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LIVE CINEMA
PERFORMANCE (2001-2008 aka SOLU)

FIGURE DE LA TERRE (opera)
Live animation and generative visuals
2013

Makela created a visual world for the opera work FIGURE DE LA TERRE, which told the story of Christine, who lived in Finnish Lapland in the 18th century. She met the French earth measuring expedition leader Maupertuis and followed him to Paris. In Paris Christine and her female friend  appeared in the court, where they caused a scandal due emancipation.  These events caught also the attention of Voltaire. The traces of Christine disappeared in the roar of the revolution.

 

The piece consisted of two different projections. In one, live animation was projected onto a large background screen in the background of the stage, and in the other, generative visuals were projected onto the stage. Makela uses the shadows of the singers as part of the visuals, which are mixed with the pre-recorded shadows used in the animations. The aesthetics of the Lapland and Paris sections differ from each other. Pohjola's visuals are woodcut-like and naturally primitive. In the algorithm, the aurora borealis, which in Paris have changed to light reflected through colored glass. In Paris, the visuals are created by human hands, which can be seen e.g. in the wallpaper patterns.

Premiere and further performances at Sophiensaale. Berlin

 

DIRECTION Jaakko Nousiainen
COMPOSITION Miika Hyytiäinen
LIVE ANIMATION Mia Makela

VISUAL PROGRAMMING Eva Schindling
MUSICAL DIRECTION, CEMBALO Daniel Trumbull

CHRISTINE (SOPRANO) Estelle Lefort
MAUPERTUIS (TENOR) Matthias Monrad Møller
VIOLA Raphaëlle Pacault
VIOLIN Anna Fusek
CELLO Tabea Schrenk
COSTUMES Lisa Kentner
DRAMATURGy Dag Lohde, Susanna Heise
PHOTOGRAPHY Axel Lambert

Produced by Dag Lohde und René Dombrowski.

 

FUNDING
Hauptstadtkulturfonds
Schering Stiftun.
KONE foundation
Finnish Institute
Arts Promotion Centre Finland

Supported by Karl-Hofer-Gesellschaft, Universität der Künste Berlin, Uferstudios and SOPHIENSÆLE.

 

Z
Generative visual set
2013

M
Generative visual set
2011

In collaboration with programmer Eva Schindling and Pierce Warnecke, two generative visuals sets for violonist Mia Zabelka´s live tours:  M and Z.

Performances/Screenings:

Phonofemme. ViennaGallery, Suvi Lehtinen. Berlin, ViennaVerein 08.Vienna, Museum of contemporary art. Warsaw, Firemuseum. Philadelphia, GEZ 21 Art Center. St. Petersburg, DOM Cultural Center. Moskow, The Museum of Anna and Anastasia Tcvetaevy.Alexandrov City, La General.Paris, Fluc. Vienna, MIM & MORE Gallery. Berlin, Galerie Mana.Wien, University of the Streets. New York, Media-Scape.Zagreb, Long Arms Festival. Moskow, St.Petersburg, Yaroslavl City, Alexandrov City, etc

SUONOMBRA
Live Cinema

2011

Simple and elemental, shades of sound and image are presented, de- and reconstructed around a swirling play of dark and light, object and reflection. Echoes and shades of sonic and visual entities become etheric sense objects in a live intermedial organic and electronic piece. A flowing stream of images depict Icelandic nature, each frame resemble a living landscape painting in a continuous, viscous perceptive moment.

Video: Mia Makela
                                                          
Performances:

Phonofemme. Vienna 2011 with Zahra Mani 
Trendelenburg. Gijon 2012 with Zahra Mani 

AAVE-festivaali. Helsinki 2012
with Tero Vänttinen

Experimental Settings.USP. Sao Paolo 2013
with Marcus Bastos and Dudu Tsuda

 

AVA/FLATBACK Festival.Birmingham.UK 2015

with James Andean

Support :
AVEK, Arts Council of Finland
Thanks: Gullkistan Residency. Iceland

KAAMOS TRILOGY

Live Cinema Fairy tale

2007-09

Video:

Mia Makela   

   
Audio:                            Circle: Jäljet                  Kontackto:
Mustikkaa Silmissä
Mika Vainio: Kotiin

PERFORMANCE
Audio: Arbol

 

