Ptarmigan is now closed.

Ptarmigan operated in Tallinn from 2011-2014. We no longer maintain any presence in Tallinn, but this website will continue to serve as an archive of the activities produced at Ptarmigan during these years.

Archive / In the past

open lab : club : workgroup
03 July, 2012 00:00 18:30 - 21:30

On Tuesday 3 July, Ptarmigan will be open for Elektron Club. Elektron Club is an open working group for makers, hackers, and people interested in experimenting with electronics. From 18:30 -  21:30 doors will be open as a meeting place and lab. Feel free to bring any sort of projects you are working on that you would like to demonstrate, share, or get help with. If you are interested in open-source software, physical computing, or anything similar, please come and participate. Elektron Club will meet regularly and hopefully be a breeding ground for future creative collaboration.


This is not workshop or structured programme, but rather an open forum for social, creative collaboration.

workshop : maker culture : workgroup
02 July, 2012 00:00 18:30
part of project: Fake It Til You Make It

July's Fake It Till You Make It will meet on Monday, 2 July.  Last month we made silicon molds and ate grilled-cheese sandwiches. What will happen this time?
All are welcome, and remember, it's always nice to register so Justin knows roughly how many people are coming.


About FITYMI
Fake It Till You Make It is a workshop/working group for those curious individuals looking to broaden their experience and skill-set. Each session of FITYMI will be on a different subject which could fall under areas of expertise such as construction, making, baking, electronics, mechanics, cooking, jewelry, physics, plants, and whatever else can be imagined. It is the purpose of the workshop to learn new things for the sake of learning and it is for this reason that participants will only discover the subject of each session upon arriving to the workshop. During each meeting there is a short talk about the subject and how to accomplish the objective of the FITYMI session followed by participants choosing how to proceed (experimenting with materials, accomplishing a project, discussion and/or playing) with food available at some point during the workshop. To cover the expenses of materials and food for the workshop participants are asked to ‘pay what you can’.  We'll have food to share at the end while we reflect on what we made.

Running/organizing the workshop is Justin Tyler Tate who instructs other workshops such as 'Fast and Raw' - Intermediate sushi and 'Under Your Skin' (Tattooing Workshop). Tate has a Bachelors degree in Fine Art, a Doctorate in electronics and has an insatiable curiosity for new materials, techniques and ways of making.

1 photo
30 June, 2012 00:00 14:00—16:00

It's a summer of sport! And Ptarmigan is planning some Saturday afternoon games throughout the warmest season! So why not come and join us? We won't be playing normal sports though … The sports will be based on everything from weird local traditions to combinations of contemporary games, to entirely made-up events.

We'll do short coaching sessions at the start of each event so people can learn the game, then we'll make teams and play! Depending on the event the locations may change, but we'll let you know when and where each event is taking place.

Every game will be open to both men and women, and will be totally free. So everyone is welcome to join!

* *

To kick off with, we'll be playing a our own invented sport called Ultimate Gridiron. It's based on Ultimate Frisbee but played with an American Football (which is much easier to throw and catch than a frisbee!). It's a non-contact game that involves running, throwing and catching. It's should be quite fast and fun. It involves some working together as a team and using tactics to score. Men and women can play together.

We'll do some throwing practice to start with then organise a game. It will be quite casual and should be a good afternoon! So sign up here!

music : experimental : electroacoustic : improvisation
29 June, 2012 00:00 20:00

On Friday, 29 June, four Finnish experimental musicians invade Ptarmigan for an exploration of sound, space and improvisation.

Olli Aarni plays ambient music based on collage technique, samples and found sounds. His music under various monikers has been released by labels like Preservation, Under The Spire, Hooker Vision and Jozik.

Hur Hur is a solo music project by Timo Viialainen, featuring instruments such as hurdy gurdy, acoustic/electric guitar, trombone and different percussions & bells. The compositions combine looping and processing the sound of these instruments to form a backing material for improvised live performance. The result could be described as cinematic/cathartic ritual with the aim to create a powerful and psychedelic outcome. The influences of the project lie in the field of apocalyptic folk, primitive shamanistic music, electroacoustic experiments, drone & punk. http://soundcloud.com/hurhur

Ilpo Heikkinen is an young Helsinki-based sound artist and musician, who operates broadly in the fields of experimental music, installation art and performing arts. In addition, he also works as a recording and mixing engineer, and is a member of the board of Äänen Lumo, an association promoting sound art and experimental music in Finland. Heikkinen's work often deals with the physical and spatial aspects of sound.

