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20170323

Float like an artists, sting like an institution. #ॐ

The SOW: Blacksmith ed1 metadata .cvs asks for intensive work but I’ll try to have it ready by tonight. Witness evidences of labor online.

Shot video at the Helsinki mounted police crowd control training session in the morning. Inhaled training mace spray and horse manure. Horses marched through smoke and flags were waved. A gun was shot at random. The sun was low and the officers backlit. The event looked like a buddhistic ritual. I was offered the opportunity to join their training sessions with the defence forces. Unfortunately the session will take place on the same day as our Kontula Electronic gig. Morning with the horses and evening with techno. Art, spring, stress.

Dance lessons were fun and intensive. Learned some Pilates movements but hurt my wrist (The pain comes from poorly executed kettlebell lifts and unergonomic phone handling). Mr. Pilates believed that modern work and lifestyles have weakend our bodies and to fix us into shape he develloped the practice of Contrology (know today as Pilates). 

During the process of disemboweling charismatic authorities as political organizers – A mass of physical authorities telling us how to live in our bodies has a emerged. 

Wonder if there is some sort of Anarcolates out there which would aspire break our bodies? Movement is always relational (to body parts, others and spaces) which makes autonomy as a body impossible. Anarcolatic exercises would attempt to replace current relations with new codependencies. Such new codependencies should be toxic and work to free us from the temporality (history) of the body. Perhaps technology could be used to mutate us! A dancer providing and controlling the oxygen flow of an other with a pump serves as an simplified illustration.

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20161215

They want us to use our bodies as keys. Fingerprints and iris scanners open doors.

The Cruel Radiance of What Is course came to an end. My last teaching gig was on Monday but all of the students skipped class! Only 2-4 students attended the course in general so their absence didn’t feel like a protest. People who joined the kettlebell workout were really delighted of the style of teaching I’m currently into. We met with Mikko, Miina & Arttu and two students yesterday for our final joined meeting. We ended up talking chop but the event was fun.

Visited Perfo performance event in Tampere on Thursday. Saw performances by Asko Nivala (a “failed Hannibal Lecter” / meet-is-murder cabaret), Suvi Suvereeni (a very fluid collaboration with Siri the intelligent personal assistant. A low key, personal approach to the technology yielded revelations on how the technology perceives us!), Tuuli Tuikka (an anti-art & anti-capitalism manifest on how nature and creative experiences are commodified. She shredded and packaged a flower into plastic containers) and Joulumaa (a four member noise ensemble doing a faux-ritualistic, holistic noise show. The sounds were too orchestrated for my taste and their stage work came of as flamboyant. I did get to see a 16 channel mixer being used as a percussion instrument, which is a novel sight).

After the festival I chatted with Janne Rahkila about rejoining the Perfo crew for next year. I’d continue working with the streaming system.. I’m hesitant about the gig. I don’t believe in live-video streams anymore. Perhaps I should make interviews of the artists as text and brief synopses of their performances instead. Also met with Timo Bredenberg and we had the last meeting of our “In the Flow” (Groys 2016) reading circle (some ideas in the book are useful but the authors style is too tandy).

I’m now preparing for a grant award event at the Taidehalli. I got a “The Young Artist Grant” from the Finnish Art Society. Also got a techo gig (with a workout theme) for next years Kontula Electronic. I’ll likely be joined by Kristian Ekholm (and Pietari if he finds the time. I haven’t talked about this with him yet). Also got news from Antoine that our Trans-Horse proposal for Signal festival is being processed by the production crew.

Uplifting news all around.

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20161206

Followed the mounted police force of Helsinki trough the independence day rallies. Eight hours in minus five celsius weather and I only got one decent shot of the horses. A pair of geldings grooming each other, yellow back light and police lights reflecting from their facial armor plexiglass. The nationalist “612 freedom rally” was an eye opener.. Bigotry is winning.

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20161026

Joined the “Paikan tuntu –  Kohtaamisia unohdetuissa tiloissa” book lauch at the Orion movie theatre. Antti Möller who edited the near 200 page book hosted the event. He invited artists and people who had partisipated in various events of the three year long “Paikan tuntu” project on stage. The project and the event are organized by the Union for Rural Culture and Education and the book published be their sister organization Maanhenki. Möller interviewed myself and Hanna Johansson newly appointed Professor of Contemporary Art Research of the from the University of the Arts about how the role of artists has changed. Johansson has written a short text on the matter for the book. Her text is a cry for more serious strategies for cultural organisations and more challenging artworks (But it’s disguised as a celebration of the “Paikan tuntu” project).

Möller invited Marjo Priha on stage in behalf of the Helsinki Zoo organisation and asked her how had the artworks (made at the zoo over the course of the three year project by some 150 artists) had effected the site. She replied that she had come to understand that: “The skill of looking at things you don’t understand is skill which is best trough artworks” #ॐ.  After the talks we watched video documentations of the project on the theatres big screen. My short about Päivi Allonen looked good and the audio worked too. It was zoomed to 4:3 size but served well. This was the first time I got to see my Panasonic GH3 footage I had shot on a big screen! With proper color grading it would serve even better.

Bought 100% cotton jeans and I have to learn how to stretch them.

Interesting text about the political-body-building in dance “Expressed in Fits” by Rachel Elizabeth Jones: “[…] the everyday traumas of racism, classism, and sexism live, at least in part, in the body; and the physical release of that trauma through dance is redemptive”.