I've been living off a bag since August. Technically homeless, bunking down in benevolent c/o addresses and optimising baggage allowances. Yet not travelling enough to brag about it. At least my carbon footprint is in check then.

Now, I get on with a two-part lowdown on the last eight weeks. The events take place in Helsinki metropolitan area.

Lectures and presentations

Someone said that the English language is devoid of the word sivistys / die Bildung. I guess the closest word is cultivation. Anyhow, the first one was about X and technology, and second one about X and the political left.

The grand old man of communication and technology, Osmo A. Wiio talked to a middle-aged audience about surviving in today's technoscape. There was hardly any beef there; buy an Apple computer and get spared from viruses, is not much to write home about. However, Prof. Wiio has been around since 1940s and should just be let to tell stories from the course of his life – that would be priceless. Now he just scraped his reservoir of anecdotes.

A more engaging talk was given by dramaturgist Outi Nyytäjä to another middle-aged group, namely the intellectuals of the social democrat party. Nyytäjä is an elderly woman and thus excused to behave outspoken, even badly. Sharp witted, Brittany based and fluent in several languages she did her best in trying to spark up the ideological flame of this very mossy party in a clueless situation.

Megapolis 2022 event attracted crowds to Vanha. Headline: "Environmental problems are solved in cities". Speaker lineup was rather media sexy indeed. As a satellite event there was a presentation by fantastic artist duo HeHe. Over the winter they're working on Nuage vert laser projection in Helsinki. This was also the first session of the Pixelache University. In the lobby I made the first contact with the Wikiparty – a young movement of great expectations.

Then, there was also a Graffiti Research Lab show & tell and laser graffiti night, where my bicycle also got pimped out with LED throwies.

Football

My pals Markus, blogger of Lighthouse, and ml - top commenter and Bird-list contributor on this blog and I went to see two FC Honka matches. Matches at that point of the season seemed a bit lacklustre on Honka's part, but Markus had a great anecdote about Honka's and HJK Helsinki's extraaathletic rivalry on the heights of stadium light posts. Obviously, no visit is complete without a visit to Gallows Bird where I'll be heading next on St Thomas' Day for traditional winter solstice brews session.

Earlier this year I thought the Finnish football culture had taken a social turn, when I saw people flocking at pubs to see Euro qualifications. Maybe that's just because they're are on pay channels now, but during the Belgium match everything was absolutely packed. Except one, and as told by a film critic, "Going to an Iguana is like FU'ing yourself".

Cultures

On that Megapolis 2022 day I opted out from presidential keynote and accepted Keltanen's offer to see Get Yor War On at Espoo City Theatre. Fantastic political play after eponymous comic completed with extensive choreography on overhead projectors. Tickets courtesy of Riikka, extending thanks here and now.

I'm not contributing to Prenzlauer Berg's baby boom in the foreseeable future, but the children's play Ahmatti I saw at the Alexander Theatre courtesy of the director, was damn good stage art for children over five years. Parents ahoy!

Because monolingualism is overrated, I gained an ego boost from keeping up with Jag är min egen fru at the Swedish Theatre. One-man play about the prominent Berlin transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who assumed life of a housewife hoarding Gründerzeit memorabilia. Without the turbulent historic circumstances, that would not be the most exciting theme, but it made a satisfyingly laid out play nevertheless.

Freja cordially tipped off to the opening of their Megafån group's Feminist Wallpaper exhibition. I'd personally rather be pro-equality than pro-feminism or any other gender-biased ideology, but I like this work. Prime example of crowdsourcing in art as well.

To conclude I went to the Helsinki Book Fair for the first time. My friend Taina published her new book on the relationship between religion and politics there, which I'm looking forward to read in the holidays. Karstein was on the panel there as well (missed that, but luckily we had the pints @ Pikkulintu) and he's come out with a new Fakta book (#3). Congrats!

Otherwise, I scanned about half a dozen interesting titles, but my personal baggage allowance would not bear any weight of paper.

They're closing at Melis now, so we must have a break here.

Last week I had a chance to check out CityWall – a public, interactive screen at Helsinki's Lasipalatsi. It's a multi-touch installation very much along the lines popularised by the film Minority Report and pioneered by Jeff Han. However, it is not based on FTIR, but "designed from the ground up to work outside in daylight", said John Evans, member of the UIx project group of the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT.

