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.
Riga – Tallin, March 24, 2014
I turn my face to the sun. I just stand there breathing in the sun and hearing the sounds of the cars passing by… Ten minutes pass, and ten more..It seems the problem can’t be fixed so quickly. I climb up on a little dune with big pine trees strangely located in the middle of nowhere, I breathe in the air, and suddenly I decide to find an access to my own aloneness right now.
A-project is a personal and artistic trial to access the transformative space of Aloneness.
A woman finds herself forced to face her loneliness. Entering it opens a new space and discoveries for her.
This is a multi-disciplinary performance by Dana Indāne (Latvia), a performing artist and contemporary voice improvisation student at the Estonian academy of Music and Theatre, in collaboration with sound designer Martin Hein. This performance is a part of the creative labratory work at Taavi Kerikmäe’s Experimental Music studio (emta). Texts by Dana Indāne, Haruki Murakami, Kefas Berlin.
Note: New date, Tuesday 27 May!
Free Improvisation is a regular event which follows the simple structure of show + jam. The event takes place every fortnight (give or take a few days), and begins with a short, informal performance before the space and tools of sound making are opened up to any and all. Come along to play, listen and meet.
Tonight's performance will be by current artist-in-resident Kimmo Modig with John W. Fail.
21:00 John + Kimmo
21:30 Open Jam
For the Open Jam, we have a piano and a P.A. system available.
In May 2014, Ptarmigan/MoKS resident Kimmo Modig (selected as part of the Axis of Praxis residency programme) will host a weekly series of Sunday afternoon events, titled SUNDAYS WITH KIMMO. All events are free, start at 14:00, and include breakfast/brunch and coffee.
This week, according to Kimmo:
Non-artist talk! I will not talk about myself (well that’s new), but instead will present some of the works & artists I love a lot. So basically a screening. John and Hannah from Ptarmigan will make me suffer every time I mention myself. Drinking game might be in order, people! I think I’ll focus on artists who are based on Helsinki so we’ll get, I don’t know, cultural exchange vibez, eh? But anyway an evening of worship on the altar of great art.
Opening Operations is a monthly series in 2014 that investigates the practical methods through which culture is produced.
Each month, a representative from a different Estonian culture organisation will present their activities as well as their operating budget and finances. The speaker will discuss a challenge or problem unique to their organisation, and the presentation will be followed by a group discussion. The goal is to share methodologies, open dialogues, and research creative alternatives to real-world problems involving money, labour, and collaboration. This project also seeks to democratise and demystify the act of "organising", proceeding from the belief that there is no right or wrong way to do things, and that different approaches breed more exciting and dynamic cultural forms.
This month's speaker is Triinu Aron. Triinu is the founding director of Sõltumatu Tantsu Ühendus (STÜ), which has been operating the Okasroosikese Loss (Sleeping Beauty Castle) project space in Tallinn's Old Town since 2012. Okasroosikese Loss is an open-form venue that hosts artist residencies from mutiple art backgrounds, with a focus on interdisciplinary practices.
Light snacks and refreshments will be served, and the discussion will be recorded and released afterwards online in podcast form.
Avatud Toimingud/Opening Operations is a project of Migrating Art Academies and is supported by the Estonian Ministry of Culture.
In May 2014, Ptarmigan/MoKS resident Kimmo Modig (selected as part of the Axis of Praxis residency programme) will host a weekly series of Sunday afternoon events, titled SUNDAYS WITH KIMMO. All events are free, start at 14:00, and include breakfast/brunch and coffee.
This week, according to Kimmo:
Workshop! I’ll talk about how I usually do my performances and we’ll do some practical things. We’ll talk a lot since that’s what I do, but I don’t mean like conversation, but, like, figure out how to talk in front of audience. We'll think of how to use your body/life and stuff like that. Check out my videos from my home page to grasp an idea of what I’m doing. Though of course the workshop is very much about the people who show up, I’ll be the instigator and rallyist. Actually, maybe worksohp is a wrong word. Let's just get together and I'll tell u what I know about speaking in public & performing, and you tell what u know and we'll take it from there.
(photo: Hertta Kiiski)
Liminal Images returns after a long hiatus, again bringing a regular programme of experimental cinema classics and obscurities, all dating from before the age in which the moving image was all-pervasive.
