When people are treated like garbage is there overpopulation or is it the same problem over again when people use their power to destroy?

19 heinäkuun, 201614 helmikuun, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Yes we would like to be interested in how other people are doing, although my empiric research tells most people like to talk about themselves, but it was nice seeing you. To see people does not mean we see them. They fill a void, a room, a space, they function as extensions. Your connections are your cv, how people talk about you is a handshake or a slap in the face. Ill talk functions as dividing and as connecting element. It is to keep those who are not liked in their place, not moving, not liked. There is no need to wonder whether there is anything wrong until it is you who will be slapped in the face. Ill talk turns against those who share information which is not accurate, is shared to hurt, situation could not be more delicious.

Hypocrisy is a phenomenon where people act better than they are. When they want to show their very best intentions even though those intentions do not reach anything other than gaining benefit for themselves. When to act is necessary only when you are in danger, you act to mend your image, retaliate, when you hold a child and make war. To make destruction appears to be a thing people do very effortlessly. Consequences remain with us, far-reaching. To throw away garbage is not just an act of cleaning up. Our casual way of producing gigantic amount of waste and mess seems endlessly woven into our way to live winning without care in the world, until we find the mountain at our door step. It must be karma.

Where is art when it is not seen? Artless world.

28 kesäkuun, 201610 helmikuun, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

The gap in between worlds is enormous. Barriers between classes, interests, where importance lies widen the gap where even though we speak the same language in practice we do not understand each other. That is normal and it is normal to explain something which is completely self-evident and everyday to me to someone who still does not understand because worldview is stuck and non-movable. To believe one’s own bullshit comes out of belief that one is absolutely correct and has a right to believe in illusions. That that other one knows nothing, is nothing, is below for many irrational reasons. My choices and reality is incomprehensible to someone who sees only the surface of it and is not interested in seeing it deeper, does not want to know that there are more to things than what one sees. This is one important aspect and teaching in art. There are more to people and things than meets the eye. Still even people who work in art are fixed with a very thin way of looking which is astounding always again and again. Still there are those who make conclusions and assumptions because they think they know better, they know more. Learn this you never know enough to make judgments of someone, especially if you have only heard a rumor or seen her. Believe me, I do not have to say anything for the train to begin. Interesting is how similar stereotyping is no matter where one goes, how deep misogyny and hatred run.

Art is at the moment for those who look for it. You can live without any contact with art, without having to think art, see art (fine art especially). But art is everywhere we just like to label art and nonart. I have been wondering why this is although art is the very bread. It is hard work to think and that is what people like to avoid, so to avoid art is part of this pleasure of not bothering, not interested in, does not concern me- thinking. Does art have to be recognized as art and be valued as a piece for it to be art? The more segregated and monetized business art is the more it is viewed as valuable or not valuable, more separated go see wonder. Is it something which could be avoided? Yes but the need to make money and be great is bigger.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/02/david-goliath-malcolm-gladwell-review

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell – review

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/feb/15/delacroix-and-the-rise-of-modern-art-review-national-gallery?CMP=twt_a-artanddesign_b-gdnartanddesign

http://www.forbes.com/sites/valleyvoices/2016/02/04/why-the-internet-will-loosen-the-iron-grip-men-have-on-the-art-world/?utm_campaign=Forbes&utm_source=TWITTER&utm_medium=social&utm_channel=Technology&linkId=20967411#b763a7010ce7

http://filmmakeriq.com/2015/12/art-and-masturbation/

http://networkcultures.org/geert/2016/02/12/merijn-oudenampsen-on-the-hermetic-contemporary-arts-discourse/

Reality hits those who like to cherish illusions.

