There is something to be rejected in ‘perfect photos’ as they may look too good to be real. Staged, rehearsed and paraded photos where there is something enjoyable and nice is to cheer us up. Photography is much used in this purpose. It is a mood creator taking the viewer somewhere and good as such, with a purpose. We have stuck ideas of what is perfection and what is beautiful, how it looks, as it is a look and desired. Of course we must define what is perfection, what is the aesthetics of perfection. A perfect photo is a window to a lovely world and to personality. Perfection is to know what one wants, it is a goal to which there is a road. We will notice it very often is a matter of taste and tradition and what we are used to seeing, what we like, what moves us. How much do we dare to push buttons of viewers? What does rejection tell?
We must show others that we know what is good. What do we want to tell via preferences and the medium is what is interesting. What are you telling me and why. Perfection is in part a fantasy. Is it yours, do you own it or are you reaching out for it? It is personal, somehow naive, shallow and a thing to be had, thing of vanity and making a gap between. Perfect photos uplift the photographer to a illustrator of dreams and achievements, that something is exact, right and in order and the maker of photos must know something of order and organising. The photographer is the hero owning the medium. There is heroism in photography which is itself disturbing. Sizes, prices, glows and sounds of cameras are a thing and sight and matter of awe themselves. I am interested in what is the edge there too much to take and accept. What is unacceptable in terms of photography? Is it ugliness, greyness, fuzziness, lack of light, obscenity, unprofessional look, gender, lack of money or what?
What is the point and issue we are not touching, do not want to see and accept, are not showing but removing, are afraid of or despise in photography. We think we know perfection, so there is a ground to be followed? Rules such as don’t burn pictures with too much light. Perfection in photography is more complex than what is there in sight at first glance. It is eye candy for some, nostalgia, arranging a set and prettiness immortalised. Is there something more that needs a deeper look, what is the story or clue behind there. What is interesting in a photograph for me is fragility via a powerful medium, tool (too powerful for me to touch? Am I too small to be holding a camera?) and how this medium and media can be challenged, as it obviously must be. What gets captured, where do we point our cameras at and what does it tell?
Damage on a photo there can be is dust, scratches, negatives ageing, sudden wetness makes paper get glued on negative. Anything that creates something on the surface other than a picture should be removed. To please the eye is an interesting demand. Something gone wrong in the process of preserving a photograph, or a disturbance during any phase of making, disruptive something is a remainder of importance of imperfection, to understand this makes one take more dimensional photos than just surfaces that instantly please. Damage and doing wrong in photography is somewhat a punishable act as it is highly seen a technical art where one has to master the equipment, light, have eye for situations and capture in seconds. How good one is, is very much a technical issue for many. It is an issue of being accepted as a photographer. In other words how much equipment one can afford, which has led me to question authority and decision-making processes within the industry. Quality and how much wealth it needs to be achieved and how much wealth dictates quality and creativity in general.
In unreal photos of reality there is awe, how it was made, how much it is about the equipment and how much it is the master behind the lens. It is not unheard of to witness men saying women can’t photograph or you can never afford this camera. My destiny is of course set by people who know better. When money is the number one authority there, getting it gives you authority or is it skill.
This is a test. This is a wound and how it was made. The unhealing of open flesh.
Buxom garbage times a million times the time to get rid of it. 1 million seconds is 11.57 days. How long will you live, can you actually read this, where are you now, how many hours do you work per day, how many steps did you take, what kind of steps? Million, billion, trillion, stuttering fear of expressing oneself clearly, but why be afraid? Fear of what, where does it come from? Hierarchy by machinery: Human The Beast and Need for Love, paradigm of varietas, variety: you have to understand it, see it, accept it and be it.
Buxom garbage times a million times the time to get rid of it.
1 million seconds is 11.57 days. How long will you live, can you actually read this, where are you now, how many hours do you work per day, how far is your place of work, how do you get there?
Length: There are one million millimetres in a kilometre and roughly a million sixteenths of an inch in a mile. A typical car tire might rotate a million times in a 1,200-mile (1,900 km) trip, while the engine would do several times that number of revolutions.
