Join the Battle Against the Real Internet Trolls

At this present moment, history is being written. But whatever is written in the books depend on the choices made by each and every one of us. This will change the future no matter what is the outcome; either we will look back at the day when our freedom of speech could have been severely infringed; or we will dream about the days when Google, Facebook and Wikipedia still existed (Am I being too dramatic now? Maybe. But how would you react when 90% of your Internet time is gone, if not dramatically?).

SOPA is gathering like a shadowy mass around The Internet, engulfing it and tearing the whole network down when the real bad guys are nowhere to find. But seriously, who are the real bad guys? Those downloading and spreading the work of true artists without taking pay for it, or those who abuse the talent of these artists by claiming copyright on their work. Intellectual Property… The work of a true artist is the mind of a true artist, and you cannot simply buy or claim property on an artists mind. And you do not own your feelings, you express them, and there is nothing more than that.

There is so much I have to say about copyright that I find questionable, but there are also other things that need to be said. And please understand me, as an artist myself I am offended by the bill’s authors and how they have been clumsily treating this question. I have a gnawing feeling in my gut telling me that this is more about money and information control rather than an act against piracy. But let me just replace any further rambling with ever heard of creative commons? Let us move on to the most important things. Today is about the silent digital war that has been going on for a while, about since the Stop Online Piracy Act was written, but also throughout time whenever the freedom of speech has been threatened this way. And please, do not underestimate the possibilities of law abuse if SOPA becomes reality. SOPA could be as much of an opening for law and copyright misuse as the one for patents.

Let me cite Wikipedia:

“For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia.“

Further citation:

“[...]Over coming days you’ll be hearing from the many businesses, advocacy organizations, and ordinary Americans who oppose this legislation because of the myriad ways in which it will stifle free speech and innovation.  We hope you’ll take our concerns to heart and oppose this legislation by voting “no” on cloture.“ – sopastrike.com

“The issue here is that this law is very badly written, very broadly overreaching and, in at least the Senate version, would include the creation of a DNS (domain name system) blocking regime that’s technically identical to the one that’s used by China. I don’t think that’s the right way the U.S. needs to go in taking a leadership role on the Internet.“ – geeksaresexy.net

And lastly:

“Here’s worse news: SOPA could hurt the sites you count on now, but many of these sites will at least have the budgets to hire lawyers to fight back. But what about the small sites of today and innovators of tomorrow? Under SOPA, they may never get off the ground – and the Internet will be a less interesting place as a result. Act now so Internet innovation and expression doesn’t become collateral damage in Big Media’s losing battle against online infringement!“ – eff.org

This is how SOPA would affect you. This is how you sign a petition against SOPA:

If you live in the US

If you live outside the US

In the meantime, lets hope for a better future regarding our freedom. And here’s a revolution song. I don’t like it, but what the heck; you might.

Brought Them Back to Calm

“Born in the cage

Set free in flames

Chain the slaves in clay

Working through the pain

Sleepless night and days

Everyone (sky) the same

The soldiers of the clay

Let them die in vain.

-

Slaughter during  rage

Cherish in the stains.

-

The weight of one brick

In a thousand palms

The power of the stick

Break their spines unarmed

A cure for the sick

Needles in their arms

Nothing left to see

Brought them back to calm.

-

Counting all the prey

The falcon on it’s throne

Leaping down upon

The shadows of those men.

 

Counting all the kills

Sculpt them all in stone

Shatter with one strike

Hide them in the mound.“

A short summary of what we’ve achieved and learned during 2011

Happy New Year or Something! Here is a short lump of text along with a list of great lessons learned and accomplished deeds. 2011 has for me been a great year in many ways, and thus I figured it needed some sort of “goodbye speech.” I have learned quite a lot this year; all enlightening, though some gratifying; some saddening. Of course.

In different ways and manners have I encountered new people, and been in social situations that have broadened my hitherto growing understanding of the human psyche. Alas, a lot of these social situations  have opened up my eyes to show me the grounds of stupidity and amorality that sums up the modern society of humans. Not that this was news to me, but saddening it is indeed to have one’s empirical theories confirmed. Never mind, this is what I have achieved and learned on the social plane:

• I have worked for Save the Children, and thus learned that…
• …a (huge, enormous, astronomical) lot of people are lacking in empathy toward others (not that this was anything new)
• You have to imitate a clown to gain the interest of the above mentioned.

Moving to a more private sphere, I have taken some steps towards development here as well.

• I have moved in with my girl friend Candy,
• …as well as visiting her family. Very nice.

