions don't match, presentation laptop's iTunes version is not current enough. I actually feel these interruptions add an unitentional, but sympathetic level of humour the the event.
VJ acts look more and more sophisticated these days. Resolume is still popular, with the difference that beat sync seems have become a default. Screens at venues are plenty and we seem to have reached the post scarcity age in the number of projectors and plasma screens. Gone are the days, when VJ's had to scale walls and ceilings in order to hang bedsheets to project onto.
The main act of the main event, Hexstatic was a huge disappointment. Lazy mix of cheesy hits and music videos didn't really cut it for me. The lads were evidently lazy and indifferent on the stage. The most affecting AV performance was delivered on Sunday afternoon by Kira Kira feat. Samuli Kosminen & co. With a cute female lead and toy instruments it couldn't really go wrong. Grainy visuals with 8mm film look matched the Icelandic post-rock undercurrent. The taste of forest berries with a sprinkling of salt water in the nose. Bonus points awarded for playing Melodica and for extending percussion department by using gaffer tape as an instrument.
John's remote presence workshop culminated on Saturday evening party at MUU. Eclectic, comfortable atmosphere resonated a kind of a harmonious energy the participants had accumulated.
Teemu started unoffical discussion about the coming 5-year birthday of Amfibio. As a collective, we've passed the ball a long time ago, but It would still be nice to commemorate the busy days in 2002/03, when the Helsinki VJ scene really blossomed.
