Listening Room
Museum of Sound at Sibelius Museum
25.9–6.10.2024
The Museum of Sound is nomadic and in flux and is rooted in the essence of sound and listening. Tommi Grönlund and Rikke Lundgreen created the initiative while preparing the exhibition “Mika Vainio 50Hz” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki, Autumn 2020.
The late Mika Vainio (1963-2017) had a habit of inviting friends to his home, to play them music recordings in silence, with full concentration. In the series of listening rooms, the aim is to create a similar situation, an empty room full of sound. Vainio had a very active and passionate relation to listening and believed that everyone establishes their own relation to the sound they hear.
How can music trigger an emotional response? Everyone has a relation to sound, and it is often defined by subjective experience and memories. For the listening room at Sibelius Museum, Grönlund and Lundgreen have selected tracks that range from Mika Vainios catalogue, spanning over several decades. The tracks are recorded under either Vainio’s own name or by his aliases Ø or Philus.
The listening room has the intention to get back to listening as a focused and prioritized activity. With no distractions, listeners can create a narrative from their own connotations, and just experience sound.
Mika Vainio’s impact on electronic music, both in Finland and around the globe, is indisputable. However, he was also a respected contemporary artist whose minimalist sound installations were known for their physicality, analogue warmth and electronic harshness. Vainio’s international career in electronic ambient and noise music was extensive. His name became widely known to fans of electronic music from his time in the duo Pan Sonic, founded in 1993 (until 1998 Panasonic).
Vainio often drew inspiration from films, books, and everyday environments. Taking a special interest in urban soundscapes such as an interesting-sounding air conditioning unit in a certain building or different street sounds, he often incorporated “found noises” as part of his compositions. The mood was always paramount in his creations, in which silences – absences of sound – are just as important as what we hear.
The Museum of Sound creates events and interactions to intertwine music, other art and various social activities. Its purpose is to present sound in an extended field. The Museum of Sound can exist in different shapes and sizes, also physical and media based. This includes a setting where the audience can listen to a curated or selection of music or audio. Museum of Sound has curated several listening rooms and sound installations in various rooms and institutions in Barcelona, Berlin, Frankfurt and Geneva.
The Listening Rooms dwell on what characterizes listening and hearing, and how reflections can be stimulated on what constitutes good sound and listening processes. This refers to thoughts that Pauline Olivieros had through her “Deep Listening” practice.
Museum of Sound listening room was realized for the first time in the Sibelius Museum in December 2021. In that session the acoustically softened room Baeckman of the building was used.
For this event Museum of Sound want to go back to the roots of a listening room convention. Since the 50s and 60s most of the electronic music is created in the studios and recorded for later listening. In the early days of the Sibelius Museum the main hall was used not only for the concerts but also for listening recordings. These events in the museum were called Grammofonkonsert / Äänilevykonsertti (Gramophone concert) This is the habit we want to go back to.
For the second Turku edition, Museum of Sound invited Charlemagne Palestine to have a performance and thereafter Rikke Lundgreen and Tommi Grönlund played a DJ-set. In between 25-29.9. the listening room will be heard in the Sibelius Museum’s main room, the Sibelius Hall. The program consists of Mika Vainio’s own music and a selection from Mika Vainio’s music archive compiled by Rikke Lundgreen.
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Rikke Lundgreen is an artist and curator. Lundgreen works with a range of techniques such as sound, film, drawing and installation. She also administers Mika Vainio’s studio, archive, and collections of records and books, remaining in Oslo, where he lived with Lundgreen.
Tommi Grönlund is an artist and runs the record label Sähkö Recordings, which he started with Mika Vainio in 1993. His artistic practice in collaboration with Petteri Nisunen uses a variety of materials and technologies, from objects to light and sound. Often using electric currents, or simple gravitational forces to create quietly evocative and formally striking works.
Mika Vainio Listening Room – Playlist compiled by Tommi Grönlund and Rikke Lundgreen
Ø is one of the artist names of Mika Vainio
1. Ø – ARC1B
2. Ø – Kiteet
3. Ø – Asuntola
4. Ø – Koituva
5. Ø – Syvänteessä pukinjalkaisen
6. Ø – Tila
7. Ø – Otava
8. Ø – Ilta
9. Ø – Loputon
62.46 min
Five tracks chosen by Rikke Lundgreen from Mika Vainios record shelf
1. Jürg Frey – Sam Lazaro Bros
2. Sainte-Colombe – Concert AÌ€ Deux Violes, Le Retour
3. Morton feldman – Two Pianos
4. Toshio Hosukawa – Sakura für Otto Tomek
5. Les Chants De Milarepa – Mila’s Song In The Rain
55.15 min
Open during Wed-Sun 11:00-16:00
Tickets: 7€/5€/Museum Card
+ Tuesday 1st of October 11:00-16:00 (Free entry)