9 kesäkuun, 201624 helmikuun, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Reality of another person can be extremely hard to grasp and see, even though it is right in front of you. It is the impossibility of understanding feelings of the other, seeing the position where one may be and how one got there. Value of the other, feelings of the other can be denied, belittled and despised just because you can. Reality of someone who is despised as such. Christians like to repeat we are born equal, somehow it does not resonate in true life. Christianity, the religion, is an excuse to put people down since God is on side of those who have the right god. Even though people don’t practice faith they are born in to culture which 100% has roots to some religion and practices of religious ideas, stories, beliefs and traditions. We are as cultural beings bound to religion, faith, mysticism, rules, which tell us how to live and how we see our place in the world and among other people.

What are realities now that religious people see in society which is more open to difference but still is very violent towards many people. Society is sexually more open, at least in theory, in entertainment and in advertising, demanding equality, equal treatment of the sexes, open discussion is available demanding tolerance and freedom of expression and speech. Religions are not the most tolerant. Religious entities are not demanding end of violence quite the contrary. Religions make war possible. Hypocrisy flourishes. How easy it is to not look. When religion demands hiding of our nature, hiding of beauty because it is seen evil and corrupt, how divine and godly that religion actually is. In societies where sexual intercourse is a sin, a taboo which makes all sexual topics shameful, all which is banned happens in hiding. We are punished for our sins which usually are of sexual nature. We are punished for wanting, desiring, lusting, having dirty ideas and doing filthy acts. Touching can become illegal and scary. Touching is too much to take, not to speak of kissing.

As an artist I am used to seeing nudity and I think it is the most natural thing as is sex. Just to depict and see nakedness is not porn, female and male sexual organs as such are not pornography to me, sexual yes but anything can be sexual. Asshole is holy as Allen Ginsberg stated in his poem Howl. What a scandal that became, all what he wrote was against the comfort and mediocre American society held dear. Dear hypocrisy, dear silence, dear oblivion, dear order which cannot be broken because it is not proper. Violence is more tolerated than sex. Violence is normal, so normal people don’t necessarily see when they are being violent and accept bullying when someone is to be put in order, be punished for what one is, dares to be in public. Order which cannot be torn apart because it is too frightening, too much to handle.

What does it mean to be leftist? Calling of names or values?

4 huhtikuun, 201628 helmikuun, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

What does it mean when somebody calls you a cultural Marxist in the meaning of you are an enemy of your people and common good? It is devastating and incorrect. To be leftist is never against people nor common good. If that is what leftists do, they are doing wrong. To be called an enemy is something communists, Marxists and all defined on the left more or less usually encounter. It is no surprise since deep division between political parties and views grows the more unstable world becomes, the more violent the world gets. To set an enemy for yourself, to those whom you represent with your world view and values in real life or only in your imagination seems to be a basic method of choosing sides which method is to create imbalance, argument, reality and more division there already is. Who is against you, against your political views, plans, what there is to get, your values, your safety and position is your enemy in this conversation and game, real and virtual, where winners are the most loudest bullies who have the nerve and attitude to crush anyone who is in their way. To be leftist artist can mean that to work in the industry successfully one has to bend one’s principles and values, professional field which is politically on the right which people working in arts do not like to admit, may even deny any political inclinations and sympathy. It is so that many philosophers discussed within arts heavily question fascist ideas and way of life, what is right and where to stand. You can be in the mist and not know what is what, think and say the other, do completely different. It is confusing, as it seems. Can business ever be leftist? If one is willing to compromise in a field where pretending is a rule and setting the mood and image right are more important than what lies behind, more important than standing behind values such as human rights, worker rights and intellectual progress, intellectual integrity, one can succeed especially financially. To be leftist who stands behind what is right it means one has to be vocal about issues, give straightforward criticism to those who may not want it but desperately need it and object to fascist progress of thinking and rock the fascist state of things which is manipulative, conservative, greedy, hindering progress rather than supporting it, exclusive, arrogant and hierarchical. Left means all what is said and done must stand the light of day and all things said and done are done within the frame of good for all, for all people. Everything is political whether you deny it or not, despite of you.

