Education is escaping the working class people

Is it possible for the art world to critique capitalism of which it is very depended on, the system, the art world is as art is capital? Does anyone know what kind of a system art is?

| Henna Timanttimetsä

It seems to me the ideal of the art making, ideal of an artist and idea of the benevolent, kind and good doing art has made the perfect shell on this thing called the art world who are those who protect and support artist on their way, that critiquing it, is close to blasphemy and an act of negative feelings. As it is a business one must behave businesslike and a scandal is truly risky, most scandals nowadays are about what kind of financiers there has been, where the money has come from. One true art scandal lies there, how about that social justice when you are taking money from oil companies and pharmaceutical corporations, not good. In fine art know the right people, right places, the ways of penetrating awareness, know the language, making awe, know the style of contemporary art, you will recognise it and then do it. Put your sign up there, so you will be seen. This is my suggestion. It is a con, a perfect place for a con artist and con art experts who do not do their homework, art institutions to con, copy in search for originality and a hit. Too much shock is too much, but this is preposterous and to talk about good things happens among friends, professionality is about cleanliness, order, finance and hygiene.

Capitalism the word is here and there a villain or an all giving and all solving godlike apparatus. Smashing it is what many yearn or wait to happen. What does the making of change in places of art mean for art, what does art do when it makes change or eventually evolves, and for the public, for the society as a whole, not just for those who consume art? Does change, a reform of any kind, and of anything, understanding, enlightenment, begin to happen after when media tells you about the game changing revolutionary art since places of art are nevertheless and regardless exclusive and they must be visible. Many people don’t dare to go in and/or are not interested, aren’t even aware of?? What is the intimidation, what is the scare? Million dollar question and acknowledging how much power lies in the art world. Making social change is very tricky in an arrogant expensive place, what does it even mean? Arrogance rejects extremes, unfamiliar, not fitting the aesthetics, the people, the interior, removing unclean noticeable flaws which makes irritating and appall laughably easy and fun. Carry your work in a common mall plastic bag does it as does choice of clothing. So much for fitting in. Trying to fit in is against art. Fitting in is design.

Question is for one who is interested in contemporary art and why, by what does this weird thinking and making get fuelled, philosophy and science? How well do places of art and artists take risks when it comes to choosing art for a show, safe bets for cashflow guaranteed? It is reputation that is on the line and financial support which has meant sanitary art is in sanitary places, safe. Trauma is behind the corner, what horror on the wall, is that art. Oftentimes art world likes to identify with social justice movements, which is interesting as the art world is known to be a place of unjust and nonmovement, progress is on the surface and in the technology, are gimmicks progress? I like to think not. Closed doors, tied down/shut up-culture, bring justice forward here is not understanding what the environment is and what is just, not seeing the problem there within or doing anything about it knowingly. I believe all happens knowingly, manipulation is in the visual, it is so strict. Social justice which is a well-meaning, good thing to have and be for: progress is that we will all be united one day, right? Well, it is truly progress. We all want seas be rid of pollution, right? Concepts like capitalism, it clearly is a concern, unity and what does it mean in capitalism, but to my mind not enough a concern. Art is probably not even touching the problems it must face, just petting them, it is there, we know it, we know but most we look at problems of others. Money is so good, isn’t it and there is never enough of money (artists are rated by money, money makes an artist) and art is never big enough… size matters as it dazzles, gives an experience. White walls are luxurious, stylish and everywhere in clean places where order is appreciated.

Art work which critiques capitalism in designer-like fashion for example by saying “Capitalism will collapse from within” conceptual artwork by Elmgren & Dragset, 2003, a painting represented by internationally recognised galleries, which is always important to mention for value, strikes as a slogan from a t-shirt. Work is placed on a wall casually hanging from one corner in front of a safe, so maybe it is simulating a demonstration and hiding a robbery, (constantly in mind to go to the streets but then run) turned into a luxury object. Hmm, so it is critiquing itself, the artists and telling what artists really want (what is in that safe)? What is in this picture that is untrustworthy? Maybe nothing but definitely something. It is funny and irritating at the same time, when I noticed the safe on the wall it dawned on me it is about the structure. Biggest joke is the white wall and all that whiteness around the work. Is it the price tag that is odd, that it is for sale, of course (you can find it on Artsy-application which is for selling art).Is this critique towards those who believe in capitalism as the work is on show in a grandiose tiptop place for art or just mere hopelessness in front of choices artists must make, place of warning of a burning world, burning from within?? Is art world a place for social justice with sense of style, a functioning one? Isn’t it biting its own leg as art world is very depended on capitalism, the system created for creating wealth and art being a very strong signifier of wealth, an asset? What does art world think of critique which is targeted on them and most importantly what does the art world do other than go on as it ever was? Only thing that moves it is the market and financial depression, where the money goes and is. What happens in this future collapse we are facing and who will go running from within, which is the place where art is, the within, and comes from, I hope. Walls and built things are the within, the within is something we rely on the most, the safe place we are afraid of losing?

I am sceptical of the amount of benevolence and altruism there. A constant concern for me when it comes to art is what are the motives there. As said art is a business and in business one does not play too much with fire, does one? Although when looking at finance world taking risks is essential and we pay for it. So it is good and safe to take risks in finance but not in art? Art world taking risks is an interesting issue as for instance those who collect art are known for not making risky choices. What does “Capitalism will collapse from within” say to a collector? How to make more money with it? How to hide when destruction strikes? How the art work will grow more valuable as there will be more banking crises, homelessness, unemployment, poverty, insecurity etc.? Is it a prophesy or lookalike hotel in a wall? Are artists functioning as oracles who know something about the system we rely on? One essential question is how does an artist work outside the art world? That is called outsider artist which is really funny. Is it even possible as the system is so tightly framed to be an artist outside? Many question that, still. You are not accepted by the right people, you are not an artist. You do not have money, you are not an artist. These rules are some I have come by and are a result of the current art system, which is fanatic for stars, visibility, greatness and excess. Massive and working in a strict manner simulating openness, an intellectual con which appears for example when art English aims to impress and experts create interesting sentences without much content: it looks good, what is it, did you bake it?

