Posted on

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.

Posted on

20201123

Popular ecologically geared art in Finland (art which aspired to advance global ecological sustainability) of the early 2000 was founded on the premise that if people would be made aware of their personal impact on the environment, they would automatically rectify their behavior. This dream lives on in apps which measure domestic power consumption and personal carbon admissions. These dreams build on a belief that when rich people (people who are responsible for the ecological collapse) are made to see the scale of resources their lifestyles depend on, they will seize their harmful activity and better themselves.

It feels evident that representations or even direct depictions of suffering rich people cause, are not enough for stirring up a desire for personal change. (Or that that personal changes are not effective) Which is why the current grant scheme is that audiences have to be trained how to relate, experience and to feel their impact on others. Feeling the suffering of others is expected lead them to adjust their behavior accordingly. In other words artists are aiming to affect change by re-working on their audiences skills in empathy.

Both approaches assume that humans are benign or rational, and that catastrophes are a result of a lack of knowledge or a lack of empathic skills. I think we should develop approaches which are based on the assumption that people harm others intentionally and enjoy doing it. It should be argued that western lifestyles are a death cult and people desire death. This does not mean that they want to die, but it seems they need to be in its proximity for stuff to make sense. There exists an addiction to blood.

Both approaches deploy sneaky pedagogy. The audiences curiosity towards arts and artists is used as a vessel for infusing them with knowledges which alter their behavior. Early ecologically geared art in Finland attempted to shock audiences back on a track of rationality. (Wake up! To the suffering eating meat causes!) Later ecologically geared art seduces and allures audiences to modify their emotional responses and behavior. (What is this think with sleepy metaphors? Whats the deal with people being simultaneously woken and shamed for not dreaming of anew?) These changes echo the shift from the control of bodies, to the control of desires.

I want to acknowledge artistic responses to ecological concerns, which assume that people are evil but that it is ok and can lead to fun results. Having fun is made hard. Life is often portrayed as a survival story. I, for one, have been bombarded by depictions of global catastrophes since childhood. When I close my eyes I can visualize the color schemes of movies, where the survival of the human race is dependent of the resilience of special individuals. Dealing with this imagery and the trauma it caused, is what I’m after when identifying as a recovering survivalist.

Those kind of survival stories are centered on character arcs but what supports the arc is the actuality that everyone else is dead. Those movies and that art I made, are not a celebration of the resourcefulness of man, they are enjoyment over the succulent presence of death. Dead is the only thing a resourceful man is not. It is the landscape which offers contrast to their shape.

These depictions and all representations of human resourcefulness are fantasise of a grand reboot. They enforce the idea that a singular moment in time, the moment of innovation, could work as a fixed point in which the fate of the world is in human hands. A space rocket launch is good illustration of this dream. As the ship leaves orbit the entirety of earth is left behind, this constitutes everything on the earth as a group. A monumental gesture, pushing a button to launch a ship from earth, enforces the idea that all life is progressing at the same pace and that all life is in contact. But I think life is not necessarily in contact with all-other-life and not-all-life on the planet makes sense.

The spesific kind of environmental collapse we are working hard towards, is presented as a global phenomenon which sets all-life on the same baseline. It gives a rush. But this depiction is a manifestation of a particular and particularly monotheistic mindset. It has aesthetic baggage and assumes what life is like. That it has a shape it should abide. Our efforts towards an environmental collapse is a prayer for life to have a comprehensible shape.

A good example is a recent article on rural cat communities in Finland. (Paheneva kissakriisi… / yle.fi) The article details how escaped cats have formed super-local communities (some groups had 250 cats) and focuses on groups which habit very small areas (one population lived primarily under a bridge). As these communities don’t move, they inbreed, which brings about an array of anomalies. The text depicts a case were inbreeding led to a kitten growing the organs inside out. This is not how life is not supposed to look like, hence their existence is interpreted as suffering – According to the article these rural mutant kitten groups are terminated regularly.