To me leftist is uncompromising when truth must be found. Left is against fascism. It is never fascist. It is against exploitation, abuse, manipulation, oppression and rule of money. It does not get intoxicated by power. Being visibly leftist on social media has appeared to be similar as being feminist. One is immediately labelled difficult and against something that left is not against in the first place. There are strict pools for right and left and far-right is a clear bully who likes to label those it calls enemies. To be leftist means sticking to one’s ideals and speaking out despite bullies, trolls, haters and gamers who throw dirt, threaten and shame without second thought because there is this enemy side to which all human right activists for some reason belong. There is strict division between those who seek common good and peace and those who look for causing harm and gaining benefit for themselves, self-interest and loathing belong together.

It is a strange battle in which knowing definitions most strongly defend radical change despite the thrashing of the name Marx and all of the left. From where things originate is essential to learn. Names and definitions are the ones that get thrown at you mostly by people who do not know better. Marxist is the swear word to many. Marxism an ideology a curse to be abolished. Maybe it is enough a reason to be a Marxist. Misunderstanding, that happened in the past, still defines Marxism which is as it happened more against the people and justice having created inequality that it was not to do. Was Marxism invented by Marx himself? By the outcome definitely not. What does Marxism mean, when it can be manipulated to be fascist? Merely that there are flaws in the philosophy or how it is understood poorly or not at all, definitely there have been and are flaws in the conventions of governing and implementing ideas as they are without manipulating them. Origins of hate, names, ideas and wars win and spin, what and who wins? When rulers get rich but people do not the state of things is not on the left, maybe looking in the direction of the left as it is deported to concentration camps and prisons silenced and bullied. To be leftist means knowing the roots and meanings of terms and ideas used. Terminology is a battle field, ammunition, accusation and fault as is history. History is a sledgehammer but we do not learn from it. To know who stands on the right and defends right causes one has to listen what people talk, also listen to those with whom you do not agree. Marxism and communism having had the heavy load of atrocities, misuse and abuse, massacres, lies, exploitation of philosophy and ideas invented to make revolution of labor, of working people and human rights does not mean the essential ideas are useless, they have been implemented in wrong ways. Why are thoughts that were made to give power to those who do not have power, to those who are powerless without means to rise up, deemed bad and corrupt?

Crowds will have power when they learn to know how to use power of theirs collectively and correctly for good building peaceful society. What are those teachings and how does learning happen collectively? What is the corrupt part, I wonder. Where does it, a movement, a revolution, go corrupt and why working class should not have similar rights as the bourgeoisie, depending what those rights are? Enemy today is the venomous history remembered as a heavy book, a burden which it is. History which easily repeats the fire and force of Marxism used poorly and violently against those whom it is supposed to help. The heavy book forgotten because it is too long to study. Socialism and communism do appeal to those who are the most oppressed and may look for vengeance seeking their power which has been lost. To be wise with the power of working class can be found, reason is there when one does not give power to hate. Change can be hopelessly total destruction even compared to reality experienced and escaped, complete turnover is lethal when there is lack of compassion and knowledge. Subtle voluntary change exercised by all willingly sounds like a dream. It means there shall not be any politicians who would seek absolute power. Social reform does not happen quickly in places where there is no history of power of the working people used for them and by them.

Where rulers slaughter people of their own and are intoxicated by power philosophers are merely hammers in use to justify deeds done in the name of working people and freedom. It is a complicated question what left is today because it is without teeth in front of unemployment, corruption, chaos in the Middle East and future looking somewhat threatening.

