immaterial visualisation

Fear of the dark: built environment creating dimensions.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

12.1 What does glow smell like? Messages via material.
12.2 How to understand harmony?
12.3 Conservatism has positive sides to it. (for some)
12.4 Desire is destroyed.

 

12.1 What does glow smell like? Messages via material.
Colourless see-through with plastics, a stylish bump into new material, new Materia, a reality of new (don’t know how new the reality is it just looks or is said to be something novel and original), concrete, grass, steel and glass in repeat, shapes, not that creative but repetitive, cheap and dull. Especially interesting is how much money is spend into this original and lookalike newness and the cheapness of these constructions which get revealed as it all is imitation. How much we embrace the new is how much we absolutely think it is progress, something better than before, or we just feel excited and hypnotised by this different new world. My question is what is the progress we are making and thinking and how is it progress, what changes, what is made better? In size efficiency and see-through are conquering strategies with material and wealth, the illusion of having as we are all in debt, seeing movement, action and people doing and making all the time: they are busy having it all, having the it, availability, mood, visibility, space, opportunity, participation, style, breath, health, cleanliness and air. Everything is harnessed to this monolith serving something grand, safety, economy, strict efficiency and something which is behind the corner. Doors here and there, which you cannot see are there as they are made of glass and signify relief of hope and cleanliness as there is no touching: you may not find what you are looking for unless you know how the system works. Where is the handle, how does the door spot me or why doesn’t the door spot me? They open when you approach, it is called intelligent design, knowing is all, trusting, you feel stupid if you don’t and it is told to you as well. Know the movement, sensitive, observant, stylish again, swift and quick, self-evidently functioning without you having to do anything much but be in the right place. It is easy, easiness, efficiency and control made fashionable.

Style is something we know is style. Imitating accessibility with invisibility and strict standards/qualifications of class, reality, false or not, meta place of a powerful mind and minimalist simplicity is discipline. Our obsession on size and style is symptomatic, thinking huge is the only good worth having as it can be seen from afar (like a beacon). You must be excited and say it, happy and in awe, why wouldn’t you, you will be seen? Believing that largeness and visibility are self­-evidently significant, beautiful and essential in making of someone, something and an addition to fortune. Protective surfaces, glass and steel glow forcefully reaching out, reaching for us to think the same, we are the same and high is something good. Shining obsession with costly cheapness, pompous and polished shine like makeup and perfume, showing worthwhile things or at least the fantasy of a garden where everything is possible. It is a bargain. To raise attention by taking over space with I love you’s, we care about you, we are here for you, we admire you (smiling), see high reaching towers with shapes of Beyoncé, wouldn’t you want that (be inside Beyoncé, stand beside her?

Spaces are us, minds are spaces to invade and cause massive appetite like cleaning substances explosive mediums to keep monuments for consumerism spotless and smelling clean. Maybe I’m mistaking the glow and what it is worth but probably not, a desirable something to where heads turn and spin, attention gets focused on and we find a state of fun and forgetfulness: it is her. It is the lights in the night after rain that make divinity, spotlights, car lights, neons and ads seduce us as it is romantic. There is grace there in the air which entertainment and images of all kinds worship. What would glow of something be without actual essence there somewhere, dreamed inner and outer bodies of light that float towards something better even for a moment, a body to shine fully and be seen, be full of desire, love and still being an image, out of reach. It is difficult to define or bring into light the body of capitalist exploitation when it is good for you: where does the exploitation happen and what is it? A luring devise, a fortune, perfume of chance to make us hungry all the time, us to be better than others when perfume is chosen well and is expensive.

Effortlessly sliding in beauty, in emotions and wanting to be like her in the ad, wanting her to be an ad, us entering her. Breathing and smelling her, sniffing in mutual understanding of what is good, what is desirable, eatable, drinkable, enjoyable and all the good she wants for you through her being the way you like. Good will be brought to us, good and love, the ease of good without much effort. Seductive effortlessness and fun being the good: you like her, you are also good. A promise that will become us, from us, if done as we are asked silently demanded humanity practiced in noise of information, us encouraged to be brave and fierce like models of our lives. How could we see more in between the lines since we are living in terror? We live in stimuli of horrible waste and we like it, what is that all about other than escapism and class system where the amount of money and visibility are all that matter. Dreams are manufactured, alternatives become few as we are monitored to like and think exactly the correct way: think this is good for you. It is the silenced ones, marginalised and demonised that is us. Those who say what they think do as they are told or they are out. It is very much a chance to get lost. Personality may be against the mainstream desires and what is thought you should be. Dangerous jump of making a difference is separation and making a difference is to be outside and loud, the state of speaking out is risking a lot. Why we do what we do and we cannot stop talking about

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ourselves, our surface, our skin, why we are as we are in our vanity. Never stop questioning because, I’m not sure I get it, our condition which is in constant state of lost. Acceptance of massacres in silence is a rule. What is not seen is not there. I know it is confusing, but we are not able to stop eating, to give a break, stop and go hungry, change the way we are because we are scared to stop. Fear of losing is great. I, that has been made, made exactly the kind of model of me my culture needs like for example a garage.

One exactly the colour of yellowish beige, shape of a container, in that exact spot next to the woods in front of a complex housing in suburb. It is there for decades in its beige chosen strangeness and banality, boxlike storage. No other function, not even an aesthetic effort to please the eye, what is the meaning of beauty for a person anywhere than think about desire and preserve beauty. Building beautiful is to pay attention to every detail, to define beauty is to become sensitive, vulnerable and open to ideas. To look beautiful can be different from to be beautiful, not just a garage. There is no other beauty in a container than what it is used for. Who cares about what a garage looks like? How do we become to care about our environment? After we don’t have it? We live in dictatorship of cars, of commodities, of obsessions, of possessions, of capitalism and preserving our ideals which these things have given us. Everything we see has meaning and value. It is not meaningless to do anything solid, how much meaning is in the immaterial. We build for cars to keep them safe and running, us moving. Somehow garage is a good metaphor for our existing culture and how we live. We consume and discard content which still are just mere wrappings and packages themselves. We prize the surface and protect it. Value is placed in a shape of bought strategy of maintaining certain artificial functions to keep up living in modern society. Our needs are objectified maybe not to please ourselves, nor for our delight, but the eye and jealousy for the other in a manner of gaze: look what I have got. If it, what is being built, is not for our aesthetic delight, it is not for us to enjoy environment with our eyes, it is for mere storage use. Delight is in possessing, in having and using power this way, building. Why is it so, why such brutality, is brutality being recognized, is it being valued? Definitely. Benefitting from constructing via values like functionality, effectiveness and necessity. Nothing extra but a lot of junk and grey. Beauty is a cost and then again expensive, something special extra. Still we look for beauty and that is a good place to make money when beauty is scarce. We face the question what is beautiful and how necessary it is for our well-being, can we afford it?