This month's screening looks at the idea of the human presence in film. These films, in various ways, question identity, performance, and reality in the filmic illusion. We'll see approaches to personal expression, the body, performance and truth as well as some game-playing.
The films:
Fragment of Seeking
Directed by Curtis Harrington
USA, 1946
14 mins
Legendary Hollywood director Curtis Harrington starred in his own film, his first. This explores in a fairly narrative manner issues of sexuality, desire and identity.
Production Stills
Directed by Morgan Fisher
USA, 1975
11 mins
The quintessential Fisher film ... In Fisher’s film, the making and presentation of the production stills is the end, and moments of motion picture illusion–the hands entering the image, the apparent use of sync sound, the making of the film itself-are means for getting the stills mounted so that we can examine them. The film also challenges conventional cinematic categories and terminology. (…) It is an unedited film which, however, provides us with eight different views of the action taking place.
- Scott MacDonald
Manual of Arms
Directed by Hollis Frampton
USA, 1966
17 mins
"Courtly dances with friends and lovers, in the form of a 14 part drill for the camera, incorporating physiognomic & locomotor evidence related to the lens by 13 artists and an historian, namely: C. Andre, B. Brown, R. Castoro, L. Childs, B. Goldensohn, R. Huot, E. Lloyd, L. Lozano, L. Meyer, L. Poons, M. Snow, M. Steinbrechner, T. Tharp, J. Wieland."
-- Hollis Frampton
** intermission **
Clockshower
Directed by Gordon Matta-Clark
USA, 1973
14 mins
A documentation of one of Matta-Clark's legendary performances, where he climbed to the top of the Clocktower in New York and washed, shaved and brushed his teeth while hanging over the streets in front of the huge clockface.
Observeillance
Directed by Tyler Turkle
USA, 1975
4 mins
A lyrical tour guide takes the viewer on a trip down the Wakulla River in North Florida. Although the camera remains relentlessly fixed on him, his vivid, near-musical descriptions of Southern flora, fauna and wildlife gives a better view of things than total visual mobility could ever allow.
Footsteps
Directed by Marilyn Halford
UK, 1975
7 mins
The use of a game works the memory, anticipation is set, positive film stands to resemble a three-dimensional sense of time in past/future. Then negative holds out film itself as the image is one stage further abstracted and a disquiet is set up in the point that the sound track ends, whilst the picture track continues."
- Marilyn Halford, Perspectives on British Avant-Garde Film exhibition catalogue, 1977
A Tale of Labyrinth
Directed by Shuji Terayama
Japan, 1975
17 mins
This film is about door, which is a metaphor of screen. I cannot help thinking that a screen is not a white square cloth but a door, which opens to a space where spectator could participate in. It’s founded upon a premise that projection is a total act constructed with the projector itself, the distance from the projector to screen and the screen itself.
- Shuji Terayama
In May 2014, Ptarmigan/MoKS resident Kimmo Modig (selected as part of the Axis of Praxis residency programme) will host a weekly series of Sunday afternoon events, titled SUNDAYS WITH KIMMO. All events are free, start at 14:00, and include breakfast/brunch and coffee.
This week, according to Kimmo:
Music! I’m playing with my dear friend Juhani Liimatainen who has worked with the big names of Finnish classical music (Kaija Saariaho, Mangus Lindberg et al), as well as with contemporary theatre, Free Improv and Jazz musicians, and pretty much done everything a sound artist can do here. We’ll be both playing electronics, most likely very concrete stuff like bird sounds and fun stuff like that. I’m sure you’d like it! And if not, well, there’s coffee and the view from the balcony at Ptarmigan is pretty stunning. It’ll be like maybe 2 hours, and there will be other guests as well. I'll let you know if there'll be other artists as well, I think there will. Check Ptarmigan facebook when we're closer to the date for more info. Please be on time!(photo: Olli Leppänen)
Free Improvisation is a regular event which follows the simple structure of show + jam. The event takes place every fortnight (give or take a few days), and begins with a short, informal performance before the space and tools of sound making are opened up to any and all. Come along to play, listen and meet.
Tonight's performer is Anna-Liisa Eller.
20:00 Anna-Liisa Eller
20:30 Open Jam
For the Open Jam, we have a piano and a P.A. system available.
AtgRuioFallA are Laura Remmel, Ivi Rausi, and Roomet Jakapi, an experimental trio from Tallinn. They will perform a concert of voices and live electronics, unconventional sounds and structures, and free improvisation.