Political left is seeking profound change in Europe as it is broken and divided instead of being united. Prejudice and stigma that there hovers above seems propaganda and something people who still think like it is the 1990s like to keep alive. The very basis of left still remains for those who stand on the side of protecting instead of destroying: human value exists without ownership, without money, money is not the ultimate measure of life, possession does not tell of human value, people live and must be allowed to live free and in peace regardless of the circumstances they come from and their background, regardless of status, wealth, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, political views and occupation. It is at its core an aim to provide good living for all, a political ideology about sharing wealth in a way that there would not be handful of people who are enormously rich and there would not be a mass of poor people who cannot rise up because they are so poor and would be slaves to those who own the most of wealth and means to produce basic products, means to provide work, means to influence in politics and have power in decision-making. That there would not be poverty where there are no means to help oneself to rise up the ladder. Society cannot be set sustainably in a way that those who are the most well-off will survive and flourish because of their gained wealth and only those would prosper. If to make it would be and is so difficult in most of the world leftism has got work to do. When the only way to get ahead is that one should be equipped to fit and have wealth world will not be stable, people will not have stable healthy views on society and what being a human today is. Society that expects certain things of success, those who succeed have succeeded in advance, loses something important something that we cannot anticipate but will regret. It is variety, surprise and innovation that does not appear because of wealth but despite it. For all there must be tools to reach out for their dreams and succeed in life.

The postmodern left and the success of neoliberalism

http://linkis.com/libcom.org/library/y9N9i

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/g2689/most-powerful-photos/?slide=50

Canadian university partners with foreign mining firm and its checkered, colonialist legacy

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/campus-notes/2016/03/canadian-university-partners-foreign-mining-firm-and-its-checker?utm_content=bufferca185&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

History of power: Guerilla girls tell

20 maaliskuun, 201614 helmikuun, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

To grab a stone from the ground. Something to fit one’s hand.

29 helmikuun, 201628 helmikuun, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

To do other than feel its power? Think power of mine.

Provocateur lives!!! When the whole system turns up against me I feel I have made a point that has touched truly painful issues. It makes me thrilled.

17 tammikuun, 201628 helmikuun, 2018 | Henna Timanttimetsä

Let’s talk about harassment in art. Yes let’s there are an awful lot of shades to harassment, has been since art school. It is a whisper and common knowledge it is there. Not the easiest of topics to bring up anywhere but definitely not easy there where it is seen almost an organic part of doing and part of interaction somehow. I have felt it is like working in a bar, all is possible and will happen without consequences for men and it is reality that has to be seen as a fact and always be prepared for it. It is not much talked about, done much about and anyone who brings the topic on the table is a whining weakling who cannot handle the toughness of the business. The amount of pure harassment and ill can be so devastating it is time someone brought it up since art is good, right, it is doing good in the world, right? How nice should one be then?

Sexual tension is seen a part of making art. We draw and paint nudes from the beginning. Being an artist as such and as an idea is expected to have an open relationship to sexuality, inhibitions, taboos, act of sex, shame and artists are thought to live more sexually liberated lives than most. It goes with the territory to learn to handle and laugh about it. This somehow makes it right to harass female artists and students, especially those who tackle the touchy topic bringing it up and do not tolerate treatment given. It is expected to face harassment at some point, sex and art go hand in hand self-evidently. It is expected the kind of openness to sex, understanding and tolerance to all kinds of forms of sex (this is an illusion). A historical narrative of artists is they have got a deep contact to sexuality especially men and they are allowed to behave accordingly. When woman does the same she is punished as she is not in the game when game is conducted by men. How deep does this perspective and look into human sexuality and hierarchy actually go is a good question as art institutions do have strict views on showing sexually explicit material, or is toying with sex and consent just a shallow fun for boys in the game which game is more a rule as it is for them and goes with the territory that women are used, a game only for men who play it hard. One can ask as art is male dominated where rumors move fast and the famous narrative of heroic artist is kept alive since it brings in customers does this relic ever make progress and grow up? What this in deep view reveals other than sexism, ignorance, abuse, hedonism, repetitious behavioral codes, conventions and practices which can be given harsh critique, sweeping under carpet unable to face reality is not changing anything. Sex is and has been topic to be horrified over in art, although sexual harassment and moving on up via sexual relationship is nothing new, wide and well existent. Loose morals and misconduct belong to rebellious, dim, fun-loving, careless and hazy portrait of an artist which image has been admired as this artist is free and creative force of nature, a true man who makes and conquers.