How leftist are those in the academia or in the arts?

| Henna Timanttimetsä

My question rises from the strange continuous experience of hearing there are leftist professors who practice leftist ideology in universities and leftist theories are taught more than the conservative ones and that leftist politics is in use in universities. My experience does not back this claim: when system favours conservative mannerisms and silence, I am too radical and annoying, leftism is a lovely flower to look at, if you know what I mean. Marx obviously being one of the most interesting theorists there is what comes to labour rights, so it is only just and right that his theories are known to avoid situation which is present today, where him and his thinking is painted completely malaise, destructive, false and inaccurate. Propaganda is hurtful, disinformation, not trying to understand how better the living and working conditions of the working class. It is more than understandable to learn to know how theory has affected our culture and thinking especially through economics, which is fascinating. How the division is made between the two, left and right, often seems to happen by what and whom is assumed is leftist and heard to be leftist or thinks is leftist. What comes to being conservative, do your clothes tell as it is often times assumed by clothing to which camp you belong?

Art is thought to be occupied by leftists and feminists who look forward, are experimental, openminded and are open to ideas and new people, which strikes me as I should be popular in such an environment. I argue and question too much to be likeable and that is something to me which is characteristic to being politically and intellectually aware and functioning. Such questioning types are met with anger and critique is rendered as annoying complaining. To not question the education system in use, methods, theories etc. is not leftist, it is accepting the current situation of higher education, protecting careers and positions, which to me seemed to be more important than the quality of education provided. It is difficult to be the person who doesn’t go with the flow and like everything, put one’s own financial interests first as is common in the arts and think of people: what a good contact or whom to avoid. All these accusations of leftism ring odd as there is a true and wide gap there between the working class and the middle class and as all know it is still today not that common for someone from working  class to enter university or the arts. My family still has hard time accepting my profession which to them is not a profession: how do you make money, your art is not art etc. There is a huge difference between the working class people and people from the middle class and for people not to think it is odd is odd and someone with working class background such as me, I am odd everywhere, because what is art and there are lot of people who have never met an artist and don’t even want to. This goes on and on. What has middle class contributed to leftism other than theory? Sympathy for the cleaning ladies and welders? That’s funny.

When I go to the environment where I as an artist am supposed to work at, it is not news I do not feel comfortable, welcomed, fit in etc. It is a strange situation and place, which conflict has led me do art that critiques the places of art, education of art, profession of the artist and I write about the paradoxes and clear flaws, intellectual and structural, there are in this field. Situation is stagnant and people like to follow the good old routes to success. Kissing ass? All the beautiful talks and looking like leftists, I am sure you are a very likeable person and will get lots of opportunities…why the working class people avoid and have disinterest towards contemporary art and distrust towards people with higher education? How many working class people do you know Mrs./Mister leftist professor and what are your leftist thoughts on how higher education could be valuable in other ways than just landing a high paying job? What I have witnessed is a mutual contempt and ignorance. For example telling what kind of professions I have done for a living, it is as if I had fell from outer space, poor you, or why don’t you apply for grants. Grants being, taught in university, the number one source of income for an artist, which also sounds very middle class. Are you sure it is good for the art and where does the money come from, who supports the arts the most? How to monetise art has not been ever an issue at any art school only in passing, maybe that is the leftist angle. It is a difficult thing to do, monetise one’s art, when most of the energy goes to realising newly invented ideas that hang in the air and mean nothing to anybody and to me they mean everything. How to monetise something that is your all? It takes character.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To set oneself on fire: Emotions in making revolution. Why do we cry?

| Henna Timanttimetsä

6.1 Fury and rage
6.2 It’s a crazy world we live in.
6.3 Headache.
6.4 Change is the only absolute.

Introduction: With their prizes and demonstrations of power, to whom should these odd chemical reactions be given.

The notorious one, a man with a gun, is celebrated. Firearms make one look powerful, fierce, in control, man or woman with stamina, muscles and credibility in a certain world which in part is a fantasy world and power in question a fabrication, a matter of violent competition. Do we believe in that power which killing machines bring because we have to? Is the power lure of money which is tightly entwined with the world of firearms? We should be scared (even though a politician can say there is nothing to be scared of, which was some years back an election slogan of a Finnish politician. Maybe inside the bubble of his there are no threats.) and we are scared of losing everything which is happening to millions of people. When we grab a weapon we are less scared making some other people scared of us? Fear, greed and pride cloud our judgment pretty effectively. Many are in part rightly thinking the only protection in brutal world is an attack and that is why we buy guns, admire them for their capabilities and effectiveness. Firearms are phallic just like architecture can be. To own weapons has been a right as we must be able to defend ourselves. It is him or me, kill or be killed.

We are emotional beings and terrified of losing, failure, being shamed, emotionally tied to protecting what we appreciate and love. We can hope emotions and pride don’t cloud our judgment in making calls for war, but that is a mere hope. All the time people kill people and wage war, all kinds. Rhetorics of war is in use in sports and I have come to think fighting and battling are the very human ways of survival and necessary to prove our worth. We can’t live in peace even with ourselves as there are things we like to have, things we do not have enough and to get something we need to compete, power being one big thing to have excessively. The intoxicating effect of power even little of it is clear. One has to be wise to understand how to use correctly the power position one has. It takes a lot of energy to be constantly afraid and distrustful, be scared, in state of alert, suspicious in a world where nobody can be trusted and somebody else wants what you have got. To be in a state of constant scare and worry takes a toll on us which affects the ways we do politics, interact, know and treat people, isolate ourselves and others into camps and behind walls.

Which brings me to the topic of entertainment where power and money play an important role: how emotional gansta rappers are, what are the emotions there if there are any to admit to? To show emotions is a sign of weakness still? What are black entertainers passionate about? Police violence is bad, violence by black people is necessary and a reaction to police violence? Brutality, retaliation, racism, gun violence and making that money are in the lyrics and imagery of many. For some reason in those things lie the key to success, owning those issues. Do rappers solve anything bringing light to the condition of grassroot America or is it a loop of anger? What kind of messages and emotions do rappers pass on? Real niggers don’t die, Dr.Dre for example who is the man with a master plan, nigger with a gun, with women, money and attitude to kill. Appreciating his music, still, it is a frightening image of someone with a gun making music, an everyday image for very many who watch movies, music videos and pay attention. He raps about AK-­47 ready to pop. Dr.Dre with Snoop Dogg go and get their money flow with the recipe of being bad boys. Maybe it is irony, the topics of rappers or maybe it is realism/illusions/dreams made into art/reality as black people do end up killing each other in America and are often poor with no opportunity to rise above, more so when clashing with the police odds are weak. To get rich or die trying is a monotonous driving force escaping a dead-end where wealth is all that matters. Ways to get respect, make way ahead and get admiration are simplistic patterns from playground for kids. It is a political and humanistic wake ­up call for help. It is a daily routine to live with arms in a country where weapons secure freedom and safety and are easily accessible.  When society does not provide for you, then it is with guns and crime you get what you think you need.