Johannes Vartola's music is a combination of electronic and acoustic elements performed with an improvisational touch. He lives in Helsinki.

performance : sound : music
27 June, 2012 00:00 20:00

2screwsLoose connect and disconnect.

In a performance that will begin at Tallinn airport and last three days, two individuals will become physically connected with the use of sound, fabric and the materiality of bodies. Together they will travel between Tallinn and Helsinki exploring their connectedness to each other. At the height of this short term connectedness these two individuals will present themselves at a public event that you are invited to. 

screwsLoose first connected in Sydney 2008. In early 2012 they renamed themselves 2screwsLoose. Check out: http://2screwsloose.tumblr.com/ The last time they performed - live in flesh - together was January 2009. 

The public performance at Ptarmigan will begin at 20:00 in Vabaduse Väljak/Freedom Square. The performance will travel, with audience, to Ptarmigan (Toom-Kooli 13) for it's completion, which will be followed by a live musical concert by Motobor, aka Toomas Savi of Hobilabor/Savidivas.

Photo credit: David Urquhart

 

music
20 June, 2012 00:00 21:30

Ptarmigan presents a free concert at Kodu, for some of Helsinki's brightest musical lights.

Jaakko Savolainen and Sami Toroi first met in kindergarden in the beginning of 1990s. Both playing the guitar, they founded their first band around 1995. The band had several names along the years, such as Time garden and Masterpiece. The composiotions followed their musical ideal which was progressive heavy metal.

In the 2001 everything was different. The boys were no longer playing in the same band nor adoring the prog-metal sound. Nevertheless they formed their strenght and vision to produce a debut 7” vinyl. Three songs were recorded with very simple equipment. The sound was mostly electronic with an avant-garde flavor. The names Jaakko Eino Kalevi & Long-sam were also introduced. Shortly after the debut a full-lenght album was starting to find it's earliest form. The record was put on hold in 2002. It was almost complete but still waiting for better days.

From this point on Jaakko and Sami were apart and working on other bands and their solo albums. The collaboration that also lead to the formation of their mutual superband Yön Syke, revived years later. In 2008 the duo started to compose new songs mainly for live performances. Four of the these songs were also recorded in the studio. A full length album ”Totuuden rakastajaAmateurs de vérité” will be released in April 2012. It includes those four new songs and four songs from the sessions that took place in the beginning of the 21st century. The album is divided into two sides. Both forming images of their own, images of two different eras. The mental and physical progress as well ten years of anticipation is heard throughout these tunes.

Melting Hearts
A project by the Finnish pop singer Samuel Meri. Samuel Meri has a reputation as a man of slow movements, but even then he's managed to spend hundreds of hours in the sleaziest karaoke bars of Helsinki, gathering inspiration for his new project. Samuel Meri has previously played in Estonia at Ptarmigan in June 2011.
http://soundcloud.com/kowazoo/melting-hearts-napa-show

open lab : club : workgroup
19 June, 2012 00:00 18:30 - 21:30

On Tuesday 19 June, Ptarmigan will be open for Elektron Club. Elektron Club is an open working group for makers, hackers, and people interested in experimenting with electronics. From 18:30 -  21:30 doors will be open as a meeting place and lab. Feel free to bring any sort of projects you are working on that you would like to demonstrate, share, or get help with. If you are interested in open-source software, physical computing, or anything similar, please come and participate. Elektron Club will meet regularly and hopefully be a breeding ground for future creative collaboration.


This is not workshop or structured programme, but rather an open forum for social, creative collaboration.

artist talk : discussion : symposium
14 June, 2012 00:00 16:00 - 17:45
part of project: Labyrinths and Rings
presented by Culture Factory Polymer

This is an afternoon session of Labyrinths and Rings, featuring four artists currently working in painting.

Klara Petra Scabo (Hungary, William Bennett (Australia) Nerendra Haynes (US), and Austin White (US) will show documentation of their work and will investigate why young artists still paint in this day and age.

