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20180320

The Black Panther was a good movie (for a Marvel movie). It is definitely a emancipatory experience for many but it’s definitely not a decolonial movie. It was fun to see how white characters are bashed on screen, told to be silent while the heroes of the story talk. White character were only used for comic relief and depicted as amoral and/or goofy. Some segments of the white characters story arcs were cut away and only mentioned through the heros dialogue (The event were CIA agent Everett K. Ross is locked in his room is not depicted on screen). The director Ryan Coogler is aware of what he is doing and not shy to show the reality which he has to work trough. The casino scene is a great example: T’Challa the king of the fictional Wakanda kingdom wins at the roulette wheel but a battle erupts before he can collect his winnings. A random casino visitor, depicted by Stan Lee casually collects the chips and cracks a joke while ripping him off.

Unfortunately the movie depicts muslims as savage kidnappers and offers a universalist techno-optimistic narrative. The Wakanda nation (an utopian African nation which is untouched by colonialism) has developed exactly the same technologies as their North American peers. Their military corps use remotely controlled drones for abroad military missions. They weaponize cars to pursuit their enemies remotely. The capital city of Wakanda is a mirror image of Manhattan, only color schemes and building facades look different. Wakandan scientist are shown to use medical technologies which penetrate bodies and produce 3D renderings of injuries.

As if unhinged innovation would result into identical technological development in every culture. There is a joke about this in the movie when Shuri (naïvely) invents a Wakandan version of sneakers (so that the Black Panther can move silently). The joke was fun until a quick search online reveals multiple franchise deals with multiple shoe companies, licensed to manufacture Black Panther branded footwear.

Despite the faults it’s great that a mainstream superhero film from Hollywood discusses colonisation and the history African slavery. As a part if the plot a museum is shown to falsify African history, so Erik Killmonger as a museum guest (a decent of a culture which artifacts are on display) reclaims the items from the museum (the museum staff is killed in the process). M’Baku the Man-Ape is a cool hero, he is proud to display his raw strength and savage attitude (the character feels like a direct comment to the H&M “coolest monkey in the jungle” controversy!). The movie plays on a binary reversal of stereotypical roles, which makes it difficult to sypher. Some parts feel like meta-critique of western-white-culture but the binary reversal somehow turns against itself. The movies fetisizes the US army trough the figure of Killmonger: The characters military merits and killcount are casually drooled on.

The most radical part of the movies was a scene where T’Challa and Okoye (Bodyguard from the all-female special forces of Wakanda) negotiate with CIA agent Ross how to organize the interrogation of a prisoner. The agent informs them that the CIA will handle the situation and advise them to stand down. T’Challa and Okoye ignore him casually, they don’t even understand what the agent is saying: They can’t even imagine taking orders from a representative of a foreign nation – They can’t imagine a reality were whiteness grants authority.

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20180221

Call for Action: Key Moments in Estonian Performance seminar at Kiasma by Anu Allas (Kumu) and Maria Arusoo (Center for Cont. Art Estonia) was a tad unbalanced. The presentation felt like a marketing event and suffered from technical difficulties.

Allas opened the event by explaining that Estonia was “The West of the Soviet Union” and that artists generally enjoyed the protection of the state and their experimentations (influenced by John Cage and the Fluxus-movement) were condoned and encouraged. She presented Pirita beach as an important venue and explained how the artists of the 70ies were influenced by Western art: “They just heard what artists in the West had done and tried to do something similar”.

The humorous nature of early performance art was underlined but unfortunately the political nature of this humourness was not identified as a method for organizing soviet underground art (Crusaders’ School of Pure Humour Without Joke in Prague is one example, Natalia Lach-Lachowicz from Poland an other). Allas claimed that there was no underground arts in Estonia. She mentioned artists Jüri Okas (Water Man, 1971), Siim-Tanel Annus and Raoul Kurvitz. The last two were presented as key figures of the post-soviet performance scene: “The Western art world expected that after the collapse of the soviet union these kinds of physical artist, manifesting raw creativity would emerge. They thought that this kind of expression had been suppressed by the soviet regime and wanted to witness it being liberated”.

Jaan Toomik (my guru from 2007) was mentioned as a god-father figure of Estonian contemporary art. He was framed as an “export artist”, a male hero of his time. We saw extracts from “Dancing Home” (1995) and “Dancing with Dad” (2003). I like both works (A lot of Estonian classic performance art can be found online). His work was presented as “responsive”, in comparison to feminist artist of today whos practice was presented as “reflective”. Valie Export Society was referred to but unfortunately the presentation didn’t cover their work in detail.

It occurred to me that “location sensitive art” made in post-soviet / peripheral-west countries is a perverse form of nationalism. Artist utilize western proven styles to exhibit their personal freedoms (which is often framed as creative violence against status quo). In this process their audiences can identify how these styles differ from the local culture and values and feel different (from the west) but the same (as the westerners). Post-soviet artists are celebrate for their creative independence but their value is judged based on how they received by western audiences.

Note: “Location sensitive art” came about as a concept in a discussion with Kristian. He told me about his trip to Ahmedabad and explained that locals navigate the city (and their lives) following a contextual map. Their caste, profession and religious prophecies determine what is possible for them, where, how and at what time of the day they can move. Kristian explained that westerners are “not location sensitive”, they believe that they have the responsibility to test the world.