There is serious demand for justice and solving social issues as crime, poverty, lack of education, healthcare, feelings of powerlessness, hate, misogyny, racism and all in all lack of future prospects in numerous countries not just in the US. Ways to get rich or die trying  is a heroic one man one force idea in a certain kind of world, just another phrase from a rapper who is a real man whose line became a true need, or need became a line. Crime and rap music mix reality wrapped in golden chains, guns and cars, chasing women like cattle and women seem to like it sucking that dick. Women placed in to the position of stuffed animals and objects with body parts and women also like to place themselves into that pornographic narrow inferior position continuously. Why? Are options so scarce, unattractive or the fast culture to consume all makes you feel like a winner? Is it the easiest option to make it with one’s body? What is the need and meaning there other than money and sex dictating what is what, who is who or anybody? Reality in full in this picture in the US and all around as the message spreads: this is how you become visible, powerful, admired and free. It is an image where people are gunned down like society was a war zone, that is how it looks like here and there and is also entertainment.

America is at war constantly in and outside with each other and the world. The world is at war since wars don’t end to declaration of peace, to halting the killing call. The scene of war changes. As it has turned out world is a lot more complicated than what is expected and out of control state can be released by attacking cultures and people you do not understand. Freedom can be chaotic and dangerous more than the blissful state of mind where everything good is possible in loving harmony. The bad is as well, very much so about freedom. Paradox of the extreme power and naivety is what strikes. Wars tend to continue in people’s minds as long as soldiers and their children live and history is there. Isn’t it quite the picture of the modern world and America, needs and hunger are immense for retaliation but also for reconstruction. Scared and more scared people exist all over. Russia is a perfect example how a regime intimidates its citizens from criticizing Putin and warring. Declarations in the news look as if something had been saved and solved and we can sigh of relief, but what are we really being told?

It is a daily repertoire, a way to rule and make justice of some kind legitimized with God-given right to arms, wealth and power. God is in the warring and traditional understanding of masculinity. Is God in education, healthcare, being kind and merciful to the poor? It used to be as the church provided for those things. It is a world of nations, rulers and slaves, rhetorics and desires make weird images. What the world of rulers want to do with the rest of us is to enslave, misguide and make us blindly follow. US and Russia are mass murderers, terrorist states carrying God’s weapons used with God’s permission protecting a way of life that needs constant protection because they are products of a dying age, tyranny and structure of policing, knowingly like bodily functions they are failing in an aging body, definitely knowingly, rationally and consciously not giving away an inch. There is a need to be good via being bad which is expression of freedom. There is no other alternative to make selfish good happen than the bad. It is good to be able to dictate the rules of how to be good, so they (Americans) don’t have to use force in a bad way because they are always good even when they are bad. Russians are just bad doing bad because God is on their side despite their communist past and they know what is good for everybody: strict order and rule. Democracy and freedom which Americans themselves have: what an illusion and a flat image. Anybody criticising is a hater.

Bearing it as a warning that there are enemies self-evidently, but who are the enemy and why? World is being warned and under threats of all kinds. The dichotomy of you are not on our side then you are against us is prevailing. Russia attacks mercilessly and violently against those who dare say a word against its policies. This is clear when debating issues like invading sovereign countries, refugees, trans and gay rights, feminism etc. Is it the way to live nowadays being defensive and simplistic in a chaotic world? We have been constructed from fear especially living next to Russia, and continuously remain so as disagreeing and opposing is very dangerous. Conservative forces are not just protecting the old traditional way of living, understanding that it needs to be protected with arms should be a wake up call. Honor and continuity of good old values, nothing must change in what we do and think is the mentality. Idea today is to change but don’t change anything.

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It is entertainment: pretend and fake.

”YOU CRAZY SON OF A BITCH! FUCKIN’ SON OF A BITCH, YOU! I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!, CRAZY SON OF A BITCH, I’LL KILL YOU! … (BANG!) AHHH! AAAHHHH!… ” a line from TAXI DRIVER 1976 BY MARTIN SCORCESE QUOTED IN A SONG CALLED the BADGE 1994 from album Far beyond driven BY PANTERA.

It is one kind of revolution to personally try to achieve, make a difference on one’s own, have power over one’s own message, as that is the only option how power is had, it is taken and shared. Finding the power of one’s own that there lies within in the night, in the day, in solitude, with a gun and a car which represent freedom, are tools to grab and are there like everyday objects in the movie. Man in the film Taxi driver sees things are not right in his life and around, riding around the city is what makes him observe, the customers he meets and connects with he makes conclusions what people are and are doing, what side are they on, what kind of exploitation happens there and why, who exploits who. Something has to be done and he takes his gun, he is powerless otherwise but he sees some people are even more powerless. Deciding there are things that should be changed, knowing which are the things that are wrong, why they are wrong, know how they can be changed and acts upon them. To make a personal crusade, personal vendetta, a killing after many wrongs done by other people. Does his ‘victory’ happen as he thought, a retaliation, defending of what is good? Do things change for better or go on as before?

They tend to end up hurting more than doing any good to anybody, crusades, leading to destruction and chaos. Movie where hero thinks he is a hero by committing his power act, a journey with his car, accomplishing his task in the way he has chosen and seen best: to a pimp played by Harvey Keitel he says suck on this and shoots the pimp in the stomach on the street. What makes him think violence is the answer, a solution, there is always a new pimp, a new young girl to be saved from the streets. What makes a person want to own a gun in a city? Hostility is clear and everyone is on their toes, vulnerable, at risk of being attacked and violated. Is making things right his calling, is he under threat because he is good? There is constant wrong to be made right, abandonment and loss is frequent, abuse is a deep wound and the bone is showing. Gun is there to make a cleansing in constant dirt people wade. Bad shape of people and what do we make of that. For many it is a place to strike and exploit, make it even worse. We pass the hurt forward, let others feel what we are feeling. Inside people’s heads form noisy ache. It is strange how lost people are with their emotions, with their ache, with other people. What I make of this is we are dictated by our pain.