This is presented in conjunction with Culture Factory Polymer's AIR artist talk series.

screening : video : film : experimental : anti-classics
12 June, 2012 00:00 20:30
part of project: Liminal Images

The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own. -- Susan Sontag

This month's Liminal Images programme will explore the idea of travel through cinema. These experimental films and videos will deal with locality and a sense of the other; whether ranging from Kubelka's distinct separations to Belson Shimane's absurdist juxtapositions, all of these explore the power of the camera to transport the viewer into a new reality.

Unsere Afrikareise
Directed by Peter Kubelka
Austria, 1966
13 minutes. (imdb)

Unsere Afrikareise [is a film] whose images are relatively conventional ´recordsª of a hunting-trip in Africa. The shooting records multiple ´systemsª — white hunters, natives, animals, natural objects, buildings — in a manner that preserves the individuality of each. At the same time, the editing of sound and image brings these systems into comparison and collision, producing a complex of multiple meanings, statements, ironies... -- Fred Camper

The Man Who Could Not See Far Enough
Directed by Peter Rose
USA, 1981
33 minutes (link)

The man who could not see far enough (1981, 16 mm film, color, sound) uses literary, structural, autobiographical, and performance metaphors to construct a series of tableaux that evoke the act of vision, the limits of perception, and the rapture of space. Spectacular moving multiple images; a physical, almost choreographic sense of camera movement; and massive, resonant sound have inspired critics to call it "stunning" and "hallucinatory.

Odds & Ends
Directed by Jane Conger Belson Shimane
USA, 1959
4 minutes (imdb)

Odds & Ends is a sly comment on the collage film and Beat culture. To discarded travel and advertising footage found at a local film laboratory, Belson Shimane added a mélange of animation—assemblages, cutouts, color fields, and line drawings—and faux hipster narration by Jacobs (credited via the anagram Rheny Bojacs) punctuated by a bongo backing. Strung together with doublespeak and non sequiturs, the monologue skirts the edge of nonsense as Jacobs waxes on about poetry, jazz, “reaching the public,” “having a good time,” and—although “money doesn’t count”—the “possibility of subsidy” through grants.

* intermission *

Roma-Brescia-Cannes
Directed by Iván Zulueta
Spain, 1974
24 minutes (imdb)

Traveling: moving from one place to another, a journey, a path that is taken. From Rome, the ancient, monumental and tourist city; to a town in the countryside near Brescia; to the final destination, Cannes, where eccentric figures stroll along the sea awaiting night, and a crowded Croisette welcomes Francis Ford Coppola’s THE CONVERSATION.

A Journey to Avebury
Directed by Derek Jarman
UK, 1971
10 minutes (imdb)

A JOURNEY TO AVEBURY, his 1971 silent short movie, is a literal journey that we can experience. We are being taken to Avebury and given the chance to admire it for 10 minutes. The shots are incredibly beautiful, as we see a huge stone or trees bathed in orange light of sunset.


Alaska
Directed by Dore O
West Germany, 1968
18 minutes (imdb)

"Alaska by Dore O. is a beautiful film, which makes it at first glance a bit suspect. But the beauty has a catch to it - it exists only on the surface, beneath it hide horror and fear.
For Dore O., beauty is a part of reality. For her there exists a beauty in fear in the same way that for Genet there exists a beauty in murder. Alaska is a filmed dream, but devoid of the simplistic metaphors taken from psychoanalysis, metaphors which rationalise dreams and thus mistakenly facilitate their interpretation. Alaska is a film which cannot be interpreted, it can be experienced. - Klaus Baderkerl, FILMKRITIK, 1969."

1 resource
open lab : club : workgroup
05 June, 2012 00:00 18:30

This Tuesday, Ptarmigan will be open for Elektron Club. Elektron Club is an open working group for makers, hackers, and people interested in experimenting with electronics. From 18:30 -  21:30 doors will be open as a meeting place and lab. Feel free to bring any sort of projects you are working on that you would like to demonstrate, share, or get help with. If you are interested in open-source software, physical computing, or anything similar, please come and participate. Elektron Club will meet regularly and hopefully be a breeding ground for future creative collaboration.

This is not workshop or structured programme, but rather an open forum for social, creative collaboration.

workshop : surprise : maker
03 June, 2012 00:00 14:00 - 17:00
part of project: Fake It Til You Make It

June's Fake It Till You Make It will be a Sunday afternoon session on 3 June.  Last time, we reclaimed power from seemingly dead batteries. What will happen this time?

