Block 4 dialogues x performance protocols interventions at Toinen Kerros by Äänen Lumo (Nokiantie 2), Helsinki on 13 and 14 February 2026
Block 4 dialogues is an ongoing series which activates the independent label Block 4 in dialogue with situations, other artists, labels and spaces which also becomes a networking activity in itself where music impro-sessions and exchanges can take place. This event would be the first official event under the title of Block 4 dialogues and will therefore be in both dialogue with the sound community of Helsinki (via guest/s), Toinen Kerros (as venue) but also with the platform performance protocols.This means that the first day (February 13) is a performance evening hosted by Block 4 and includes solo performances by Malte Steiner as Elektronengehirn and Tina Mariane Krogh Madsen who both run the Block 4 label and media lab in Aalborg (DK), and and they invite the Helsinki-based sound artist and composer Petri Kuljuntausta (FI) into the dialogue, and at the end of the evening the three will perform together an exclusive improvisation concert.
Program for 13 February, concert night:
Doors 18.30
Concerts begin at 19.00
Tina Mariane Krogh Madsen: vibrational difference # III (a remembrance of collapse), 2026.
vibrational difference is a series of sound performances based on Madsen's geological field recordings from mine explosions undertaken at the iron mine Malmberget, Sabmé in June 2024, where sound waves are activated by human-induced seismic events which in the piece are the foundation for a gradual drone composition which bear witness to a dynamic and violent transformation of the landscape. The dynamite blastings are here witnesses of a resonance moving across the geological and the socio-political. The fieldwork and recordings undertaken at Malmberget took place every night at midnight where Madsen visited different locations around the mine area with a geophone. The first recording was the closest possible to get to the main pit and the following recordings had varied degrees of intensity, also beyond the audible, and on the last day some rock-matter collapsed as a consequence which also became an evident rumble many kilometres away.In the performance and piece vibrational difference # III, Madsen uses effect pedals to improvise with the recorded sounds to evoke a relation to both colonialism and human infrastructural damage through the sonic traces of mineral extraction from the mining industry. The low frequency sounds are thus extending themselves across the site of recording as pulsating sonic matter which connects the listener to both resonances of remembrance but also as an access to direct geological destruction.
Tina Mariane Krogh Madsen: electronics, field recordings.
Tina Mariane Krogh Madsen (DK) is an artist and researcher who works between performance art, sound, open technology, and matter, in a mode of practising and collaborating with philosophy and geological agency. Madsen holds a doctoral degree (Doctor of Arts) from Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture (FI) at the Department of Art and Media, and has worked with facilitation and education in multiple frameworks. Madsen has presented their sound and performance work internationally and is the founder of performance protocols, a nomadic platform for instruction-based art and collaborative processes. Madsen is a member of the Finnish Bioart Society, the Eco- and Bioart Lab (LiU), and a certified facilitator of Deep Listening workshops from the Center for Deep Listening, Rensselaer Polytech Institute (US).
https://tmkm.dk/
Elektronengehirn: Hardware
Malte Steiner initiated Elektronengehirn in 1996 as an experiment to create music exclusively using software-based sound synthesis. The name Elektronengehirn is an old German term from the 1960s for computers, which were then referred to as electronic brains. What sounds trivial today was, back then, a pretty radical idea, especially when one lacked access to the computational resources of institutions like universities. Computer sound synthesis for the masses was in its infancy, and not much was possible in real time. Meanwhile, Block 4 studio added more and more hardware over the years, like the ever-growing Eurorack Modular system since 2002. The album Hardware from 2024 breaks with the initial Elektronengehirn concept and features tracks which are also done with Eurorack modular synthesizer and custom electronic instruments that Steiner has been developing since 2022. During the concert pieces from the album are performed live on computer and DIY modular synthesizer. The Linux computer runs Pure Data for the audio and a custom software created with the game engine Godot for visuals.Malte Steiner is an Aalborg (DK) based German visual artist and musician. He started creating electronic music and visual art around 1983, developing his own vision of the interdisciplinary Gesamtkunstwerk, and his first exhibitions already in 1983. In 1986 Steiner took a course in electro-acoustic music in Lüneburg by H.W. Erdmann and gave his first concerts in the following years, e. g. in Germany, France and Belgium, and started 1987 to release his music on cassette, later on vinyl, CD and online. Founded 1989 the label Block 4 and released cassette albums from his band Das Kombinat and Notstandskomitee among others. In 1998 he began to create electronic art and installations and additionally in 2003 several netart projects. Besides diverse music projects Steiner is also involved in several open source projects and has done lectures, radio features and workshops. Steiner started in 2019 with the art project The Big Crash, art for the pending burst of the real estate bubble, reflecting on the housing crisis and gentrification. Physical exhibitions of The Big Crash have been in Aarhus and Aalborg (DK), Helsinki and Björkboda (FI), and Bergen (NO). The VR part has been shown i.E. at the Sound Campus exhibition of Kunstuniversität Linz at Ars Electronica 2020 (AU), at the ICMC 2021 conference in Santiago (CL), in the digital section of KP22 exhibition Aarhus (DK) in 2022 and Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin 2022.
https://www.elektronengehirn.de
Petri Kuljuntausta: When Birds Dream of Dinosaurs... and Sing a Song to Ancient Times, 2026.
The impetus for the solo performance is birdsong and the structure of birdsong. We do not know what the birds "say" in their songs. But at least we can imagine the themes that have been passed down from one generation of birds to another.Petri Kuljuntausta: guitar, electronics.
Petri Kuljuntausta improvises as a guitarist and with electronic instruments, plays with animals and birds, makes underwater performances, performs in different natural spaces with environmental sounds, compose electronic music and create sound art. Kuljuntausta is currently developing the technique on how to play as an artist with nature and animals: How to connect through sound to the sound processes of the environment equally and without disturbing the nature's own sound processes.
https://kuljuntausta.com/
--- Trio improvisation: Kuljuntausta-Steiner-Madsen
About block 4
The label made its first releases based in Germany (in 1989 in Lüneburg, then Hamburg and Berlin) and is currently situated in Aalborg Denmark. The founder of the label is artist Malte Steiner (Notstandskomitee, Elektronengehirn, Das Kombinat, Akustikkoppler) and was joined in 2015 by artist Tina Mariane Krogh Madsen.During the two days a wide selection of CDs and Vinyl albums from Block 4 are available to purchase.
