The Moves I-VII

Dressed rehearsal rags called Thirst (or Antti Filppu and Ilkka Kosunen) performing at the secret White Room in December 2007, on their initiative concert, for an audience of one male and one female. There were many songs chosen, from Leonard Cohen and Hank Williams to Agustin Barrios. Johann Sebastian Bach's Chaconne was played as an encore. The mic was well plugged in fair trade Oke banana box.

It seems we / I have used various and popular cult(ure) forms such as "bands" etc in a way and with a content that is perhaps more related to the philosophy and history of the so-called high, contemporary or even performance art. Pop culture is less than 100 years old, and its time has gone already. The high culture began to lo[o]se in the sixties as is well documented (there are many quotations for that, but for historical reasons I will refer to Leonard Cohen, who sang about the sixties and the changing of poetry into pop songs - now, in the 21st century, it has all begun to change into something else). It is common knowledege that "high" and "pop" cultures have lost their borderlines long ago and the world is full of various crossover works having characteristics from both. But in our / my work(s) we / I have been dealing with some of the underlining themes behind a common thread that is found everywhere.

What I am referring to is "quite simple and rather too complicated" at the same time. And no one has a copyright to these themes. For lack of a better word and to honour performance artists like Joseph Beuys (and our own DIY-master, Erkki Pirtola), here I have decided to call these works of art, simply, THE MOVES, in no particular order:

I) THE FIRST MOVE:
THIRST & The Never Heard Of  TOUR (2007-)
I have never heard of this.............

II) THE SECOND MOVE:
THE NAMELESS THIN YOUNG MEN
Document / Site "Handmade rock art"

III) THE THIRD MOVE:
OMNIUM GATHERUM (late 2000 - early 2006)
Document / Site "Wastrel coming home"

IV) THE FOURTH MOVE:
YE COLD HANDS: THE HOMECOMING
Document / Site "Ye Cold Hands: The Homecoming"
(In Outlaw booklet form, see Vaaka)

V) THE FIFTH MOVE:
VIRTA ZINE (Alternative journalism)
Document / Site "Virta-lehti"

VI) THE SIXTH MOVE:
SHRINES (Educational ambient)
Document / Site "Akritas 2007"

VII) THE SEVENTH MOVE:
LYRICS / FLOR & BLANCHEFLOR
Document / Site "Mythic poetry"


So, the MOVES have been social in one way or another, and this is only my point of view. It may not concern the whole project or band itself. By the same token, it does not prevent me from stating this. And the social sculpture of Beuys is very much and always a part of it, we are individuals and social beings in a spiritual reality. I still owe my gratitude to everyone responsible. You made it real for me, and I have made these themes for you, too. Forgive me, if this doesn't sound right. But it's the truth, and nothing......

I have to confess the traditional forms of "performance art" have never appealed to me that much, I have been more interested in the hidden meanings and spirit (or structural side). And these MOVES have needed years or even decades to be formed. They have taken place in a historical way, not so much as a performance that happens in a certain place at a certain time. In a sense, this is what makes them new. THE SECOND MOVE has needed over 20 years (with only a handful of events / gigs and three or four "records" to be heard, but it has been an ongoing process with quite visible results as well). Some other MOVES have been done in 5-7 years. They have needed a series of points or events to unfold "historically", and this unfolding may have happened through single "performances" that resemble contemporary art / popular culture. THE FIRST MOVE is a bit like that. Then there are more literal MOVES that have been made in and for the literary circles. With these words, I am merely stating what has actually happened (and everyone could see for themselves what has been said before in interviews etc - like these apologies, everything moves in the same flow, at least, well, more or less?).


I MOVE: Where does "live performance" change into something else, or the other way around? The questions about (un)officiality, audience / performer etc. From a concert played for birds and rabbits to performing on a real music festival, and everything in between. The Russian bard culture versus the American pop culture. These are also anthropological questions and problems.

II-IV & VI MOVES: Where is the line in-between "a real band" and a musico-philosophical project, and why? How about the changing of band names, constantly, in order to prevent any kind of success in the material sense of the word? Or, could there be other reasons for doing that? What does it all mean, and where does it lead us? There are also numerous other questions and themes concerning these bands / projects (about staging and music theater forms, disco dancing in death metal etc), as[s] documented in the MOVES II-IV & VI.