All are welcome, and remember, it's always nice to register so Justin knows roughly how many people are coming.

About FITYMI
Fake It Till You Make It is a workshop/working group for those curious individuals looking to broaden their experience and skill-set. Each session of FITYMI will be on a different subject which could fall under areas of expertise such as construction, making, baking, electronics, mechanics, cooking, jewelry, physics, plants, and whatever else can be imagined. It is the purpose of the workshop to learn new things for the sake of learning and it is for this reason that participants will only discover the subject of each session upon arriving to the workshop. During each meeting there is a short talk about the subject and how to accomplish the objective of the FITYMI session followed by participants choosing how to proceed (experimenting with materials, accomplishing a project, discussion and/or playing) with food available at some point during the workshop.

To cover the expenses of materials and food for the workshop participants are asked to ‘pay what you can’.  We'll have food to share at the end while we reflect on what we made.

Running/organizing the workshop is Justin Tyler Tate who instructs other workshops such as 'Fast and Raw' - Intermediate sushi and 'Under Your Skin' (Tattooing Workshop). Tate has a Bachelors degree in Fine Art, a Doctorate in electronics and has an insatiable curiosity for new materials, techniques and ways of making.

13 photos
workshop : class : music : ukulele
29 May, 2012 00:00 18:30

The Ukulele Club is hosted by Mari Aua (http://ukulele.ee/) who has led a ukulele class in Nõmme for couple of years now and is also running Estonia's only ukulele shop (http://ukupood.ukulele.ee/).

The evening will consist of:

  • Basics for total beginners: chords, strumming, how to play such a small instrument etc.
  • Playing together some famous and not so famous songs.
  • Teaching each other some tricks about ukulele playing.
  • Having fun :)

Bring your own ukulele, though there are a few spare ukuleles if you don't have one.

Tell everybody who has an ukulele and bring them too!

reading group : music : sound : theory : performance
23 May, 2012 00:00 19:30
part of project: Tallinn Cage Group

To celebrate the John Cage Centennial, Ptarmigan is organising an open, monthly event to explore Cage's ideas and creations. This month we will get back to Silence, looking through the 'History of Experimental Music in the United States' (pp. 67-75) and 'Where Are We Going? And What Are We Doing?' (pp. 194-259). This group is open to everyone even if you have not attended before; if you are interested in the ideas and theories of John Cage, then please come!

We will also start to consider performing some of Cage's work for a public Cage event in June. If there are any scores, instructions, or other exercises by Cage that you think might be fun, bring them and we'll take a look!

talk : discussion : politics : infrastructure : disaster
17 May, 2012 00:00 20:15
Vinay Gupta, designer of the hexayurt emergency shelter (which is open source and used widely at Burning Man) will discuss practical models for making decentralized politics (including Gandhi and anarchosyndicalism) work in a high tech age. We'll talk a bit about rich/poor, urban/rural, agrarian/manufacturing splits, about how to achieve local political control of physical assets like power and water and how a crisis like the one in Greece could push us into a new, more democratic and more connected, political age.   Also there will be diagrams.   After the talk we'll have a discussion/Q&A about these topics. Feel free to bring food and snacks to share (vegetarian, please).   Vinay is fresh from his keynote address at Camp Pixelache 2012 in Helsinki and comes to Tallinn courtesy of Pixelversity/Pixelache.
workshop : class : music : ukulele
15 May, 2012 00:00 18:30

The Ukulele Club is hosted by Mari Aua (http://ukulele.ee/) who has led a ukulele class in Nõmme for couple of years now and is also running Estonia's only ukulele shop (http://ukupood.ukulele.ee/).

The evening will consist of:

• Basics for total beginners: chords, strumming, how to play such a small instrument etc. • Playing together some famous and not so famous songs. • Teaching each other some tricks about ukulele playing. • Having fun :)

Bring your own ukulele! 
Tell everybody who has an ukulele and bring them too!

