Fine art

The Gossip and making of it: The contradiction in me is the contradiction shown to me, because it is the flaw that should not be but is.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

I tell you my personal point of view so there is no need to speculate how I see myself: The very personal issue of all to all is how to be accepted and stay accepted. How does it happen, what do I have to do and be like to be accepted. As an idea it is the basic human problem, relevant, important and at the same time very unnecessary as there is the constant message in the air that we are to be accepted as we are, loved as such, especially children who are what they are without much possibility and need to be something else. Children do not fake themselves, act phony unless there is a punishment, judgment, shadow, fear etc. telling to do otherwise than what they do. They learn to fake it when it becomes clear they are not what they are supposed to be, they are not doing what they are expected to do. This has been the core issue in my life. There has always been talk around me about me, which talk is not meant for me to know. I have been aware and observing as artists and children do… So I am being analysed by others to others but not analysed to me or asked how I see things. I am left out for whatever reason. Something wrong about me has been defined and has been made a story. Good things do not make such a good story, right? It is not good to talk what is good? That there is idea that there is nothing wrong with the environment or people, but the error and flaw is in me because I am different. Issue of gossip and talk has been there all my life without me, still, somehow never stopping. I am there but I am not there. I am scary and I have to be scared. This is sad history and has made me feel inadequate and really puzzled about how am I supposed be, which has made me work even harder. I somehow do not exist and exist at the same time. So you understand that I really don’t understand how to be in the world of people. If you get what I mean.

It is no wonder I was lost and still am. State of lost and loss has become my tools and topic, good thing and bad, good and evil. I juggle and experiment. I provoke with my mere existence as is evident, now I enjoy the provocation and know how to create from and with it, to identify with obscure and weird and what is odd exactly. It does not take much to seem crazy and out of balance, become scared and build a bubble. I take the provocation as far as I can to see what happens. People make things happen. Very small tiny things move them, move their lips, make them talk. It is easy to say I am cynical. I see myself as having an organic part in a human game and as a researcher, what else could I do? If I give you information why do you share it, what are your motives for that? And what have been the motives to gossip behind my back all a long? How am I the cynical one here one can ask. I just study you. I know myself. It is healthy to learn to know thyself. It is called growing. To seek flaws in me is the same old same old as is the not giving me any credit for my exceptional talent, which is obvious and oh so demanding. Does it have something to do with my gender??

There is and has been a great chance for me to get badly hurt, but I am already all the time in a state of hurt, which is like built-in me, so it does not make much effort to take the hurt further and further little by little and see how much hurt people are willing to make. I have learned to place hurt and everyday reality to their places, into perspective of research and art. What hurts me, probably would kill you. Most it hurts to see how little people change and what kind of things make them talk. It is what makes the world go round. That is the sad part. As I test my limits it means I make progress. Pain and work are parts of that personal progress. So if I as an artist and human being begin to be accepted as such, it will be the most strange place I could be. One becomes used to of not being accepted. Contempt, suspicion, rejection, humiliation and hate are parts of that world. To understand me it is good to understand where I come from. It is a very different place and view-point. To think my world is unharmed, pink and naive is unbelievably naive.

Please begin to explore your minds, if you haven’t started yet. Let the healing begin. There is a saying of better late than never. In the case of making gossip better it is never. Oh what a contradiction. To see yourself as you are can be a good thing. To like yourself..one has to live a kind of life one wants, be the kind of person one likes.

2000

Kuva | | Henna Timanttimetsä

Dirty pictures?

| Henna Timanttimetsä

Supposedly yes. Sexual act as dirty is what we think. Dirtiness of the act of intercourse, showing one’s private parts in public is revealing something that should not be revealed to all. Uncleanliness of sexuality is a habit of mind and the very essence of our shame. What kind of parts we have, what we do with them and how often, with whom and what happens when we do it, how should we be feeling. Dirt is when we do the opposite of what is proper, against the rules, ruin an impeccable, something that is not meant to be broken gets smudged in our minds. Sex ruining us is the accusation and assumption. It has been shown many times over that when prohibitions dictate lives, shame culture is strong, hiding becomes a rule, strict sexual and behavioral codes are made and maintained as heavy punishments, consumption of porn, prostitution, violence, discrimination and abuse rates rise and such culture is difficult to intervene. When hypocrisy is a dictating way of living and thinking people like to sweep those unpleasant issues under the carpet and be afraid of them. To be afraid of one’s sexuality has been a rule. Talking becomes problematic with much shame about the very issues of humanity, our organic and basic needs, growing hunger for intimacy, desires, lust and imagination.  Those things we are not supposed to have nor express freely as we please. They are ridiculed and anatomy of ours something we should disregard most of our lives. We can be punished for having such desires, women are born into this shame and disgrace.

