C3E SYNESTHESIA – A Competition to Visualize Music for the Mikkeli Music Festival 2021

Winners of the competition announced

Sini Aalto and Mikko Oksalahti, Finland: Movement I, Allegro moderato

Daria Kuriatnikova, Sofiat Parchieva, Anastasia Khokhryakova, Artemiy Dzhikia and Sofia Voronova, Russia: Movement II, Andantino con moto, quasi allegretto

Lydia Siikasmaa, Finland: Movement III Moderato – Allegro ma non tanto

The winners have been invited to an artistic-technical mentoring process. The art works will be seen at the Mikkeli Music Festival 30th Anniversary on July the 11th 2021 at 7 pm at the Finnish Fantasia concert in Congress Hall Mikael. A prize of EUR 1,000 will be voted by the audience and announced for one of the winning entries.

 

Characterizations of the winning entries

Movement I Allegro moderato: Sini Aalto and Mikko Oksalahti, Finland

A beautiful and poetic work that lives strongly with music. The connection to music is obvious. The narrative progresses, maintaining interest until the end. The storyline is charming and the visual look is calm. The storytelling has similarities to Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s Art Nouveau catalog and therefore it recognizably depicts Finnish mental landscapes. The color scheme of the work is soothing and serene. High-quality drawing and composition, combined with the story that accompanies the music, offers its viewer a unique experience. The work can be synchronized to live orchestra in a real-time unique way.

Movement II Andantino con moto, quasi allegretto: Kuriatnikova Daria, Parchieva Sofiat, Khokhryakova Anastasia and Dzhikia Artemiy, Russia

The work is thoughtfully elegant, poetic and classically beautiful. The colors and the emotional states of the music are well reflected in the dance. The work can be developed from a more detailed pictorial expression to a larger scale, the live implementation also allows the use of several image surfaces to express the dancer’s movement. Drops of color and dance progress in a story.

Movement III Moderato – Allegro ma non tanto: Lydia Siikasmaa, Finland

A visualization that very much resembles authentic synesthesia. The color palette is thoughtful and the atmosphere is meditative. The live performance of the work can be nicely supported by the color lighting of the concert hall. The work has a great meditative atmosphere; soothing and holistic play of colors and the work progresses with the music. There is a huge potential in the development of the work as a complete architectural work of art, where the entire auditorium is immersed in the embrace of a color bath. The artist has reached the essence of Sibelius’s music and transformed it into a modern, abstract visual expression.

C3E SYNESTHESIA – a competition to visualize music for the Mikkeli Music Festival 2020

The task is to visualize the Symphony No. 3 in C major, Op. 52, by Jean Sibelius in such a way that each movement forms its own distinct and standalone artwork. The candidates can participate by either visualizing only one, two or all the three parts. Each part will be assessed and evaluated separately. Any art form is welcome, provided that the final piece of work can be presented in a video format (mp4). This C3E competition to visualize music is open to everyone.

The term Synesthesia refers to a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. In other words, music can stimulate a visual experience. This competition is looking for propositions of storytelling and dramaturgy inspired by Sibelius’s music, which is the very basis of the synesthetic phenomena. What kind of mental images, colors, shapes and stories does it evoke? Since music is an abstract form of art, the competitors are supposed to make it visible. Visualizations inspired and based on the source music are still rather rare in the Finnish concert halls.

The visualizations will be projected to the concert hall walls as well as on objects and individuals if need be. All the work of art taking part in this competition need to be entirely new and not been performed before. The author/creator needs to possess all the artistic and immaterial rights to their own, and to someone else’s art work that is part of their composition taking part in this competition. The author is asked to grant the entire artistic rights to the Mikkeli Music Festival when submitting their proposition in the competition.

The Symphony No. 3 in C major, Op. 52, by Jean Sibelius is a symphony in three movements:

  1. Allegro moderato
  2. Andantino con moto, quasi allegretto
  3. Moderato – Allegro ma non tanto

The competitors can freely choose which movement to visualize. Each movement will be assessed and evaluated separately. This competition is open to everyone in Finland and Russia. Both individual and group participation are welcomed.

Any music streaming service can be used as a basis for the visualizations. Nevertheless, based on the immaterial rights law the submitted visualization can only be used within this Synesthesia competition. The conclusive and performed visualization will be finalized in collaboration with the symphony orchestra, during the rehearsal process. Therefore, the art work/proposal needs to be flexible and the competitors need to accept the fact of modifying their work especially regarding the tempo. The decisive details of the performed version will be negotiated with the commissioner, the Mikkeli Music Festival, and the technical supervisor, OiOi.