8.1 Fury and rage

Frantic is a good word to use in context of revolution. To believe in possibility of change to the extent of no alternatives than to find something other and revolution becomes a religion-like obsession, a career and a way out. Religion is an emotional institution, having faith in the unseen, in new future, brave new world is more powerful as it is owned and made visible. It is to breathe revolution also to understand power within. It is the intoxicating youthfulness and brave imagining of something new and innovative. Faith is there for hope taking the pain away as a possibility for good and something good is coming, must be. A raging emotional desire is to act on behalf of oneself and others, for the future and for better living. Faith sounding maybe a bit weird on any scene of revolution when despair is dense, faith in oneself and in one’s own doings. Revolution somehow is seen as anti­religious as religion has had power over people crushingly long period of time. In revolution people become the religion, not God though? Overturning oppressive power is a very religious movement having faith in one’s chosen leaders and doctrines, in institution of liberation and the monument to look upon, and it is

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important to know whom and what to worship in this process, what is the structure of revolution. To understand that naive worshipping is out-of-order altogether, to know how, why and whom to critique and what does freedom mean for freed people. Spontaneous expressions of anger can be explosive and the most honest responses to a never­ ending kind situation where reason seems to have gone missing. Nothing is changing or if there is a change it is for the worse. Anger, hate and rage show their faces and prove to be needed in a healing process and justified.

Emotions go up and down daily and we learn to control our emotions from early on. We are told what not to do in public, how not to act when angry or why be angry at all when being likeable is preferred almost violently. It is an essential part of growing up into civilized society, to become member of it, is to learn how to deal with emotions in a certain proper way. Unlearned channeled creative human forces make things happen in good and bad. When enraged hands begin to shake, to sit still is difficult, pulse takes a rapid speed up, blood pressure rises, body sweats and heavy breathing makes one feel like an animal on the run, things look confusing and being rational becomes more difficult, one becomes impulsive. What kind of part do hate and rage play in the games of finding place, making groups of people, molding our social structures and places of belonging and living and being who we are and how we are. Negative emotions make us build walls and gaps. Why are negative feelings the most powerful forces causing society to act, get alarmed, making people act against structures of society or themselves. Hurt motivates, piles up, triggers violence, blinds. Hurt and trauma cannot be avoided, they cannot be not talked about. We need hurt and trauma to learn to survive and learn again. Violence is a daily act, mental and physical, verbal and pictorial aggression. To be fragile in a hostile world means you are threatened all the time. What makes those emotions in us so powerful is the extent how much we are about chemistry. It is as if we are nothing but chemistry and nerves and we many times are unaware of this part in us we have little control over. Why is pain important in this picture again and again? Negative feelings are with us for a reason. They are not to be suppressed but faced, felt and learned from. Garbage piles up when not let out and dealt with. To deal with emotions means feelings have to be talked about either with the person who causes those emotions or with someone who can listen, interpret, understand and respond. It is a pattern that repeats, again, is misunderstood, we not knowing ourselves.

We feel and think about those inner turmoils which we all have and we connect with by talking about them, learn that other people have the similar. This is an important phase how we consider our feelings as collective and universal, not only on individual level: what do we think/make of them and of this realisation that other people are not objects? Appreciation for feelings is to study them. To measure the amount of feelings is difficult, comparing them as well, guessing what others are feeling or should be feeling is impossible to know and dictate exactly. Although in North Korea everybody feels the same when their leader passes away, collective weeping is compulsory. The amount of suppressed individuality and human experience there is, is unimaginable and to think how is it possible to be this scared and dehumanized.

Then we talk about our feelings to someone whom we can trust and who is interested in how one feels and thinks, it is a relief to be able to speak of emotions, of personal experience which is invisible, which is not a simple issue. Emotions and personal view on oneself begin to evolve, emotions have a heavy meaning. Human layers, experiences and thoughts make progress in that process of becoming being alive and becoming a human being: why I feel the way I do, what that other person is feeling and why is she/he doing what she/he is doing. Life is a constant process, us hopefully evolving and changing on emotional level, on idea level and in action. It is learning process about the idea of me, what is me. Learning about nature in us, chemistry working in us making us live  in a manner that can be tolerable or intolerable. What makes crying intolerable and a sign of weakness for example?

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What would you cry for? Sometimes we cry for nothing, sometimes for mental hurt, injustice, for beauty, sometimes just because we feel horribly sad over things we cannot do anything about, because of feeling helpless. Global hurt makes me weep, also the need people have to escape mental and physical pain, which both are necessary for our growth and progress. Pain has a purpose. How much pain is necessary then, can we take, does weeping help? To a point. It is to let out pain in shape of tears and making sounds of sorrow. But to cry and sob is something to do privately. To sob in my solitude and shine in public is a heroic strong way.

6.2 It’s a crazy world we live in.

To stand accused is what happens to us daily. We are blamed to have caused global warming, having fallen into apathy, joblessness, indifference and all is fault of our own. To lose taste of what you are eating, watching, drinking, touching, breathing and thinking is a symptom. Why think when someone does it for you? What does it matter what one thinks, what does one person matter? How do you know what to think exactly when everything is so complex? How to tell, articulate well what one is thinking when all is a mess and pointless. I must be able to present myself, present myself over and over and be present. When life is a mess and a blur, a depressed mode and illness, frustration, fog make one disabled, isolated unable to focus. Lose interest in doing anything, in voting, acting out, standing up, working out. And they ask why! Is society to prohibit personality, deny identity, forget where one comes from, to have contempt against origin, hide colour, hide in colour, hide in fashion, or just hide, because to be different can be a reason to become isolated and hated. What about gender and sex. Am I of gender, typical, agreeable enough, nice enough to be liked? Do I belong? And is there class to belong to which accepts me?

It is a kind of trial since I am put in one kind of box for what I am not, accused and tested. How can one not become disoriented? Explosions happen when there is too much injustice which cannot be escaped and cultural oppression, restrictions, absolute rules for which one has no control over, individual bans and guides on how to live, subordination. Whenever there is a change there is a reaction to the change. There is nothing but change but is it progress? Get used to it and don’t, change yourselves, your life because if you don’t you are fucked. You can still decide, you are free is a weird idea. You are the boss of your life. We sell, you buy your personality, individuality, your data. How is that freedom? You name it we have got it. Why live a lie? Throwing it in, sentences, ideas, thoughts, anything, towel, sweat, is there blood in you or are you a robot, is it personal to speak the truth? Absolutely.

