Facilitating a moment of actualisation within meteōra musikē, Finnish musician and sound artist Merja Kokkonen (aka Islaja) introduces a figure that shifts the sediments of time towards a digital future. Her performance “Urvogel” (German for primordial bird, archaeopteryx) centres on a ‘techno-shamanic’ persona – a hybrid creature emerging from the fossil record of the computational turn and the cybernetic laboratory.
At the core of this performance is a sonic costume – a wearable instrument crafted from recycled computer parts, circuit boards, and electronic sensors. Its digital plumage transforms the artist’s body into a sensitive antenna for her environment. Equipped with motion sensors and environmental data inputs, the costume generates real-time granular synthesis that blends Kokkonen’s movements with the park’s atmospheric conditions into a czirping, electro-organic soundscape.
Merja’s performance is a tender act of interception in the course of public space – a gesture of adaptation and interaction.
Roaming Schönbornpark like a bird exploring its territory, she engages in a tactile dialogue with the so-called ‘tech-trash’ of the Anthropocene and the eternal rhythms of the meteōra. In doing so, this archetype of the augur re-enchants the technological artifacts we discard, proposing a (post-)prosumer mythology where the ghosts in the machine learn to whistle with the wind.
Costume: Ulla Nurminen (design), Jarkko Räsänen (electronics).
Material: Polyamide, wire, functional electronics, control panels, CD fragments.