To avoid the mass flow of concepts we may not understand, opinions we do not like. It is better to discard distraction of variety. But whose ideas we follow and who do we aim to please to survive? It is better to choose neutrality in form and color for some reason. It is better to think only one reason why a building is being built. To build for given reasons and needs, and to fulfil

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these specific reasons and needs, priorities. Priorities are functional, we are sticking to them. Our missions are missions of accuracy, efficiency and obvious lacks that must be removed are those which are costly, which we can do without. In this case it is a plain garage on a parking lot which is needed for our residents. Means are cheap, easy as possible, serving to the needed cause and budget. Patterns, colors, structural surfaces, in what ways can bricks be placed, imagination, is it too much to ask? Sadly, all buildings are not architecture. Art of building has experienced inflation. We need to do things fast and inexpensively. It is a constant recession and scare. Many buildings and sites seem to play the part of containers which we go through and walk in long corridors. It is a fact that one aspect of building is being forgotten, that the house is there for decades and maybe centuries for us to see and use. A building has its impact on people not just as a protecting, sheltering place, but we look at it, pass it, think about it consciously or unconsciously. It has its effect on the minds of people as a view, as landscaping, as part of the city. Instead of wondering why or lamenting the state of construction business I can make an effort to comprehend this day and reasons for doing anything anymore; profit and function combined? Why do we do contemporary world the way we do it? For joy, for love of doing, for money, honour of doing or because we are here we make and create, practicing makers. We are able and it is our benefit to be active and innovative, so what is stopping us?

12.2 How to understand harmony?

A discipline, order, rule, compulsory symmetry, melody, flow, soothing for the eye, linear, dynamic, what is it? How does harmony organise itself or is it organised and what does it mean? Is harmony natural and vital and what is disharmony? Is it balance, the golden cut? What pleases our eye is learned. Is it good fortune and luck to be able to live harmoniously in harmony? Good things happening smoothly for us falling on our laps and on tops of our heads like clouds, mist or snowfall in a still dark night with dim lampposts showing yellow/white light. It is romantic, picturesque. There are things opposite to each other, one is harsh disturbance and the other is the deep calm of passivity. Do we need both to get harmony? Harmonious is a musical term, a melody has harmony, a tune to hum and to stick with. To understand harmony of mind is to look close to mysticism and spirituality, do we have those things now? We seek harmony from something beyond ourselves and from complexity. We as human beings are not harmonious beings so we must seek it. Our quality is of conflict, at constant conflict with ourselves and with each other. In our human relations we desire harmony, which could be called the effort of finding happiness and joy in living. Doesn’t everybody go through the search of finding inner peace and spiritual meaning of/for life, which could be peace with oneself/God, respect for life, being respected, discovering divinity within and beyond the physical world. If one does

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not believe in God, what does one look for other than being one or do those who have faith think they are the Gods as God is on their side? Has the looking for eternal relief ended in that case since there is no eternal, nor infinite, only what we see and it must be bigger and we must go further, just as big and far as it can get. What happens to harmony in megalomania?

Fear of the dark, whiteness driven world moving like a solid block, like constant non-­ denying blackness, denying darkness and shades around and in. It is common and united agreement to stay still in white, sudden touch can be allowed, but not to draw on nor in but sliding on surfaces. It is a curious world of forbidding, bans and ignorance put together on a seemingly narrow path. In a world for eyes only, what pleases the eyes is very culturally bound. We aim to please, aim not to irritate, not to cause conflict, quarrel or a thought of difference or miscalculation. Puzzling is the absolute correctness required. Minimalism can be beautiful in its undressed way, but still we cannot look at nudity or the very issues of what is wrong. Sanctity of white walls is among us, purity is demanded, unity of thought, uniformity, monotonous design patterns or lack of patterns all together. We are machining our daily routines over and over again. Machines are growing to be part of our consciousness, our body parts, and continuations to what we can do to do better or differently or at least imagine that we can. Is the image we make of ourselves false, do we lie to each other and ourselves because we may be living a fantasy and reality is too dark to see and accept? Or do we reach for something that cannot be reached as a mass?

They do things differently than we do, machines, robots, computers, as we tell them to do, ordering them, at least we think we do. We are in the position of masters; machines are tools, though it slightly looks oddly alarming and we are the tools. Computing the errands, bureaucracy, wars, it is helpful to robotise. Help is really what we need. Something designed with a computer looks different from something designed drawn by hand. Is that what machines do, help us? Is it leisure time we get, time to spend? Partly, partly they make people useless meaning people should invent something else to do in their lives than work in a factory. It is tough for many the constant inventing, inventing of oneself and to live without a map. To mould oneself as society changes faster than people do. Machines continue a ready thought completing it over and over. It is still people thinking or refusing to think? Difficulty of thinking is obvious. Until they, machines, think for us, till that point; let machines do the deeds that you don’t want to or cannot, or we could live without it, the relief, help there and status of having quickly, and things will not get difficult. Energy, electricity, force, horse power, engines, oil, plusses and minuses are constant problems. Different is better term here and so is quick, mass production, we, mass of people what could this all be called. Be able to accomplish more in less time is our mission, the cheaper the better. To be looking for accomplishments, profit and work which is a big part of human life;

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attraction and repulsion in one. There is nothing to be done than watch the change happen, be part of it, disaster in back of a mind. I’m thinking about disaster of surface, disaster of shell, what kind of meaning does the shell covering and called modern has for us, it represents our modern forms, cubes which we have and how much emphasis do we place on surfaces is an obsession.

Tension between wastelands and the asphalt world, backsides of garages, behinds of warehouses, behinds and front sides of things, those places that are left behind, left untended, forgotten as ugly and worthless. To look behind and find weeds growing to their ultimate height in cool untidy shadows. To wander around, pass by. Who are those who go there? Do the the graffiti, write Dr. Dre and 2pac on corrugated iron wall of a garage. Who chose that material on the garage wall that I look at every day. Anonymity all around, who did this and why. How decisions get made? It is for the most of us, the budget and lack. How are we made to believe it is good other than we must?

Imitating harmonious state of mind, some kind of ease and comfort. Clarity, clear view to lightness. Lightness as white, light, day, sun, morning, growing, flourishing. Is this a bourgeois dream? Elimination of misery, poverty, gloominess, boredom and fear of death? Quite opposite seems to be happening. Effectively and actively constantly doing something to remove things that are defined as trash, odd and disturbing. Disturbing element, a message sprayed on the wall. Those who think are alive and kicking. Use of colour is interesting to observe from the point of wanting to fade the noise of distractions, meaning not using colours and shapes is to bring variety nor finding complexity. Noises are the obscurities, enigmatic, scary dark places and people. White paint takes the scare away, clearing up the view. Telling there is no bacteria, doubt or contagious diseases, cleanness is a sign of people tending the area, knowing of values, the valuable good and keeping up stability. I insist we have gone too far reflecting our deepest fears in making society look like homogenous one block. And I insist it is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of falling down, fear of losing and being worse than, we are full of fears made by economy and competition. It is going to be bad times again. The more we have the more afraid we become, the more we need to protect with surveillance cameras, guards and fences. Whiteness of walls are one symptom of this fear (but some of us like white walls). Fear of dirt, fear of you. Defining dirt and admitting to fear, it is not only actual shit on the floor, it is you. There are people who are dirty and smelly, ways of doing are unclean, ways to talk, draw, photograph, dress, it is a long list of manifesting fear of the unknown and human, monitoring is telling. Fear of non­white, shadows, crime, chaos and black. When will we actually be afraid of ourselves? Clearly constantly. I have become to wonder the colourlessness, the status of white, it is not a colour but almost nothing. Then what is it, a background or light? Acceptance of white, approving and liking it is a norm.