Animals adapt to moder and future-modern habitats and the problems is that when they do, they super-exceed our understanding of what they are and what nature is. #ॐ

Time does not progress at the same pace for all. Some of us live in pockets. An environmental collapse only makes sense if you assume that we are all equally effected by pollutants. We are not. It carries with it a dream that we will all come together in death. We will not. The resourcefulness of the mutant kitten groups is deemed horrifying because it shows the shape of things to come. It’s going to be fun.

Posted on

20201117

Enjoying the llllllll forum Orca thread. At first glance the chronological, borderline endless stretch of text appears wastefully organized. Developer notes, memes, old resolved bug reports, feature requests and snippets of code are shared in the same page along with notes on gig venues across the globe. The non-scripting related posts make the thread enjoyable and provide a low-key entrypoint to the Orca/llllllll scene. After reading for a while the thread starts to feel like a space and sets a mood for learning. I’m inadvertently introduced to the history of the program (different development phases), the person who programs it, people who use it and niches of their behavior. As I’m working trough the body of the text to gain elementary skills for working in the Orca environment, I’m simultaneously learning to identity the stylistic quirks of frequent contributors and exposed to the sounds they make.

For learning a new skill I’m relying on some kind of unresolved narrative: Relations I form with abstract usernames and the script fragments they paste to a thread. This being ultimately a textual experience, I notice that I’m involved in a world building process. I’m copying someones script to form an auditive creation only I hear. Working on Norns I use Orca to trigger samples, so the copied scripts produce different sounds to the examples contributors have posted. But the actual sounds are not important for learning. What I’m looking for is the emergence of the same script behavior and patterns of noises they produce. Our patches are similar, they obey the same rules and as I read the thread, and meticulously transcribe the coded text snippets to my screen, we —different users— play and build pattern-islands into the same universe. Below is an example of user neauoire’s condensing of an Allieway_Audio Linear Feedback Shift Register (LFSR) script.

05O..05OS
aV...bV..
..2Kab...
...F.....
..F*.....
7L.......
........0

The anecdotes authors share on the thread (videos on instagram) serve as anchor points for remembering features of the Orca operators. Some notes are autobiographical, such as documentations of live gigs. The patterns I draft on my screen remind me of the anecdotes and link my learning progress to theirs. This reminds me of the endless library Jorge Borges drafted. The abstract script snippets Orca users use for communicating a vibe, are nonsensical literary creations which require a complicated machine to transcribe (which operates on machine code). The feel of the endless library is well described in a recent video The Shape of Infinity (2020) by Jacob Geller.

It is particularly interesting that, in the process of copying fragments of Orca script, the sounds different creators produce from it are different but they appear in the same patterns. They share a structure but produce wildly different musical outcomes.

I don’t think this is the same conundrum as the relationship which musical notations have to the sounds musicians produce from their instruments. When I observe how a script plays a sound, I’m not hearing how a someone interprets notations or how their instrument reacts to the their movement. The complexity of the code can affect the sound source (in my case samples) to such an extent that the potential musicality of a pattern is more a result of the script then the timbres of the sound source. Also, our instruments are identical.

Its the same as with blackmidi stuff, where we are not listening to sounds or melodies, we are listening to complexity and forming opinions on the experience by comparing different performances of complexity. Eventually the complexity will cause glitches, which can make the inner conjures of the computer audible. I’ve heard them appear during a live coding performance by Viktor Toikkanen when his computer was pushed to memory overload territory. The machine cried glitches which felt like grains pushing trough the code.

Edit: In a recent thread on llllllll xmacex investigates peoples interest in sharing Norns parameter or PSET files

Sonically speaking norns PSETs are the specifics of an instrument and specify it’s tonal character. Philosophically speaking norns PSETs are artefacts and representations produced in the intimate interaction of the agential subjecthood of a norns user and the removed presence of the script designer and creator.

Posted on

20200515

In Finland artists grants for individuals are called “apuraha”. I think a direct translation for this would be “support fund”. I like the term a lot: A fund intended to support an artist, such a beautiful idea! I imagine the name stems from an era when artists made their living primarily by selling artworks. The state and private foundations would grant their unconditional support when an artist wanted to take a break to develop their style.