The rest of the presentation was off balanced. Arusoo referred to Ene-Liis Semper, Flo Kasearu, Kris Lamsalu and Maria Metsalu but their work were presented in a form of a sales pitch: “She has refused to perform this work many times […] you at Kiasma are very lucky to have her here…” etc.

The history of Estonian performance art came off as a narrative on how a fringe ex-soviet society became an incubator for generic western aesthetics and styles: “Now we are equal to every other european country, many artists who work locally feel left out.. This is why there is now interest to developing collaborations with other ex-soviet countries”. Non Grata was not mentioned (as a member of the Estonian performance art family) and for some reason events between 1970-1990 were not discussed.

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At first I thought that museums in Finland were interested in graffiti because it provides a simplified approach to postructuralism and the performativity of the public space: Everything is text. Top-down design of public spaces enforce normative behaviour. Artists are no longer geniuses, everybody must be granted the right to author public space etc.

But unfortunately it seems that museums are interested in graffiti-artist for very different reasons. They fit the role museums have reserved for artists of the past. Museums present them as avantgarde underdogs fighting for our right to express ourselves. Justice warriors without economical interests, emitting pure creativity. The first approach was oversimplified but the latter is offensive.

How Facebook Is Killing Comedy (2018) Sarah Aswell.

The other solution, which seems crazy, is for there to be a meta organizing campaign, where media companies band together and refuse to post on Facebook, essentially going on strike and withholding their labor until they are compensated. These media companies need leverage against this massive entity that is eating their lunch. That’s the labor problem.

There’s a reason that Mad magazine looks different from Vanity Fair. They need to convey a different aesthetic and a different tone for their content to really pop. Facebook is the great de-contextualizer.

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Aikamme estetiikka: kapitalistinen realismi (2017) Anna Tuori & Aleksis Salusjärvi. The criticism of boring artist is appealing but the rest of the text is silly and echoes a besserwisser mindset. It fails to provoke because many of the claims are inaccurate. The text is fueled with a hatred towards computers and tactical artist who succeed in renewing and maintaining their practice despite current cultural schemes. I don’t think we need culture journalism which attempts to convince audiences about the intrinsic value of art – We need cultural journalism to make sense of the world (with art as a collaborator when possible and sensible). Salusjärvi has made a career as a protector of the autonomy of the arts, but I’d much rather read texts in which he would analyse the world in an equal partnership together with artworks. Art it not a weekling. The text makes me think that culture journalists frame themselves as champions for the autonomy of arts primarily because it helps them to protects their jobs.

Culture journalist need art more then artist need culture journalists. #ॐ

Listening to noise or ambient is scary. I’m sometimes afraid that the musician is faking it and tricking me, playing games with my lack of taste and testing me. Watching a noise/ambient gig live doesn’t help.. The PA of the venue alone has such a powerful impact that I can’t recognize which part of the acoustic experience is rooted on the musicians expression and what is a result of the volume/acoustics/resonances. The best way to experience music is by participating to it by dancing or playing along. Unfortunately opportunities to do this are rare. I guess this is why I’ve grown fond of instrument demo videos. They feel honest.. I like videos in which musicians experiment with the technical properties of effects pedals etc. My position as an audience is clear and the sonic experience is not presented as “art”. This makes it easy to enjoy new sounds. Listening to effect pedal demo videos is the best route in developing acoustic awareness which is not dependent on interpretation of the artists motives. Effect pedal demo videos form the basis of a natural ecology of un-natural machine made sounds.

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Visited Theater Academy Dance department solo-demo evening by invitation of Matilda. The night included eight pieces in an almost 5 hour long potpourri.

Aino Purhoses “Never place a body in another body of water” was a solid start. She invited the audience to plant their feet in buckets of water while she played with water using various containers. The most striking moment was when she power-stirred plain water using a blender and then touched the moving water in the blender with her hand and face. I felt connected to her through my wet feet. She sang an improvised tune and curled inside an inflatable children’s water pool.

Riikka Laurilehto performed a piece which was framed with the text “Most of the materials used in this performance are not mine. It’s just another hybrid”. She worked with plastic toys, wore a jaguar bodysuit and sang. A Kaoss Pad 2 was used as an effect (Delay 29 spotted!). A humorous piece which felt inspired by The Queer Futurity of Plastic (2014) by Heather Davis.

Both of the pieces mentioned here were very similar to standard performance art pieces (single concept gestures, 20min and light hearted self-exposure to emphasize with). But as the artists were brilliant and fit dancer bodies everything looked a tad too perfect. The rest of the pieces were more standard contemporary dance (floorwork, tremors, intensive gazes and everyday choreography performed in an acrobatic manner).

Matilda’s piece was one of the best ones. She positioned the audience inside black squares which had been drawn on the floor using tape. Then she started with a warm up in semi-darkness (which looked elegant, lamps reflected reddish hues). After this she performed small breathing movements for the audience from inside a smaller black square. She was in an intimate relationship with her movements and we were invited to participate in her relationship to the movements – This relationship was the dance. I guess that the statement of the piece was: There is movement. Which is important.

Watching young dancers perform was a great way to tap into how young artists position themselves in regards to theory. Laurilehtos and Purhoses pieces felt like physical illustrations of new materialism and anthropogenic thinking. Because they have grown up with these theories (as artists), they know them well enough to play with their personal relationship to them. Their pieces were not about the-end-of-the-world but their relationship to allegations about the-end-of-the-world. This kind of relationship is often analysed as an ironic stance.. But I think they were just trying to be humans despite of theory.