Amfibio (Finland)
Explorations into the audiovisual and exercises in artistic groupwork
Amfibio.org is a Helsinki-based collective of artists with wide variety of backgrounds - ranging from media art to cinema and from technology to graphic design. The group collaborates with sound artists, dancers and theatre groups together to create visual media performances. Amfibio's work stems from the combined know-how of the group and a friendly battle of individual opinions. The creative process of the group can be described as non-hierarchical, organic or purely chaotic.
Amfibio was founded in autumn 2002 and performed for the first time in Technetium-event with Chris Liebing and others. Since then Amfibio has worked together with Nuspirit Helsinki, Giant Robot, Koneisto-festival and many others. Work is usually based on long-term co-operation with artists. For an example, with Nuspirit Amfibio has performed in numerous gigs, festivals and in a special Huvilateltta-show during autumn'03 Helsinki Festival.
Amfibio-members have also collaborated with PixelACHE since the first festival in 2001. Last summer, Amfibio toured North America with PixelACHE, creating an audiovisual concert in New York with Tuomas Toivonen and doing a series gigs in NYC and Montreal.
Recently, Amfibio-members have worked with various projects, from more experimental ones to club residencies. Mesq and mkk have created synaesthetic concerts with post-rock band Nazca on major venues like LUME studio theatre and Teemu K has worked with theatrical performances and environmental art. *jen and Vj Tytto have performed as residents VJs in Unity and Fantasy clubs and Maippi and Antti A have created visualizations for a number of events. Pseudotoad Laboratories have furher developed their software for real-time visualizations and created a couple of highly aclaimed demos.
This year's PixelACHE will feature *jen collaborating with Dj Orkidea on an audiovisual concert in Kiasma Theatre, A.Silvast of Pseudotoad Laboratories orchestrating CNCD's Grey Zone Weather Matrix visuals, and various VJ performances in Stockholm and Helsinki clubs.
Amfibio can also be seen as a community platform or a practice-oriented research laboratory. All the generated profit has so far been put to acquiring tools and technologies, which are given to the use of a wide network of practitioners. Amfibio is working closely together with non-profit organisation Piknik Frequency and Olento production company, which are actively organising lectures and workshops about the creative use of audiovisual technologies.
Amfibio are: Antti Ahonen - *jen (Jenni Valorinta) - Juha Huuskonen - Maippi Ketola - Teemu Kivikangas - Ossi Luoto - mesq (Mika Meskanen) - mkk (Mari Keski-Korsu) - O Samuli A (Samuli Alapuranen) - Pseudotoad Laboratories (Petri Lievonen, Pauli Ojala and Antti Silvast) - Vj Tytto (Minna Piirainen)