Hegemony, creativity there, complexity of some kind, power in unity holding us together or become divided. We live to be together or apart, is there something in the middle, what is the middle? Indifference is to separate, have just as much part as is necessary. We live in concepts of post-modernism, ideals are concretely too far to grab, unreachable or just efforts to understand how mass of people function and form units, societies and structures supposedly together. Pattern is a good word here, a security pattern which constantly must be enforced and changed, life pattern, in search of safe havens, networks, nests, restricted areas, protection. How do we

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form ourselves with others in doing and making is something we should concern ourselves more. Do our collective movements and moments function well, does our collective mind have the mutual understanding of well, do we have empathy for others only in virtual reality? Does kindness make society work, is kindness our ruling force? It has to be. Emotions having leading part in sculpting society by the minute, by every person, by every act which is felt and pushed forward. Emotions having strong part when access is restricted, thinking is forbidden, which is all the time depending on current culture. We like to prize the idea of freedom, but we hold together in captivity, because we are afraid of losing the earned status and being abandoned. Holding oneself in one piece in this complex unity of pieces of many.

A culture of almost complete restriction of feelings sounds unrealistic. It is difficult to imagine us without emotions. They are on our faces, movements, clothes, shopping, behaviour, ways of walking. In there, in us, within whatever we do there are piles and forms of feelings, layers of them, like vegetation, but there is an illness like inability to give them to do good, of wanting to express them to that person near, how could it happen? A compassionate closeness can spook people away like touching. One must be careful. Don’t get too close, don’t hug a stranger, don’t stare too long. Yes, to be touched by a stranger in anywhere can be irritating. An unknown man comes and rubs your back in a bar while talking and staring at your breasts is more than unpleasant. I so felt it.

It is what we should be able to do if there is a normal thinking caring person in question, give emotions, share them and restrict ourselves from giving them in a hateful, diminishing way. So how to show interest and caring and how to be angry is a question of how to know our boundaries. Depends on what one is interested in and how one sees other people, what are they to you. Interest in a person is different from interest only in having sex with that person.

Sexism is always present. Some people notice it because they face sexism often. It is some kind of a norm and to a point accepted. Silence is accepting. When no one acts against sexist behavior nothing happens to the problem. For some people sexism is a way to show feelings. They probably don’t know any other way to show feelings they have. They are afraid or incapable to act in different way, it would require actually wanting to know the other person, admitting value of that other person. Is there change emerging what comes to sexism? Incapability of showing emotions especially negative ones in a right way make us ill in the end. I conclude negativity and conflict are important as well. Clever ways to emotions is understanding the reactions and what dictates us emotionally. Awkward emotionally empty environment of people struggling to survive with their lack and incapabilities leave people around

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struggling with incapability, loss and thinking it is my fault or there is something wrong with me. Why we place blame so eagerly? It sounds good for someone else to have the blame, no negativity there, no irony. Negativity and horrible sadness, comparison, competition, attack and defence. Hurt can be drunken down and laughed over, it does not go away. Alcohol makes it worse. It is about one not wanting to face one’s bullshit since everything is fine. Escapism nowadays is so easy.

Effective is an act which is about shame. Shaming is to show how putting someone down in humiliating fashion is amusing and fun for some. The talk people share behind each other’s backs and reasons for it, patterns in relations because of what has been said make deep gaps and cuts. To show contradictions and paradoxes in people’s actions and the hollow ground beneath all beautiful and well-meaning people is also effective. Hypocrisy seems to prevail too easily. What kind of emotional and intellectual order of desires is at hand? Delicious. Problems begin with something to gain and with the ways of wanting stardom and success badly are happening via hurt. Choosing one’s path is to know why one is doing what one is doing and to whom. Interesting is the extent of passion of doing when you begin and what happens to it, how it evolves, your passion. Can you hold on to the thrill and charm of naive enthusiasm?

All of us and what do we do under monitoring eyes, under suspicion. Do we ask why there is so much suspicion? Looking up to parents, teachers, journalists, leaders who talk to us and pass us by, controlled decisions, carefully chosen words and smiles, because all cannot be said out loud. Censorship which happens because we need to hide, we cannot stay bare, we cannot be honest because we may seem inadequate, but we cannot show weakness. What is declared in good stays that way? Maybe slowly changing to something else. Decisions must be made to move forward, decisions on how to live. Then it can be seen what a decision was or was not. To make humanity is to act upon and take risks. We are not us if we are not active and creative. It should be clear that to be born human one has rights as human should. We manifest humanity and we make it in error and in perfection. Criteria and important characteristics of activities, qualities and possibilities to evolve through making. Learning from doing, seeing, hearing, via mistakes, stories, teachings, burning a finger, telling that sexist to go fuck himself and get a good look in the mirror. Basic attributes to thrive is learning through curiosity, encouraged to be curious and bold. It can be interest in other people’s businesses, it can be innocent interest in the world, to the worlds outside and inside, interest that can be a selfless need to find out and understand how the world works. Through this finding out how we work and how I work, how are we part of and have come to be inventive complex humans. There is always something to say, when there is nothing there is inability to see what one can do

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with little one has for example how small is the insignificant and why it is insignificant? When we look at Physics such as the insignificant does not exist. How does my consciousness construct me and is it a self-driving force? What is my consciousness, my brain, my thoughts, my ideas, my nerves, what begins to puzzle me and why? What makes a self and how to know it? What is mine, what is common and how do they mix and get to create new?

Abolishing blind spots, those which are there but we do not register, which is the place in the eye one cannot see with. How do you abolish something you cannot see? How do you wipe it away which is the invisible? When it could be your whole world, or half of it or the most important thing you fail to see and acknowledge? Abolishing skin, sex, gender, age, appearance, what things there are to demolish and why? Things unwanted to be demolished and how? How do you become to value something? How do you find value of your own? Abolishing the multitude of races means there is only one human race with numerous ethnical backgrounds and with billions of differences. Human being is made of differences and mutation. So, what there is to abolish is the very issue, walls inside your mind.

6.3 Headache.

Denying and hiding won’t make what we feel go away. Appreciation of life consists of constant learning, change, dealing with emotions. It is the truth, appreciation and life, wisdom of life often made flat. To trivialize wisdom has its reasons, business leaders have made themselves into gurus. But we have different views on what is wise.

