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20220429

The middle-class punishes the overachiever. #☭ Environmental anxiety was popularized at the same time as hygge became a thing. They are the same. Environmental anxiety is a form of class consciousness, its a simmering hunch of the costs of hygge.

Presented a performance at a Kritiikki näkyy [Visible Critique] seminar and was interviewed on stage by Aleksi Salusjärvi (before the event by Maaria Ylikangas). The seminar was nice and I enjoyed learning how different authors approach climate matters. Class was not referred during the panels and I ended up agitating the crowd towards a global eco-social revolution. In the heat of the moment I framed it as a responsibility shared by people living in the global north. This came off as an severe symptom of a white-saviour complex and spoiled my attempt to emerge as a recovering survivalist. But still, I think moving away from environmental anxiety towards joined political movement is needed. During the seminar I realized that environmental anxiety is a reactionary political expression and that it is inviting to ecofasism (discussed in a recent episode of  DEATH // SENTENCE).

Eco-socialistic strategies for organization (self-governed small organizations syndicating in an effort to establish a global constitution which would make all forms off oppression impossible) offer a different stance to previous saviour-complexes ridden attempts to address climate change.

A project I struggled with for the past two years Personal Decamerone was published as a essay in No-Niin Issue 10. Feels great and I’m honoured of the portrait Jani Ikonen drew of me. Elham worked hard to shape the text, so that it would better help expand the horizon of possible sexual expressions (in the cis male domain I occupy). Looking back the first drafts read like a hate-letter (to myself).

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20200328

Build a 1u slew limiter following schematics from Synovatron Limited. Added a switch to toggle between 1uF and 100nF capacitors for adjusting the max slew time from 1s to over 5s (added it to modulargrid). Also build a 1u inverter following tips found on mw-forum. As suggested it is needed to make the Variable Slope VCF resonate, it produces umbfy-bass tones. Assembled a Foxfield Averter 1u kit to learn SMD (1206 size, went well) and acquired a Animodule TrAniModule PCB to complete a speaker module build I made a faceplate for in the autumn. I can also use it to boost the volume of some of my quiet modules. I think it is time to start designing a 7u 104hp case!

I’m drafting a five year project grant application for Taike and send out a spicy proposal for the controversial Kone Home Residency call. The tone of the open call is criticized heavily in Freelancer on poikkeustilan asiantuntija [Freelancer is a specialist of disaster] (2020) Maaria Ylikangas. Ylikangas explains that the Coronavirus should not be framed as an opportunity to develop as an artist, it is a tragedy and shows how unjust the precariats relationship to capitals is.

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201190111

Alkovi gallery (Miina Hujala & Arttu Merimaa) is organizing a research-art-process which will take place partially in Vyborg and deal with ruins, tourism & knowledge. It’s called In Various Stages of Ruins. I’ll meet with the group of artist invited to join the process next week (our first meeting was in Vyborg last spring). Hujala send us a text to contemplate, in which she poses various questions on what art can enable and how it differs from other modes of thought. This got me thinking about moods.

Edit: Strikethroughs and ?-marks made after the second Vyborg trip.

Art can establish a mood

  • Mood is knowledge that lasts for a moment (?)
  • A mood is the best aid for exploring the potential of a site, idea or event
  • Moods swing and maintaining a mood is a challenge, as a mood is not action (?)
  • Mood might be the essence (or performativity) of solidarity
  • Processes which try to deliver a mood are scary
  • Art is more like a mood then mood is art

What is the minimal effort for setting a mood?

  • A mood requires a comfortable setting (no hunger)
  • Moods require that they are identified (possibly known in advance)
  • Too much talking spoils the mood
  • Setting a mood requires preparation and self-confidence (trust)
  • Only stopping an action makes changes in moods noticeable
  • Moods catch on trough subtle hints

What can moods do?

  • Change the appearance of things and events
  • Provide access to new horizons
  • Things make more sense in a good mood
  • A set of different moods is required to establish a baseline for good judgement
  • Shared moods require mutual consent (no tricks)
  • Mood can be picked up and possibly stored in art

Is there archeology for moods?

I’ve been trying to frame moods as public art recently… Trans-Horse (as an example) is as an artwork, best understood as a mood because that’s how it effected it’s audiences and what it is leaving behind (there is no monument). I started to think about this after reading a review by Maaria Ylikangas Hevosen avulla tutkitaan tilaa ja aikaa (2014). In the text she accounts her experience of the artwork and explains that even if she didn’t see the work, she got to know what it is like to move in the landscape with a horse. This happened by learning about what we were doing (trough twitter, radio broadcasts, articles) and combining this with with her personal experiences with horses (and other critical texts). I’ll use her case as an example were an artwork set a mood (and that was all the artwork did).

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20160326

Reading “In the Flow” by Boris Groys. We bought the e-book with a group and there are so plans to write a critique of it in some online magazine. The text Kylmälä, Salusjärvi & Ylikangas recently published feels nagging in relation to Groys, who celebrates the event fullness of the contemporary museum.

I don’t agree that “… art in flux is better documented than ever before, and the documentation is better preserved and distributed than traditional artworks”. Because even though people take photos and make videos no one is building an index. A video is not a documentation, it’s spam before someone goes trough the trouble of cataloging it. Cataloguing builds references and context.

If you refuse an “unpaid” gig, you can make a thing about your refusal. If you accept it, you get to do a thing. Every “I refused an unpaid gig” story is the same. Every thing is different.

Leaving twitter is an adult thing to do. It’s about dissolving into the internet, not clogging it with jokes. Time to take the flow more seriously.