Meet to Delete!
You are invited to Kalamaja beach on the evening of Sunday, 4 May to take part in The Weight of Information by Julian Priest.
Meet to Delete is a series of parallel events happening around the world in conjunction with The Weight of Information. At Kalarand we will sit around a fire and enjoy conversation, food and drink while collectively deleting information. Bring something to eat and drink and some information to destroy: hard drives, USB keys, bank statements, books, SMS messages, phone contacts.
About The Weight of Information:
On the 19th of April, a pico-satellite was launched into Low Earth Orbit from Cape Canaveral on CRS-3 as part of the Kicksat programme. From there it will begin to descend in a slow spiral trajectory before burning up on re-entry about 3 weeks later.
As it orbits the earth the Satellite collects information from it’s on- board sensors filling its memory banks with data. When its memory is full, it resets its registers to zero and starts collecting again, repeating this process thousands of times a second. The satellite counts how much information it has deleted and transmits the measurement to Earth by radio where it is collected and displayed on the web.
The satellite believes that information has weight, and it is trying to escape its inevitable burn-up by deleting information, becoming lighter and ascending to a higher orbit by forgetting.
Meet to Delete
You are invited to Meet to Delete in solidarity with the satellite. Come together around a bonfire for a bucolic evening on the beach, to delete information. Bring food, drink, friends and some personal information to delete around the fire. Burn old bank statements, remove old contacts from your phone, clean out your spam folder, put out of focus photos in the trash, clear out your media libraries. Delete something, remove the cruft, take control of your information, and feel a little lighter.
From Julian:
Sitting around a fire is emblematic of a kind of archetypal perfect sociality from the past – the kind of sociality that the net culture has always harked back to. The fire is a symbol of the romantic ideals of the counter culture and the back to the land movement that were embraced and extended by net culture – the idea was that the network would create a perfectly fluid social space where we could form communities. In the piece this is contrasted with the Weight of Information, the current reality of the information out of our control in the network, our information used and abused by many other actors in society for commercial and political ends.
I am hoping that the process of deleting information in a bucolic setting will represent a re-taking control of information for individuals. I’m not aiming for anti-informatic luditeism – we shouldn’t turn back the clock, especially not such a useful one, but more of a thoughtful assertion of information sovereignty and a feeling that we might be part of a wider community with the same aims. The mood should not be apocalyptic like the bonfire at the end of a dance party, and there is no burning books connotation or idea of re-writing history or refusing or destroying the infosphere. Instead it is about asserting control over our information rather than being controlled by it.
Please remember to delete more information than you create!
In May 2014, Ptarmigan/MoKS resident Kimmo Modig (selected as part of the Axis of Praxis residency programme) will host a weekly series of Sunday afternoon events, titled SUNDAYS WITH KIMMO. All events are free, start at 14:00, and include breakfast/brunch and coffee.
This week is the inaugural SUNDAYS WITH KIMMO session.
From Kimmo:
the artist is present as they say. If you wanna meet me for a coffee, drop by. There’s another Ptarmigan event taking place at 9pm. I have a skype meeting at some point during the day, but other than that I’m free. my number is +358 44 3630640, or just pop by and see if I’m there.
(photo: Hertta Kiiski)
Den Arkaiska Rösten (The Archaic Voice) is Per Åhlund and Girilal Baars of Uppsala, Sweden, experimental sound artists that since long have used their voice as source and tool in their music. In 2010 they started working together and quickly formed their own sound world; with sacred chanting, floating melodies or guttural droning, loopers, delayes and distortion.
Also performing will be Estonian-based American improvising musician Ted Parker.
Free Improvisation is a regular event which follows the simple structure of show + jam. The event takes place every fortnight (give or take a few days), and begins with a short, informal performance before the space and tools of sound making are opened up to any and all. Come along to play, listen and meet.
This time round we have Hara Ash performing.
20:00 Hara Ash
20:30 Open Jam
For the Open Jam, we have a piano and a P.A system available.
ASTEPBACK are Gaëlle Cavalieri and Andrea Saggiomo.
Two super-8 film projectors and a slide projector are used as light sources on stage. Super8 films and slides are prepared by scratching and patching, piercing and ink and wax drawing to be used in a multiple projection at different speeds. The projectors, the film and the images are then used as instruments to produce and modify in real time the light and, using some self-made photosensitive sound devices, the sound-space of the performance, interacting with the motion of bodies. The audio signal so generated and manipulated feeds a feedback loop that interacts and changes with the stage movement.