Everyone who has ever seen a Hollywood movie knows what an important step in life this is. As if I had but only one chance to impress utterly on her family and from there on never have to see them again. As if I didn’t want to. Anyway, let’s move on, as this list is beginning to look more like a regular blog post than a list. Considering the spiritual plane:

• I have had a spiritual experience in grandfather’s sauna. Maybe I will write about it later, but I could not fit it in here. It was something new, though.
• I have taken spiritually uplifting strolls through the forest during bright summer nights in Norrland. Very peaceful.
• I have felt the presence of things I have been unable to see in houses of the deceased. Not sure what to think of that.

What else have I done?

• I have had a gaming relapse (at least I am able to accept my addiction to Minecraft). Not that I wasn’t stranded at the computer anyway.
• I have just recently started to regulate my consumption of coffee. You, know, for my health’s sake.
• I have started a musical project on my own, Thamnocera, which is all about philosophy, meditation and the greatness of the Universe. A great way to channel my creativity.
• I have failed to finish the one and only painting I have started on this year. Truly the saddest thing I never achieved.
• The last film I saw 2011 was The Polar Express. Second place was Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie. Now, isn’t that an odd couple?
• The greatest accomplishment this year was again the progress of my creative, philosophical and spiritual self, and along with it the many struggles I’ve fought and defeated together with my beloved Candy. It has taught me more than almost anything else.

I hope that during 2012 I will develop my creativity and spirituality further, and prove to myself that I haven’t lost my painting muse. I also want to be able prove that 2012 will not be the end of the world, so that Earth may continue to rotate and resonate with its beautiful song. What have you achieved and learned during 2011? What hopes do you have for 2012, if any?

Happy Holidays

This should actually have been posted earlier (no shit…), but due to lack of Internet I had to wait patiently up until now. Let us celebrate the new year with another Christmas!

DeviantArt Feature: Blue Swirls and Abysmal Depths

One of my older artworks just got featured here on DeviantArt. Thank you!

Imperfection

None of us is perfect, because we are all hypocrites to some degree.

Reflections on Greed

Greed is something that we often associate with the bad and the unwanted, but also something that exist within many of us in some degree (perhaps on a subconscious level?). But what is greed, really? Here, I feel there is a need for specification. My reflections on the subject matter are indistinct enough themselves, so let us not make this too fuzzy by trying to analyze all aspects and interpretations of greed. Let us instead focus on the greed for money. It is often the type of greed which people most often associate with negativity. The constant and growing greed among others make us confused. Why do we even want money in the first place?

Many of us prefer the cheapest price yet we still want the best quality, and things given for free are the best. This provokes a thought within me, that we actually don’t want money in the first place; instead we want the best quality with minimum strain, i.e., minimum money (money = work = strain). But still we work and toil until our bodies are old and our backs are bent, because we so desperately need the money to survive in this constraining society that we have created. The less money we have, the bigger the strain and the more we feed our frustration.

A sudden wish for more money and less toil grows increasingly imminent, because what wealth lends us is the illusion of not having to work. And there is another illusion of not needing money, because of the illusion that there isn’t any. We create with wealth the illusion that there are no boundaries left; no constraints that keep us in place inside the walls of society. We rid society of its laws and walls, making it our sandbox playground. The invisible money becomes a currency for some sort of freedom. In reality we gain this illusive freedom only because we can afford the price. In reality we dislike money and greed and the whole society with its imprisoning walls, but with money we can partake only in the best opportunities and features, for we can afford to ignore the things which we dislike. We think.

A lot of people strive for this kind of dream-like wealth because they only want to partake in all of the great things that society has to offer, but they don’t even want to see the shadow of the bad things that come with the great things. We have the inner wish that wealth will lead us to freedom, but in reality we become twice as confined and twice as lost among the illusive lures of the darker waters of our society.

Failing to accept the impossibility of freedom in such a system as the one we have created (in all its “glory” with all of the great things it has to offer us), we attempt to imitate freedom as much as we possibly can. It is much like the self-building hierarchies within a prison; the walls and the guards that keep the inmates fixed within the system, and the inmates themselves trying to imitate their outside life through secret errands, trading and bribery. You create one system within another, which makes you appear more powerful and free than you actually are.

Maybe some people recognize the negative pattern in this behaviour and are thus disgusted by it, while others simply refuse to accept their constraints and strive for the illusive freedom instead. But to reach total freedom, we must choose not to be part of this society as it is today. We have the power to do so as long as we have the will to do so. But we restrain from this type of freedom because it appears as too dangerous, too anarchistic and chaotic or too hard. Because we imagine that the same type of freedom (albeit a false one) can be achieved with less work within the society. In reality we are too afraid to head out into the open; too afraid to rid ourselves from our constraints; too afraid to accept such a challenging quest on our own.

Good Nudes vs. Bad Nudes?

