A world famous artist collective called YKON has been working in Helsinki transforming global and domestic news together with a local news team. The News Transformation Agency is the latest project of this Helsinki-Berlin-based collective.

This week Mr Ulu Braun and Ms Christina Kral from Berlin ran an open workshop in a temporary pop-up news office in Lasipalatsi gallery. As a part of the workshop participants analyzed and transformed news to create alternative realities.

The News Transformation Agency project approaches the overwhelming aspect of global news as a potential platform for civic action. The NTA news offers the audience a completely new perspective to the world of news – and shows how the news can change the world and our realities.

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NTA UUTISTEN ENSI-ILTA HELSINGISSÄ 23. ELOKUUTA 2012
NTA Uutisten ensi-ilta on tänään Taiteiden Yönä Helsingissä. Uutiset esitetään festivaaliyleisölle suurelta valkokankaalta Lasipalatsin aukiolla. Uutiset esitetään Stadi-TV:ssä myöhemmin tänä vuonna.

Maailmankuulu taitelijaryhmä YKON on työskennellyt Helsingissä muuntaen globaaleja ja lokaaleja uutisia yhdessä paikallisen uutisryhmän kanssa. News Transformation Agency on Helsingissä ja Berliinissä toimivan taiteilijakollektiivin uusin projekti.

Tällä viikolla berliiniläiset Ulu Braun ja Christina Kral ovat vetäneet työpajoja pop-up uutistoimistossa Lasipalatsin galleriassa. Osana työpajaa osallistujat analysoivat ja muunsivat uutisia ja loivat vaihtoehtoisia todellisuuksia.

Masterpiece of Finnish technical innovation and logistics

A confidential, global immigration plan was published by Wikileaks late last night Finnish time. The plan has detailed information on different immigration groups, their desired and final destinations. For example South Asians aiming at Australia end up in the island of Nauru, the Greek aiming at Canada end up in Kouvola, South Eastern part of Finland. The organization behind the scheme is connected to Bilderberg Society. Several Finnish software companies are in charge of the demanding technology behind the scheme.

Only two days after Prince William rescued a teenage girl from the sea, a local hero in Kivenlahti, Espoo tried to do the same – with bad results. A girl was rescued for sure, but only an instant after the heroic act, an eye-witness informed the police that the “hero” had actually pushed the girl in the sea close to a near by ice cream booth.

“There is no space for nobility in this harsh country”, told the sad hero to our reporter, before the police took him away.

A Kenyan film post-production company developing Mannerheim Filter for YLE in Nairobi

YLE and Aalto University are now working on a Skin Color App that will be available for Digiboxes at 199 euro right before the TV release of “The Marshall of Finland” fiction film later this year. The so called “Mannerheim Filter” can change skin color in moving images in realtime. The new App will be tested during the coming Love and Anarchy Festival in September.

Kenyan software team leader David Sawa Ndwaki says: “It is our great honor to please the color sensitive audience in Finland. This work secures us a sustainable collaboration with YLE”.

(Note from editorial dept.: Sawa means OK in Swahili.)

For some it’s a crime – for others it’s an inspiration

Last week the mayor of the small village of Saarijärvi in Central Finland cheered on farm and forest workers as they proceeded to rob grocery stores in neighboring towns and villages. After filling up carts, they left without paying and unloaded the food at a shelter for poor people in Jyväskylä. A few of the looters have since been arrested, though not Mayor Jussi Nieminen, who told YLE-News that he waited outside during the raids.

The point was to draw attention to “people who don’t have enough to eat,” part of Mr. Nieminen’s decades-long struggle against free markets, capitalism, private property, etc.

The reason Mr. Nieminen didn’t start by robbing his own village’s supermarkets is that Saarijärvi doesn’t have any. Mr. Nieminen, who has been mayor since 1979, runs the town as a farming collective, complete with public housing for 15 Euros per month and mandatory wage equality. It offers low-paid job guarantees at its agro-cooperatives, on communal land expropriated from an aristocrat in the 1990s. Since then, there’s been little private property to speak of in Saarijärvi. Another trademark of the back-wood communism of the village is ‘participatory budgeting’ – a process where all villagers decide on investments and expenditures. Mr. Nieminen fancies himself a “Robin Hood” for his grocery store antics, but he’s not much more than a robber baron in the truest sense.

Mr. Nieminen is right about one thing: Finland can’t go on as it is. But instead of replacing capitalism with crude communist ideologies, the first step will be replacing politicians like him.

Maa-alueen haltuunotto: Suomen liput liehuivat EU-vastaisten
oikeistoaktivistien käsissä tiistaina, kun 14-henkinen aseistautunut
joukko rantautui Kreetan pohjoisrannikolle. Julkilausumansa mukaan
aktivistit pyrkivät valtaamaan saaren Suomen lipun alle vastaiskuna
velkakriisiavulle, jonka maa on joutunut maksamaan Kreikalle.
Valloitushanke katkesi kuitenkin alkuunsa, kun 150-henkinen
kreetalaiskalastajien laivue pysäytti aseistautuneet suomalaiset, ja
poltti heidän lippunsa. Henkilövahingoilta säästyttiin.

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Finnish activists occupy Greek islands to fight EU crisis aid

Island takeover: the Finnish flags soared proudly in the hands of a
group of 14 anti-EU right-wing activists on the North coast of the
Greek island Crete on Tuesday. The group declared to take action as a
countermeasure for the financial crisis aid Finland has paid to
Greece. After Crete, the activists have planned to take over Cyprus and
Corfu. The invasion came however to a sudden end, as a fleet of
150 Cretan fishermen seized the Finns and burnt their flag. No blood
was shed.

Celebrated Brazilian graphic designer, Tiago Paulo Permudez-Parra revealed today his proposal for the winning design. He was inspired by the “Finish Smile Case” of athlete Tuuli Petäjä announced the committee today during the public release.