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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.

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All my phones since 1998

  1. Motorola c520 (Dropped in a creek spring 2000)
  2. Nokia 8110 (Used. Antenna was broke from the start)
  3. Nokia 6150 (Got as a gift)
  4. Nokia 6230i (Wanted a camera. Buttons broke)
  5. Nokia e50 (Wanted to write email on the go)
  6. Nokia 5530 (Brainfart)
  7. iPhone 3 (Got as a gift. Didn’t work well)
  8. Nokia N900 (Bought used. Broke after fall. Was gifted a N800 too)
  9. Samsung s5690 (Wanted a phone that would not break, it broke)
  10. Samsung s3 (Wanted GPS. Screen cracked. Tried to fix, speaker went silent and later screen went dark)
  11. Oneplus3t (Changed battery, a year later screen went dark)
  12. Samsung J7 Prime (Needed a phone that works in USA. Went for kid)
  13. Oneplus 5t (Used, wrote art reviews on train, changed battery went for kid)
  14. Oneplus 8t* (Used, went trough strikes, changed battery)
  15. Jolla Phone 2026 (Used)

All the phones I’ve ever owned. Bought new 8, bought used/got 7. * Current phone.

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Say better, preserve original style:

Slavoj Žižek is right in their analysis: it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine an alternative to capitalism. In this TED talk, we expand on that proposition—or rather, use the same insight and roll with it.

And I won’t spend fifteen minutes of your life dressing up a simple observation with embellishment: for artists, it is easier to imagine the end of capitalism than it is to speak about class.

Speaking about class demands an acknowledgement that it is not simply a matter of recounting a personal history, or isolated experience. It means recognising that the particular artistic expression itself is a manifestation of working-class culture, working-class history, and working-class desire.

And that is the difficult truth we are trying to confront—the hard pill we fail to swallow.

Thank you.