¥ Fingers: If the width of a human finger is 2.2225 cm (7/8 inch), then a million fingers lined up would cover a distance of approximately 22 km (14 mi). If a person walks at a speed of 4 km/h, it would take them approximately five and a half hours to reach the end of the fingers. Physical quantities can also be expressed using the SI prefix mega, when dealing with SI units. For example, 1 megawatt equals 1,000,000 watts.
The meaning of the word “million” is common to the short scale and long scale numbering systems, unlike the larger numbers, which have different names in the two systems.
The million is sometimes used in the English language as a metaphor for a very large number, as in “Never in a million years” and “You’re one in a million”, or a hyperbole, as in “I’ve walked a million miles” and “You’ve asked the million-dollar question”. Wikipedia
Living in the world of numbers, with numbers, with figures, scales, scenarios, tests, tubes, cubes, geometry. In the world of plenty, multitude, richness, bigness, grand being equal to something valuable, our lives are based on measurements and how well we see what is in front of us. To measure something puts it in a place in our rational universe. Gives a meaning and place, tells function or how something works as being as big or as small as it is in a relation to others similar in comparison to difference. We need to find the similar which pleases us, something to relate to and tell what we are not. What is me, what is within me, how do I work, what is the smallest piece of me? What can I do? What can a human being do? To do and think is the measure of me. What can I do, what am I able to learn to make and who tells me what to do, I am able to do. Should I obey? Yes, I’m humble servant to what really is. Why would anybody else define my doings when there is so little understanding of what is and who anyone really is? What kind of hierarchy inhabits around me, puts me in my place, or I think some forces try very hard to. How do I take place of mine and define myself, know myself or think I know myself? What kind of slaves or machines are we (very good ones, very good.). If we live in slavery without probably being alerted, not noticing or caring much about it. Or are we too scared to change the situations of ours. I always wonder what are we scared of. To live in fear, stop for heaven’s sake. What will happen to us if we step outside.
Calculating the possibilities of survival after an atomic attack. Counting my hair. How many cells do I have and isn’t it heavenly I survive without needing to think about them and their action? So this is a difficult task for me to get inside the world of numbers (When did I leave it? Or when was it introduced to me thoroughly?) and maybe understand how the world works or working makes it, makes me possible, makes us as we make it. It has taken me a long time to realise where numbers come from, what are equations, theorems, a language too difficult for many, what it means. History of Mathematics was not thought at school and I didn’t realise the beauty of numbers until now that I understood that Physics and understanding it was so vital of understanding existence. Hah. Everything and everybody by numbers and movement, reactions. Numbers entail order, amount, structure, aristocracy, hierarchy, secrecy and the truth, reality and mystery, mistakes. Those who understand and those who don’t.
The use, to use, utilise, make things happen. What things? Mobilise us, make our lives faster, things in our lives to happen rapidly, information to pass forward, to let know what happens, why and when. Knowledge and how far we drift from it the more we have exposure to it, access to it, what are the things we want to know and things we don’t want to know. What is important to know and what we need to know. There are people who don’t want to hear about the bad, the ugly, the truthful, let’s concentrate on the happy things and have a cup of something. The easiness of not knowing is a kind of relief and stressless state. To turn one’s back to the pile of thrash for example. Someone who has not seen the struggling and the pain will be shocked and someone who has seen those things a lot is used to bad things, expects them to happen. It exists in my world, the bad. Is that how it goes or is it different kind of struggling and pain we all experience being unable to connect, because we either minimise or do not see other people’s struggles or don’t want to get involved? How do you suffer, is your suffering big or small, do you make it known for others or keep it to yourself? What makes it big or small, do you talk about it a lot or not at all? How to measure the amount and intensity of one individual’s pain? What creates pain? Is it the shame of not knowing what it means or just because of hurt? The opposite of pleasure, lack of pleasure or inability to understand pleasure. How much pain can a person take, like when tortured? Sure, ache is different with different reasons. Some take more than others. What causes ache in people’s lives? Why is life so full of pain caused by hurt caused by suckers and motherfuckers? To kill, to murder, we want to see murder to see someone suffer. We want to see suffering to ease our own hurt. To see fear on someone’s face and laugh at it. I’m glad it was not me. To that person who is afraid. Why is causing pain like a machine in us? What is the machinery in us that ticks pain. It is machine-like activity that is fairly easy to guess and calculate. How certain kind of people think and act, in which social level, with whom are you seen with. The rules and hierarchies moving people and their mind tick like clocks. One cannot make a mistake once you know the patterns how. It is dangerous to see through. Unavoidable, inescapable quality of human life, suffering and how people survive and learn. If you suffer you must make the other suffer too. Could you learn away from that feeling and the need to revenge? To let know how one feels inside, a circle that never stops. Revenge, ignorance, selfishness, indifference make people function and create hate, war, famine, death and poverty. It is to blame human nature and it cannot be changed, shit happens? That is how it looks.