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Probably white is helpful in easing the mind? In Finland white paint is more or less a rule. ‘New’ fashion are grey and black surfaces on outside of buildings. It is maybe easy to accept as are grey, black, white and red cars sometimes even blue. Then there is the double colouring where half of the wall is brown, blue, pink, yellowish tone (bleak) and other half is white-ish or fading kind of tone (dim, light). It is a very much used effect in corridors, hospital walls and office walls, the double colouring. In the world of offices and institutions restrictions and rules apply a harsh visible world. They are places that are compulsory and in which we do not like to spend time, we manufacture. We visit and leave. It is not like we should get amused while living in gray and white. Banality is the aim and means to keep order, away from enjoyment. Mediocrity analysed to the bits and looking like it is analyzed. Maybe what we see around is a result of deep thought.

But yes, white has been driving me insane lately. Is it a reminder of purity and hospitals, of forever healthy and infinite? This is what it will be like so better be nice. Eternal life, safety and beautiful imaginary gardens are allowed in your dreams; what is white for than to make space (make peace, repeatedly as we are at constant war where our space is shrunken). Spacious interior giving spacious thoughts or hope or faith or some honey. Meanings of white in different cultures vary from sorrow to joy to purity, love and virginity. It has lots to do with eternity and infinity, vanishing, fading and becoming, seeing with eyes closed, uniform clothing for hospital staff, professional white signals authority, knowledgeably, science, standing on the side of the good, of the saving forces, humanism uplifted and grace upon you. White stands for the given promise to cure and save lives. White is meant not to harass, it is meant to calm down, soothe and pacify. Does it give place for imagination as a wall or does it just make us dull as the wall is untouchable? An empty wall asking for a picture. Potential there in places unused, unoccupied, why are they there.

12.3 Conservatism has positive sides to it. (for some)

Green areas as signs of good maintenance, signs of space, letting nature get into our habitation, but not get us. Green as grass, green as green, lawn, greenery, place for cooling down, sporting, playing, sitting, relaxing, all good things that a busy person can dream about, but maybe not actively do unless greenery is backyard, not for instance on a lawn located near the mall, on premises of a shopping center, or lay down on a yard of an office building or where ever public spaces have grass areas with trees as decorations around parking spaces and pavement, asphalt and traffic signs. Green grass strips giving joyous and refreshing sights. It is their function in public space, to be secure open views and signs of caring efficiency. They are not to be disturbed by sitting, driving, walking, walking the dog, standing or

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sleeping. Lawns have bizarre peace of do not touch, like a stop sign above. Lawns are protected by appropriation, rules and how to move in a city. It a cheap way to make contemporary city efficient looking, which would not be so colourful otherwise, blank in its concrete scenery more livable and tolerable. To avoid costs and disturbance it seems to be interests of a city that no one inhabits lawns: you would look weird. I stay puzzled by them. Rhythm and pace of our city is bound to moving, growing and seeking anonymity. The moving by cars and consuming, no one staying put very long, it would raise suspicions. Benches are almost gone out of the urban environment. At the moment they are heavy and clumsily designed, uninviting to sleep on, spend time and to sit. Partly modernism can be accused, partly industrialization is the villain and in part vandalism, but do historical beautiful city furniture get violated?

Repetition and absolute of clean are part of the legacy of modernism. Lack of tone, strict sensibility and specific order for beauty. There is beauty in ugliness and messiness, but it is different. It is an ideology of similarity, simplicity, purity of form and functionality, absolute: city is a factory. Partly and largely the politics of construction business have made it and municipal politics in their demand for efficiency and luring constructors. Greedy economy can be accused. What about consumers? What is their part? What is their crime? Urban planning has been made a profitable business. Construction companies have much to say and a lot of power in terms of building the cities and designing them. Finland is a good example of this template politics. How urban planning has been made into patterns that repeat from city to another. Variation isn’t that popular as long as it looks profitable and lures certain kind of people to buy apartments and spend their money. Clean, quiet and safe suburb is a positive and good to have. (Just what do you mean?) But what is it with these choices of broken? Are there reasons to dig deeper into color? Such choices that they won’t irritate nor cause any kind of thought against or for or about anything all together. Posing harmony kind of thing. (I’m not quite sure I understand.) Whiteness, sculpture like but cheap and tacky. Do you notice it, the cheapness and cheating? Simplicity of control and in a funny way very complex manipulation, the anonymity of the controller who is everywhere. Is it safe enough to say this aloud? No. People get punished for less. Safety is very much the issue that we are lacking, obviously. The amount of surveillance is huge. The more we want it badly, the more we are scared. What is to be scared? We do not know who to blame exactly. We can say it is the money men, banks, large corporations, bad decision-making by politicians. How many of us are willing to change themselves for the good of everybody else? Looking for peace of mind without imagination or piece of mind given when needed. Rest without anything to be afraid of, emptiness

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inside, void of emotion, afraid of feelings, of showing the state of things. Why do we want so much space and why is it elitist? Is spacious more comfortable or is it just more? Owning space with quasi peace and harmony in between with nothing. To have much and nothing. Mostly it is in between people, the distance, in a world that has so many ways to get connected. Harmony and peace stamped on modern materials. Why such need for distance and loath? Irritation removed, messiness, what is being removed are signs of living, an act and happening which require participation, risk taking and an open mind. There is something very destructive in a way we build and, in the way,  we live is obvious. It is a make-believe act. It does not want communication nor contact. It isolates, diminishes and pushes away. Art is there as mere decoration, but mostly non­existent. Destruction of historical buildings has been happening for a long time, as anything worthwhile is being destroyed.

12.4 Desire is destroyed.

We build for our bodies, we build our bodies, buildings are to be our bodies. Mind is the most important thing as creating mastermind. Size of sites reflect it. What is the mind of the receiver there for. Mind of the receiver is consuming, active but passive, passerby, powerless acceptor or so it seems. Would it be in general average statistics put in real life, settle to what comes easily. Statistics can be quite curvy, far from every day. As person who does the statistics is seen like the librarian, quiet grey and boring office mouse, the observer and executer. Contrast in this picture is amusing and likeable stereotype. Someone exploring life from afar and making it a chart, so we all can see what is going on. It is also interesting how such people called mice are looked at. How their lives are less, because they do routine work, they stay still to accomplish their tasks, sit still, enjoy the still and the noise is far away to be examined. There are people who work a lot to get mediocrity life, which is the belongings with children and pets. It can be a very comfortable choice, if that what it is, a choice. It also is a perfect goal and meaning for life, a settlement and a trophy. Position and place from which to gaze those who don’t have the same. Ease and simplicity in repetition, we know the threats, ultimatums and punishments, falling down is a huge threat.

