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Contamination and empowerment in Slovakia

I had the pleasure of visiting Slovakia for the Kontaminácie / Telo vody -symposium organized by PLAST and enjoyed five warm days in Bratislava. During this hospitable visit, I had the opportunity to interview people involved in the Open Culture! -network. The interviews were developed into a review, or something between a civil rights report and art writing for Mustekala  Saastumista ja siitä voimaantumista Slovakiassa. The text lists what the Open Culture! network and the culture strike initiatives are about. Like with previous writing this year, it is an archive too with ample resources on the topic.

It makes for a nice continuation of the previous work we did for the militarism-themed issue “Hard and soft power” (in Finnish) with our collegial editorial team. I hope to continue investigating organizing efforts in Prague, perhaps later in Poland too. I want to gain a better understanding to how countries, which identify themselves as being in a subordinate position in the European Union, understand their capabilities of influencing democratic development. To find allies, I hope to have the Finnish text translated into English, so that it would work as a contribution for establishing solidarity and responding to the rise of militarism. I hope to learn more about the Resist Now Together initiative (and the EU level work too).

In Bratislava I visited the city gallery for The Art of Interaction exhibition. Anna Kutera’s painting from 1973 is a solid reference point for feminist revolt and creation (more stable and articulated than the USA maintenance artists). Teresa Murak’s performance from 1989 was holy and enables me to continue with art. Vladimír Havlík’s piece at the exhibition will work well as a performance art teaching exercise, and Wojciech Bruszewski’s Language of Parallel felt like it came from the future. My absolute favorite of the exhibition was Ľubomír Ďurček’s “Mr. Vinclait Attacks Again” (not sure about the title) from 1990, in which the artist balances and moves using two office chairs.

I distributed our Tasting book -zine to the A4 bar, and visited Karl Marx Hof in Vienna during my return trip. It was bizarre to visit the architectural origin of my own Malminkartano suburb! Like visiting the future and the past at the same time. The exact same arches if the main entries of the complex are also present in a Pohjois-Malminkartano social housing project. The model of building an apartment complex like a village fortress is weirdly current. We used to play war games as kids in Malminkartano… And the architecture was well suited for urban war play, but only now I understand the architectural intent. The “oriental” lamp designs were shockingly brilliant. I also got into the corridors, exploring the details of the carpentry. The “Chinese” elements were a big surprise.

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Their modular assembly

The assembly had been formed as a side result of a random number generation process, which was running to maintain luokkakierto of the sector. Some parts had been assigned to it by force, as their shape denied attachments with the majority assemblies and others had chiselled themselves to specifically fit to this unit. They appeared as interlocked gears but were malleable, some even behaving as sponges with a toffee like sticky outer layer. It was a well lubricated, capable of elementary self-guidance and could be easily reassembled to new formations. It maintained stand-by movement in familiar terrains at the site it had been initially assembled at.

The ferry deck was freezing windy and passing the frosty mist of sea provided comfort. The harsh seascape served as a mirror for my worn mood. The rusty toolkit I brought had only one new tool, a shiny wrench intended for outdoor work. It was specified weather proof, but not IP certified and new to me… Which is why the cold endless snowy shores of the island silenced me as I headed to the bastion to hookup with the assembly. The new tool did not come with a manual but I got some tips on how to use it from Jussi Kivi. In honestly, I only relied on my gut and old verbal documentations I had picked up travelling with Kivi years prior. There were second-hand manuals available but the tool was elegantly constructed and I felt I didn’t need any. A part of the elegance was in its capacity to hide small user errors.

On site it was apparent that my old worn tools were easily adjustable for this assignment. The modular assembly was capable of accommodating new patters and diagnostics yielded a positive responses. Each gear was vibe-checked and connections secured by repeating the gears given names in the form they were provided (I did encounter a personal glitch calling two in the assembly with the wrong names). Later, this initial success proved to be a feature of its filtering apparatus. The entity responded with kind nods to prompts which it did not comprehend or had zero interest in processing. This jitter added an offset to our feedback loop, which was difficult to adjust with prompts. The filtering system was structural, likely established by the assembly itself to ease the hostility of the terrain and helped the unit to maintain its coherence.