Distribution

AV-ARKKI

HAMACA

Selected performances and screenings:

2011

Suomesta Gallery, Berlin

2010
Exteresa Arte Actual. Mexico City
Mediascape. Zagreb

Future Now. Tenerife 

Proyector2010.Madrid

ACAD.Calgary 

Alpha-ville. London

Museo de Huelva. Huelva

Das Kurzfilmfestival. Berlin

Tots Sants Group Show.Barcelona

2009

LaLaboral. Gijon
Transmediale. Berlin
Moves. Manchester

RECMadrid. Madrid
Banff Center. Banff
New Forms Festival. Vancouver
USC. Los Angeles
Paysages Electroniques. Lille

2008
Festival do Rio. Rio de Janeiro

TM_preview. Konsthall Malmö

Sonarcinema. Barcelona
The Tate Britain. London

Cinesthesy. Paris
Cimatics. Brussels

2006 - 2007
Caixaforum. Barcelona

National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Washington

GEHEIMNISSE EINER SEELE

Remix project

2009

The Austrian director G.W. Pabst's silent film "Geheimnisse einer Seele" (The Secrets of a Soul, 1926) is based on one of Sigmund Freud's case studies. It was the first film that addressed psychoanalysis and combines abstract and surreal dream sequences with scenes from an everyday bourgeois world. The film grows out of this tension between two mutually exclusive worlds, which each threaten the existence of the other. The story and structure of the film provide a good starting point for music that exists on the boundaries between contemporary composed and improvised music.

The video score, which Mia Makela will play live during the performance, consists of new combinations of shots, scenes, people, objects, places and sceneries from the original silent film. The complexity of the graphic material contributes to the psychological and visual complexity of the performance as whole, which merges the unmistakable aesthetics of expressionist silent film with the experimental adventures of contemporary sound and moving image composition and performance.

The visuals fulfill the function of a score for the one.night.band musicians, who "read" it from their video monitors and who as a sound body reflect the conscious and subconscious complexity of human existence, where the whole consists of individual parts, each complete, in some way self-contained yet always interactive and interdependent on the other elements. The essence of the ensemble lies in each individual member's personal contributions to the sound, each individual background, thought process and way of playing.

PERFORMANCES

Video: Mia Makela


Vienna Konzerthaus 2009
Mia Zabelka _ E-Violin, Voice, Electronics, Laptop
Zahra Mani _ Laptop, Contrabass
Franz Hautzinger _ Trompete
Manon-Liu Winter _ Piano
Martin Janicek _ Percussion

Audio at other performances:
Mia Zabelka _ E-Violin, Voice, Electronics, Laptop
Zahra Mani _ Laptop, Contrabass

 

Sophiensaale. Berlin 2010Composers

Mia Zabelka _ E-Violin, Voice, Electronics, Laptop

Zahra Mani _ Laptop, Contrabass

 

Lounge.Vienna 2010

Mia Zabelka _ E-Violin, Voice, Electronics, Laptop

Zahra Mani _ Laptop, Contrabass

ENG:
A search for light in darkness by digital shamanistic means, as a physical experience of inner exploration during the dark months in the northern parts of Finland. Two women are traveling thru forests looking for a spring known for its magical healing powers, a cure for blindness. On their return it is revealed their way back home is not to be found anymore.

"Kaamos Trilogy is a total artwork, which condenses its potential narrative thread within the few images constantly repeated and permutated within an expanded, hovering, time frame. In a meditative, almost trancelike state, Mia Makela juxtaposes the narrative abstraction typical of music videos with digital pictorial practices, thereby developing a new poetic dimension of the audiovisual field."
(HAMACA Catalogue)

ESP:

“Kaamos trilogy” es un tríptico sobre las interrelaciones del individuo, el espacio natural que le rodea y el ambiente que modula su sensibilidad durante la preparación, casi mística, a los meses de oscuridad finlandesa: “Kaamos”.