Bricks, brick walls, piles of bricks aside the road promising forthcoming work. As I have compared brick walls built over a hundred years ago to those made this day, the difference is astonishingly sizeable, reflecting the new manner of manufacturing: all brick look similar. We now have the element of a building strategy. It has made constructing fast and highly machined duty. The differences between times strike

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and hit. Differences between what is on the surface, how techniques of manufacturing show, how wealth shows, health, strength, thinking, values and endurance of people, structuring of society and houses made vs. hand-made. It was self-evident to pay attention to detailed work before, it was praised to detail, which slowness of constructing and skill of doing made possible, will and ability to build in a decorative variable way for example how bricks have been laid in more ways than one. Now we do not have the money nor time. Contrast is horrid and puzzling and the common statement of not having time nor money is even more strange. People in general had less of both hundred years ago. Were people less afraid or did they have more appreciation of life in general and how actions effect life. It is a different time with different values and we are in a hurry. The way we build tells that story. Tale of no time, things being done in very little time with massive volume. People are treated the same way as massive volume moving cash, a mass after a mass. We are units of bringing in and taking. To give is an effort. But still in the name of good we cherish the religion of good which is not without cost. We yearn the cream to be poured over us.

Urban city planning made to serve purposes of consuming, wiping unwanted people out of sight, unwanted buildings from way of progress, undesired landscapes out of the way. People that have time to hang around are not tolerated in city centres unless they have money to spend, centres are built for businesses, customers and their cars. Active, growing and thriving city keeps public places intact, evolving, designed and clean. Landscape in which cutting grass, blowing leaves, applying sand and removing it with heavy machinery are basic methods of work and is done with great care. Society is a psychological construction of players psychologised by planners who in the end are politicians and corporal forces. Officers of municipals, corporations and state whose job is to plan our environment in terms of law, jobs and profit. Shops, roads, housing, schools, places of work are all planned to serve a certain cause. How things are planned and done is due to legislation and interests. Firstly, politicians are those who set the rules of what can be planned and how things can be planned. Safety and regulations dictate much in Finland. Our lives are designed from outside and above more than we like to admit or care to give a thought altogether. Idea of calculated industrial city life, ready-made planned life is a rule and an oddity since we think we are free and masters of our lives. In factories people are nothing but captives, a product society. This is much where conservatism inhabits, our need to plan our and other people’s lives to have financial security and balance. It seems to be not only legislators’ business but anyone can take part of being a moral guide and a preacher. Society needs to be in balance and running. For us Scandinavians that is a rule. It is much due to protestant upbringing and heritage which has truly also brought stability and wealth. We

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are still under threat of being punished, under hard-working obedience-oriented rule. It is comforting for traditions to continue organize society, leaning on to notion that it has always been so and to have it otherwise than traditionally organized straight family model is completely out-of-order. It is clear for those who like to live by patriarchal religious rules even not practicing religion but out of habit believing, leaning on religion and God’s word knowing meaning of anyone. Core issue is to settle and keep security a nonstop state of things, desire for the unchangeable is strong.

Society is set according to working, parenting, according to family as a basic unit in terms of which we must function. Problems begin when those rules don’t happen/work or cannot be altered and new generations start wanting rules of their own. It is important for society to avoid problems by saying we do not have problems, they are minor issue and give sanctions. Ways to take care of issues that are considered as problems is curious. How does a person become herself/himself in a society of strict codes of living? To do things that are forbidden and hide with them, or to do what you like and face consequences and punishments as an artist must for example. Is being yourself to be able to do what you wish, be what you are? Aren’t I and self connected in doing and making from individual desire, which all should do. I become me when I am active, because making makes me evolve as a person. Who is this experimenting person to society? In this sense it is horrifying to think that women are restricted from doing and being active creative persons. Women are restricted from evolving globally. I am also product of my society where I am what I do, a making, accomplishing person. Those who do not work what are they, why are they labelled as something less and is art work? Making which does not directly create money is considered not important and not work. Money makes value, work labels us, we are what we make and how we earn. To be important is to label, to have a say, what is that for a position? There are examples of where women are under strict religious order (it looks to me the most of the world is under such order). Women are monitored, capsuled and punished if not doing as they are commanded to do. I do not speak of one particular religion. It seems to be characteristics of all religions to have power over women, of what they are capable of. Women are under command whether it is faith or capitalism. Why is it that women need to be under authority of men and other women? It is hilarious to even have to ask. It is a joke, the authority and desire for power over. It is a joke to want power for the sake of having power. Female body is a strictly regulated possession, it is under conscious and cruel use of power. We monitor consciously and unconsciously bodies of ours and others to fit in. It is obsessive and means are never enough. This is an everyday topic, topic of attraction

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and what kind of options we have and are given? Why are appearance and monitoring people anywhere so important to our social order? Basic questions for Feminists (as it should be for anybody) and demand of the feminist movement for women to be able to be and do, be free from authorities of patriarchy, free from the all-seeing judging eye, which has to be pleased: what is the part of our individual mind and consciousness in moulding us and what is the part of society in moulding us? Society clearly has demands under which we are falling. And what does rebellion got to do with moulding us and society we live in? Who dares will be attacked. How can such order we live in be rebelled against effectively? What kind of forms of rebellion are allowed? Is that the right question as rebellion is against conformity and the ruling system? Old ways may not be as effective. To allow rebellion to happen and how far rebellion is ready to go in terms of taking what belongs to people and what are people about, what do they want to be and have. How do people define themselves, what is theirs and their role as persons in between consuming empires where we aspire to be stars and live comfortably? How do people reflect themselves within the society they live and what are their lives supposed to be like? What are lives supposed to be is a strange question altogether, but it is somehow obvious there are assumptions that stick like glue and which are given by media, assumptions of us. Rebellion is to test how much one is able to question society’s demands and limitations. Why does society demand anything of us, it is people who do the ultimate demanding? We eventually decide what happens to us and in this world. It is an essential thing to understand.

CTRL

The issues that are being controlled firstly are sex, appearance, body image, opportunities, wealth and creative mind. Enjoyment and lust defined and had but put to shame. This goes especially for women. Feminine is essentially a threat. She is vulgar, she looks like a whore with makeup and a dress. Her sexuality and expressing it threaten the order of straight world, traditions paradoxically, religion and state. We live to enjoy products and services (paradoxically), to feel good inside a frame. We have to work in order to embrace ourselves as tools, our achievements and as members of a society, society is to provide entertainment for us, it is a way to take care of us and keep us distracted. Make us feel part of. We live to have fun, to be entertained, but we must see the effort to afford the entertainment, we must know it is not for free, enjoyment of life. It has to be earned. To be allowed to form ourselves, evolve and form our daily functions and selves, deeds, identities, form them as they may be ‘not fitting’, society will be formed as a byproduct to be our image. We live in controlling society, society controls us to become of certain kind and we control each other, favour people who are similar to us, please us, we make society a controlling device and ourselves control freaks.