How everything happens, everything – saying out loud is tiring, the all and what we know about it what is around us and why it happens as it does. Not a break, not a sigh or time to rest, but observe and know more and think how one changes and absorbs. There is no time to stop. This is to understand what I know or think I know, what there is to know.
This is calculating the possibilities of survival during and after. Probability of survival estimated is like planning a trip to. Asking questions, questioning stupidity, which is thinking of knowing but still not knowing much, but that we are machines. Western heritage is about knowing the truth, what is right, being on the side of facts and what is good. It is the heritage of Christianity and science, history of conquerors and winners. To rule as a white male, a meat-eating hero, the conqueror who says rabbits eat vegetables. Is it to say you are better than the rabbits, it doesn’t show. How you evolve tells how good you are, not what you think you should be, but you make of yourself and stay that way thinking this is the best there is, a state of evolving. Do I have the same goals, the same direction as everybody else? Which strange goal I’m part of, where does it go and what is it, this goal of ours, this conqueror we still desire to be, where do we want to go, this set of systems we have created. I am a living system in the set of systems, we are bunch of systems systematically and without a clue trying to calculate the ways to manage, but not knowing, shooting in the dark still. I am puzzled. Systems that aren’t serving humanity and nature, but destroying them are strong. Softer ways somehow do not easily win. Is it possible to get rid of systems that we have created and build new ones? Dependency on money, vehicles, machines, electricity, food supply, media which make high-speed a value. Could we live without this regime of speed or just have few of them? It is a question of what we want life to be. How we want to live it. Fast, hedonist, proud, ambitious. Do we have to give up everything of that wealth we have made to save ourselves and others. What do we essentially need? What are human needs? Is it speed?
Is there something that has to be explained? Yes, my point of view probably. My work is not a defence, it is exploring what there is, what is hidden, what is shown and why. There are differences around the globe how for example criminals are portrayed in media, the accused and convicted ones, which has been an interest of mine and involves culture in general, which issue resonates with portraiture and the visual culture we receive and look at. Am I taking a stand and what kind or am I doing research? Yes. I am trying to understand how we measure, comprehend human value and make judgment, point a finger and what do we make of it. What does artist represent and mean when she dives into the very problematic of our morals and the evil men and women do? What do we mean with inhumane as we think humane is something absolutely good? Why inhumane is below us and something else than us? To me it is not outside of us, we just like to think it is.