08 May, 2012 00:00 20:15

The Symposium discussion will be lead by Georg Merilo and is going to be in Estonian.

variety : performance : video : minimal : slumber
04 May, 2012 00:00 23:59 - sunrise
part of project: GFYP

The Ptarmigan monthly series GFYP returns with an all-night focus on somber, quiet, low-key variety. Please bring your pajamas, pillow, and sleeping bag and spend the night with us!

Featuring:

  • Coming Soon, a short film by Laurence Boyce (UK/EST), presented by him.
  • Vertically Down : Sauna Stories by Kimbal Bumstead (UK): An overland performance journey about walking, waiting, hitch-hiking and sauna. Kimbal is in the process of hitch-hiking a triangle to the edges of Europe and recording the stories of the people he meets along the way – on the road and in the Sauna. Vertically Down is part 3 of a journey that started in Athens in June 2011, which took Kimbal Diagonally Backwards to London, then from Amsterdam Diagonally Upwards to Nordkapp, Norway and now Vertically Down to Skopje, Macedonia. Both hitch-hiking and sauna are intimate and temporary experiences that lead people to become surprisingly honest and Kimbal will share some stories (anonymously) about this journey as a work-in-progress performance-lecture.
  • 'Counting Sheep' - a very late and very informal presentation of field-recordings from the British Wool Industry by Felicity Ford (UK). Felicity's visit to Tallinn is supported by the British Council Estonia and MoKS.
  • Performance by Eva Vevere and Laura Prikule (LAT)

Music, throughout the night, in various rooms, from:

  • DJ Vexations: drone, 20th century minimalist composition, deep listening music and other off-kilter ambience 
  • Live minimal/drone/ambient music by a rotating collective of musicians, including Vil Lem, Murmer, and Oakwhistle. Want to join? Contact us!

Doors will open before midnight and the event will go until the sun rises! You are welcome, in fact, encouraged to fall asleep. In the morning we can attempt an impromptu social dreaming matrix!

workshop : sound art : clothing : textile
03 May, 2012 00:00 11:00 - 16:00

In this workshop, we will work in pairs to inventory and celebrate each others' outfits, creating an instant and ephemeral museum documenting the things that we are wearing. Felicity Ford will provide tags and printed sheets to assist in the spontaneous creation of this Instant Clothes Museum, and fashion-posing/photography plus radio interviewing will ensue! The session will culminate in a gift-giving session, in which participants will choose a badge for whomever is their partner during the workshop, to compliment their outfit or emphasise some aspect of their clothing which has arisen during our discussions. The workshop will last for 5 hours, including a short presentation at the beginning, a one hour lunchbreak, and possibly a short walk into Tallinn city to pick a suitable location for a fashion shoot!

Participants just need to wear their own clothes, and bring pens and cameras (if they have them).

Dr. Felicity Ford is a sound artist with a particular interest in everyday sounds, documentary projects, and creative processes which use sound to make us think differently about ordinary reality. Ford’s work links creative sonic praxis specifically with social concerns and the contexts of everyday life. Questioning the primacy of The Formal Concert as a site for dedicated listening, she is particularly interested in working with platforms such as the Internet and Radio which allow her work to be experienced in informal settings such as within the home, on the daily commute, during one’s weekly errands, and so on. See also http://www.knitsonik.com/ // http://thedomesticsoundscape.com/wordpress/. 

Dr. Ford's visit to Tallinn is supported by the British Council Estonia and MoKS.

presentation : discussions : panel : open seminar
03 May, 2012 00:00 20:00

Where does the conceptual economy of art and culture separate from the actual? Can the cultural sphere of Tallinn create a currency to challenge, compete and/or comment on the Euro? Can local currencies empower creativity? How can a system emerge to benefit Tallinn culture without burying us in overhead?

Make it Rain is an evening to explore the possibilities of a local, alternative currency. We begin with presentations by artists and activists who have attempted such projects in the past. Following the presentations will be a look at existing alternative currency projects in the art world. We conclude with an open seminar to look at practicalities and possibilities of such a system being implemented in Tallinn.

Presentations: Christian Nold (London, UK) and his Bijlmer Euro project (presenting over Skype); Totaldobze (Riga, Latvia) and their Dobziki currency; Rainer Eidemiller from the P.A.I. Bank in Paide. Panel will include Raoul Kurvitz (EKA/Polymer), Henri Laupmaa (Uus Maailm), John W. Fail (Ptarmigan) and others.