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RAKKAUS JOKENA. MILTÄ SE KUULOSTAA.

| Henna Timanttimetsä

Upotin sormeni vartalovoiteeseen,
nostin paksun nokareen ja levitin silmilleni, etten voinut avata
niitä
paitsi voimalla räpyttämällä
kuin inhimillisyyden.
Kuulin rasvan nitisevän ihollani, en nähnyt mitään,
niljaisia pomppuja
täydet marginaalit
karstasta, ryppyisistä jalkapohjistani
kuvista, klik klik, tai kun kirjoitan liian nopeasti, sqwuasch
unohdan jonkun kirjaimen välistä.

Kehtasin kuunnella kun nuori pari suuteli videovuokraamon hyllyjen välissä.
Katsoin sotahyllylle. Silmäilin nopeasti läpi vähiten tylsät. Hmm klassikko, luinko lehdestä siitä, vai mitä tapahtuikaan,
tuli tv:stä.

Rakkaus jokena,
varisi ylimielisinä sanoina,
rakkaus kaivona
kuusessa, sammakon iholla, sammakkona
juoksuna nurmikolla, ajojahtina, liukastumisena
haitarimusiikkina muistissa,
tikkatauluna,
tikat tiskiltä.

Do you think it is a prayer? Immaterial visualization and spiritual imagination in cinema

| Henna Timanttimetsä

Spirituality as a word, space, feeling, in art, in everyday life is a state of mind and being and is often used as a method of finding. We may need to get in touch with something lost, something better, fulfilling, meaningful and giving. How do we understand spirituality today, could it be everywhere? Of course, we are spiritual beings, like it or not, vegetation grows through asphalt, people get through horrible experiences. It has led me thinking what it actually is to be spiritual, see spirituality, recognise spirituality and what it means now for people in this age and time when religious fundamentalism and thinking God is taking sides in a lethal way is happening. We are finding justice and structure via spirituality which we connect with religion and God.

Translated into Finnish spirituality is hengellisyys, henkisyys, which words have strong origin in religion and spirit, links to breathing, inhaling, to something holy and sacred and being alive, having henki, breath or spirit which flows through us. Christianity is in the back of our minds and in language, allover, human nature and the Holy Spirit puzzling how is this all cruelty possible. Spirituality has to do with something beyond our physical world but it is within us and part of our being physical. We find most answers via science via Physics even those which concern the immaterial spirit, the unexplainable.  Around us beyond our comprehension lies a hidden world.  Knowledge which is possible for us to have and knowledge which is not. We sense it, spirituality, but are we accepting it, open to it as it may feel naive and stupid or is so connected to religion that it has become unacceptable. Spirituality has a presence and power to lift us up and give us hope. Physics is also highly demanding to comprehend. Does Physics give us hope? How could it not.

How to visualize the invisible and why, picture the immaterial like a feeling? How to understand body of something that has not got a body? Body to understand is to see it and know what one is looking at, to conceptualize is a tool to understand further and know more about what one is looking at. To speak of something abstract and never seen is difficult, to visualise makes something of the seen and of the unseen but not necessarily true. Imagined, experienced and witnessed individually is truth of one’s own. Why the constant need to understand and comprehend the unseen is because we are curious, scared, lost, in need of guidance, support, reassurance and knowing that there are spirits that are there for us. Human curiosity is probably the strongest power on earth. Why do I make it sound such an evil quality? We go as far as we can and nothing can stop us if going anywhere is possible. There is nothing to stop us from reaching higher and testing our limits, limits of knowing and understanding, but there is no stop to the opposite, lack of interest, ignorance, indifference, disbelief. Intellectualicing can be boring, it is a choice whether to dig deeper or not give a damn. If there are things beyond human reach such things do not exist and should not be tried can be an argument. It has religious base. Because we are not able according to God’s words we can not defy this destiny. This applies to women especially. We are told we are less than men and are less able. There is some truth to warning of what we must not touch which all surely understand as there is destruction in innovation.  Things have to be explored to bits so we can say they have been conquered, understood, believed and there is some truth to old wisdom. Many religious people see spirituality and religion as strict guides helping men and women to live harmoniously. People obeying in blind faith as there is no alternative. Science is a religion as well when it cannot be critiqued, it is not open, accepting, tolerant, evolving but is science source of spirituality? To master something means owning the spirit of something worth mastering, only spirit cannot be mastered, it masters us.

Film director Luis Bunuel is a good example of a celebrated artist, master on his field, but what? Would you consider him a rebellious artist? Rebellion in my mind is necessary in aiming to find the new, a new shape, new order, new method, new ideas. It is to break and clean up, restructure. Is his work Un Chien Andalou rebellious, does it agitate to insurrection or did it cause a stir being provoking in its time? Yes, that was what his work was meant to do, create a state of imbalance among the elite holding positions, holding control and power living spectacular bourgeois lives. He offered to people of faith heavy kicks in the butts as well. Bourgeois method the film, art, doing the opposite of what was expected of it, being the opposite of power, a tool for awakening not sleeping, forcing to question the answered fully accepted questions of faith, power, control, society, position of an individual, of women, demanding to crash the class system. Why not, no one owns the method, question is who owns us. According to Wikipedia Bunuel is number 14 on a list of 250 top film directors of all time. List is called They shoot films, don’t they? How strange, sounds like irony. Do I dare to look are there any women on that list? Yes, I always seek the feminist point of view. Women seem unholy compared to men holding stereotypical roles in film still today. In Bunüels films women are demonic but also slaves.

Do you think immaterial visualization is possible, picture is material? To put spirit on a picture, does it go in other way than inside one’s head to reach a spirit felt? I, as a human being am not immaterial though I imagine and feel. Cinema is basically very much material. Making movies requires a lot of equipment and funding to do. I would not call it immaterial although it is in the air and light in a way. Also to watch movies one needs apparatuses, so it is a strange illusion when we speak of immaterial in the context of cinema. It only appears to be floating in the air, as we dream to do, levitation, meditation through/with a helping hand. Writing poetry gets closest of immaterial creating or maybe singing. Funny how much stuff you need to have to get something floating in the air. Maybe the only immaterial are our thoughts in this world, though our thoughts need the brain. Pointless. Everything is concrete. Spirituality is to build equipment for us and get rid off equipment.

