my name is vilhelm. i have been making music alone and together with lisa since 1998. in 1996 i came to live with lisa.nobody knew how old i was.i am a greek land-tortoise a second- generation maroccan born in sweden.
i have always been facinated by vibrations and sounds.i often walked to speakers when music was played and stayed there listening and nodding my head to the rythms.one day we were visiting a friend who had a plugged in electric-guitar lying on the floor.i climbed up on it and played a solo for 30 minutes.lisa recorded this and made my first record:vilhelms boogiewoogie with my voice,guitar-solo and samples from records.she also made a video with the same name.
in 1998 she got a steelguitar and we started to play together on it.
in 1999 she built an island whith sand in the kunstverein Hannover, germany where i lived for 3 weeks. my video was running on a tv on the island and the steelguitar was there and a sun.everyday we made concerts there at 14.00.almost nobody came and they wrote in the newspaper that i was playing country-rock.for us it sounded more like atonal new-age music.
in 2000 i got 3 friends called janne,speedy and kokos - tortoises from russia.we made a video called "soundcheck" when we are rehersling playing on a electricguitar with different effect-pedals.lisa also went to the zoo in furuviken, sweden to participate in a steelguitar-workshop there held by Lloyd Green and Janne Lindgren.She made a video from there with 2 men listening for sounds and one playing steelguitar.this was projected behind her at Kristianstad Konsthall in 2000 when she dressed as a tortoise played a duet with the film on steelguitar.the other musician was projected on her tortoise-shell.our film was part of an installation that stayed for a month in the museum.
Lisa made an installation about ancient time in a toilet.There were growing grass there and there was a ruin of a castle she had built for me and the other tortoises.When people went to the toilet they could meditate on time ,micro and macrocosmos...
in Artis in s´hertogen bosch, holland me, janne, kokos and speedy lived in a world with a house,a sun,a lake, a field of cabbage and a forest created by lisa jeannin and kristoffer lindgren.there were sensors that reacted on our shadows and 6 taperecorders that started to play the soundtrack of the places where we were.the soundtracks had been made by me,lisa and kristoffer lindgren.the installation was called "the world" and a cd exists with the same title. Bettina Furstenberg and Lisa made a 2-channel video called "birthday" about Bettinas mothers birthday and my birthday. It was showed at gallery PEEP in Malmö together with another video by lisa with a night concert by me and the other tortoises on steelguitar.the exhibition was a project from the artacademy and the music conservatory of malmö
In 2001 lisa and charlotte koopman made an installation in Artis s´Hertogen Bosch (Holland)where i was an actor in a film that you could enter by a door that opened in the film but also in the reality.lisa and me made the soundtrack for that film called "the sailor syndrome".
i had concerts that year. in bio prevost, a cinema in Malmö (SE) on synthersizer with a guest tortoise Rebecka. By now many people usually came to hear us perform and sometimes fans gave us puppets of tortoises and other gifts such as ananas and beutiful stones for my house.thank you everybody who have supported us!!!!
i had a concert at Malmö Konsthall playing synthersizer which had by now become my main instrument.Lisa had one always on her floor and i was often playing on it ,sometimes to wake her up in the morning.
Concert at Moderna Museet in Stockholm and at stereo bar in Copenhagen (Denmark).
Lisa built up another island for me and the other tortoises at Index - the contemorary art-foundation in Stockholm and we also played steelguitar on the opening.
At Wanås Castle in Sweden me and the other tortoises were fortunetellers using the ancient method of I-CHING in an installation.
In 2002 Lisa was busy making a puppet theatre called "Into the World of Monsters" that was showed at the theater Neues Cinema in Hamburg . Artist Mariola Brillowska had invited me to make a performance in her show "club adorator" during Artgenda.
lisa had made a little stage on the big stage and there a puppettheater about monsters, re-
incarnation and the so called good and evil forces in the world took place.
What was small was filmed and projected big behind her who was disguised as a mummy
and thus became smaller than the puppets.
The end was a battle between vegetables that tried to stop live tortoises (me and tortoise Tina) from playing
gospelmusic on a synthesizer.
The soundtrack was made of parts of 20 different versions of the song "King of the Road",
a thunderstorm and gospelmusic played live by us.
We participated as fortuntellers in the german radioshow called The mental radioshow.
We made concerts several times on a deserted railroadtrack in Hamburg.in a german newspaper they wrote that the music sounded like Stockhausen and John Cage.For us it sounded very different every time but it was well ment.
We had a concert in Stockholm Art-fair.
They showed part of our concert from Hamburg on swedish televison and played parts of it on german radio.
In 2003 they played my boogiewoogie on swedish radio and lisa was interviewed about my music.She could almost not speak as she had lost her voice that day but the message came through.
In 2004 i was an actor in Lisa Jeannins 2-channel video "Breaking the Law".
in 2006 tortoise kokos was an actress in lisas 2-channel video "the crossing" that was showed at the Modern Art museum of Stockholm,error 7 in antwerp, Belgium ,massma gallery in Ronneby, Sweden, Les bains connectives in Brussels among other places.In 2007 2 compilation cd:s were released by Kning Disk called LARM, on which I participate with one number, "vilhelm live in hamburg". The 2 cd:s were released at the same time as a book which documentates female and animal soundartists of scandinavia from the 60:s until today .(it was never made before).It is called "from mouthcavity to laptop-the sound of nordic art" .In this book they wrote that i awake memories of Sun Ra with my keyboardimprovisations. NOT bad! Since 2004 i live with lisa in belgium.in 2005 dr olf moved in and we have been making some music together with samplers.short films about me have been showed at the von Kraal theatre in Tallin,Estonia and in the dont look gallery in sidney,australia.in summers i go on holidays in gardens of kind people.I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4