How to be original? (originality is also sexy, never forget.)

| Henna Timanttimetsä
It should be like breathing to be original since we are unique and individual, right? But the more one explores life the more one comes to notice that originality is very rare, it is a true gift, which one also comes to notice the gift will be exploited and stolen, copied and sold, envied and torched, ruined and spoiled. Those who do not have ideas of their own, of course, have to take ideas from somewhere, appropriate, plagiarise, which as we well know is stealing, but when it comes to intellectual property and ideas that are difficult to patent as inventions and immaterial ideas, things get demanding. This is often the case within and around the arts, which most of based on stealing, copying, idealizing and imitating. What is new then, who owns what and how to give credit to those who deserve it rightfully. Questions of conscience and integrity (surely there are people who have those qualities?).
Isn’t it so that it feels like a victory when one succeeds with ideas of someone else, but in the end plagiarizer is just a plagiarizer. No glory there and I’m not just saying.

What is easy anyway?

| Henna Timanttimetsä

 

What is revolution?

| Henna Timanttimetsä
Is joining a group in Facebook a sign of something happening in reality? Does joining a group in virtual reality mean something other than a push of a button, labeling one’s identity in public and among a group? What kind of reality is in social media other than minds and senses put together and how do things done in social media reflect what is going on socially in the concrete world? Should we even not make a difference between virtual and bodily concretion? Between people happen things we call social interaction, communication, conversation, deeds, makings and social activity, a mixture of events and thoughts. Social media and making revolutions with help of internet provided platforms can give a strange feeling of accomplishment and progress. How many people, hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands who like, who comment, who pass and share messages, who inform and make. This information space and how it functions clearly affects our reality and lives in the world in a massive way. What is revolution in this and importantly when people desire to accomplish revolution using social media what happens other than togetherness and same-mindedness in virtual reality?
Social media is much about liking and feeling good, sharing the fun one is having. Activism can cleverly join in the fun and make way for social media to be part of change. It is of course possible to ignore socially important issues and pay attention to oneself only, be as blind in social media as in everyday normalcy. As someone asked me at the university when I talked about being an activist in social media like Facebook: How is it possible? What is activism in Facebook? For many it is still a new thing and I feel I am talking to a wall.
My question what is revolution is demanding. Revolution is and must be aggressive. To point out my aggression and rage are not to harm or kill in the traditional way, but to make a turnover of minds, of how things are done. Revolution means in my world a complete change. It is not marketable, nice, flattering nor pretty. Those who think you can get the shells of revolution but not the contents are wrong. That is not how it goes.

When we focus on feminism and women’s rights men are in many ways in important role in making change happen. They have to involve themselves in changing manhood, putting it under magnifying glass, manhood which is the very dictating part of creating rules of how we interact.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

We easily disregard men in talks about feminism and I have often come across the notion that men do not want to hear about feminism, because it is only about women and their problems. Well things aren’t that simple, isolated nor happen in vacuum, so I guess largely problems that are about the problematic relations between genders are not solved between women and by women only. Men have to participate, as men have to participate in raising their daughters and sons, which very often doesn’t happen just like that as we all are aware and many have experienced. Feminism is not only about grown up women and their rights, their difficulties, wrong-doings that happen to them. It is about children, young adults, all adults young and old, all people. It is about the never-ending discrimination that is justified by religions and traditions, power relations between genders and the basic need to solve the issue of discrimination, oppression, humiliation, neglect, gender-based violence and so forth. It is a very fundamental issue that happens to deal with all of us, all people once again. Feminism the swear word, silenced and loathed, the feared movement that has made already a giant difference. Certainly you have noticed.

We often do not acknowledge the factual violent nature of masculinity as bad. Nature of being a man that emphasizes natural urges, instincts, natural laws, naturalness of hunter-like masculinity that cannot be changed or argued, the natural hierarchies between genders therefore grounded and lawful, unchangeable. The bizarre nature of how men still view themselves through an ancient ideology of manhood that for many is undeniable but can be other than what reality shows masculinity to be, weak and scared. The image of manhood today is hopefully critically looking at himself by himself from down to earth not from space above. The strong, unquestionable, trustworthy authority figure, an action figure, conquering because that is what he does. It is his purpose to be a giant. And what it should be, manhood, all that and is not. Manly roles in society are often reasons to many problems all of the society faces and why is that..is that the power issue, credibility issue, authority and status issue? Who hold power dear and like to use it? Manly roles of what to me seem to be monsters in disguise, are a lie. The boxes of men become boxes for everyone to be in or out, live with not without. Those who do not like them are squashed and ridiculed, bullied to death.

