Kimmo Modig: Cool stories

9.

I'm used to saying that Finnish art institutions have a horizontal power structure. This makes it easy to contact people, since you don't have to go through assistants. But maybe it's not true after all. 
Finnish art world is so small, that even the structures we have now seem too heavy. Art seems to be the most conservative world when it comes to structural change. The art institutions I know of are surprisingly old-fashioned in their operations. Exhibitions are done with all the traditional pomp and circumstance, with catalagoues, paper invitations, formal and bland opening speeches and performances, and so on.

The more I write, the more I notice how limited my vocabulary is. I've written "so on" and "somewhat" a thousand time. Most of my sentences start with "It's" or "I". I don't have any idea whether "pomp and circumstance" means what I think it does. Since I don't ("Since" is a popular one too btw) do any research, these writings are full of me saying I "guess", "assume", "feel", and so on (see). 
Not that it matters (that's how & when I change the paragraph), or maybe it does. I'm not saying anything, and on top of that, I'm saying it in a repetitive, lifeless way. John Cage: "I have nothing to say and I'm saying it.", Kimmo Modig: "I have somewhat nothing to say and so on". [audience laughter]

Well it's time to leave these questions aside and start organising yourself. It's sad that Finland hasn't seen a raid of protests. Sad, because we are facing brutal cuts and privatisation measures, while giving companies even more power over our immaterial rights, or just simply over our lives. So when we wake up, it might already be too late. 
Not that I wish for protests targeting a certain cause, quite the opposite actually. I was very happy to see a protest in Helsinki titled "Nyt riittää!", meaning Enough is enough. It's a direct link to the Horizontalidad movements around the globe, where people come together to figure out new ways of being and working together, instead of opposing a specific thing. It is really true: the system in itself doesn't work, so it's futile to point out a thing or two and oppose them. I support a change that starts from the way we act together, and I do believe in leaderless, horizontal action. 
I don't have any idea what art has to do with it. True, art for me is about questions of being and communicating, and in art you can represent utopian and even illogical ways of existing. It has took me a long time to truly realize this. I'm still doing works that I don't believe in, in a structural-symbolic level that is. To be more precise, I'm doubting the structures I work in, like me being on a stage, talking to the audience, listening. 
My work has been so much about me. Now I'm looking for a way to keep doing that but in a more, I don't know, shared and horizontal way, for lack of better words. And as I said, I do lack better words.

I might also just give up on making art. Although saying it feels like I'd be 14 and making dubious threats to my parents to run away, or something. But I've been alone in a room somewhere far from home thinking this it I can't take this pressure anymore, but I always end up thinking "No, I can't let this break me, I will keep on keeping on". Because this is what I do, this is all I do. I could do something else, and I have done something else, too. But I always find myself back here, performing, recording writing, suggesting‚ collaborating, and linking.

Hyperlinks, dear God how I just love hyperlinks. They changed my view of everything. That we actually found out a way to link everything into everything else. I think that's the most beautiful thing that has ever happened. Hyperlinks is a world wonder.

Why I always talk about MYSELF, why are my videos and other works about MYSELF? Because it's the safest thing to do. And I will keep to it even more so in the future. MYSELF ables infinite possibilites without compromises. And if I find a boundary, I can deal with it directly in the work. MYSELF is the method. MYSELF is a work condition that can reflect itself immediately. The aftermath and the planning both come together in MYSELF.  

(a minute passes) Most of this hour I spent watching out from the window. (2 and a half minutes) Now I'm just waiting for the time to run out. (20 seconds) There.