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20210417

I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do (2021) Farbod Fakharzadeh. A strong critique of Finnish cultural and academic life. I feel the stagnation described in this text and I think it is the same fortress of stagnation I’ve clinged to as a career. Being white, I haven’t experienced this stagnation as a result of whiteness; I’ve imagined it as a distinctive trade of the Finnish culture and professional life. There are no careers and there is little circulation, because Helsinki is the endpoint (or Eira district to be specific). After each grant we start anew but older, perhaps energised but more often tired. So, when somebody gets a position in an institution, securing it tightly is a manifestation of professionalism. It is expected for the future prosperity of the trade.

The gig only lasts for five year anyway, after which they’ll have to start applying for grants to sustain themselves. There is intellectual and artistic progress but nowhere to progress to (as of yet anyway, a critical mass is still being accumulated!). Working abroad is difficult because we are dependent on native English/German/French/Russian speakers for engaging in “international” discussions and it feels like trends are set elsewhere. I’ve been told by some artists based in the north that they are primarily approached from central Europe because they are self-funded, efficient and bring good money to “international” projects.

I still thought Western academics really mean what they say in their books. Later I realized that they’ll do the exact opposite if their position of power is threatened.

The text echoes a strong disappointment of universities and the empty promises of western academic life. I sympathize with this. Still… Being in and from a university signifies me as a member of an elite. For me, this vantagepoint makes it possible to accept odd-jobs which I’d otherwise deem degrading (I think being a part of academia is a confidence boost more than a career). Working at (and for) Frame, Kiasma, EMMA or serving as a board-member/staff at SIC, Outo olo, Asbestos etc. can be a once in a lifetime career highlight. Recently we’ve witnessed some sliding from private gallery management positions to serve in museums. But as Fakharzadeh notes, unfortunately serving in an artists run organization very seldom provides similar career opportunities.

I’m puzzled as to how we can better enable this. We need to act fast, because culture and art funding will be severely cut in coming years. Even today we can see Finland failing to sustain the positions babyboomersbabys have established. University staff, museum directors and festival producers are chronically overworked because they can’t afford to employ staff. Which is why Fakharzadehs suggestion of administration pay cuts is great. We should investigate if setting a maximum salary of 2500€/month for all university, government and city culture/art-workers, is a step we need to consider for reaching sustainability and to better enable class circulation. The principal could be summarized as: Less money, more staff. This would mean that people couldn’t afford to live in Eira but I think this is a sacrifice we can live with.

Eventually I’d like to socialize the funds of all Finnish art supporting foundations, use there assets to buy real estates and donate them to to artist run associations. If not that I’d settle for seizing offshore funds of tax-evader or a moderate degree of progressive taxation. I wonder, if we were to de-fund the National Gallery, who in the world would care to witness this art community?

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20210416

Q: Why Blog? A: Blogs Are Great. (2021) Marc Weidenbaum. A simple and joyful list for building up courage to write publicly. I don’t agree with the “4. Write for yourself first and foremost” argument. I get it and I do exactly that, but I want to emphasize that… What’s great about developing as a writer trough blogging is that it is a semi-public performance and you never know whose going to read it. When I write I feel a seeping awareness that someone will hold me accountable for what I say, so I’m challenged to find better ways to describe old ideas and made more aware of the text. I think blogs are especially great for the accountability they provide. Old (hidden but activist archived) blog-posts by neo-nazi-politicians are a good example. (Also… I don’t have a “Have a topic focus”)

Kritiikki on osa journalismia – Nummi ja Löytty sotasilla [Art Critiques are Journalism…] (2021) Pietari Kylmälä. A appendix to a recent interview of Olli Löytty. Kylmälä confronts the Helsingin Sanomat editors and questions their ethics. He ask why the art critiques the newspaper produces do not meet the same editorial scrutiny as the news. Kylmälä spots the deterioration of journalistic ethic and calls for additional resources. He also elegantly crushes Jyrki Nummi’s critique of Löytty’s recent book.