Please submit your proposal / visualization by 31.3.2020 4 pm
in mp4-format or as a link to your work at festival@mikkelinmusiikkijuhlat.fi

The commissioner of this C3E competition is the Mikkeli Music Festival and the technical supervisor is OiOi. In the C3E –project, Contents for Cross-Cultural Events, The South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences, Xamk, collaborates with a wide networks of stakeholder festivals, theatres and cultural actors within South-Eastern Finland and the wider St. Petersburg region. The jury consists of experts from both Finland and Russia.

OiOi Collective Oy

OiOi is a Mikkeli based business specializing in digital immersive installations and products in physical spaces. OiOi renders the physical spaces interactive by using digital methods and creating experiences rich in meaning. Using their platforms and interfaces, the audience can modify their surroundings in real time with movement, gestures, touch or their mobile devices. OiOi solutions are always designed and built cost-effectively and can be tailored to fit the commissioners’ needs. Their artistic touch can be felt at the Aukio at the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport T3-terminal, in various museums, such as the Moomin museum, Music Museum FAME, The Muisti Centre of War and Peace and the virtual forest at the University of Eastern Finland Faculty of Science and Forestry Borealis-building. OiOi was founded by Mr. Antti Kaukinen and Mr. Sami Kämppi, who serve as mentors in the C3E Synesthesia competition.

The C3E-project

In the Contents for Cross-Cultural Events, C3E –project, the South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences, Xamk, collaborates with the Institute for Cultural Programs, ICP and the Saint Petersburg University of Technology and Design, SPbSUITD as well as a wide network of stakeholder festivals, theatres and cultural actors within South-Eastern Finland and the wider St. Petersburg region. C3E is supported by the South-Eastern Finland – Russia CBC 2014-2020 programme.

The core competencies of the South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences, Xamk creative businesses at Kouvola include service design processes and co-creation, also important in this process. The following study fields at Xamk take part in the C3E project: game design, bioproduct design, service design, fashion and costume design, hospitality management, as well as international business.

The Prize and the Winners

The winning visualizations will be performed in a live concert, the Finnish Fantasia, at the 30th Anniversary of the Mikkeli Music Festival on the 11th of July 2021 at 7 pm at the Concert and Congress Hall Mikaeli in Mikkeli. The Youth Symphony Orchestra Vivo will be conducted by Mr. Erkki Lasonpalo. The first part of the concert consists of The Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68, also known as the Pastoral Symphony, composed by Ludwig van Beethoven visualized with themes from the Finnish nature by OiOi. The three movements of the Sibelius’ 3rd Symphony will be visualized by the winners of this competition. The Finnish Fantasy is a tribute to the legendary Disney Fantasy by Walt Disney in 1940.

The Winner receives a prize of 1000 euros. In addition, the names of the winning visualization will be printed on the Mikkeli Music Festival’s festival book and shown in the end credits of the concert.

The participating visualization needs to be submitted to the competition and the use of the commissioner without copyright payment and there will be no copyright payment for those whose work will be performed in the Finnish Fantasia –concert. The winners will be mentored by OiOi throughout the process in order to finalize their work into the concert format. The C3E-project pays for the participants’ travel, hotel accommodation and daily allowance during the mentoring workshops.

The Mikkeli Music Festival is planning to offer additional visualizing work for the prominent competitors within their festival context, such as the visualization of the Russian Fantasy with OiOi for the 2022 festival and in the dramatized children’s concerts in the upcoming MusicFairyTales series.

The Mikkeli Music Festival holds back their right to abstain from choosing any of the visualizations if not regarded suitable or high enough artistic quality. Regardless of that, the best visualization within the competition will be rewarded with the prize.

 

Additional information:

Teemu Laasanen, Festival Director, Mikkeli Music Festival, festival@mikkelinmusiikkijuhlat.fi

Sami Kämppi, CEO, OiOi, sami.kamppi@oioi.fi

Heini Haapaniemi, C3E-Project Manager, Xamk heini.haapaniemi@xamk.fi

www.xamk.fi/c3e
http://www.mikkelinmusiikkijuhlat.fi/en/etusivu
www.oioi.fi
https://musicfairytales.fi/?lang=en