We need materia to feel and grasp the immaterial. To feel, believe, worship and experience Holy Spirit there are rituals, ministers and churches. We have to imagine the Holy Spirit in shape of a human to be able to relate and focus, believe without doubt, to comprehend it or s/he. We must make things easily comprehensible to be able to continue living. In our strictly built structures based on reasoning but not necessary logical, we find refuge and can feel we make progress. We need spirituality to let reason go, spirituality which is not strict, regulated, set and thought ready. Spirituality is in the complexity of everything which infinite complexity is the unknown and very often imperceptible. There must be a reasonable explanation for everything for us to stay sane and thinking we are doing the right thing, if not reasonable it must be invented as we represent the higher form of mortal existence. Strange spirit strangely is the unexplainable, the unknown which haunts us, does not leave does not change into what we want it to be.

Immaterial and immortal imply Holy Spirit, eternal continuity, which is part of Christian trinity, heaven and hell, paradise and destruction, father and son, holy mother and the whore. Father and son do not sound spirit-like. They are male and have human roles. Immaterial being is invisible but has human form in our legends. Body having a beard and judging persona is bizarre continuing ruling our world, creating world of order that serves human needs one needs reason and one obviously needs a spiritual male leader. The same goes for filming, a capable person, a genius who is seen as master of imagining and revealing the immaterial, beauty, revealing beauty around and in us in a moving picture. Becoming, affording to become and being worshipped as somehow materializing the immaterial a creator of greatness, being himself the director, a star.

Puzzling is the essence of mysticism, which is the essence of storytelling, the essence of communication that something awakens curiosity, making us what we are: conscious beings that have the ability to look back and forward in time, invent, remember and imagine, have faith and feel, what is more important is the talk about those feelings which has got spirituality all over, or should be, as feelings and thoughts are secretive and private, hard to define and explain. We are used to looking at pictures, we, as western people are telling stories via images and religion is told to us, kept alive via images which we believe represent true images of holy ancient people. More it seems we must have images, now we are the images we look at, living them the more they appear around. Again there is no stop to pictorial information, it is expanding and explaining us, taking over, changing our world monotonous, that is how I feel about it, with forcing psychological impact of brainwash, comparison and repetition. Rejecting the sacred something different or welcoming it on the screen depends how we experience and accept sacred. That is what makes it interesting to explore how the idea of spirituality and holiness fits in, is understood and what we see as spiritual. Is it close to us or alienated? Images are thought to be a shallow way of communication, a lack of words and we interpret images individually. Verbal communication being the accepted rational intellectual way to think can be more clear or making things more complicated. Making images isn’t thinking for some for some reason especially if it is art, images must be explained to prove there is rational thinking behind and prove value of the image and the maker. We communicate without words, it is very normal not to learn to know reasons behind but interpretation is continuous, and we believe in thinking that one knows what one means.

Marshall McLuhan talks in his classic book Understanding Media (1950s), that western films have aggressively invaded the world of storytelling worldwide with powerful and factory-like methods of producing imagery, especially copying the certain kind of storytelling models over and over, those models that are ideal to occidental order, picturing fulfillment of Christian heritage. Gender models, strict social rules and norms, uniformity, western world colonising the rest of the world or saving the rest of the world, how to dress, what is a beautiful, which values and looks to follow to be something desirable etc. Spirituality in colonial context gets strange framing. One has to be utterly stubborn to escape western hegemony, in other words escape elite ruling. Same goes for imagination, if there are strict boundaries how to express oneself then everything cannot be expressed. Things are left unsaid, lying becomes the core of making, signalling, manipulating, being afraid of saying what one thinks, being afraid to experiment something new. It is creating without being truthful, like conspiracy tactics or trying to avoid being caught.

Spiritual imagination and the meanings these two words hold, spiritual and imagination. Can we imagine spirituality without it being given to us? Who is spiritual and how and do we follow spirituality like a herd as it is taught to us? How does imagination change when one grows up and conflicts with spirituality? It is like asking who has the right to be spiritual and who has right to have imagination as it is felt we imagine and act upon our imagination less as adults. What kind of expression is imaginative and creative? We think we create when we make anything, as we do, but what was the initiation behind, what made us do what we did and continue to do? How do we understand imagination, how do we value it, understand value of it or don’t. Just to add bright colors is not enough, just to add plastic figures is not it. “One thing to bear in mind is that in many old traditions storytelling is synonymous with song, chant, music, or epic poetry, especially in the bardic traditions. Stories may be chanted or sung, along with musical accompaniment on a certain instrument. Therefore some who would be called folk musicians by foreign music enthusiasts are just as accurately called storytellers – their true roles are more profound, as their names reflect: bards, ashiks, jyrau, griots amongst many more. Their roles in fact are often as much spiritual teachers and exemplars, or healers, for which the stories and music are vehicles, as well as historians and tradition-bearers. For instance bakhshi, the term for bard used in central Asia, means a shaman / healer who uses music as a conduit to the world of the Spirit.”

“For genuine initiates of these bardic disciplines, they draw directly on the conscious creative power of the Divine and transmit it through the words they speak and sing. This is not the same as merely ‘being creative’ or ‘feeling inspired’, and involves considerable spiritual training. Different cultures and religions have different ways of describing this, though in general the practice is highly secret. For example, for the West African culture of the Manding, who call this power nyama “It controls nature, the stars and the motions of the sea. Nyama is truly the sculptor of the universe. While nyama molds nature into its many forms, the nyamakalaw (handlers of nyama) can shape nyama into art. The nyamakalaw spend their entire lives perfecting special secret skills that are passed down from generation to generation. The nyamakalaw are the only people in Mande that can use magic and are often skilled as sorcerers, blacksmiths, leather workers or bards.” http://www.timsheppard.co.uk/story/dir/traditions/

The World of the Mande: History, Art and Ritual in the Mande Culture, and Caste Systems in Mande Society, Anthropology/Africana Studies 269 and Anthropology/Africana Studies 267, Prof. Mandy Bastian (Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA) 1997-1999

Imagining is being linked to the culture one comes from, therefore I speak from the western way of telling and Finnish way of thinking. In this context meaning western way to tell stories and making moving pictures, telling, showing, looking. It seems linear, unimaginative, capitalist, meaning stories are produced to be consumed and repeated and be made over again, so does also Bollywood. Is there a difference other than Bollywood mixes visibly religious stories, visuals of paintings mixed with music and romantic real life stories, fantasies. Movies are heavily guarded possessions of big money corporations. I’m sceptical of what comes to movies telling anything truthful about our world but movies predict and interpret social and political climate and events, they collect together a huge amount of information and history which is shown in two hours which can be cathartic and eye-opening. Entertainment in a worrying monotonous manner, maybe, but we can find accurate social and political critique when there is freedom of expression. Stories have been made to entertain and for those who can look there is more to the picture. Lack of the spirituality is what’s bothering or there is no demand for it is the worrying feature in the world of today. Am I too demanding to see stories which surprise? I am told so. How to tell and how to choose stories to tell. Are movies the place to look for spirituality at all?

