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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Majakollektiivi Timanttimetsä 