In 2007 the two founded their own theater company in Naples. In 2008 they won Nuove Sensibitità Award with the show “Canti di Maldoror” (“Songs of Maldoror”). In 2009 they won “Cantieri Teatrali per Fabbrica Europa” Award with the show “I fiori d’Arancio” (“Orange Flowers”). Both shows have been represented in different Italian cities at national and international festivals. Their last show, “Villon: il Romanzo del Peto del Diavolo” (“Villon: The Romance of the Devil’s Fart”) premiered in Naples in November 2011. Since 2010 they collaborate organizing the festival “ALTERA: pratiche non convenzionali” where they have been working together with different musicians and artists (SEC_, Aspec (t), Dario Sanfilippo, Asp, Tiziana Salvati, etc.). Andrea Saggiomo alongside the theatrical performance art works in the expanded cinema project 70fps in the context of which he improvised and collaborated with musicians and international artists including Andy Guhl and Seppo Renvall. The first DVD of 70fps, entitled “But You Are” was released in 2013 for the independent label VIANDE.
Plucié des Andes are Marek Pluciennik and James Andean of Helsinki.
Plucié/Des Andes are film artist Marek Pluciennik and sound artist James Andean. Together they have developed a unique audiovisual performance practice, drawing on the diverse background each has in their respective fields, seamlessly blending film, sound art, and performance art.
Marek Pluciennik emphasises the tactile qualities of film, not just as a vessel for content, but as a material medium, by treating and transforming the film during the act of projection, most commonly by melting and burning the film as it is projected on the screen, as well as through the digital capture and transformation of both materials and process. The visual results are thus a combination of the film content, and the beautiful, strangely transfixing display of colour and texture as the film bubbles, melts, and dissolves. The results capture the transitory, ephemeral nature of experience, art, and performance, as images, scenes, narratives, and people melt away on the screen. Pluciennik's live treatment of the film extends into the digital – as these physical metamorphoses are recaptured, digitally treated and transformed, and projected anew – and also into the realm of performance art, as his methods are played out in front of, within, and around the audience, sometimes requiring the participation of audience members, and often extending into broader metaphors of performance action.
James Andean creates live soundscapes to accompany and dialogue with the projected visuals. These soundscapes are often centred on live, site-specific sound, using the sound artefacts of the venue, the space, the audience, or the film projection as primary sound materials, to be further developed and extended live in the spontaneity of performance, creating a soundworld which once again stresses the fleeting impermanence of the experience of live art. Once again, these live, physical elements are captured, digitally extended and transformed, and projected as fantastic constructs moving out from their foundation in the here-and-now and out into broader realms of sound.
These two layers – the sonic and the visual – combine and react, to create a unique, beautiful experience of shifting images, scenes, colours and textures, from both screen and loudspeakers.
Free Improvisation is a regular event which follows the simple structure of show + jam. The event takes place every fortnight (give or take a few days), and begins with a short, informal performance before the space and tools of sound making are opened up to any and all. Come along to play, listen and meet.
This time round we have Villem Jahu performing.
20:00 Villem Jahu
20:30 Open Jam
For the Open Jam, we have a piano and a P.A system available.
This is a special event in connection with our regular free improvisation shows+jams. Listeners and performers are welcome to join us! The format is a brief show followed by an open jam. (For the open jam, we have a piano and a P.A system available.)
20:00 Ekke Västrik
20:30 Open Jam
Ear Swap is a workshop in dislocating sound and experiencing public environments through the explorative movements of another person. Participants temporarily surrender to each other the ability to guide their own ears and thus lose the power to intervene with the sounds they hear, whilst being given absolute control over what is sent down the ear canals of another.
As well as allowing us to listen to various different public settings through the ears of someone else, the mediation method also singles out some frequencies above others (discriminating in favour of women and children), which serves to further distance the method from our regular system of hearing.
We will provide the technological equivalent of chopping each participant's ears off, mixing them all up and then attaching each set of ears to a new owner before heading down to Balti Jaam to catch the train.
The Ear Swap expedition team will travel by train, trolleybus and foot, through various auditory settings, for approximately one hour before returning to Ptarmigan to reinstall their hereditary ears.