Their project website explains the principles, so I won't get into that. Another blogpost at Playpen is also good read. What cuts it for me, is the social and public aspect of their work. The content is drawn from Flickr, namely what's labeled under tag "Helsinki", will be fetched onto the CityWall to be accessed by the crowds, on-site in the city centre. This is the approach I love about it – tapping into the "user-generated content", bringing it into a relevant context and having an advanced physical interface to play with

Of course CityWall is a work of such a nature, that it can hardly be without glitches at this point. It's truly enjoyable only in the nighttime, so go now, the summer's white nights take over as we speak.

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Update 29.5.2007

Somehow missed it on the first sweep, but lewism.org has also blogged about CityWall. Check out the comments below. Thanks to him I just found an interesting service Tagzania. O-ou, does it never stop…

I had some brews with Karstein in east Helsinki's local joint Pikkulintu (en. "perching bird")

It is located in the ugliest imaginable concrete shopping mall, but instead of fighting and karaoke they've got 250 sorts of whiskies and a well-thought selection of small Nordic beers. The pub was appropriately selected The Beer Bar of the Year at the Helsinki Beer Festival.

Curiously enough, in addition to the bird motive, by using Helsinki's main railway track as a line of reference, Pikkulintu's location is antipodal to the Gallows Bird in Espoo.

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.

After a week of procrastination or so, I finally grabbed another of those cheap and praised Air Berlin flights. So, I'm heading for Helsinki on 29th March. Planning, at least, to report from the Pixelache festival – and write about other good things and curiosities I'll inevitably come across of.

So, old and new friends in Helsinki, let me hear from you.

If you look for a cigar lounge in Helsinki, you very likely need to go to the Central railway station. Actually it's not so unheard of, Bertolt Brecht went there too. In 1940-41 he fled Nazis to Finland. Before moving on to the countryside, he used to spend time at the station and leisurely ponder on.

His novel "Conversations in Exile" (d. Flüchtlingsgespräche, s. Pakolaiskeskusteluja) takes place here, in the station restaurant. From this book comes the quote "Finns are silent in two languages".

I don't know exactly how the bars and restaurants were arranged in the 40s, but today's aficionado is best off at The Pullman Bar in the east wing. At the door you get greeted by an unusually friendly (Helsinki standards are abysmal) bouncer and stairs lead up to a spacious lounge with a view over the main hall of the station. Wood paneling, leather couches, good choice of whiskies and tobacco products. Behind closed doors is the cabinet of Press Club.

Despite Brechts and cigars, this all still belongs to the commoners' railway station. Next to the east entrance there's a tall wooden door sided by stone men. These statues are symphatetic miniatures of the huge stone men over at the main entrance. They guard the entrance to the private waiting lounge, designated exlusively for the use of the President of the Republic.

In 1940 President Kallio spent here last his moments, waiting for the train to carry him out to retirement. Soon after stepping out to the platform he died from a stroke before the honorary guard, into the arms of Marshal Mannerheim - another president to come. Paasikivi wasn't president yet in 1939, but he made a life's work out of negotiating with Soviet Union. Indeed, the concept of "Moscow train" has a certain aura that strongly resonates with the cabinets and granite walls of the Station.

Kekkonen was the last president with a strong presence at the Station. Straight after his 1960 trip, he called up a meeting with his cabinet in his waiting lounge. That was the last generally known state use of the lounge. In 1961 Kekkonen was already found on Hawaii. Four years later he was spotted in a palm tree in Tunisia. Apparently presidents have gone permanently airborne.

There are quite a few excellent things in Helsinki. Unbelieveably, I hadn't visited the swimming hall in Yrjönkatu 21 for four years. It is a beautiful piece of architecture and has a timeless atmosphere, like some Roman bath could have. Their website characterises it as follows:

Yrjönkatu Swimming Hall is an impressive example of the 1920's classicism and it is an important building historically as well as architecturally. Over the decades the hall has retained its original appearance. After a thorough renovation which began in 1997, the hall was reopened to the public in October 1999.

Men and women bath on separate days and bathsuit is optional, yet allowed these days. Men's shift is famous for being quite gay, whereas women's is allegedly dominated by grumpy old ladies.