Tumblr, reddit, twitter, facebook, google docs… All forms of cloud-based computing are contemporary consumerism. It’s difficult to remember you’ve paid for the materials and the design of the screen you look at. And that what you experience is being measured and sold further. You are not using software – The engineers who made it are using you. The development of software is fuelled by a need to capitalize all untainted resources and who ever enters the consumer’s mind first will yield the greatest profits. We are granted access to operating systems, because corporations have convinced investors that they quantize our minds (This is also why corporations present modern art in their office lobbies – These paintings are evidence of the conquest of the unconscious).
Assisted in a Mad in Finland movie project over the weekend.
10 years ago I was angry with performers who have backgrounds in circus defining themselves as contemporary artists (This was around the time when Cirque du Soleil became popular in Finland). My anger was silly. I had not seen many circus acts and my opinion 0n the artform was based on clichés. I was just establishing myself as a professional and felt threatened with this change. When looking at the fine people from Mad in Finland working on their movie together with a professional film crew, I suddenly remembered those silly angsts.
As skilled and gifted performers enter the contemporary art sphere, unskilled and ungifted performers might lose their ground. Artist who perform out of a compulsion to change the world and show their dirty bodies out of necessity (their bodies are the only hulls they can reach, touch and motivate to move) will be reduced into “content creators”. Skill factor will squat the contemporary art sphere (This was also discussed with Esa Nickle). I have to rethink how I make art. I won’t be able to maintain my praxis for long by showing how the artist’s body adapts, fails and is being broken in laborious tasks, conditions of labor, through media technologies, elements of nature, animals etc. The standards are changing.
We talked about this with some Mad in Finland artists. One had backgrounds in gymnastics and she had migrated towards the circus, so that she could express herself creatively and collaborate, instead of having her individual performance judged according to the rules of gymnastics. This story echoes how economics have changed. Creativity beats conformity. Skills of creativity are more needed than ever and collaboration is more important than personal commitment. I’ve clinged on to artworks and projects which require an extensive amount of commitment, because I’m afraid that I’m bad in collaborating. I’m a fucking mika-myllylä. I have to learn how to collaborate better in order to work more efficiently.
The Mad in Finland movie will be worked on at the Kone Foundation Residency.