Juha Uski

Humanization of culture
Published earlier in http://www.labisagra.com/english/letra/juha_uski/humaniz_eng.htm 1. Current situation Currently it is thought that culture and art is doing very well and is very strong, but I don't think so. On the contrary I feel that the contemporary culture and art is very dead, repetitive and un-creative. Art has become a "product". But this "production" has nothing to do with art. Also artists themselves become "products", they become "avatars", objects of desire and longing. This has nothing to do with art. People are viewed as consumers and they are seduced to enter into the arrangement which is centered around the desired object. In theatre we find the stage as the centre, and people are seduced to forget themselves and suck the drug that the performance is, and to get high on it. From this point of view it makes no difference whatsoever whether the performance is a poor striptease show given by an oppressed sex-slave in a greasy cellar or whether it is a first class choir performance given in the loftiest of temples. The point is that the people who follow the performance are doing it to "get high" in a way or another. They are doing it to get away from themselves, from their mission in life... this is a mirror reflection of the general crisis. Of course we all need to relax sometimes, to let excessive tensions melt away, to let the mind loose and rest. Also we sometimes need the recognition and attention from others, attention to that self who is so easily ignored in the everyday life and who does not have channels of expression in the lifestyle of the system. So both sides of the setting are necessary and most acceptable. But lets not call that art 2. Essence of art What then is art, if that is not art? Art is a special aspect of human ACTION. Art is something that is present all the time, it is the way in which people do things, it is not something that can be said to begin from here and end in there. Yes, there is an art of ending and an art of beginning; an art of rhythm and an art of performing the right acts in the right time and place; but this does not make some act be more art than another act. It is all connected to each other and THINGS DO NOT END IN "THE PRODUCT". We should never kill art in that way, thinking that the goal can be more important than the means, and trying to manipulate things so that we can fulfill the goal, create the Divine Product, the Holy Show. If we think that art is about making products and performances, we have already strayed from the path and killed art. Art has just left the building! Consumerism leads to dependency. The artist is dependent on the audience and the audience is dependent on the artist. In recent times there has been talk about co-dependency, as in the relationships where the other takes the role of the victim and the other takes the role of the oppressor. The husband beats the wife and the wife is so in love with her self-image as a martyr that she does not do anything about the situation, apart from giving her "unconditional love" to the man. Both are using the other to fulfill one's reverie and the relation itself (as it is, encountered humanly) becomes secondary, is thrown aside. Now here we see that the entire field of "art" is pervaded by that tendency of co-dependency. On the stage we see the Powerful ones, the Sexy ones, the Prestigious ones, the Masters. Well all right, as I mentioned earlier, they fulfill an important social role. But for someone who is interested in practising and developing art, that path is a divagation.

Basicly creativity is something that is not relative to anything, but is an entire act, not a relative act but the act itself. Creative activity is done to the world, towards the future, to the entire universe that is becoming. Secondly, in creative interaction there appears the elements of give and take. Taking ones space of expression and giving the other space for expression; expressing and listening freely, attending to the other and attending to oneself. These elements are or are not fulfilled in everyday life and they form the base of the art of living. 3. Humanistic art vs. centripetal, romantic, degrading art To humanize is to act intentionally, to engage in the world with ones intentionality. The third step that develops the art of living so that it can overcome the hierarchic models of consumerism is the development of DIRECTED CREATIVE INTERACTION. This is something that is sometimes practiced in schools, but generally it gets run over by the interests of the consumerist markets. Another factor is that the patterns that are used in education are often outdated by the development of the human being. The patterns that are used to give direction to the interaction should correspond to the intentionally formulated goal. The means and the goal should correspond to each other. EACH PROJECT IS A PATTERN. What then can be the goal of art? The goal of art can be anything. Art should become an answer to the needs of the human being, a reflection of his intentions. Of course these needs and intentions are situational, and therefore they can only be identified by the interaction between the participants. DIRECTED CREATIVE INTERACTION IS IMPOSSIBLE TO IMPOSE "FROM THE OUTSIDE". What we can do is we can discuss (in other words, to engage in simple creative interaction), and secondly, to open our imagination to the possibilities of different patterns than the one we are engaged in habitually - that is, to study life. But living in this gray world one begins to think: how about the imagination of others? Can we open the imagination of others through art? Some people think they can "change the System from within". They also think they can develop art through "using" the consumer markets and the modular forms of expression to bring forth something more holistic. They think that they can change the world by altering the content of the products. In the back of their minds they know that they are looking for something more than what it is to be a rock'n'roll star Perhaps they think: "we still have the content to play with, though the activity itself is devoid of art." But there is no escape from the fact that they are just a part of the System. In case they have already gotten very accustomed to the benefits and comforts of being a celebrity, they are not going to take a different path and they end up quite frustrated. There we find the drug culture scene and the rock'n'roll suicide. If thinking: important is who receives the product, then co-dependency pattern. If thinking: important is to affect the receiving one whoever it is, or the society, or the world, then act becomes instrumental, self becomes object, co-dependency pattern again, nothing creative can be born from that. If thinking: important is how I benefit from the act, then act becomes secondary, internal contradiction. Therefore: remember Rilke: If you have to write, then write, otherwise don't. Write only because of the act itself. Paint only because of the act itself. Perform only because of the act itself.

But to expand the experience and to expand the art, here it is important to understand how the future acts in the consciousness, how the intentionality of the human being acts in the world so that the future becomes paramount. To expand our vision on the subject it is necessary to consider the essence of the human intentionality in relation to art. 4. The social meaning of art We can only use the traditional techniques of representation for educational means if we have an adequate framework which serves our intentions. Not the intentions of the society, not the pretension that we are introducing an objective reality that exists apart from us. No. Never. That is both impossible and meaningless. So here it is clear that all the techniques of representation have no educational value in themselves. This was well, at least intuitively, understood in some traditional cultures, where art had a function that was more than hedonistic, more than consumeristic, more than divagation from the essential issues of life. Rather art was the path of cultivation of those essential issues; issues that were essential to all the participants. This is easily observed in different initiations and transition rituals. These are certainly events which require artistic skill to be effective. The giving over to the new generations what the earlier generations experience certainly cannot be done without engaging in interaction with all ones resources and skills. This pertains to all the participants, both the ones who try to receive the initiation and the ones who try to give it. Of course, this also is true in the case of such ceremonies which are repeated more often, and also this pertains to the cultural forms which function as the base structure of the everyday life, like for example in our current technocraticmonetary culture using the computer or the bank automat or the mobile phone. And of course, here we also find the various kinds of games. The social art of the future is the creation of patterns which permit diversity in the way of life of the community. For that we can learn a lot from the traditions; that is not simply technical matters but matters concerning the essence of human life. The traditions cannot give us the entire answer but there we have some raw material to work with, intentionally together. In any case it is inevitable that the traditions - even in the form of language - still form the fabric of our lives, in spite of the technologization and economization of the landscape. How technology is used and how economy is arranged, does not come out of nowhere either. We should not ignore the raw material that history has provided us with and we should not ignore the processes of long term. But most importantly, the approach to the traditions can no longer be that of repetition, because the traditions are no longer existing apart from each other. The traditions are in dialogue and they cannot transcend their limits without the human intentionality. I hope that we could learn again this kind of social art which has given birth to the most valid of traditions, and bring the essence of art back to our social life which has in this hyper-competitive society become so mechanical. Because art does not maintain itself mechanically; art is the act of the human being who grows in her humanization and opens life with her intentionality. Peace, Force and Joy! Juha May 2000