Suffocating the academic and student solidarity movement for Palestinian liberation in Finnish higher education (2023) Anaïs Duong-Pedica is a warning of an arriving regime. It maps out how the Palestinian Solidarity Movement in Finland is being shunned and how people asking for a ceasefire for Gaza are silenced by public institutions they serve. We are now witnessing proper censorship acts for example at Aalto University, where a students course work was removed before it was evaluated by the teacher. I imagine similar cases happening in the press too. There is too much happening to plot out what is taking place in the domain of art but it appears that presenting opinions publicly, which work against a mainstream narrative and against a definition dividing people as terrorists or human rights advocates, based on their usefulness for western powers, are made more difficult then before.
20210913
“Feed me, so that I may feed the horses”. My Kone Foundation application in a nutshell. The text is in Finnish and available trough this link. I think this is the last time I’ll apply funding for the Trans-Horse initiative in a research framework. This marks the fifth year I’m approaching art and research funders in Finland with the same core idea. The idea is simple: To ask a horse what we should do next. If this application returns as a dud, I have to move on before the zombie-proposal consumes me. I will also have to seriously reconsider if I can continue in the PhD program at Aalto. The university has been generous by offering a few teaching gigs and I’ve also inspected two master’s thesis but there isn’t enough paid academic work to sustain active participation and involvement with the faculty. I don’t have the means to commit. The odd-jobs and gigs I manage to secure require dedication which make reading and writing difficult. If the Kone and Finnish Cultural Foundation applications fail, I’ll try to source money for a small independent publication which will summarize the work I’ve done teaching art with-and-in relation to horses. I don’t believe not having a degree is a hindrance for the work I do and I don’t think it has a severe impact on my opportunities to be employed by universities because my asset lie in engagement rather then research.
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.
20210324
Upholstered a Håg kneeling chair which I bought for cheep. Might have to replace the gas spring and wheels too but it works for now. Found a good supplier for strong plastic foam (LIMI P80) in Kerava and sourced leftover canvas from an upcycling bin. The foam is sturdy but soft, intended for upholstery of industrial machine seats. Felt weird to buy new plastic foam to this world but SURREAL SALAD (2020) by Heini Aho comforted me. Her video is perfect for coping with toxic-futures. I think I used too much glue. There is a faint intoxicating smell in the room I work but I’m using it for my benefit (working on grant-applications and preparing a teaching gig for Aalto).
Spotted a small clip about the expo2001∞ fanzine/exhibition by Daniel Kupferberg online. We contributed an angry Trans-Horse text to it. The zine-format is inspirational. We will be hopefully produce a zine during the upcomming Horse & Build Environment course too.
Dreaming of a Ginko Synthese Sampleslicer II. Their LFOv2 is a part of nearly every patch I make. Still experiencing inconsistencies with the Norns Orca ! cc outputs.
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.