Obra total en la que el relato, siempre en potencia, se condensa en pocas imágenes repetidas permutando entre sí en un tiempo en suspensión expandida. En un estado de meditación, casi trance, Mia Makela yuxtapone la abstracción narrativa del video clip con las prácticas pictóricas digitales desarrollando esta nueva sensibilidad poética del audiovisual. Las sombras articulan la visión de dos mujeres que se internan hacia el centro de un bosque en busca de una mágica cura de la ceguera, al salir de él no encuentran el camino de vuelta, o se han perdido o el mundo ha cambiado ante la oscuridad finlandesa que se aproxima.
Latente está la figura del gurú, no sólo como persona que disipa la oscuridad de la ignorancia, sino en su sentido literal: «en algunos textos se describe que las dos sílabas de la palabra señalan el movimiento de la oscuridad (gu) a la luz (ru)». En kaamos la historia central es la búsqueda de luz en la oscuridad de un modo chamánico digital, como una experiencia física de sondeo interno.

...lee más (HAMACA Catálogo)

YA SOLO HABLA DE AMOR

Spoken word / visual improvisation
2009

yasolohabla_04.jpg

Video: Mia Makela


Word: Ray Loriga
 
PERFORMANCE


Camon, Alicante 2009
 

Makela was invited to collaborate with Spanish writer Ray Loriga, to create visual dialogue with a recital of his book Ya Solo Habla de Amor (Now Only Talks of Love). She created a remix with Tarkovsky´s films and improvised with the spoken word performance.

NINE (IX)

Audiovisual Performance

2008

Video: Mia Makela
Audio: Hildur Guddnadottir
Sound/ Performance: Kate Pendry

 

SCREENINGS

Suomesta Galleria, Berlin 2011

 

PERFORMANCES
Fylkingen. Stockholm.2008
HCB.Berlin 2009

This project has received funding from
NORDIC CULTURE POINT
LARM
ARTS COUNCIL OF FINLAND

NINE is part of SENSING CHANNELS

LARM invited three nordic performing artists to collaborate: Kate Pendry from Oslo, Icelandic Hildur Guddnadottir and Finnish Mia Makela. The artists met first time in Reykjavik where they started the collaboration with “pre-historical” experience of the famous Blue Lagoon. IX consists of 9 prophecies written by Kate Pendry. She acts as an oracle teller throughout the performance, following the traditional role of women interpretators of divine messages in the ancient Greece. HIldur plays the cello, while Mia fills the space with visuals projected on screen and smoke. Enchanting experience.

CANCIONES PARA PEDRO ALMODOVAR

Remix project

2008

Video: Mia Makela


Audio: Alberto Iglesias/ RTVE orchestra
 
PERFORMANCE


Noche en Blanco, Madrid 2008

 

El Catálogo de la Noche en Blanco:

"La noche en blanco homenajeará al cineasta manchego, que tantas veces ha retratado Madrid al menos once de sus largometrajes con un concierto-homenaje a la música de sus películas. en dos partes. En la primera la Orquesta de Radio Televisión Española interpretará versiones de las bandas sonoras más célebres de su filmografía, compuestas por el músico Alberto Iglesias, y adaptadas para la ocasión por el propio autor ( Premio Nacional de Cinematografía). Mientras suena la música, en las pantallas se suceden algunas de las escenas más memorables del universo almodovariano, “pinchadas” en directo por la videojockey finlandesa SOLU, una maestra del género."

Mia Makela was invited to create a remix of Pedro Almodovars filmography to celebrate the director at Noche en Blanco event in Madrid. Makela went meticulously thru his 16 films by date, studying his techniques and created a 20-min remake to the compositions of Alberto Iglesias. The music was performed by the Spanish RTVE orchestra outdoors for an audience of 4000 people.

RAMSCAPES

Visual set

2001-2005

Video: Mia Makela
Audio: various

 

PERFORMANCES

all around the globe, including :

 

Monkey Town. New York 2006
Banff Center. Banff 2006
AVIT.UK. Birmingham 2005

Transmediale. Berlin 2005
Mapping festival. Geneva 2005
Test Portal. Amsterdam 2005
EXIT FESTIVAL. Novi Sad 2005
C/O POP 2005. Cologne 2005
NETLACH. Bilbao 2005
TRANSITIO_MX. Mexico City 2005

Club Transmediale, Berlin 2004
Sonic Acts. Amsterdam 2004

Zagreb Music Biennale 2003

Pixelache. Helsinki 2003

KSET. Wien 2003

UKIYO-E

2004

FIELD REPORTS

2004

OTHER PROJECTS

Audiovisual collaborations

2004-2008

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