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20210412

Still on The Strangeness of Dub series (2019) Edward George. Learning about King Tubby is great but I’m experiencing the bridges George builds between jazz, electonic avantgarde and dub to be wider then necessary (in episode Distance II). It’s pleasant to learn about dub as a mythical story with genius figures, innovations and tragic artist fates but I think this approach is cutting corners. Not everything needs to make sense (fit a narrative) and valorizing charismatic but conflicted artists causes an unnecessary emotional offset.

Inadvertently I’m listening to more John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhauser trough this source then ever before! George has arranged a very clever and rich selection of music. I particularly enjoyed listening to long and noisy bootleg recordings from the 70ties (in Distance I). The tapes make for a media archeological exploration of King Tubby’s Hometown HIFI in Kingston, Jamaica 1975. The system in the recording was build and operated by King Tubby & U Roy and approaching it trough a flat, gritty tape feels fresh (like exploring the alleyways of an ancient city with a flimsy torch).

And I must add that the wide bridge George builds between King Tubby and Stockhauser as media-deconstructivists who are piecing together a future sound, which operates in a different realm them the past mass-media of past dictators, feels great. The artists were working to hear the sublime by using their sound systems/band filters as navigational instruments! I’ve been inspired to work with dub in my studio recently. I also fondly ponder if our Kaosspad work in Masku Movement qualifies as such, or particularly this Hard Boiled track from 2006. Also bought a used Ginko Synthese Sampleslicer MkII to specifically experiment with dub styles and techniques.

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20210409

Learning from the Virus (2020) Paul B. Preciado. I read the article as a plead to prioritize social and existential diversity in the face of a body flattening pandemic. Diversity has to be activity performed because societies are faced my enormous pressures by the constant surveillance executed by cyber-conservative forces (professors and priests peeping into my bedroom using the Zoom.app — We should explore the kink potential of this arrangement!). The text introduces a lot of fun terms such as “pharmacopornographic” and “cyber-oral”, which references a form of post-internet literacy. “We must go from a forced mutation to a chosen mutation.” Preciado calls and I fear I spot an accelerationist tone (but agree).

We are still in the throes of the transition from a written to a cyber-oral society, from an industrial to an immaterial economy, from a form of disciplinary and architectural control to forms of microprosthetic and media-cybernetic control. In other writings, I’ve used the term pharmacopornographic for this type of management and production of the body as well as to describe the political technologies that produce sexual subjectivity within this new configuration of power and knowledge. […] I use the term pornographic because these management techniques function no longer through the repression and prohibition of sexuality, but through the incitement of consumption and the constant production of a regulated and quantifiable pleasure. The more we consume and the better our health, the better we are controlled.

I’m under a ridiculous workload.  Ridiculous, as in I can only respond to it with a strange smile and the work evades attempts to structure it. It comes like a stealth bomber. Seems like rescheduled events from the past year (or two) are being organized during the next month. These zombie-events come with weird hybrid-baggage. Some talks are organized online but thanks to a recent drop in death counts, there is an interest to organize events face-to-face too. So, there are always two events organized. Performers execute a face-to-face performance bundled into online-performances, wrapped into publications. Working double time space! I’m not worried about a burn-out… I’m morbidly curious as to what shape it will take.

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20210408

Interpreting animals in spaces of cohabitance (2019) Nora Schuurman and Alex Franklin. An inspiring article exploring manifestations of animal agency at horse stables (livery yards to be specific). The article builds a model for horse agency from an array of interviews in which yard managers explain or “narrate” the animals’ behaviour. The approach feels supportive to my own research plans. Yard managers are a convenient source for information because they are responsible for the daily well being of the animals and have to communicate the animals current state to their owners, who possibly only meet their beasts on weekends (as I’ve witnessed at Kylmälänkylä). In short they have to speak for and in behalf of the animals. I think it’s particularly interesting that their expertise is constantly open for questioning as the observed behaviour of the animal can challenge their narration. Also ownership in itself affords an authority in decision making processes.