Right after the covid lockdown was announced, the state and almost all Finnish art supporting foundations started developing covid relief packages. These were aimed for artists and creatives who lost their income in the first wave. Some of these arrangements were announced within two weeks after the lockdown and the first grants were given almost within a month. This was a great effort!

The covid grants which private foundations offer are also called “apuraha” (support fund) but in inspection, none of their open calls are meant to support artist unconditionally. The funds are aimed only for development and innovation. A prime example of this was a recent Kone foundation open call (mentioned earlier), which was criticized by Maria Ylikangas (among others). The fatigue caused by inventing creative responses to covid related calls has been criticized by Kaino Wennerstrand (among others).

In short: Private foundations want artists to produce innovation. The are specifically looking for “digital-leaps” and ways to adjust artistic practices to new digital platforms. As pointed by Ylikangas, the foundations are looking for black swan-opportunities! And this happens without shame at a time when people most affected by the lockdown, have very little freedom and very little to offer.

I think the funding private foundations offer should not be called “apuraha”. They should be called for what they are: “Development funds” (kehitysrahoitus). The covid period will serve as a historical reminder that private foundations have very clear political aims and specific agendas. They never support artists unconditionally.

I’m fine with this but the problem is that in Finland, foundations seldom announce their political agendas directly. They are clearly after something but their programmes are unarticulated. The public is left to interpret what a foundations mission is by reading their open calls and by mapping who they have funded before. In inspection they are seeking abstract nonsense such as “boldness” or “digital leaps”. What do these calls actually mean, what kind of a society are they working for? Their current, wittingly drafted press-releases, underline universal humanistic ideals and creative freedom. But don’t actually say anything: Which means that they are for maintaining status quo.

I think this needs to change. If private foundations do not clearly announce that they are working for social justice, equality and to maintain the welfare state, then they are not. #☭

Posted on

20200122

Private arts supporting foundations and the Arts Promotion Center of Finland offer grant writing workshops for individual artists and working groups. I’ve been to a few info-events and they are useful, particularly if you are new to the scene. I’ve learned that when you write for one organization you can easily reformat your texts to fit in the procedures of another. Many of them use the same web platform for application submissions, which means that mismatches are easily resolved. Only a paragraph here and there might need work. One organization might look for proposals which support local cultural practices (nationally defined) and an other seek to advance a particular artistic medium or field (design/performance). Adding emphasis to a proposal is a cosmetic manoeuvre. My desire can be to work in public spaces and I can sincerely frame this as a “localized cultural practice” or an attempt to “make performance art more accessible”. This does not affect what I’m doing (making space public) or how I view my work.

I understand why funding organizations call for proposals with specific goals. They serve their mission and align with policies that are set by the state or the city. The same cosmetic manoeuvres are at play on both sides. Understanding budgeting, project management and how to frame artistic aims within an organizations mission is good to learn. Writing an application is learning how institutions think. There is always a chaotic element involved. Even when you follow guidelines and your peers review a proposal, it can (and most likely will) get rejected. Organizations don’t offer feedback for individual artist (feedback is sometimes provided for associations which employ people). The best feedback I’ve received has been from peers who have worked in the proposal evaluation boards. Most of them say that short and easy to read texts work best. Most of them have also revealed that luck is very much involved in the process.

I enjoy developing proposals. The writing process sets a trajectory for my work and keeping my CV updated is good for maintaining an archive on where I’ve been and with whom I’ve traveled with. But recently I’ve begun to wonder who is teaching the foundations and the arts promotion centers to read applications? I don’t think it’s in anyone’s benefit that artists learn to make cosmetic maneuvers in aligning their desires with the vague organizational goals of exclusive institutions. A more beneficial cultural movement would be that applications would be written as the applicants pleases and the institutions would use their resources in learning how to read. How can we teach institutions to read? This is a naïve wish. I fear that people who have money get to decide what will happen next. I only have the power to make proposals. This is a good power but only sends weak signals.