 

music : experimental : electronic : concrete : noise
01 May, 2012 00:00 21:00

Alexei Borisov
Outside of his native Russia, Alexei Borisov is probably best known as a live performer with a sound and visual style that make his performances transcend the usual gig situation and resemble Beckett-style absurd theatre. Perhaps the most appropriate term for their soundtrack would be ”live collage”, often based on domestic or everyday material - ”found sounds” and home recordings of all sorts. They include field recordings of arbitrary soundscapes and conversations, mostly done diary-style with a cheap dictaphone, Borisov reciting his automatic writing-type lyrics, snippets of music from the radio, separate instrument tracks recorded for his other projects, solo playing on various instruments in a sleepwalking style or ”blindfolded”, as he has described his working (anti-)method with computers. The elements are mixed and cut up through effects in a manner which remotely resembles dj'ing with its sharp timing - Borisov's long experience as a live dj can be felt - or a manual telephone operator turning his work at a switchboard into poetry, as David Keenan noted in The Wire magazine about his live album Before the Evroremont: ”The whole is rent with fuzzy, intercepted conversations that sound like archived wiretaps”.

Murmer
Patrick McGinley (aka murmer) is an American-born sound, performance, and radio artist based in Europe since 1996. Since then he has been building a collection of found sounds and found objects that have become the basis of all his work. In 2002 he founded framework, an organisation that produces a weekly field recording-themed radio show, broad- and podcasting around the world. In 2005, he began working closely with the artist-run organisation MoKS in southeast estonia, relocating there permanently in 2009. Most recently, McGinley has been giving presentations, workshops, and performances based on the exploration of site-specific sound (with the revenant project) and sound as definition of space. In live performance his interest in field recording has developed into an attempt to integrate and resonate found sounds, found objects, specific spaces, and moments in time, in order to create a direct and visceral link with an audience and location.

Toorete helide süntesaatorisalong
Toorete helide süntesaatorisalong (aka Raw Sound Synth Lounge) is a collection of artists who explore primitive and DIY-synthesisers. All performers in the group have constructed their synthesisers from scratch and will explore different edges of synthesised sound than what is typically heard. Toorete helide süntesaatorisalong is led by Rene Rebane and Toomas Savi, aka Hobilabor.

dance : improvisation : workshop
25 April, 2012 00:00 19:45

What Is Contact Improvisation?

It is a dance technique in which points of physical contact provide the starting point for exploration through movement improvisation.
Contact Improvisation develop your creativity, movement imagination, sensitivity to partner or yourself your individual dance and movement expression and brings joy of moving.

It is a form of dance improvisation and is one of the best-known and most characteristic forms of postmodern dance.

Contact Improvisation was initiated by Steve Paxton in 1972. It was influenced by original martial arts (aikido)/yoga/release work, but also incorporations from BMC, Alexander, T'ai chi chuan etc. In contact the point of touch is envisioned as a roving window on the surface of both bodies through which actions are communicated. It is very sensitive and accurate communication. Weight may be taken by either party, or needs to
be known and accommodated. No contact improvisation should be muscularised, it relies on momentum. It needs a study of the sense of gravity, inertia, the concentration on the body's masses and their movements. It is improvisation, so it is unpredictable, which relies upon the reflexes.

Contact Impro jamms: Jamms are free open dance meetings where everybody finds they own dance expression, based on the emotion, creativity, experience in harmony with partner or partners or in solo. After the warmup and some contact excercise will be the free jamm. It is always possible to finish or interrupt the dance and watch the other dancers from the side and join any time either with touching them or without it. Each jam is different, in which everybody is responsible for themselves.

This meetings are for everybody regardless of age or experience. The meetings are open so it is possible to join any time.

workshop : tattoo
22 April, 2012 00:00 15:00

This 3 hour, intensive workshop is a short immersion into the world of tattooing from DIY, through prison, and into professional tattooing. All ‘tattooing’ during the workshop will be done on grapefruits but safety and prevention of diseases transmitted by blood will be covered as well as aftercare. As an introduction to tattoo culture we will begin the workshop by learning ‘stick & poke’, to create small images. As prisons have played a large part in the imagery and development of tattooing we will follow up stick and poke with a how to make your own "prison style" rotary electric tattoo needles. To finish the workshop all individuals will get to use a professional tattoo machine for line work, coloring and shading. Participants should leave the workshop with a basic knowledge of how to accomplish tattooing, by a variety of methods, in a safe and sterile environment.

