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20210301

Participated in a creative writing class at Aalto facilitated by Fer Boyd. The week was rough but rewarding and I learned a lot on how to host collective writing efforts. Boyd was great and it was relieving to experiment with writing in the Aalto academic context. The group was fun, smart and active! A lot of piercing one-liners and concepts were thrown in the air. “Holy, as in it has holes” was offered was a way to explain the positive effects porousness provides texts. We also discussed that the term and concept of “Native-Speaker” should be abolished. An alternative from Russian language was proposed “Language Carrier”. This would work great in Finnish too: Kantokieli (Äidinkieli < Kantokieli). This would be translated as “tree stump” -language.

There were also some revealing experiments with citations. We observed that in fiction, stories within stories deepen the reading experience. The relations of a reader following a fiction, from were the antagonists of a story hear a new story as a part of their quest, blurs distinctions and suck the reader in (I’m trying to describe the framing techniques of One Thousand and One Nights). In academic writing quotations work in an opposite direction. They push out from the text and present themselves as unnegotiable, hence shallowing the reading experience. I’m tempted to write the bulk of a text as a quote and to infuse my own thinking to it as a quoted fiction.

Wrote two texts I feel confident to tag as Art-Writing.

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20210225

They, a recovering survivalist with limited means, were halted at the border control and tasked to polish their gems for an inspection. Being smart about it they had already disposed, or digested rather the stolen ones before entry and yielded only proper fossils on their wrists. There might have been some crumbs left from the stolen ones but not enough to reveal whose they were. Fake skin bubbles in metal crusts flew past at astonishing speeds and the border officer would have had to shout into the noise to be heard. Not that it mattered, they knew the questions and how to answer, or deliver rather and begun the recitation.

– “All stones are of the same age”. They started.
– “All stones are of the same age, to you” the officer replied in a shallow exhale.
– “Back way back when, when folk still dusted cow brain peels with silver and children sat in silence watching light pass them. A promise was made that a figure would appear which would lead us to a glorious death. I’m a bearer of the peels and the glues.” They handed in their documents and took a step back.
– “I’m a bearer of the peels and the glues, to you” the inspector murmured and performed the stamps.

Both were pleased that the ceremony went easy and so they continued to the queue, waited for their tools and then headed to the antibiotic hills. The work was hard, as expected and drilling took its toll. They proceeded mining through rubble and junk, passing layers of old newspapers but were wise enough not to waste time reading any. Remembering what Outi Heiskanen had told them, that text is not supposed to be read. It is meant to line the edges of the pit, so that it does not cave in.

A gem, which at night returned to them by means of interior circulation, reminded them of a happy summer night. After a glass of wine Heiskanen had asked out loud “Tell me, how do you build a house?”. They remembered replying something, knowing it was irrelevant as Heiskanen knew the only answer: “You start digging… In a day or two a man comes by and they will tell you that you are not doing it right. Then quickly, challenge them and hand them your tools. Go to lunch and wait for the house to be completed. Like this, have a look“.

They had studied the material but doubted that they were building a house now. If they were, the shape of the construction was such that nothing imaginable could survive in it. Unfortunately for them, they were working too close to the shape to see that it was inverted. If they had taken a step back, they would have observed that their efforts were producing a quarry which would eventually serve as a casting mold of the Pori bridge. But they were too concentrated on finding tiny antibiotic particles. The medicine was contained in the droppings of privileged pets of the past. Beasts which had been medicated by high tier professionals of glory days. If the blue rim, surrounding a pile were to be scraped off successfully and digested, it could heal them.

They spend their days working and nights waiting to work. Genuine starlight blessed them trough the ceiling wrinkles of the bubble dome shelter. Having spend two cold days in the pit they spotted the hardend remains of a past miner and a shameless exploration of their dried out dun led to an astonishing discovery. To everyone’s surprise they had breached into a sediment where antibiotics could also be found in the droppings of pet owners! And so they began to scrape around the remains, expecting a glimmering blue rim to appear. They were not discouraged by the sulphuric fumes. Amongst their kin, outlining corpses with furious labor efforts was the highest sign of respect. This kept them working diligently and to top it all, if they had understood Heiskanen correctly, their life would get better soon.

They is Ore.e Refineries (est. 2007) and they offer mineral water made from quarry graffiti (2021). This text is available as a vector-graphic.

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20210224

If I were an unpublishable text I would feel as irrelevant as I feel thinking myself as a god.

I once took part in a communion at a church next to the rail-tracks. The priest, who was one of the first female priests in Helsinki offered us white cookies and wine. I thought it went well, felt serious and fancy. Everyone was silent. As we were walking back to school, Eeva looked me at awe and asked where I got the courage to act as I did. I didn’t understand what she was speaking about but took it as a compliment. It turned out I wasn’t supposed to pick the cookies from the priest plate myself nor to pour my own wine. I was supposed to wait for the offering. My ignorance was interpreted as arrogance and lovingly believed to be a critique. There was some unspoken shame in not knowing how to behave. I believe I was helping myself so that the priest would not feel embarrassed serving me.

