Amnesia Scanner
Saturday 18 May 2019 from 6pm to 7:30pm
Amnesia Scanner
© Martin Argyroglo
Founded in 2014 by the Finnish Ville Haimala and Martti Kalliala, Amnesia Scanner's approach is informed by a unique perspective on technology and the way it mediates contemporary experience. System vulnerabilities, information overload and sensory excess inform their work, which has found a home in both clubs and galleries.
Their debut album Another Life (2018) represents all the sentience of the duet, striken by the use of both human and inhuman voices. Pan Daijing’s vocals follows a disembodied voice called "Oracle" of which vocal performance ranges from exuberant mania to anxious dread and beyond. Coupled with the pop song structures that Amnesia Scanner employs for the first time, the avant-EDM (Electronic Dance Music) productions of "Another Life" evocatively explore a schizophrenic present marked by narratives of a slow apocalypse or salvation via technology, trill hope and casual threat.
Amnesia Scanner
© Martin Argyroglo
Performing arts group, experience design studio and production house, Amnesia Scanner is created by Finnish-born Ville Haimala and Martti Kalliala in 2014. This electronic music duo Berlin-based is currently signed to PAN. Its debut EP, "Physical AS", was released as a vinyl exclusive in 2016. The musicians have also collaborated with Holly Herndon and Mykki Blanco.
Building on their mixtape "AS Live [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]" (2014), the critically acclaimed audio play "Angels Rig Hook" (2015) laced a potpourri of dancefloor tactics with a machinic narrator. Their dual EPs for Young Turks, "AS" and "AS Truth" (2016), distilled this immersive environment into an abrasive collection of cryptorave tools.
Amnesia Scanner has presented work at art institutions such as ICA London, HKW Berlin, and the Serpentine Gallery Marathon in London. They collaborate with PWR Studio for their design and visual direction. The AS live experience is co-created with Stockholm-based Canadian designer Vincent De Belleval.
In parallel Haimala works as a composer and producer with a wide range of musical and visual artists and Kalliala co-directs the think tank Nemesis.