Justin Tyler Tate was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia and grew up in Florida USA. He relocated back to Halifax to attend the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and has since migrated to Tallinn. Graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts his solo practice incorporates a variety of media; primarily sculpture, installation and performance. Over the past few years, he has exhibited his work across Canada and internationally. Tate's work investigates the relationship between the viewer and the object questioning the weight of viewership and creation alike.
gig : music : party
21 April, 2012 00:00 22:30

Live in concert ... a special late night performance at Kodu from,

  Roman Pilates (CA) Roman Pilates is the solo Harsh Drone/Harsh Noise project of Kevin Crump. Roman Pilates utilizes composed low-rent tape loops, found sound sampler work-outs, old school analog synth frequency freak-outs, amplified/processed back alley junk metal and sometimes astral realm homemade horn blasts. All combine under the guise of the genre heading Noise/Avant/Experimental Drone or file under post-industrial/abstract film soundtracks. Roman Pilates has been almost as active as my other two passion projects, fronting T.O. Noise-punk combo "Disguises" as well as acting founder and CEO of Wintage Records & Tapes. All projects have existed for 7 years, touring countless times to Montreal, Canadian east coast and back. Wintage Records & Tapes has enjoyed great success with releasing homemade, hand-crafted limited edition cassettes by the likes of Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, London Ontario's Nihilist Spasm Band, Brooklyn New York's Mouthus, and various side projects from American Noise figure heads Wolf Eyes, all while focusing the attention back on local independent noise makers and Can-con avant underdogs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEOdpN1_-CU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1sJIynp_lU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz9VB-3z_vE   Nosfe (FI) Nosfe has been making experimental music since mid 90s. Mostly he's been working together with different bands, most notably Grey Park and Nega. Performing only with electronics and no instrumentation, things will get noisy.  http://low.fi/~nosfe/   Ratkiller (EE) Ratkiller kills rats! Ratkiller is good! 
http://youtu.be/VWqT7_1brxA

 

workshop : surprise : maker
20 April, 2012 00:00 18:00 - 20;00
part of project: Fake It Til You Make It

April's Fake It Til You Make It happens on the 20th, and will be surely another surprise adventure in making things. Last month, we experimented with DIY electrical generators as part of the Trashlab project. What will happen this time?

All are welcome, and remember, it's always nice to register so Justin knows roughly how many people are coming.

About FITYMI
Fake It Til You Make It is a workshop/working group for those curious individuals looking to broaden their experience and skill-set. Each session of FITYMI will be on a different subject which could fall under areas of expertise such as construction, making, baking, electronics, mechanics, cooking, jewelry, physics, plants, and whatever else can be imagined. It is the purpose of the workshop to learn new things for the sake of learning and it is for this reason that participants will only discover the subject of each session upon arriving to the workshop. During each meeting there is a short talk about the subject and how to accomplish the objective of the FITYMI session followed by participants choosing how to proceed (experimenting with materials, accomplishing a project, discussion and/or playing) with food available at some point during the workshop.

To cover the expenses of materials and food for the workshop participants are asked to ‘pay what you can’.  We'll have food to share at the end while we reflect on what we made.   Running/organizing the workshop is Justin Tyler Tate who instructs other workshops such as 'Fast and Raw' - Intermediate sushi and 'Under Your Skin' (Tattooing Workshop). Tate has a Bachelors degree in Fine Art, a Doctorate in electronics and has an insatiable curiosity for new materials, techniques and ways of making.
open lab : club : workgroup
17 April, 2012 00:00 18:00 - 21:00

This Tuesday, Ptarmigan will be open for Elektron Club. Elektron Club is an open working group for makers, hackers, and people interested in experimenting with electronics. From 18:00 -  21:00 doors will be open as a meeting place and lab. Feel free to bring any sort of projects you are working on that you would like to demonstrate, share, or get help with. If you are interested in open-source software, physical computing, or anything similar, please come and participate. Elektron Club will meet regularly and hopefully be a breeding ground for future creative collaboration.

This is not workshop or structured programme, but rather an open forum for social, creative collaboration.