Participants are asked to bring €3 for material costs. Transport is free for those with cards (and €1,60 for those without).
led by Villem Jahu & Hannah Harkes
This is a special event in connection with our regular free improvisation shows+jams. Listeners and performers are welcome to join us! The format is a brief show followed by an open jam. (For the open jam, we have a piano and a P.A system available.)
20:00 Roomet Jakapi (EST, vocals and electronics) and Jonas Vandenbossche (BEL, guitar)
20:30 Open Jam
Free Improvisation is a regular event which follows the simple structure of show + jam. The event takes place every fortnight (give or take a few days), and begins with a short, informal performance before the space and tools of sound making are opened up to any and all. Come along to play, listen and meet. This time round we have Mart Soo performing.
20:00 Mart Soo
20:30 Open Jam
For the Open Jam, we have a piano and a P.A system available.
We request that all attendees bring a small contribution either for Ptarmigan or for the group in attendance that night. The contribution can be of any size, and can be anything for the event (snacks, drinks, etc) or any form of direct donation.
Behind the velvet curtains of the Ungravity Kiosk lie four portraits. Each portrait occupies its own separate but intrinsically linked temporal and physical space. These seemingly unrelated poses await your purikura adornments – pick from a selection designed by the artists or make your very own. The portraits wait patiently for your special touch.
The Ungravity Kiosk takes the familiar Japanese photo booth experience and stretches it out to a strained speed. It takes the idea of the sequence and the still frames that occupy a progressive narrative, and questions the nature of these simultaneously still and active images. The additional interactive elements serve to reveal this conflict between stillness and movement, whilst also providing the simple joy of trying to fit one thing inside another.
Unlike the purikura booth, however, the figures in the portraits do not demand to be made cuter; they can also just as well be made ugly, angry or horrifying. They welcome you to change their appearance and alter their characters.
Hannah Harkes (1989) and Tessa Androutsopoulos (1981) met at Gray’s School of Art in Scotland, where they studied together in the Printmaking department from 2007-2010. They have since developed their own separate practices and continue to share strong interests in the narrative sequence, the creation of characters and the printmakerly process of layering, disassembling and playing with images.
This workshop looks at home cooked apple jam and pancakes methods and serves as an introduction to the youth eco-social project Red Riding Hoods. We will start by cooking delicious and aromatic jam using the technique we got from the hands of the rural citizen master in Häädemeeste village. It's simple, tasty, and natural!
We will also introduce our youth project Red Riding Hoods which began in August 2012 with an 8-day journey across villages in Ida-Viru and Pärnu Counties, where we learned about local history, traditions and rural life in general. Here you can find more information about the project.
This workshop is limited to 20 participants and is free.
It is going to be a very special movie night.
Come and see how two movies share the same screen. At the same time. Blockbusters will be sharing blows, hold each other in chokes and framelocks.
To get by the cacophony the volume knob will be passed to the audience for them to decide which movie rules over the other. Who will be the last movie standing?!
P.S. We are not taking bets.
Presented by Ott Pilipenko
It is time to wash your favorite woolen sweater, cleanse those wool socks and show care to those special mittens that will be ruined in the washing machine. Join us for the wool care workshop; bring a bucket and some towels, we provide the soap.
Live music, social intercourse, wool washing and repair.
Cash bar and light refreshments, live audio, we provide the soap.
To cover costs of water, electricity and snacks, 3€ donations are appreciated.
With the video screen switched off, we will move and dance to the uninterrupted soundtrack of the 1975 film by French director Louis Malle.
Bring with you a few songs or pieces of music which you want to dance to together. The day will begin with a brief warm-up, followed by collective dancing to each other's songs. After this, we'll turn on Black Moon and dance to the audio in its entirety.
We will be dancing from 1pm to 6pm but feel free to join in, sit back, leave or rejoin at any time.
Led by Kaspar Aus (choreographer) and Hannah Harkes (artist).
An evening class in figure writing with a nude model. The class will cover a series of short, 10 minute poses to get the ink running as well as some longer poses, in which the writers can experiment with their preferred techniques in greater depth.
During the evening we will explore writing the figure in black & white; tonal writing; colour; chiaroscuro text; the figure in their environment and the figure in motion.
Participants should bring with them writing tools of their choice (pen and paper, typewriter, laptop...) though pens and paper will also be available during the class for those who require them.
documents/resources