Later on in life, this moment gave me some strength in believing I was closer to a pagan than a christian. And yes, I know most christians cherish this believe.

Right now, learning writing feels like praying. A supervisor, peaking amongst a grid of faces, has tasked me to recite prayers for a rational I don’t believe in. The rational I’m tasked to summon is wrapped in a veil of feels. It always is. I’ve performed these rites many times. Bowing, nodding silently, pounding the keys. I’m a good servant, I consider myself clergy even. Obedience should feel comfortable. Thinking optimistically, the irritation I feel is a result of me being confronted with the hollowness of the tone I use. But I’m bored calling for a sense or logic to appear in my own noise. Today inventing stuff makes me feel lonely.

Tomorrow I only want to read the english of non-native speakers. The rest of the lot are cheats. The clergy is not needed now. They need folk at the stables, shovelling wet hey. Why am I so provoked by this all now? Its guilt. Must be. I should be earning money but my hands are tied.

I’m dying to tell you that I have been tasked to write about my mothers dog. It stays with us when she is in treatments. To pray for the beast, can you imagine!

I hate the dog sometimes. I like that the kids like it. It looks at me lovingly and when it pleases me, I look at it that way too. I shout at it to be silent and yank its leach when it goes the wrong way. I have hurt it too. It’s my mothers dog, so it barks at strangers and I don’t know what to do with it. If it were mine it would know better: Wait for them to get close, then bite.

We’ve developed clever routines. When it’s dark enough I open the front door and it rushes to a forest for it’s business. It stays there longer then I want to and goes so deep into the bush that I don’t see it. The only reason I don’t shout after it, is because the site is public and I want to appear cool. Neighbours in the block see us at times. They know I let the a dog out without a leach. “Introducing Berlin dog culture to Käpylä” I say jokingly. Ashamed of being caught but sincere as well.

Sometimes, when it gets darker still I take it for a long walk around the district without a leech. I wouldn’t dear taking an animal I love so close to busy streets uncontrolled. The hate I feel for it offers it liberties I don’t see other dogs having.

There aren’t many things I can confess hating. But hating an animal is accepted because it is a token of a relationship. The dog takes in my hate and uses it to venture deeper into the woods. Eventually it will leave me and I’ll feel free.

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20210222

I’m the key and the lock. I can barely breath as the walls are caving in and I must act fast to open myself. I’m told I’m only one who can find a path but I’m only allowed to move my fingers and have to squint my eyes so that nobody sees what I’m really looking at. I’m looking for a way out, so you know.

But I’m kept firmly behind horizontal bars of organised letters and confronted only by people who know more than I do about what I’m doing. Allowing oneself to be taught, calls for a strong trust to someone who you don’t know. Teaching is about teaching others to trust an unknown.

The bars in front of me tell me that nothing makes sense makes sense. The aim is that people write their own story out of it and discover themselves. Noise is here for us to situate ourselves as ourselves, so that we don’t confuse ourselves to be a choir. But the more situated I become, the more I only hear me.

I keep oriented by remembering that the first thing ever written was a job application. It didn’t include a CV because there hadn’t been any careers yet. I don’t know what the job was. Possibly a middle-management task, like counting stuff. More people were hired as the company expanded, which is how literature was born.

It took a while but eventually literature became very sophisticated and today most of us write receipts. I write receipts because I don’t understand what people are saying. I write it down to figure it out. It’s material, sums and tokens.

Today I got triggered by a tw. It made me feel white, male and privileged. The warning was about what white men in power do. I’m such but something else too. I must be something else then a receipt of my genes.

Later on, a person in a group I work for invited us to confront the patriarchal structures of language. They of course are not talking to me but I feel responsible somehow. So, I intentionally speak less than others only to not come off as dominant. But I fear my silence is speaking too much. Where can we go from here?

Honestly, I don’t really work in the group but my presence is needed for work to exist.

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20210220

Continuing with kettlebells. Working to develop grip and core strength which will prepare me for the physical ordeals of p3rm46r4ff171. Sourced a Lomatex outdoor outfit (Kaamanen Folk-suit desing). The company has an interesting history. A workout for making public artwork is based on a Turkish Get-Up routine (I think the move is an adaptation of routines performed with Persian sangs). Get-Ups are complemented with a rotating set which includes:

  • One Hand Swings
  • Standing Side Presses
  • Forearm Flips
  • Bottoms Up Cleans
  • Snatches (eventually with Bottoms Up)

Digging Robocop Remake – Scene 27 (2014) Fatal Farm. Dick shooting cyborgs to the rescue! Makes an odd fit with the new Can’t Get You Out of My Head (2021) Adam Curtis series. I like the way Curtis links the phases of the Chinese Cultural Revolution with the waves of restlessness which emerged in Europe and USA at the same time. I also enjoy the criticism of managerialism and the consequent interpretation of computers as engines of managerialism. All algorithms, no matter their purpose or whether we understand their workings, are mere servants to managerial ideologies. No matter what, computers obey a logic and this will always make them servants to causal worldviews.