Referencing Michael Polanyi (1983 [1966]) the authors emphasize tacit knowledge as a key element of the animal interpretation processes: “[T]acit knowledge refers to a personal knowledge or skill that is used in action, but is difficult to explain verbally.” I’m familiar with the claim that tacit it is “difficult to explain”. But I want to underline that there are many reasons for the struggle for verbalizing stuff: Trade secrets, efforts to maintain the aura of the trade, hangover and fatigue. My cynical view is that the struggle is a performance: A performance of professionalism, to be specific. I find this to be a big part of crafts culture. I believe that everything is “difficult to explain” and that every explanation is a crude approximation. From this angle all knowledge (Ikea furniture building guides, academic paper) depends on a tacit-sity (or tactic perhaps?). Also, some aspects of some trades are very easily communicated by sharing choreographies and this makes them more accessible then spoken or written accounts. This would portray academic knowledge as more tacit than craft knowledges. The authors also emphasize that tacit knowledge is an complicated framework, referencing Auli Toom (2006).

Citing Rebecca Cassidy (2002) they bring forths that “[t]acit knowledge is also highly contextual, often tied to working environments and social practices such as the care and training of horses and working with them.” to which I full heartedly agree with to and would like to emphasize on in my reseach. The arrangement and placement of tools (pitchforks, shovels, wheelbarrows) at a stable manifest an intellect (which we can discover by mapping items). The distances of tools and how they are in relation to each other, reveal the choreographies of labour and companionship. This design is informed by both human and animal desires. For example the directions and angles stable doors open to are choreographic apparatuses, they guide the movement of horse handlers and animals so that both will feel safe in manoeuvring in tight spaces (they afford safety). Gates, the complicated process of passing trough gates (which I think horse handling is borderline centred on) and trust issues are discussed relation to Vinciane Desprets writing (2004).

For me it feels like, that in this text tacit is used as a leeway for developing intuitive approaches to caregiving (opposed to a medical approaches etc.). Citing Schuurman (2017) they detail that “tacit knowledge about horses has adapted to the new environments and practices of contemporary horse keeping. Today, it carries information on horse management and care, including the task of communicating with horses and interpreting them as animals in different ways.” This approach works great for me and notes on care is something we could map-out during the upcoming Horse & Build Environment course for Aalto University. But I want to underline that an exploration of the tacit knowledge we develop through horse-human relations may reveal challenging to how care and compassion are currently understood. For example, what how should we approach physical violence from the horses point of view?

To be able to enroll all horses in the process of caring for and being cared for themselves, the yard manager has to specifically identify and manage different subgroups of horses. The size and mix of horses placed in any one field, for example, is significant in maintaining optimum conditions for selfcare. The less conflict there is in the relationships between the horses, the more they can be relied upon to take care of each other. In the case of the livery yards, field groups are commonly kept relatively small or single-sex for this very reason.

The article describes the complexity of social skills (“horse reading”) which maintaining a healthy herds depend on. It’s great that social skills animal management depend on are brought forwards. A regular performance where heard organizations and human activity interplay can be witnessed, is when a singular horse is pulled away from the pasture for work. I would like to add that not all intents for “horse reading“ are benign. For example mounted police officers use their heard and horse reading skills to drive the animal into violent situations and it can also be that the horses are partly driven by this opportunity. Also, horse handlers pick personal favourites and work to advance their position in the herd-organization. I also believe and have witnessed that horse handlers work against the perceived enemies of their favourites.

The type of “narrative analysis” they are developing feels linked to literary or discourse analysis but their approach feels more open for creative interpretations. It also has an archival quality:

The situations in which narration is invoked are multiple. It is used as a technique to communicate interpretations of animal agency within both mundane and eventful human–horse interactions as they take place. It is also drawn upon as a tool to communicate these interactions to others at a later occasion. […] Narrative analysis thus becomes an extremely malleable, flexible, and largely effective method for understanding embodied communication and tacit knowledge within human–animal interaction.