To turn down aims for equal opportunity is to keep up dude philosophy or dude­ principles, tough guy ideology, where women have to be dudes, culture women should live by is to behave masculine which equals strong. Women are being nostrified as women, meaning adopted perfectly as objects and tools where feminism is a shield on surface, a rash like #metoo. Harshness as shield and open rejection towards empathy and what is the feminine, hostility towards femininity is obvious. To be a man is a guide for everyone. Don’t cry in a bus, don’t carry you emotional gun, everyone can see your twisted red face. Kindness is girls’ stuff and boys don’t cry. It is good to survive on your own, call it making it, minding your own business, supporting oneself, standing like a soldier. Better if nobody cries, so we don’t have to go through difficult negative emotions, fall apart in front of someone. We don’t have to face difficult issues mostly concerning human relations and misery which equal mess, pathetic wrong doings and chaos, shame, ever continuing

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emotional and physical unbearable chaos. What is sickness in this picture? What is a sick society, a society made by sick people?

Process of trying to change the unchangeable, an entity unwilling to change is a violent situation. Perfection thinks there is nothing to change in it, in me. For those in the middle it is a perfect place, for them there is nothing to be changed. Measures and means to put down those who dare vary from humiliation to silence. It is a pattern of those who have something to gain in a system they are in and it is serving them. Closed systems are very sensitive and touchy. They get contaminated with aggression and protectionism. Taking care of the image and walls around is more important than what is actually being said and done morally. It is like floating on waves of acceptance of friends that share your world and views in thinking what is the ultimate right and wrong. It is a strange way of living which to my understanding secures comfortable pleasurable tower for the few with means.

In this kind of small talk anything that is somehow out of the ordinary is a bullet, uncomfortable. In this kind of world making a controversy is fairly easy, but how to make it last as scandals last for a week? The disastrous effect of shredding something comfortable to pieces, pushing buttons, the right and wrong ones, fears of people in such a world and what is expected of people entering that world is healthy to test.

Is it too obvious what is the mainstream? It is popular, popularity, liked, listened, watched, enjoyed, consumed, used, available, everywhere, inescapable, in your face. Is the marginal opposite to most of that or all of that, and what kind of people follow the likeable mainstream? What kind of talk is made of it, inspirational perhaps. Labelling, putting people into groups and against each other, it has a role. In entertainment such controversy sells. Distinct part in illusion of individualizing us, to be one but not, identities of ours fight against collectiveness and not, we wanting to be part of the fun active buzz as strong individuals as parts of community, but in the shadows? Quite a contradiction, to be one but a mass. Are categories of taste so obvious that they exist no matter what? They exist because people like different things, or do we categorize to understand, taste, to make the distinction more obvious, to tell what we are and what we are not, gaps and barriers to block unwanted out, what do these strategies open? Borders are there between professions, origins, classes, genders, generations, nationalities, clothes. There is nothing but definitions and groups of people, lines in between them in order

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to be safe, accepted and be part of to have an identity, avoiding loneliness and boredom. You have to belong. We are herds of people suspicious of each other, sniffing the air and feeling the atmosphere where to go from here to make it. What is going to happen in the cynical world? How much does class dictate taste and thinking? How much does it rule what people find interesting and why and what people begin to do in their lives? It takes determination like no other. Yes, there are walls to go through. Generations pouring prejudices and beliefs onto the next ones, to their kids, but of course they do. Working class and low self-esteem are familiarly close and alive together, feeding tradition and roles of people. Everyone does what they think is the right thing to do, right? How do people at the lower end find the right thing/things to do and say and why stick to that negative idea of class? How do people become to think like they do? Where is the change in this loop?

6.4 Change is the only absolute.

Is there new, new in what way or change for that matter? Power of a protest singer, rapper when he/she is telling a story from real life. Misery and injustice told in forms of tales for listener to either sympathize, know that they are not alone. It is a long tradition of passing information on of what happens in the world. Folksingers, troubadours tell stories and entertain, what happens when political message enters that stage? How political can a singer get? Living the internet time messages spread fast and net is full of phenomena of entertainment, people who seek fame. Same channel work well in spreading political points of views and music still works wonders when a good beat, interesting lyrics and stories make a match. Could it be that political music as idea everything is political makes the best effects what comes to making social change, reaching and waking people? I do not think it is just idealism, it is power. Music is for all to listen and make. It takes an idealist to make politics, to begin with politics, still you don’t have to be politician to do politics. Every personal act becomes to have an impact on the environment and people in it. To act requires decision-making, making a choice, witnessing, telling, understanding, being open. It requires an idea, plan, means to do it, will to do it, imagining, looking ahead, conversation, debating, asking, questioning, evaluating, belief and feeling. Politics is people deciding, compromising, dealing with the common and mutual issues that concern everyday life of every person. Politicians make the laws which citizens obey. Citizens choose politicians by voting. These simple sounding tasks and basic functions of a state are results of battles and

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numerous wars.

Democracy and respect for human rights still is not self-evident and in some countries change for better is tiresomely slow, agonizingly and horribly. Therefore, it is important to understand the meaning, purpose and significance of politics and one’s own actions. Now situation is rather worrying on many levels. It seems to be a fact that power corrupts and for some people politics is a competitive game, feather in a hat. For one politicians are players or seen as players who make tactical politics to benefit causes of their own. Lack of trust is a major problem. Hasn’t it always been so power over people is always violently used. Politics should be to correct unsatisfying situation, given promises, knowing your place, knowing your rights, demanding your rights, fighting for them. There is something to gain and something to lose. What are the things worth gaining? This is one issue to the point when looking at respecting and how respect is gained, certain kind of respect which serves many. You can get respect by scaring people. That is an old-fashioned model of gaining admiration by violence, scaring and diminishing and silencing the other. It has got to do with physical power and size more than anything else. It could be called education if there was a lesson.[1.][2.]

Emotional reactions can be surprising. If they don’t hit us, surprise and put us out of balance what else is there. What is it we need our emotions for if we become machines? They are to guide us. It is a task for emotions to shake us. How do we know to which things we can laugh at and to which not or why laugh at all? How do we get to be compassionate? Ultimate question is, how are we doing?

Emotional is the female, emotional is forbidden, there is no honor in emotion, it is a burst beneath until you cannot hide anymore, emotions can turn against you. Whom are you against? Is someone faceless inside you? Narcissism, egotism, self-loath, self-destruction, fetishism, masochism, pleasing until you cannot anymore hide and take it until you cannot stand it anymore. It is interesting how revolutions start, how they are followed all over the world. They bring empathy for the oppressed. How will it end up and when will it end and does the revolutionist movement trigger a snowball like movement around, a cumulative effect of one nation rising up.

