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20210317

p3rm46r4ff171 carvings have been executed successfully. Together with Jesse, we managed to produce a little above 45 tags to the Kannistonkallio quarry. Most graffiti we worked on was at ground level, some were reached by climbing and others from the top of the hill. Sizes varied, most text and images being below a meter in heigh and spanning one to three meters. We used mostly chisels and a few outlines were made with an angle grinder. Some stylistic experiments with steel rods were made too. We are currently preparing to print an image of the graffiti for the Performing the Fringe exhibition. There is also a plan to publish some teasers on the Pori Art Museum instagram. Here is a low resolution video showing highlights. Music is by tyops.

Ruosniemi hills are located 7km north-east from the Pori centre. There are a few Bronze Age constructions in the area such as the Ruosniemi metsasarat burial mounts. A corner of the hills called Kannistonkallio (38m high) was established as a quarry in the 1920ties. Granite from the site was used for the construction of the Pori bridge (completed in 1926). During the Continuation War German troops operating in Finland forced Soviet war prisoners to work the mine and to produce material for an expansion of the Pori Airport. After the war the quarry was used by the city for producing gravel and an entrepreneur manufactured pavement at the site. Local kids stole dynamite from the quarry storages and practised ski jumping on the hills.

Some time in the 80ties the pit which the mining operations produced filled with water and became a popular swimming site. The pond is known as “Ankkalampi” (Duckpond) and it is believed that the water seeps from a groundwater source. Crabs and fish have been planted to the pond. The quarry is mentioned in the Geological Survey of Finland database and photographs of the Ruosniemen sepelilouhos are dated to before 1996. Some texts in the current graffiti date the writings to 1987. Illustrations and texts are spread along the over 100m long hill edge. In 2018 a pair entrepreneurs established a outdoor centre called FinnDome to the site. FinnDome houses guest in dome-shelters close to the pond.

The selection of graffiti we engraved was based on intuition and we worked independently to cover the vast area. Initially I was inspired to engrave texts which were made to hard to reach locations. Engraving text to hard to reach spots was a way of connecting with the original authors. In some cases I didn’t engrave texts because the spot had required tremendous courage to reach. I wanted to leave them undisturbed. The majority of the texts we wrote are names and nicknames like ana, anzu, eero, erno, hanna, lepis, limppu, miia, niina, riikka, tero and so on. There was a considerable amount of love confessions and some like emmi <3 samppa got engraved. Others were left untouched because fading-love can be a beautiful process.

Looking at photos from the site most of the graffiti we engraved were written in plain handwriting and a significant portion are names of girls. We were also motivated in engraving asemic utters like pippui, oky-mus-porkka and odd illustrations. Some might have initially been parts of longer texts which had eroded over time. Some focus was also given to proto-global graffiti signs such as zeni, zlim and hamp. These sound like something kids born in the eighties might imagine rappers saying (I threw a tag which read zikke around -93, it was written so that it could be read as zakke and derived from my old name Sakke). The letter Z is exotic for the Finnish language.

We also engraved brand names such as hilux, bimmer (and possibly JAPA). In this context, it felt like the authors had written them as prays of sorts. Or perhaps social pressure had forced the authors to produce brand names instead of opinions. The shape of the quarry formed an opening with two distinct stages. The setting invited a dramatic reading of the original texts. It felt like the original authors had channeled deep feels. There were some crude markings and signs which showed that the authors had been working with their haterade, fears and desires. To reach some spots the authors have performed life-threatening climbs.

I think the audience we made this work for does not resite in our time. The audience we worked for occupies a beautiful ruin, where everything we currently posses has been assembled into piles. This landscape affords them novel tools which surface periodically from the ground. The tools are yielded for unimaginable purposes. I think this audience is what we have been working for when we’ve framed various Ore.e Ref. activities as an “archaeology of the future”. We investigate today as a remain and imagine our stuff from the perspective of an other intelligence. This speculative intelligence is not of our own invention. They are folk of the Pensastuulikansa (Bushwindpeople) as defined by Outi Heiskanen and they don’t live in a particular time. They merge occasionally in the form of good humour (with no joke).

Outi was a kid during the second world war and witnessed how scarcity turned her mother into a craftsperson. Outi’s mother could, for example manufacture soap from anything. Making “soap from anything” is the most innovative practice I can dream of. I think with Jesse, we imagine that the audience we are reaching out to, are folk who have developed mindsets, which afford them skills to use the tools and materials they discover from their surroundings, beyond the semiotic functions these items are currently assigned. A possibility for semiotic reconfigurations has been discussed before during the Performing the Fringe excursions and the process is presented as a core strategy of the Crusaders’ School of Pure Humour Without Joke.

Playing with semantic changes was typical of the Crusader School, as was the unclear delineation of events that grew out of one person’s spontaneous idea and was then developed and variegated by the entire community. In their openness – in terms of both authorship and chronological delimitation – they are happenings in the purest sense of the word, although this term is rarely applied to the Crusaders’ activities.

In our case, the folk of the Pensastuulikansa will be able to read the engravings and make sense or assign meaning to them.

The quarry can be found at Liitostie 92, Pori. 61.50567, 21.87771.

Posted on

20200424

Paul Wilson: Pure humour without jokes in 1970s Prague (2014) David Vaughan. The radio show deals mostly with the writing of Václav Havel. Crusaders’ School of Pure Humour Without Joke is mentioned briefly. There are some notes on The Plastic People of the Universe (rock band established in the fall of 68). “They didn’t want to have anything to do with politic, so at the time this became a strong political statement.” Says Wilson, who became a singer of the band, because they wanted to perform their répertoire in English.

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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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20170905

Author Jari Ehrnrooth has written a hostile and offensive text: “Pahuuden kieltäminen ei auta” (Denying evil doesn’t help) and got it published through YLE, our national broadcasting company. The text is using the Turku attacks to target muslims and other religious groups. He claims that the attack in Turku was executed using “Isis-style knife handling” and that “islam is still an authoritarian and expansive world religion, which strictest forms include appalling amounts of mental submission, physical violence and murder”. He continues to speculate about a “righteous terrorist-mother, kissing her little-jihadist, who is send to the daycare center on a be-a-hero-for-a-day event wearing a fake-bomb-vest around his chest – As is happening in Gaza”.

I send a complaint to YLE which is responsible for publishing the text. Ehrnrooth holds the title of adjunct professor in the universities of Turku and Helsinki (he signed his text highlighting the title). I wrote to Thomas Wilhelmsson the chancellor of Hki Uni. and Professor of Cultural History Marjo Kaartinen in Turku, asking them to distance their universities and departments from Ehrnrooth. I got a sympathetic reply but I was explained that adjunct professor is a only a title and that the person is not employed by the university. The message also underlined the autonomy and right to freedom of speech of their researches. This was a weak argument. There is no “free speech” in relations others are targeted based on their religion. #ॐ

Send my Dude mixer back to Brno. Included a short letter explaining the problem and a postscriptum: “Ps. My favourite Czech performance artist is Jiří Kovanda. I’ve worked for an old Finnish lady Outi Heiskanen who had performed with a Czech group called Crusaders’ School of Pure Humour Without Joke in the 70ties. I own a hobby-anvil made from a tram-rail (made in and bought from Prague) and an axe manufactured in “Czechoslovakia”. I’ve visited Brno once, only passed through. Here is a video of me making macho-coffee in Prague 2009.”