V MOVE: This move concerning our Virta culture magazine is debatable and questionable, but it could be mentioned here, nevertheless. There may be different views about the whole project, but the same thing applies to all the bands as well. So, I have been part of this (together with Mikko Nenonen, Matti Rautaniemi and Tuukka Vartiainen, and many others), and my role has changed during the years. The idea and the name "Virta" came up in a conversation I had with Olli Koski already in 2000 (he invented it, and yes, he is the legendary economist). Where is the line between "true" and "false" journalism, and why?

VII MOVE: This one is the only quite literally conscious art work, and it has taken a lot of time, even more of strength, and most of whatever little money there ever was. Yes, I am exaggerating now, and purposefully so. Lyrics / Flor & Blancheflor was published in full colour with a real Finnish ISBN code, in 2013/2014, and it is the only Vaaka book officially available through internet (see AdLibris, Amazon etc). The price is close to terrible, and unfortunately I have not been able to decrease it. But the statement is what counts: where is the line between a real (published) book and something else, and why? For there are three different levels in Lyrics: 1) the handwritten original manuscript 2) the traditional printed bookform and 3) the electric, free copy. What is the line to be crossed, where a book becomes "real"? (Cf. in the old times all books were made by hand and they were single copies, and now we are living in a world where the printing machines have become antique - does not this open a new question concerning the origin and the birth of the BOOK itself?). I have also tried to promote handwriting as a therapeutic or pedagogical method. The Finnish Cultural Foundation has supported the making of this MOVE.

Writing it down for you, like it or not



This picture was taken by myself, sometime between the fall of 2008 and the rise of 2009, in Alppila. We lived in a small cave on the ground floor. It was really halfway inside the rock, below the street. The bookshelf shows you many of those introduced in an earlier post (see January 2008), but also some books not mentioned before. Like The Book of Sophia ("Sofia"), begun in the summer of 2007, and still not quite finished. Or The Book of Goetheanum from 2008, which I have kept waiting. In the middle of the back row, with black covers, is The Book of Angels & Men ("Enkelit ja Ihmiset"), brought to me by Jussi Matikainen from Old Riga in 2005. It was ready before Easter 2010. And on the left, front row, the small book lying there, called The Book of Koli, was thrown away in 2011. I have saved the notes elsewhere. Below it, one can see another very small Book, named after Patmos. I bought it in Tallinn just before our visit to Greece in 2007, and it worked as a travel note book. From September to October 2007 I also used it as a note book on a lecture series. After graduating from the University of Helsinki (the department of cultural anthropology) I began another kind of study, or actually, continued on a path I had found long ago, before even getting into the world of anthropology. The questions I had been asking since the nineties were making way, with some answers, to many new questions................................

O chosen love, O frozen love
O tangle of matter and ghost
O darling of angels, demons and saints
And the whole broken-hearted host
Gentle this soul
-L.C. / The Window

  
The esoterical themes may sound radical and looney-tooney, but I have tried to maintain a scientific and even sceptic (in the good sense of the word) approach to the topics. It is an unfortunate truth that these themes have been neglected and despised in the official scientific fields of research, and no good will come out of that. Many bad things have already happened because of the attitude problems in the academic world. It is crucial that honest research is being done also concerning the spiritual. But I still have faith in the old-fashioned humanist tradition, too, at least if it is understood in a certain way. The questions are there, and they are truthful as can be. For the real answers, there are no standards in any of the official sciences today. We need to save these quest(ion)s for the centuries to come.

"Years ago I made the last changes to a certain book (Parsifal ja Klingsorin Maaginen Puutarha, 2007). But I still found myself editing. All through the years I had been finishing the work every once and in a while, trying to get it all together, including a few quotes to the original sketch (that could be found in the library of Helsinki university in one copy). But the version published in 2013 is still the same book, with some details and lines added or cleared out. If you want to buy / see the text, go to Vaaka bookstore (and my own KAFENEION archives). Available in Finnish only. But there are many long quotes in English, so one can try to guess what it is all about. Still, I wouldn't recommend the book to anyone, Finnish speaking or not. It is a crossover of anthropology, aesthetics (philosophy), comparative religion, anthroposophy and new age. I have notes and fragments for an English essay on the same subject, to be published later. Or maybe not, who knows."

(All these texts were written earlier, but moved here to replace other fragments gone, like it has been with so many of them during these years.)