Our second poet-in-digital-residence is Olli Aarni, Finnish sound artist with international name recognition in electronic music. During his residency he works in the field of sound poetry.

Olli Aarni´s (b. 1988) Merkkiääniä project draws our attention to the vast meaning of oral and sound tradition in the past and present of poetry. The residency period in April results in new sound alphabets and adaptations of two written poems in sound form. First one is based on an old Finnish folk poem and the second on one of contemporary poetry. Aarni´s sound alphabets are inspired by the pronuncion of the Finnish alphabets but also the visual look of the letters, the round and angular forms of the letters resettle themselves in the audio waves. After the residency the new sound alphabets will be available for anyone to experiment with them.

Aarni´s records have been released in for example Finland, United States, Australia and Japan and he has performed in Europe, Russia and Asia. He´s a sound artist, but also a book editor, columnist and a radio music program host, with Master´s degree in Finnish language. During the residency Aarni writes about the process of developing the alphabets and applying them. Visitor´s of the residency space can talk with Aarni throughout the process. The residence will be bilingual with English translations online after the residency period.

Starting from April 9th you can follow the project Merkkiääniä at nokturno.fi/en/digital-residence. More information on Olli Aarni you´ll find from his homepage olliaarni.com.

Nokturno’s Digital Residence is a virtual residency program inviting poets and artists to create digital poetry and/or explore and use digital resources as part of their practise. Our first poet-in-digital-residence was Mikael Brygger with his (Y/N) – A tool box for gamified poetry. The digital residency program is funded by WSOY Literature Foundation.

(gif: Olli Aarni)