When woman does the same story is different as is normal. Misbehaving woman is a scandal in a place where to look good is all for businesses sake and the children. In business where ill happens behind curtains something out of control that is made visible is shocking. Still woman is there to offer sexual favors as she wants to succeed, she poses, is looked at and touched, poked, made fun of and minimized. What a fool. She has to work hard to get anywhere on her own, so suggestions on how about it may sound tempting. It is also women’s benefit as industry’s benefit to call and decline such terms of making, make harassment visible, to make an end to such culture of abuse is necessary. It is no surprise sexism is rampant in art. Those who desperately wish to make it use sex as a way. Issue cannot be dealt with because those who use power are not dealing with sexism or think it as a problem. There are no laws by which to live in art, breaking rules is part of making art. There are other problems like finance and how to be heard and seen. As long as sexists and chauvinists are protected and admired as great artists who cannot be accused of any ill nothing changes. When there is no accountability, transparency or professional ways to deal with difficult clearly criminal issues nothing changes. When morals is lacking how can there be any trustworthy voice within art and of art which talks about those important social issues for the rest of us?

If art is rebellion why the scandal? Why sensitive skin and offence? Why sex makes the same horror and appall as ever?

Let’s get back to Flashdance: There is more to the movie than the plot. It is more clever than you give it credit for.

23 joulukuun, 201523 lokakuun, 2019 | Henna Timanttimetsä

It is a fairytale kind of spectacle or anti-spectacle in a spectacle, if that is a thing. Anti-spectacle in the sense of changing of the perspective towards gender, class, work and art, romantic is the spectacle, a pattern we expect. The spectacle we are used to seeing and thinking in terms of movies and in general how class, work, gender and art function and are, are thought to represent and be like. The American dream in this case where a beautiful young woman reaches out for her dream, a place in the sun and ends up getting more or ‘all’, a romantic relationship with a Man with a Porsche, who is also the owner of the factory where Alexandra, the woman in question, works at as a welder. One big plus of the movie is it does not highlight the work Alexandra does, welding is just work with men as co-workers, it makes the movie hugely more interesting though, and her the one who lives outside the box and is allowed to do so. She is not harassed by her co-workers, her abilities are not questioned. It is truly a beautiful setting, which her choice of work, most definitely would be seen weird still today.

To explore deeper into what the movie is all about is worth our while as it has been deeply overlooked as many romantic movies that are meant for women usually are. To pay attention to details, characters, camera shots, what is being looked at and told via tensions between women and men and why those tensions exist. What happens between the sexes, between women especially, what are sexes both expected to do, look and be like. Movie is a language as is dance as is sex, sexuality, clothing and gender. You have to focus on to read it all and actually think what are we looking at, what happens there and why all the time. It is not just an entertaining show where you can relax and forget what is going on, this is told via contrasts between sleazy bars, working men and art, how women are treated in different settings and how these settings differ, how women want to be treated and what do they desire of their lives to be. Movie is never just a movie that is meant to entertain, not even those that are made for that purpose, nor is music or the dance acts that seem to be out of place. Point is easily missed when the romantic is what stays interesting and in the focus.

In a bar where ambitious fit and talented dancers show their art, act for paying customers who are watching and are a bit amazed by the unexpected shows. Contrast is also to the other bar where dancing is not the primary interest of anyone, only nude female bodies, that move in a certain way. Women are dancing for money but in a show-your-ass-kind of way, but they still want to be discovered and dream of making it. What are people watching and why, who gets attention? Watching happens for instant gratification, simplicity of getting pleasure cheap and for fun. A bar is a world of something else than the workplace and not a place of thought, burdening oneself. Customers of the bar are not the assumed ordinary art lovers, but that is the point. Why should people be provoked to think more than is necessary, why not give them what they want? To whom is art for and why is it a class issue? What is art and where is art, who is capable of art and why it is a special occasion in a special place? High and low seem to be repulsed by each other, classes stay separated like oil and water. The dance acts, art and artists, are really in the right place. Intention of the movie is not to depict a straightforward story in a manner of this is what happens: this is what we dream of happening to us. It is not a children’s story and it is not pink. It seems light, but is heavier when one starts exploring. That are the expectations and frame women are supposed to fit in, want, act upon and are shown in the movie, that those who dare, can change the game. There is social critique hidden there to be found.

