Fine Tuning: Future Is Not What It Used To Be - Erkki Kurenniemi

erkki kurenniemi - ÏÅnityksiÅ 1963-1973

Bio

The most ambitious of Erkki Kurenniemi's projects was the series of digital synthesizers, called DIMI, in the early 1970s. For example, Kurenniemi's video synthesizer DIMI-O (1970-1971) converted any movements recorded by the video camera into real-time sounds and music. DIMI-S (also known as the "Sexophone") was able to generate sound and light by contact with the skin, reacting to the emotional state of the performers. Kurenniemi created the first commercially manufactured and marketed microcomputer in 1973, two years before the American MITS Altair 8800. Nowadays many of the Kurenniemi-created instruments are in the possession of Swedish collector Ralph Lundsten, the owner of Andromeda electronic studio.

Dimi-S Schematic 

Mika Taanila has directed a documentary film on Him. The title is "The Future Is Not What it Used To Be", premiere November 2002, and it is accompanied by a compilation of Kurenniemi's previously unpublished electronic compositions from the 1960s on Love Records. A DVD version (June 2003) entitled The Dawn of DIMI contains the documentary, plus Kurenniemi's various short films and animations and concert footage from the early 70s.

Extract from the dvd Erkki Kurenniemi -- The Dawn of Dimi DVD (2002)

 Here is an extract from Pan Sonic + Carl Michael von Hausswolff + Erkki Kurenniemi -- live @ Kiasma theatre, Helsinki, Finland 21-10-2002. 

or "how to be payed 3000$ in a museum to play with a microwave"

/link in cover/