DeviantArt Headquarters asks the community about nudity in art. This was my reply to their questions on the subject, plus my additional reflections further down.

1. Do you think there is too much nude subject matter on deviantART or is it a non-issue for you? How much do you think your gender or sexual preferences might influence your answer?
There can never be too much of any genre in such a site as deviantArt. In my eyes, my gender has nothing to do with this opinion.

2. When is censorship of art permissible? Where would you draw the line? What rational rule could you offer as a practical guideline?
Censorship of art is NEVER acceptable. Censorship is based upon the fear and lack of acceptance of a handful of weak-minded people who let their shortcomings limit the joy of the majority. A lot of people who never asked for censorship might never know what they are missing out on.

3. Have you ever had a work of art you created censored or banned in any way?
Nope.

4. If an artist really believes in what he or she has created, how should the artist respond to censorship of that art? Have you been made aware of an instance of “art suppression” via the Internet?
Censorship ought to be criticized; there are only weak reasons as to why anything should be censored. I would respond angrily, as a part of my creative freedom would have been taken away from me. Weak-minded people should use personal filters instead, so that the artwork appears censored only on their computer, thus not affecting anyone else.

5. Would you ever suggest to another artist that he or she should tone a work of art down or agree to the censorship of an art object in a specific situation?
Nope, I would not. At least I haven’t yet.

Additional reflections: If you look at an image of a nude woman as “objectifying”, it might as well be yourself subconsciously objectifying the image of the nude woman. You wouldn’t probably react the same way looking at a nude man, as nude men are not in general as uplifted when it comes to sexualizing. There are people who do get offended by pictures of nude men, but they are often men themselves, and often only bring forth their opinions during discussions of objectified women, and as a counterargument to any accusations on them being sexists.

This is no one’s fault; not the artist portraying a nude woman or the one portraying a nude man; nor the nude model “allowing him-/herself to such low levels”; nor the objectifying view of the spectators. It could simply be your mind associating the nude image with what you believe is the general (negative) opinion of the female body exposed as seen through an objectifying perspective. All based on subjective experiences throughout life, of course.

Emotions connected to taboo subjects such as the woman in an inferior position to man might stir up. I am thinking about “[...]men enjoy looking at nudes. And women not nearly so much – because they have to endure the daily indignities of being treated like mindless “objects” by clueless men,” cited from deviantArt’s journal post (link above). Frustration as a consequence of being mistreated by such “clueless men” can in discussions like these mark the whole group of men. “All men are objectifying pigs”, and so on.

Could it be that you are misjudging nude art because your interpretation of it has been roughly mixed with negative feelings around objectified women? Did the artist actually intend to just shoot a sexy woman from a couple of intimate angles, or is there something deeper to it? Could there be anything deeper to it? Who decides when there is a deeper meaning behind the nude woman and when it isn’t? And what does objectifying mean? What does the image signify and/or objectify, and how does it objectify?

It is your interpretation after all, so you are the one who holds the answers. To interpret an image as objectifying, your mind will first have to interpret the objectified as an object. At first you might disagree strongly, but there is nothing wrong or sick about this – and who is to deem what is sick and wrong? Everyone reacts differently to their interpretations. Some people might laugh, some might get upset. And that is just the thing, the core of this problem.

Maybe this is what stirs the emotions; the inner realization of how tainted the human mind is; how it can take something complex and divide it into something simple; an object, and laugh at something that upsets you so deeply. Stirred up emotions are not always good, especially not when they are unleashed in a way that they affect others in a negative manner. E.g blaming all men as objectifying pigs or laugh at an objectifying image in the presence of someone who is offended by it. The strong word “objectify” has many meanings, but it need not be negative. It could be negative or positive depending how your emotions react to the situation, but it is your interpretation. Sooner or later, it all comes down to you.

Dream diary IV

 

“I jump down on the slab, close to the dark water. I see parts of a camera lens, a brooch, a pocket watch and a curious contraption that I have never seen before. A basic geometric shape highlighted with golden ornaments that frame sections of glass that envelope some strange clockwork device. Beside the still water lay a group of miniature swords, each about six to ten inches long. André pointed out bones behind me, in under a crevice, resting on heaps of gold coins, leather straps and old clothes. They are pointed out as belonging to our ancestors. But my interest lay in the weird glass object rather than old mossy treasures. I turned around and glanced at the object only three inches down the water. I feel a strange need or craving for the strange object and attempt to reach for it, but as I do, a sudden insight of terror strikes me. If my hand breaches the surface of the water, I will wake something from the dark depths that will pull me down to the very bottom of these waters. I am repelled by the fearsome darkness, and my hand slowly moves away from the cold surface of the water.“

Struggling to Breathe