The assemblies decision processes had a novel lore sub-unit, which provide an efficient path to write to the system memory. Inputs stored to the lore register were coded in fresh vocabulary, using terms such as “jep”, “nice” or by quoting Finnish rap songs. Some where generational variants of older programming languages, but they also included specialized terms such as “self-regulating”, which the assembly used in self-diagnosis protocols, indicating that the assembly had previously operated in cybernetic settings. I did not probe this as my designation was to establish the unit with an up to date weather-model and revamp territorial maps it used in deliberations.

We headed deep into Kurängen spring and the forests. Late winter coldness was well processed and the entity was efficient in scouting potentials in the terrain. We probed the remotest corner of the city and each visit to the site included an over 4 kilometre hike (in addition to excursions). The assembly sent out probes into deep swamp holes and dispatched autonomous units to scout the region. Probes returning with new data, distributed it openly for the system. This intrinsic equality of the assembly was a surprising feature and I could leave out many of the tools I had prepared for fostering this behavior.

This text describes the teaching of two courses (performance and material 2024, performance and taxidermy 2026) for Taidekoulu Maa.

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Not an activist

Sometimes, when people ask what kind of activism I’m involved in I tell them: But I’m not an activist. I contribute to political projects, volunteer in democracy initiatives and participate in current debates. The reason I don’t call myself an activist is that its fun and empowering to be in an undefined position. It also might help folk approach citizenship as something which includes participation in (which is how it should be).

But there is another reason. Over the 20 years I’ve worked as a performance artist I’ve experienced that people identifying activists have a different mindset to organizing than me. Before art school, I was involved in student initiatives at a vocational school, but I didn’t see them having any long-term objectives. When I got to know people who profiled as activists in art school settings, it felt like they were aiming to achieve a long term goals and used what they gained at art school as a tool.

When I was challenged about the politics of my art, I presented myself offering a support role. We could, for example, organize workshops or experiences that help people recover agency, or help formulate aesthetics that support peoples positions. I perceived that the value I would bring to progressive projects was in criticizing them. The aims was to keep stuff in check or even rectify matters, at least concerning the aestheticization of politics and simplifications.

That trajectory brought me all the way to COVID, when I observed I had missed out on a huge, vibrant space of ongoing negotiations around what it means to live. Transformative debates which become accessible only by engaging with the fundamentals of political thought: what is means to die.

On this plane learning depends on engagement. Just like in a vocational school, when learning carpentry, being in contact with wood gives you access to the engineering of wood. Branching out from cultural activity into political activity is where you realize the fallacies, and feel where the tolerances are. There is more feeling on that plain then anyone can handle. It resents efforts to make it an image.

During COVID, it was horrible to realize that political operators and institutions were always primed in a way that the most cynical activists had described them: there were institutions, ready to impose austerity and lying without accountability, doing whatever institutions needed in order to legitimize themselves. And we witnessed that our rights didn’t erode, we never had any.

I’ve been on an adventure of trying to rediscover and reestablish a connection between what I’ve done professionally and what I’ve done as a citizen ever since.

And I still think it is valuable that I don’t call what I have now being an activist, but rather being a citizen. By that, I mean that I am in solidarity with all other citizens, and that it would be great if everyone who imagines themselves as part of a society and contributed to it as intensively (or loosely) as they can.

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Class War Games

The way the Finnish press conducts itself is horrible. They insist on a binary, and neutral reading of events and to hear from all sides of a conflict (presenting victims and perpetrators as equals, and all issues having sides). This is based on an ideal or condition where strong civil society, advocacy groups, and people could maintain capacity to respond to inaccurate claims or flawed reporting.