It is an argument that after thorough search will be proven wrong, because what is western way to tell stories and where does it come from. Is there a western way or is expression multicultural, universal already. One thing is sure there is need to put issues like religions, good and bad against each other and need to see this chosen good prevail. Western way sounds something which is wanted to stay the same and is an invented perfect way to live, glued on like a smile and has a strong picture of itself, a stereotype. Something heroic, good, historical, white, patriarchal and grand. Images produced in one’s culture go around the globe, do we create anything new although we make? Culture imagined when it is repeating itself is a paradox. We are made into images, something imagined and kind of new put in front of us to see, interpretations of who we are or should be. When image becomes persona it is frightening and wrong, too much to take. There are characteristics to European films, which are recognizable, artistic and should traditionally be revolutionary and innovative. Nations have their style and when it does not sell anymore we copy Hollywood. It is curious how national characteristics either stay heavily or are diminished into caricatures, grown onto us, but of course movies are big influencers and watched year after year by many. We have our favourite genres and genres we can’t stand. Nations want to influence one way or another and movies need money to be made.

Religion and mysticism are areas of knowledge, wisdom or false information about the world. The puzzlement and questions cannot be gotten around we have to go through. We are soaked in concepts born out from religions, the year revolves around Christian celebrations, names and traditions remember Jesus Christ and his life. I claim that movies without religious references are impossible. Secrecy offers ground for filmmakers to create narratives that continue and keep curiosity alive, open landscapes of thought and philosophical dilemmas to dig into over and over. We have to be able to recognize what hints and metaphors mean. Going through the same enigmas of existence and what is, do they open anything new about ourselves. Movies rising questions on how to live, what is right, how to be a good person, is there God, how to worship, why worship, does god care. Arts’ basic contents, every human beings existential turbulence, questioning and turmoil. Not too rare topics in movies yet, probably never. Interesting is how these issues are approached or not, the differences between now and then during a bit over hundred years of movie history. The differences in how gender roles in making movies, watching movies show, different cultures are displayed, religions fight or save us, class struggle  is perceived and is existent in who gets to make movies and what kind of movies we watch within our class frame. How does time change movie making and watching. Is the change only technical, what makes movies interesting as a medium and to whom? Why the director is seen as genius although making movies takes a lot of people? In dim light, sitting in comfortable chair in darkness with the light of the screen shining on us in silence. There is mood in this situation.

Sharing and giving are gestures that hold the spirit of why do things like art. Presence of others viewing the story made up, feeling and thinking about the film and the continuations of art in people’s minds. Do others see the same as me? Do they feel the same? There is an intriguing silent connection among the audience, something that is present in movie theaters among strangers watching stories.

Is spirituality describing the emotional? When we get impressed, get life changing experiences via art is that spirituality? Emotions guide us, we feel guidance, being talked to, connection, intuition, sense without speaking, chemistry in us telling how to act, what to do as an inner voice, not a spirit. Emotions that lie, lead us to strange places, to do  things. There is always the question of mental state, mentality and what is being told. People who imagine and use their imagination more than average may be considered strange, depending on how this imagined world comes to show. Does he behave oddly, write poetry or build insane constructions in his home, make strange videos.

We produce imagination and imagination produces us, to make sense of what we see, experience and to understand why we imagine, how imagination becomes reality. There is an element of uncontrollable, freedom, untouchable quality and preciousness of imagination, a feeling of infinite, the infinite in us as we can imagine infinitely. There are no limits what comes to imagining. Only limits are set by religion according to which there are sinful thoughts, dirty ideas. To make up new ideas, thoughts, continue the seen and unseen, the heard and smelled world in one’s mind we need freedom of thought and freedom of wondering. Due to our survival instincts and mechanisms our self-consciousness we imagine and invent, we must see what lies ahead, that we are individuals with distinct personal views on world and we must make it our own, make us happen. We have had to learn to guess the intentions of the other, is it a friend or an enemy, to presume what might happen next, what am I capable of and can I try this. What can be expected to happen and what is the unexpected. Imagination and memory are linked to help us learn and live longer, not to be eaten. Imaginatively we create solutions of survival, how to communicate, invent new ways of doing things to make a difference and a place of our own. Others can use their imagination for their benefit, make imaginary world, stories, art work. Imagination is not a possession? But it is mine..oh, I don’t know. How about ideas?

All work needs problem solving, which can become mechanical and dull if something new is not allowed to be added, something personal is prohibited from being used and brought to show and in practice. Imagination needs freedom to reach full capacity, the unimaginable solutions and impossibilities. Saying absolutely no is deadly in that context. But it can also make the person try harder. Saying we don’t have the money, you cannot do it, don’t bother or why bother etc is normal, it is also very anti-spiritual. This happens by people of religion very easily, to state objection and decline possibilities of new and unexpected. I have heard it too much. I would not be an artist, if I had not bothered, if I had listened what others told me to do. Curious is still how much creative people face the no, rejection, discrimination, overlook, stepping on crushingly, and how much it becomes part of the creation to go against and try achieve the impossible. How many people cannot use imagination of theirs for their benefit, why have they blocked themselves is a matter of being scared and in fear of retaliation and abandonment. Put in other words, the need to label, put things and people into boxes without possibility to check out and be free in existence, categories which cannot be mixed, some to be forgotten, to live in similarity, conformity.

Imagination is born in different parts of the brain. The Neocortex and Thalamus are the main areas where imaginative thinking has been documented to occur, also consciousness and abstract thinking habit these parts of the brain. Imagination involves multiple brain functions such as memory, emotions, thoughts and senses. The effect of the environment and people around are important to one’s imaginative development as is personality. One has to learn to use one’s brain without letting judgement of others interfere. It is difficult the more out of norms you are. How does imagination grow and develop in a strict environment? For me it has found its ways, stubbornness. It is mainly up to the individual will and necessity to create and dream. What else? Determination and trust. To me it seems that spirituality equals imagination in many ways. Is imagination a childish ability? Naive and impulsive, welcomed as such? Why do we have to find an explanation, mostly invent reasons why and use our imagination to twist things around to match the ideal. Sounds like religion. Again when we don’t actually know, we have to make up stories to explain, why we are here, why someone is black and why someone is odd to us. What has happened before us and what is good and believe these explanations.

Users of drugs are said to imagine more than those not using and obviously very differently. Psychosis is probably the most violent way to imagine. Drugs help to get lost in one’s mind, dangerously aware and unaware, irrational, on the verge of losing one’s mind, like being ill out of control, delusions becoming the whole world around, agony of having to live a normal life maybe one reason to do this. Normal day-to-day repetition of the frivolous.

In Russia there is the tradition of the Durochka, the holy fool, which is beautifully displayed in Andrei Tarkovski’s Andrei Rublev (1971). Holy fool, innocent in the eyes of the God, The one who is fed, housed, kept alive and felt sorry for is a beautiful blond girl, mentally retarded, is also laughed at, but because God loves her harming her is sin. She is under protection of the God. But when people have actually done what bible teaches, love your neighbour as thyself and do not judge, don’t think you are better than that girl? What kind of meaning does spirituality have for us or have we abandoned it as weakness? Unable to understand sanctity within anyone.

