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20200308

Labour of the Artist, Feminist Practices and Troubles with the Infrastructure (2019) Bojana Kunst (via Academy of Fine Arts in Prague). Citing Isabell Lorey, Kunst argues that people are governed by precarity and that a constant state of self-organizing is drawing resources from our potential to organize collectively. In other words: Precarity hinders possibilities to imagine political continuity. She argues that precarity is structured or enforced by the infrastructure of our cities and states that the activities of urban feminist artists and collectives in the 70ties were a response to a collapse of welfare infrastructure (in her view infrastructure becomes visible only when it is in crisis). Kunst builds a case that many leftist artistic movements which desire to repair infrastructure end-up reproducing its problems. It’s not beneficial to cling on to good feelings which responding to symptoms of infrastructural collapse offer. More effort should be put in problematizing conditions cause its hindrance. Unfortunately struggle for a future has been replaced by a struggle of maintaining life in contemporary cities. The film she refers to in the beginning is Subjektitude (1967) Helke Sander. Here is a powerful extract (or short film?) of hers: Nr 1 Aus Berichten der Wach und Patrouillendienste (1985).

Visited Makamik squat but came too late for the support gigs. Felt like a warm community and I hope to visit it again. The last set had a lot of modular synth gear on stage. Feels weird to see modular synths at a squat: There is a mismatch between the affordability of the gear and the accessibility of the site. But modular synths in a squat make complete sense on a conceptually! Also I think gaining skills in diy electronics could easily be scaled to skills in working with the house electricity systems.

The state of economics can be measured from the temperature of elderly world leaders. #☭

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20200306

The racist and fear mongering Finns Party is normalizing a process were people in power use linguistic loopholes to embed racial slurs and toxic opinions into public statements. Its an infantile method for seeking attention. Like when a parent says “Don’t walk indoors with your muddy shoes” and a rebellious child responds by jumping around while shouting “But dad I’m not walking!”. Instead of saying what they mean, they say imply what they mean and if they are called out, they engage in pedantic shenanigans to normalize slurs. This toxic jargon is now used by the UROS company as a response over critique of the naming process of a controversial sports arena in Tampere.

The company name UROS stands for MALE in Finnish and its staff consists of 26 males and two women. They are the main sponsor of the arena and have decided to name it UROS LIVE. As a response to critique over naming a gigantic urban development project as MALE, the company representative claims that the name “does not have anything to do with gender”. The spokeperson-manchild insists the name is a mere abbreviation of their English name “Universal ROaming Solutions” (which they chose for the company). This process is a good example of what happens when rich people extend their economical dominance to infrastructure.

If I keep drinking mineral water made from Finlandia Hall marble I’ll replace the calcium in my bones with the building and effectively become a building myself. If I read wikipedia correctly it’ll take 10 years for my bone minerals to be swapped. Currently my weight is ~2mg Finlandia Hall. Not all of the calcium I’ve drank will absorb to my bones but still… An interesting side-effect worth exploring. Eventually I might start hosting seminars in my body.

Preparing for Konsthall C gig and exhibition. Using kitchenware bought from Ikea for rock & mineral sample extraction tools, modified a speaker to play rock extraction sounds periodically. Made the speaker interface pretty using a novel silicone-molding technique. Worked with it like plaster and dyed it green (diy orthopedic skills were deployed). Had a pleasant chat with Moa Tunström who gave us a really thorough introduction to the Hökarängen district during our visit there. I’m still processing the interview material. Her input feels valuable for a performance architectural analysis of the district.

Saw Grâce by Anna Torkkel at Kiasma. The piece was a celebration of the diversity of movement and worked well for inspiration. I laughed trough the show and the sound design was great. But driving back home I felt puzzled. The contemporary dance I see in Helsinki feels a praxis were people take turns in watching each others move in freely.

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20200228

The Society of Enmity (2016) Achille Mbembe. A very broad and complicated text dealing with movement, (past&present) apartheid and death. The text introduces interesting concepts such as “algorithmic reason” and argues that the triumph of mass morality (social media?) is an emergence of fundamentalism which in itself is “no longer considered as antithetical to rational knowledge”. An other interesting concept is “Nanoracism” (or “pocket-knife racism”), a mollecular level technique for marginalizing others (trough personal martyrdom?). I also spotted a strong critique from the text: The re-emergence of racism in Europe is in fact a return to how things have always been. The text ends in a useful dismissal of the apocalypse.

Pushed to its logical conclusion, the phantasy of annihilation or destruction envisions not only the bombing of the planet, but also the disappearance of humans, their outright extinction. This is not an apocalypse as such, if only because the notion of the apocalypse presupposes the survival, somewhere, of a witness whose task it is to recount what they see. It is a form of annihilation conceived not as a catastrophe to be feared, but rather as a sort of act of purification by fire. However, it remains the case that this purification would be the same as an annihilation of present humanity. Such an act of annihilation is supposed to open the way to another beginning, the inception of another history without today’s humanity. It is, in this sense, a phantasy of ablation.

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20200224

Wonderful media-and-meta-archeology project: Fossil Data Part 1: Paleontologic Data Fossilized on IBM 8” Floppies and Fossil Data Part 2: 8-Inch IBM Floppy Data Recovery by CuriousMarc. A group of scientist and archivists restore archeological data from old floppies.

Swapped my Volka Keys to a KP3 and my QuNexus to a Keystep. Hardware synths are a more sustainable hobby then people give it credit for. After a certain base gear limit is breached the gearstock evolves to a library of sorts. The trading arrangements are unfortunately educating me to not-to-modify gear (no stickers, no mods, no weird knobs). This goes against what I think owning is: A process of mending modifying and living with stuff. In the synth trading game stuff is meant to look like it has never been touched. People even mention this as a value factor: No rackrash. What is that about? Surely if a reality which is not used it means its a crappy reality.

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20200220

Ultra Rare Recording of Rhizome Engaging in Praxis (2020) Michael Connor. A lengthy podcast discussing a recent event in New York “which brought together four Gen Z leftist meme practitioners for a conversation with artist Joshua Citarella”. Aria Dean and a “Gen Z representative” Josh are also featured. I’m irritated by the style of the talk. It feels more like an academic spar then a discussion. The talk echoes a near fatalistic relationship to text. I also dislike their agenda of framing political history as a battle between generations. Why do they focus so heavily on aesthetics different age groups use for communicating? I don’t think they believe in a future, they are stuck on rhetorics!

Memes have taken the place of fiction, they tell about futures which don’t yet exits. -Josh