For example, if an article on mainstream media questions the effectiveness of an independent organization, that organization could make a convincing public case defending their work. After hearing all accounts to the story, a reader decides. Mainstream media operates, and news legitimize themselves (as something which inform decisions) by the premise that ideas circulating in public sphere are sorted out fairly.

Mainstream media monopolization and austerity politics have proved this an impossibility.

One of the remaining domains where people feel they have power, is in defining their language and representation. This is often dismissed as a realm of identity politics and therefore treated as secondary, or even hindering efforts to build power within movements. There are valid reasons to move beyond identity politics, language or tone policing. But also to remember that people became sensitive to words, when they cannot not project power in other ways.

Communities also gain something from shared norms regarding language and tones.

A lot of communist & anarchist literature and discourse is shaped by concepts expressed with military terminology. This is understandable: many progressive leaders participated in armed struggles or served in the conscript armies of different empires. They drew from those experiences when organizing against oppression.

In Finland today, we are far removed from this tradition. Which is why the usage of military language, concepts, and metaphors creates a hindering imbalance. With it, we invite into our spaces forms of specialization which we do not actually possess and risk being defined by something we do not control. It is exiting to speak of maneuvers, fronts, and strategy, but we risk loosing direction if we lack practical experience informing the concepts.

Our strengths are already in us.

Working in diverse communities… Which do not share an understanding to, for example where a “frontline” in taking action against fascism is, may feel frustrating. But by rejecting the appeal of adversarial models, we can discover the asset we already posses. If we frame our thought with military concepts: we cannot engage with confidence and become defined by people for whom violence is a profession.

It would not be beneficial to develop such capabilities. Institutions dedicated to training violence teach these skills far more effectively than any democratic movement. Imitating them would put us in an awkward stance.

Using language emphasizing conflict, or dialectics will invite people to maintain adversaries. This takes a lot of work and may support specialized groups but can’t be culture. It creates unnecessary stress, which should be reduced by using vocabulary that feels familiar, and comfortable. Using such language can support more sustainable ways of organizing.

This is the best lesson The Game of War (2010 by ClassWargames brings . The fancy language and elegant delivery pushes us away, to discovering our own advantages.

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Perf. Prop

Somebody in Helsinki, around the Pasila, Käpylä, and Koskela districts, is involved in a shady propaganda campaign. It is a useful thing to observe, when we are figuring out how the battle over minds is presently fought. Performance is becoming essential for this terrain: how fast bodies move, at what rhythms or syncopation, which choreographs avoid drones, how to encrypt ingroup messaging to public expression and how bodies assemble, or demobilize. How we maintain posture and a smile, expressing anti-war (while dead).

For at least two or three years a group or a very active individual, has been putting up posters in busy street corners. Initially, they had simple comic-book-like meme content. Illustrations included racist messaging, but the texts were vague about what the demand or proposal of the campaign was. They referenced Ukrainian asylum seekers, Finnish racism and biases in refugee process. The posters expressed that people arriving from the global south would be favored over Ukrainians, and used non-existent HEKA policies as an example. The photos were stock images.

What was notable about the first series, was that every iteration of the posters used the colors of the Ukrainian flag as a background.

Recently there has been spree of new posters, but with only nonsensical texts and links to sites which don’t exist, QR codes that don’t reveal anything. The texts are nonsensical and there is no obvious visual message. It could be thought that this poster series and campaign is intended to create a sense of uncertainty in the public. In this case the amount of the posters would be the point… That they are on every lamppost and electrical cabinet. They are easy to spot because of the Ukrainian flag colors.

People routinely tear the posters down. This is something that is done by a lot of people from different backgrounds, because of the racist and weird content. There is something off putting in nonsensical texts and the layouts are deranged.

Having torn one down just now, I realized and that these posters have a stronger performance propaganda quality then I expected. They might be intended primarily for people passing by in cars! The idea could be that people driving by, moving fast will see people in tearing down posters which show the Ukrainian flag. From a distance and when passing fast, the gesture looks like removing support for Ukraine from public spaces.

This was like discovering a new species! An exiting time to be a performance artist.