What is the absolute evil we loath, how is it seen or not seen, is what interests me, the ugly and beautiful we define. We see it in those others, how about in ourselves? We have a very strict filter or denial of what we are. What do we make of all that seen imagery and how do we choose our stand can be a no-brainer. It is to condemn and stay as far as possible from evil, lock it away in isolation, still it has to be understood, faced and talked about as it is not far from anyone ever. How the bad and evil get caricatures and stereotypes which repeat in our minds is how we make the difference and make rejection. We see something and we think immediately something of the seen. We analyse our relationship to it. An absolutely evil person is someone who hurts those who cannot defend themselves and keeps on hurting knowing that there is little or no struggle against. Sound familiar? The pedophile issue is a constant one as is the issue of evil, abuse, creating the evil, learning about it and our ways of dealing with it. How am I good and that other person bad and why. Issue of evil happening against children is painful and real. Those involved in abuse are the lowest of the low as those who have more power take advantage of those who have less power whose hurt brings pleasure to someone. Sexual abuse is different from any other kind of abuse. We have our ways of seeing abuse that is either very punishing or looking the other way. Sexual abuse is a corrupted idea of sex, of power and relationship and destructive to anyone who is hurt. There is a victim whose hurt is the shame and pain of what has happened. When child is seen as a pleasure toy for an adult, child is violated and humiliated in the most cruel way. What is the happening there and what is the enormous violation there is who is a proper sex partner. To know what kind of desires we can have and realise, what is sex for and why it dominates our behaviour, why are we sexual to the extent of hurt, when does and should sex become an issue for children and what kind of issue is it for adults, are questions for all to go through. It is always an issue for children and we live in a sexist world where being sexual means something, but what does it mean. Children think of sex which does not mean they are ready for having sex and they misunderstand and imagine, as do adults. What is the violation there when a girl starts her sex life out of her own initiative at the age of 11? Can she have an initiative of her own? Sex is violence is probably the best way to understand what happens in sexual act. Something that is supposed to be good is hurtful. Sex is not a mere act of pleasure. From the beginning when children are targets they are targeted as are all. It is the very assumption of what humans are basically about, are seen through and want.
One has to be careful how one approaches the topic of children. There are numerous scandals in fine art where children have been shown openly as sexual beings. They are sexual when they are naked. Taking roles of adults happens to many children in real life all the time. Children taking care of minors when they are minors themselves, being made into killing machines and factory workers who have small fingers and are cheap labor, children who are sold into prostitution have not chosen to be prostitutes. Yes we are all horrified. The most horrifying thing is sexual abuse, naked body of a child and looking at it, when it is on display. What we must do is to know who is the abuser. Amount of hurt and to whom is a big issue, for example within catholic church hypocrisy comes along which is not news anywhere. When revealed pious people who were supposed to protect, guide and teach feel the shame. Pedophilia is the worst kind of crime and we want to protect children. I do hope so.
How protecting happens, do we reject the whole issue or face it? Responsibilities of adults do seem to be lost for adults themselves far too often. What does judging the artist tell?
Beggars are an everyday sight in bigger cities. Feelings towards beggars are negative which I can understand as there is no pride left when you beg. You are on the street and are very vulnerable. Poverty is seen a fault of your own, not a virtue. It is a stench and a shame to not have money. Opinions range from disgust to pity. As an artist I can relate to this. A poor artist is a bad artist, which thought has as much sense as the art scene in general. But still I am rich. I look rich because I have my teeth left and my clothes are new and I have a home. I can relate as I do not come from money and I make art at shoestring budget. There is creativity in being poor and I can afford to think this way. Having no money makes you innovative. I do not consider wealth a measure of man and I do think we should start consuming less. To learn to think having less a virtue is what I’m hoping to see. Biggest wealth is what a nation can do to its citizens and help them think that there are options for them to try out, that they are not destined to be beggars or what someone else tells them to be. Our destiny is not set by other people and where we come from.
Merciful and allowing kindness, non judgmental attitudes towards beggars resonate with our overflowing concern over the third world countries. Their state is what we feel guilty for, it is our doing in part, but how long should this guilt go on? How responsible are Finns for example for what happens in the world now? Our consuming of goods and lifestyle is a constant threat which includes facts about slavery and child labor, how much do we contribute to and how well can we be aware of exploitation? To be able to get ahead in life is not luxury it is a human right, to evolve on your own. Not be the child to be abused but taken care of, our responsibility is grave and dark. Of course we must be concerned, but what kind of help is the best kind? Do we support corruption and oppressive traditions when we give monetary help? For those who are oppressed and poor begging must be allowed, but it cannot be a without an end kind of method of earning. How much mercy there is and what does it mean when you give money? Are you doing something good for that other person or for yourself, you save yourself and the other perhaps? In Finland there were not many if at all beggars on the streets ten years ago, living without a permanent home in the cold on the mercy of others is a short life to which in Scandinavia some party will intervene. To intervene to destructive ways of living is one aspect of welfare state. Abandonment can happen by families but not by state. The Roma people are tightly dependent on their family structures and hierarchy there which cannot be questioned as harmful. Beggars beg for reasons we can guess what goes behind there is a matter of knowing and suspicious, a well grounded question. Begging is especially cruel for children for which I am most concerned about. The most important duty of any nation is to provide a basic education for its children and get them out from the streets. This child labor, abuse and a human rights violation is very acute all over the world. Despite all the natural and other riches nations may have child poverty is on the rise and they are the ones who suffer most. I do not have any empathy for people who put their kids on the streets to work may the work be prostitution, begging, playing music, washing car windows etc. Child labor is one of our major problems still even though there is clear evidence that educating all children is the benefit of all society. To give education is the safest bet and an investment for the future. People who have been working on the street since childhood probably will continue to do so in adulthood.