As I see it, it is masculinity that we have to obey, like the beast, the threat of masculinity posing via cars, jobs, offices, achievements, possessions. What masculine men represent becomes a mantra for all of society, boys grow into this game too lightly. They believe it. It is the image of a true man what they need to become to be worthy. Self-love and sadism are the ruling features for a masculine ideal to happen over and over again. That is what masculinity does and wants, to rule, to have the last word and own as much as one can. It is a silencing and forcing kind of mode that many people who do not wish to be alpha males nor wish to be subjects of have to deal with. Violence is part of that strong manhood one way or another and it has one very straight forward approach to deal with all things. It is difficult to oppose for this reason as is the herd of bulls difficult to maintain. A strong man has his prejudices that he thinks are absolutely correct. Minds do not change that easily. Heroic macho ideals do not apologize, negotiate or believe in something that someone smaller says or thinks. Fragile can be beautiful and it is childlike. Masculinity is all about size, conquering with size and force, benefiting financially via that grandiose amount of stature. Such masculinity needs flattery, pals to feel connected and approved, trophies such as heroism, status symbols and women that somehow self-evidently are part of the cult of naturally divine masculinity to be adored. Masculinity that never does wrong and even if he does he has his good reasons and right to do as he pleases, because that is what men do. They please themselves.

Yes this is a caricature and stereotype, but it is masculinity I see and have been experiencing, more or less always. You wish to make a change please begin at once.

”The Man Box. 
American men face an oppressive set of sexual and cultural restrictions on how to perform masculinity. One collective set of these cultural expectations is often referred to as the Man Box. (Charlie Glickman defines the Man Box beautifully here. http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/megasahd-escape-the-act-like-a-man-box/ One of the primary reasons that boys and men gay bash and bully queers is that they need to perform masculinity in order to show the world that they’re in the Box.) The smallest social or sexual deviations from these rules can result in punitive private and public shaming, by other men, by our partners, by our families.” 

”If you doubt this, see what happens to the average American man who wears bright pink socks for a day. See how many micro aggressions and shaming moments arise. This may be the land of the free, but most of us aren’t free to even pick our own socks”. – See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/megasahd-culture-of-shame-men-love-and-emotional-self-amputation/#sthash.gHrEUzaw.dpuf

Women who make pornographic images, not by displaying themselves, not to display themselves but portraying sex. Their right to pleasure and to correct the imbalance.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

That porn is for male pleasure, that it is for men’s eyes and gaze, that naked, fucking women sucking cock do what they do not to please themselves, but only their partners, only the male viewer. It is a stereotypical view, true, sure. How do women claim their right to their pleasure which is as important and why is this topic an ongoing issue that has to be brought up? It is the same as sex and porn being ridiculous to some, disgusting, objectifying and unnecessary. That it is shameful although sex in advertising is a full on phenomenon that does not bother hugely many.

In a way I display myself by drawing a pornographic drawing. I am curious and have no shame because I do not see I should feel ashamed. It is my curiosity to see how bodily holes can be put in use to make a pleasurable impact. Where pleasure comes from, for whom it is. Who can feel pleasure through porn and why it is interesting, porn and pleasure? What is porn and where do we draw the line of acceptable?

Above criticism.

| Henna Timanttimetsä
What kind of people take themselves seriously to the extent they cannot be criticized? If said against or ridiculed they totally flip. Their world that cannot be broken gets a crack. It is a crack on an image. Begin to feel hurt, begin to grow hate. At the moment there seems to be this kind of vast group of people who do not see themselves nor their doings as flawed in any way but as perfect in what they do, want they choose to commit, what they are everybody should be, say and take on. We are advised daily. They are invaders who are righteous. For what they have found is the side of the good and something to stand for, work for, status to pass down crumbles of a cake. It is an ultimate good and goodness and it has religious aspects in it tightly woven. World where they search for happiness hang on it tightly. What kind of people are convinced they have found perfection and they share a picture of it to pose in perfection? What kind of perfection are we talking about? Dimensions are really awkward in here. What is perfect in human life may be a matter of defining. You want what I have got?

(Well you cannot have it because I don’t like you and I enjoy you cannot have it. It, this. We put so much emphasis on liking or not. I don’t like her. Oh I like you very much.)

It is about perspective, about size, what can be said and what not and what is right. All the rules and what is right, how do we find it other than by listening and giving opportunities. Whose right rolls over and whose privilege is at stake. Privileges that are protected by placing oneself above criticism. How does one place oneself above in a way that person and what he stands for cannot be touched, cannot be affected, changed, compromised, pulled down, ridiculed. Above is something where one’s name and smile are visible (good, buddy-like, friendly, stylish, photogenic, it is good believe me, because there is no other way). One’s speech and act are there to state the position of untouchable, unreachable, the power of what is gained will always be there for that person.