I go back to Tarkovski’s movie often in my mind. It has made a deep impact especially as a depiction of Russian medieval people and their life, their relationship to religion, God and faith being the guiding lights in everything they do as is the case today. Another Holy fool-type is in Luis Bunuel’s Simon of the Desert (1965) loosely based on the story of the Syrian saint Simon Stylites who lived as ascetic 39 years on top of a column in the fifth century. He is being harassed by female Satan appearing in different disguises to lure Simon and test his faith. God never talks to Simon, S/He is silent. It makes me wonder to what kind of God is Simon talking to and how should I see this God of Simon’s, which seems to be the Christian God, male and someone to be scared of and have all the possible respect for. Why does Simon torment himself and think it is the best way to be closer to God? He is unworthy, he is weak.

Does the length of a movie make spiritual experience? Andrei Rublev lasts four hours. Isn’t it connected to suffering or to state of trance to sit tight in front of movie screen? Duration and slowness are powerful tools today to make an inner move, effect, which religiously themed art movies use.

For me personally it is a bit distant as a term and has become somewhat commercial phrase, spirituality. It is as spirituality has been sold to us and it has lost the purpose. I prefer using mysticism, it appeals to me as a word holding the unknown. Both are still viewed from religious points of views, but can be different from religion, institutional faith and dogmas. It is the selling out of religion. Mysticism is practiced as a way of life. It is about learning to see something profound in everyday practices, different levels of existence. As spirituality reaches further than institutional boundaries, it is a very personal experience of life, spirit of life and death, a circle. Whether it is God, energy, light, force, nature or joy of existing and finding ones path, it is always believing in something beyond us, that there is something more than us, having faith that everything is one and we are all connected, humans, animals and cosmos. Everything one does has a meaning, purpose, causes action and reaction, something moves, continues and lives, lights the way. Where spirituality inhabits now and is connected to? It is that the modern people are afraid to say being spiritual, the word is stigmatized. It refers to so much to institutional rules and doctrines of churches, to slowness, humbleness, selflessness, unselfishness, giving and loving unconditionally, those are difficult to accomplish for an egocentric narcissist.

Could spirituality be ruled and are we told how to be spiritual? What personal spirituality is, how it must be practiced. By praying, going to sacred places, reading the Holy books? For some going to a forest is a sacred practice, sitting quietly in the bushes listening to the wind and birds. For me Lutheran religious upbringing which is forced via the school and social system not at home has been thorough and I still look at spirituality through that given order. Spirituality as sensuous and profound is highly controlled and denied. That particular anti-spirituality is strict and a minimalist echo which refers to the Simon of the Desert. The void and questions scream out to be filled and answered. Very different from how I think about spirituality, it is something outside of the institutions. Since spirituality is within nature, for me to be found and in me. Also I am grown to see the lack of spirituality in people’s lives which has made me more curious about it. Why is it so private, kept a secret or locked away as a shame like sex or other weirdness? Seen a weakness, something crazy that could break the carefully built modern facade and barriers, walls of rejection, grief and undenied will to thrive and succeed as whole. Success is an interesting pushing force for humans, nothing wrong with ambition though, but never-ending will to expand and win, to which one might think would exclude any spiritual thought and search for whatsoever. So is spirituality about soft values, something slowly flowing and making us stop and wonder and where does it come from. For me both mysticism and spirituality are connected to emotions and how we deal with them, what are emotions, why am I feeling this way and so very much? Mircea Eliade says in his book Holy and profane (Das Heilige und Das Profane, 1957) that we are not able to attach ourselves from religion nor spirituality, the long for something holy is strongly built-in us as we are born in religious world. World is filled with religious imagery, history, conflicts, celebrations etc. that are religious in origin.

It is something beautiful, ecstatic and fulfilling. In that case every human being has spirituality whether he/she is able to express it or not, or to admit the existence of something holy within. Something unexplained in us and around.

Art work can give a mystical or spiritual experience, probably one qualification of good art, of anything that is good, a promise, a reassurance. Presence of immense beauty, breath of joy, faith, immeasurable, incomprehensible, the feeling of inability to create something similar yourself, untouchable, feeling of understanding something unique of this world and of Humanity, or knowledge that there is much more to understand and know than what you can see. Could spiritual experiences be measured, how do they vary, who is more spiritual, do priest’s clothes give him position as a spiritual being, how is spirituality described, pictured, which characteristics tell about spirit, sacred and holy, who decides what is sacred or what becomes sacred, do we need a miracle, presence of continuous miracle? Presence of sacred in emptiness, in light, mist, nature, silence, eyes and ears, strangely something happens and reveals itself. Is it that we have to see, witness it to believe, or is spirituality about spirits at all, something invisible has become concrete, shown itself.

Understanding everything is sacred, means everything entails spirituality even waste. It is the moment of what is and what could be, become and will be, spirituality is about continuation, ongoing life, dying, of consciousness and ability to grow and be kind.

I have been thinking about the most creative part of movie making and when is a movie eventually made, does the latest continue in the next. Does a movie begin when it is watched, seen? Making a feature film is usually a long process, it is a very technical procedure with a lot of staff working together. Demanding faith in one’s idea of a picture, film. Too much money involved, it tends to take away something essential to my liking. Asking what is the most creative moment means that there is lack or tossing aside kind of mentality about creativity concerning certain parts of the making. Meaning every moment counts and emptiness to be filled is there for a reason. Is creativity being tossed aside for money? Definition of creativity is that it can be anywhere and anything? How do people create without repeating or using other people’ ideas? Every decision needs creativity to be made, to have come to mind, an idea and will to process the idea, will to put things forward, in parts and into a new form and shape, moving, happening. The ability to tell someone about an idea, that the one you are telling gets interested in it. Listener has to have creativity as well. Ability, enthusiasm, being interested in, growing interest, understanding of a practice. Something to say. Enthusiasm and practice. Children are full of enthusiasm and curiosity. Full of. It is part of being a child, constant exploration of what is and what is possible. Never emptied. Not knowing but experimenting what lies ahead and what is possible.

How does the world change when seen through a camera? Or what changes when you watch through a lens, hold a camera, point it at to some distance, feel the weight, measure the light, frame the picture and what is in front. To be able to make an image one wants one has to know how the camera, light, works, how do images appear, behave, function in front of us, know about light. The more equipment one has in use the more technically accurate the result will be, if one wants. Sketches are maybe part of the work or the work is a sketch, to visualize the idea, and proceed from that point. Ambition. Vision (I dislike the word, politicians like to use it). Faith in your idea. Nobody else has the same faith. It is sadly very common obstacle many creative people face, judgment, lack of faith, but in the end it had to be faced, the trouble and misfortune. Disbelief. Boxes. Force of doing it all over again, the struggle and pain of creative process.