To say Flashdance is a feminist movie is not quite what a true movie lover might expect. What do you think about the turn, that a seemingly light Hollywood movie is feminist in a very kick-ass way and about the structural difficult issue of choosing how to get ahead in life, on one’s own terms and talent, and not sleeping with the boss or buddy who has connections. What do you think about when after having seen and evaluated for example the scene where Alexandra goes and finds her friend who has gone to work as a stripper, moving herself in conventional stripper manner, she is grabbed off the stage by Alexandra and escorted out. In the scene Alexandra’s clothing and standing position compared to her friend tell a lot when friend the stripper ends up in a puddle on street wearing only panties and high heels and is cold. Money, she earned gets wet in the rain on the pavement. Alexandra’s loose pants and sneakers when she stands firmly behind the naked woman who has fallen down and sold her body for money to please men may seem easy and naive, but it is something very basic, a woman on the ground beaten down feeling there is no other opportunity for her.

After having read couple of critiques about the movie and clearly many have missed the point: When one is an art critic it is essential to see behind the expected, the image and be free of bias. What is the seen image telling us, what happens without words, what is the setting and who are the characters, what do they do. Do you need more clues, because explaining has to be done also in a very basic manner, obviously also for critics. When you are an art critic, don’t fall for the simple clichés. Such poor analysis destroys a lot, as does arrogance, assumptions and cynicism. Minimizing culture that is aimed at and is about women and girls is a normal practice. It is a learned reaction which comes without thinking. A black woman eating a banana in a scene where women talk about relationships, well sounds as cliché as anything, but it happens in couple of seconds, and is easily missed, but telling. To make it as you with your raw capabilities, without handouts and favours..

Flashdance, is a feminist movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashdance in which woman does work as a welder and pursues her dream to become a professional dancer, also in which women help each other, face sexual harassment and deal with it by acting out, consequences lurking there and threat of violence is almost a certainty. To oppose men means you have to be one and be prepared. Movie portrays different kinds of female roles, a gallery of different kinds of women. The expectations of what women should be like, playing with stereotypes with which women struggle and hold on to as coping mechanisms. They may be afraid to go against the machine or don’t know how to or should they, and those who do not fit in the accepted roles especially, seem to be out of sync or do what they need to do despite whatever. Interesting are the different kinds of female characters there, how there are systematic learned rules of behaviour that stick, codes for genders and how these codes are taken for granted. How women portrayed are in their places and obviously struggle and lack power. They try to move on up as do men, they have dreams. Men try to move inside women’s panties and sex is clearly a very basic tool of control and making it. It is the first thought, easy way out, a getaway car and motive. World of art is a dusty stagnant relic too, which needs heavy dusting. Alex, the leading women, is afraid to enter this monument of perfected trained fragile-looking fairy-like ballerinas and primadonnas. She want’s to make it on her own with her own credentials with her talent and does not need a man to do that for her.

Real life is stranger than fiction says this welder.

”I have a friend who has a simple test for a movie: Is this movie as interesting as the same things would be, happening in real life? A lot of movies aren’t, and ”Flashdance” sure isn’t. If this movie had spent just a little more effort getting to know the heroine of its story, and a little less time trying to rip off ”Saturday Night Fever,” it might have been a much better film.”

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/flashdance-1983

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085549/reviews

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/09/entertainment/la-et-cm-flashdance-musical-review-segerstrom-20130509

Reviews and critiques strongly reflect the persona of the critic who is writing. For some reason in this case feminist perspective does not shine through. Wonder why.