To set oneself on fire says revolution is about death. About dying for a cause. Revolution is about sacrifice. Of having been afraid so long one begins to be fearless. Death is whether there is a revolution or not, so the choice is clear.

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If I die it’s for my country, for a good cause? A revolution can be that immense a thing, definite, fanatic and determined. It can be worth more to you than your life. As in his article Evert Cilliers aka Adam Ash writes about the situation in Egypt in 2011 which has been boiling for years. Oppression, hatred, torture, unemployment, poverty, corruption, military having much to say in politics of the country. It is again a long list of utter horridness brought onto the ordinary people and they not tolerating it anymore. Mubarak stealing wealth of the state, billions of money, which should have been used for the welfare of the people. Army buying artillery with billions from the US. It is angering even for me even as I am following what happens from far away. The injustice done daily year after year and reported in the news year after year is incredibly frustrating to witness. Millions of people see this crookedness of politicians and businessmen without able to do much about it. I am outraged, I pour it on social media, on my website, in my art, in this thesis. Moral outrage, discussion and following of what happens in the world. It is the least I can do to write about it.

To understand morals of people and why they act the way they do means finding evil motives and roots which seem inescapable. Motives behind one person and behind millions can they be the same? Can revolution unite millions of people to have the same motive: to make society better? Could millions of people be together compassionate and selfless to the extent of giving that much of themselves to make such worldwide revolution happen, a conscious revolution of kindness? When it seems impossible for reasonable people anywhere for whom facts are clear of how to make a nation and its people prosperous? It is almost impossible to have a country which would be dedicated in serving its people and their welfare. To have a country which would dedicate its existence in removing poverty, be dedicated to educate people and make peace. [3.][4.]

According to study by Jonathan Mercer of University of Washington concepts nationalism, trust, justice and credibility when stripped out of emotion appear unrecognizable. This is very clear. Concepts such as trust and justice work in building nations self-evidently and become parts of our identities more or less for us to form groups of power and trust. To have trust is to build a nation and make justice. Politics is where people should be trusted, but over and over this trust is failing. In keeping nations together there is a certain amount of pride, patriotism, nationalism, love for the country and its people. Mere emotion and illusion. Nationalism nor patriotism do not tend to show as the

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most rational of tactics and ideologies. They follow feeling. We are like this and we like us as we are, we follow the collective emotion and believe in it which appears strongly in sports. We want to protect ourselves to stay as we are. We can continue being afraid of change, immigrants, strangers, oddities, settling for traditions and wanting to stick with people of our kind. Reason does not have much to do with all this. Most sensible thing for people to do in order to evolve is to expose oneself to new things, new ideas, all kinds of people and situations. Surprise is of course how people who think are very clever can be so narrow­minded and biased. This happens in universities as in working class circles. Isolation and separation is not out-of-order. It is a norm.

How to appeal to emotions of the public is to talk about welfare of children, elderly, sons and daughters who work and suffer to make a living. We must fight for them, for all of us, for better world. We hear this. Everyone is important. How much such talk appeals I’m not quite sure but somehow jargon is obvious. There has to be something personally experienced, personally felt to connect with. Revolution rises from the very negative to find the positive in people as a group, a union. Revolutions are mass events which usually need and require leading. Mastering masses is tricky, masses are emotionally uncontrollable.

1.https://www.opendemocracy.net/openglobalrights/jean-h-quataert/making-womens-rights-human-rights by JEAN H. QUATAERT 31.10.2013
How women’s rights became part of the international human rights movement 2.http://sur.conectas.org/en/can-economic-growth-translate-access-rights/ 31.10.2013 Challenges faced by Institutions in South Africa in Ensuring that Growth Leads to Better Living Standards, questions on how financial growth benefits all and does it by SERGES ALAIN DJOYOU KAMGA and SIYAMBONGA HELEBA 3.https://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2011/02/the-six-emotions-of-revolution-what-egyptians-are-feeling-now.html 31.10.2013 by Evert Cilliers aka Adam Ash The six emotions of revolution; what Egyptians are feeling right now (2011) 4.https://unu.edu/publications/articles/the-role-of-emotions-in-politics.html 31.10.2013 (published 2011•04•12 ) written by Ainius Lašas to United Nations University, Bringing emotions into understanding revolutions.

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Importance of having free art colleges is the vital question at the moment, that making art will not become a class issue more than it already is.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

What Makes an Artist? – Grayson Perry and Sarah Thornton | Tate Talks

It is the very basic battle, a kind of violent arguing and taking sides of how to know what is art and decide about it strictly, or could it just be as simple as you like it as art, enjoy it as art. The same struggle goes on with who is an artist and can be an artist. Is it money that makes the professional, is it quality, network, school and family? To know is to know professional quality and understand the standing of the artist, how complex it all is. One definition does not apply for all. Measuring happens very often by evaluating skill, the artistry itself is the measure of how good an artist one is, how much effort and sweat art has taken to make. This idea is prized widely, what does skill tell us. We want to be blown away by craftsmanship, price and size, effort and extraordinary rare talent. Idea of normal physical labor and validation of certain results can take too much hold. To ask to copy reality as it is seen is a normal question and can you do it. Something equals good. People measure art and the artist via how much what is being made is exactly a replica of what we see and know. For many that is valuable as art, familiarity, knowing, recognizing, seeing, understanding and that it is also difficult. Artistry is also on which pedestal the person is and is a matter of climbing there, visibility, media coverage, being noticed, written about and acknowledged by those who know. Is this a spot for manipulation? Fine art is a highly specific specified field where expertise is required and those who think they don’t know enough are scared they make fools of themselves, which scare exists there among all. Maybe that is why scene is so stiff, very difficult to approach, reluctant to change eventhough it is talking about it and difficult to get in to as it is made of people who measure art and people. Interestingly positions of power are held on to a long time which does not help, conventions and hierarchies rule. Position gained is not given away that easily. Position of power in art is an interesting topic for the reason that the field is so specific, isolated and demands a lot of knowledge to know and be an expert of. Those who have power are trusted and valued. How power is used then? It does not look all that good in terms of making speedy progress.