Poverty is a though one to escape and to change destitute life is unbearably hard but not impossible. To think it is impossible is to think fight is only for survival and that options are for the rich. In Finland punks beg money for beer in the summer and I can laugh about it. The Roma people come here to beg throughout the year which gets very cold and is not a healthy way to make a living. When families with children occupy the streets at the centre of the city, the busy corners reflect ways of life and how distant people’s lives can be from each other as distant as understanding of life and its purpose are. One wonders is this really how the Roma want to live, shouldn’t their kids be at school, and there comes someone telling me they have no option. So I conclude they are refugees. Why do they not see themselves as refugees? To criticise their way of living is for them cruel and unjust because they escape from oppression, this a repetition and the story, but it is vital for their survival, is always the answer, the same unchangeable. What else could they do and it is easy for me to say what I think. You beg money from me I can have an opinion. They do not think and see other options for themselves and their kids as they are a different class as the Roma of Finland seem to think of themselves as well, a race, a tribe. They see it difficult to live as the majority of people do and mutual respect is scarce. The best help sometimes is the understanding of facts and rules, admit that the world changes around, but you do not. What are you going to do about it?
It’s true to my mind to give money for them is supporting oppression Roma themselves are guilty of, a culture that forces its members to live in a certain way. Handout is giving ground for begging. Begging is about serious destitution, a culture where humans live without tomorrow and as it is allowed to happen is as such difficult to approve of. People are free to beg and continue to beg but not change their predicament in any way, there is something wrong with that and I can say it. The Roma clearly do not think or do not find any other way to make a living. Destitution shrinks one’s thinking and views on oneself. Among the Roma there is a thought that their lifestyle is sacred and they involve religion to begging which there is no business others to intervene or judge, people must help those in desperate need if they are true Christians. Forcing is not a Christian thing to do as is not stealing, lying and being incapable of helping oneself. To force someone to beg is slavery. Those who do not contribute and show compassion are cold-hearted and cruel, the Roma say. Education, evolution and change demand a certain degree of cruelty and pain. Those who stubbornly want to stay the same blame other people for their situation. Such denial is common anywhere. Feminists are blamed for making men feel inadequate and destroying families. If you are so useless what is the use of you? What people should learn is to help themselves not depend on other people to make them happy and give money. That is the way to go. This idea of making a living doing what they have always been doing is very telling of how stuck people are in their old ways of living without education. People who are oppressed in their own countries can apply for asylum. Surely options seem few under oppression, but they are few partly because there is not a seed of hope or thought for anything else. Thinking destiny is set because of your sex, origin, colour, religion etc. is yesterday’s doctrine that must not be obeyed today by anyone.
Denmark already has a very strict law against begging which is seen as fascist by many. Beggars who go to jail may have a chance for change. To my mind tradition of begging which continues from generation to generation is fascist. It is forcing a whole of community under one truth and one kind of way of living where women and children must obey and do what they are told. The Roma people are oppressed and rejected and begging is not helping their case, nor is living in vans or stealing from shops. As shocked as I was when they entered Finland a couple of years ago, the shock may be due to me having enjoyed the welfare state and possibilities it has offered. To remind you state providing its citizens is the best way for poor people to get ahead in life, such as myself, I have never had money to call myself rich. I do not get used to the idea there are people who base their whole existence being beggars. Roma people who usually beg in Finland ground the whole of their identity via this act of asking for daily income from people who pass them by. Communities that stay the same are doomed. Resistance is the only way. It has been the way for the poor to change the world and themselves.
Majakollektiivi Timanttimetsä 