There are those who decide for borders, walls, expectations to be filled and labels to be put on a person, reputations and careers to be had and probably the crowd is too small and tight. Celebration and party is a closed area. Artist is a kind of grand title and an honorary one as such, although honor is a strange concept in this regard, in terms of art. Is it honourable to be an artist and what does it mean? To practise what you preach? Make wonderful objects, eye candy for buyers? Double standards and looking good are a matter of keeping the impeccable image and what is art for other than image/habitus purposes, usually it is an accepted thought art is good for our spirit and health in general. When we look good we are happy and content? The grandiose and size enclosed there is part of the myth of an artist which oftentimes and more and more is a burden for art, artists, for the whole system and that it is male. To be an artist is a loaded profession, a fairytale and a fable, which one must over and over again debunk, break and disturb. Packed with stereotypes and clichés that circle in people’s minds, artist is sacred idolized archetype, this used up poster has troubled me and caused frustration, when does it ever change. How does an artist look like, how is artist portrayed, where art is when it is art, how approachable it all is and what is fear of art, how weird the artist is, how sick. Problems there are ideological and stuck always involving status, gender, class, money, quality of art, form of art, origin, places of show, networking, ways of interacting and talking etc. It is a whole bunch issues and beliefs that are and will be problematic, hard to overcome, accept or understand why they hold on so tightly. What is the turning point? One definitely is that art schooling remains available for those who do not come from money and that it is not a shameful thing to be working class.

 

 

Art hires bullies and incompetence: my well-educated analysis which is based on experience. Experience is bad which I have been wondering how I am so unlucky, or there truly is something seriously wrong but not enough leverage to make that needed change. Some parties do not look for change in art because stagnant state of things works better for them.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

When one first begins studying sculpting and your teacher is sexist chauvinist, strongly biased male to whom pedagogy seems to be an unknown concept, one gets a pretty good idea of what to expect when one graduates. So it all is educational after all. There are no illusions whatsoever of what lies ahead and how slowly things change in the arts, which hugely relies on tradition, what comes to gender roles, social and career mobility, position and power of institutions and money, what is good art, what can be shown and said. Mostly art looks back so keenly because it likes the male heroes. Needless to say I have argued and questioned a lot at art school and was deeply unliked because of that. Old fashioned are also ways to do business, put up exhibitions, funding, how artists and artistry are seen and treated, how much there is preconception and thinking you know even when you do not know shit. That is of course when you need the consultants. You can always rely on knowledge of a consultant but artist is an underdog if he or she is not well-known and well-networked. What else is there other than self-interest and all one can do is work for only one’s own benefit, why else do it. Business in which one has to be an expert and know a lot there are many doing the work who do not have the needed capabilities: understanding, courage and knowledge, capabilities to spark change, unbiased, only talk is what happens, which does not change anything, just like politicians do.

As curious as it sounds when you start looking at the issue of what kind of people are drawn to business of art, it could not be more clear: it is made to those who strive to win, be best at posing or at least look like they are good at something, mostly the latter. The importance of image cannot be emphasized enough. To work in art you have to have a big ego to stand behind your work, be confident enough to stretch as far as possible with ideas of your own, try out ideas which you believe in and very often only you, fail or succeed, and accepting the result to move on with all the enthusiasm possible. What kinds of results we accept as a community and in what kind of environment we want to work plays a big part of how to choose one’s perspective, on which side to stand and look into the scene where one is to create, be creative. How creative is the art world? What is the scene where art is shown or made to exist and why is it so narrow and unwelcoming? It is not new that narcissism is a regular trait for artists and in the arts in general and need to be admired for one’s position, networks and art must be one thing probably. All want to have the fame, which is one thing essential in art, admiration, grandiose, infinity, eternal art and eternal unforgettable artists, heroes. Artists are admired when they get fame and fortune. Fame is much talked about as it is the gold pot which might be found when one is talented and lucky enough. What is luck, how one gets lucky and what is part of talent there? It is a weird business where money circulates, art gets centered to certain places and artists have to be presented in certain places to have a name, be seen by right people and be noticed within the system. So to be stepped over is not irregular, to be sexually harassed either, minimised, discriminated, talked about in ill manner happens regularly. There are things to be expected but still they strike always as surprise because one wants to believe in kindness and good intentions. Cynicism is the first impression I get, always. It is no wonder, I am always up against a crowd of fanatics who think they know better and are better because art is about finding the truth, being good and admired, and those who are on pedestals think, they have found it and are deserving of their status.

There are those who like to repeat over and over again one idea, imprint it where ever they can because it is theirs and it represents the good they have come up with, themselves, something unchangeable, an era, an -ism, history, tradition, spectacle, experience after which tourists are expected to travel and spend money for. When we starve the idea of art into movable modules that function as branded palaces for money, it is art for money and art for business’ sake. It is tourism that dictates and the tourist is offered an art awe grandiose to witness and experience, remember, photograph, be educated by. An art awe is.., sensation, uplifting, knowledge, learning, the act of looking and feeling the once in a life experience, time to touch, something grand again, special, new or old and spectacular, always bigger and more expensive. To find the spectacular it has to be imported. Interesting is when new art is made it often is made in the marginal and by those who have rebelled the establishment, education, hierarchy and traditions, those who have made the most interesting art and have had the lasting changing impact on art are the dissidents. Always there is a clash and crush necessary for that necessary change to happen. The procedure of producing art is machinery of media coverage, expensiveness, size, names, what catches the eye, mind and heart. To preserve quality and process of the creating progress and the new which can be exciting, cynicism is not good at all.

Artist, captor of light http://www.words-to-use.com/words/art/

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.

| 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.

Yes, it is a question of self-esteem, values in life and where do you come from.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

Out of all experiences I have had working class culture has made me think what is creativity in working class context? How do working class people create and what it means to create? As for many welders welding is an art. And I agree. It is a beautiful work and skill. It is creation made possible at work and through that it is possible to understand one’s own creativity and skill. For people in that particular industry cars are an important way of self-expression. They are well taken care of and talked about subject. Man is his car. When a new guy appears at work his car is firstly checked out. It can be brutal, because man’s personality and character depends on his wheels. How about those who take the bus?  Take a guess.

With the thinking of what is working class goes also what it does not want to be.  It cuts itself out of many possibly fruitful things it thinks are not for it. Laborers like to place the blame of misfortunes on others and stick in their own comfortable circles. This I have experienced myself several times. Funnily same goes for the Arts. It is also curious how people like to find mistakes and errors in others instead of searching themselves. Yes, a working class hero exists, and an art hero exists, but from my point of view they are posing shells, nothing else.