Verenhimo - Bloodlust

 

Wax crayon / wax on paper. Rinta-Perälä, 2024.

Drawing 425.

The Tearful Portal - out now

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZqy_t5gAAc

https://rintaperala.bandcamp.com/album/the-tearful-portal

1. Seven Truths Rush from the River
2. Poison Apple Frozen in Sand
3. More Than Meets the Mind
4. Ash Candles
5. Realm of No Inner Life
6. Distant Times Deaden
7. Black and White in the Flesh
8. Cognisant Funeral March

No separate category for anti-fascist art

 

I am anti-fascist. Everything I have done creatively and politically has been anti-fascist. There is no need for a separate category when it comes to fighting far-right insanity and dictatorships.

Instead of labeling other people constantly, you have to ask yourself: what kind of approach do you have? How much emphasis do you put on counter-extremism as a way to fight extremism?

Anti-fascist commitment becomes apparent in different ways. It doesn't have to be tattooed on your forehead. Not every ground-breaking album has to be called Fascism Sucks.

Creativity is so much more interesting. It can't just be rhetoric, counter-propaganda or naively black-and-white dabbling. You can't just do the exact opposite of something you don't like.

Anti-fascist art should be a universal movement and a sentiment. The more creative you are, the more you realise how stupid fascism is. All we can do is unite against it.

If you're obsessed with categorising other people, you don't feel anything anymore.

The illusion of guaranteed views

 

The reason I'm creating art cannot be reduced to numbers. I am not online or on Youtube to make money. Art is a realm where ideas have a life of their own. All that is completely eliminated if people just look at numbers.

We decide what is on platforms online. It is completely up to us. We also decide what we choose to talk about or focus on. Worrying about a mass audience is a waste of time. That's not what reality is. And yes, we still exist in reality.

The illusion of guaranteed views has been created by people who want to make money on Youtube. It's not the platform. It's not even the algorithm.

The algorithm doesn't care about anyone or anything. It doesn't care about your interests, struggles, your family, your friends, "community", supporters or whatever is currently keeping you on that platform.

Hopefully you care. No algorithm in the world cares about what I genuinely care about. They are time-wasting machines.

Same goes for marketing machines and the sellouts who worship them. Most of these marketing lunatics assume that you are the biggest consumer who is only concerned with popularity. Who are these imaginary people? Do you really just want the same popular stuff over and over again? I don't think so.

The whole thing turns into a hamster wheel. They pay you, you do stuff, they pay you, you do stuff. It doesn't matter if you call yourself independent. Anyone can make these mistakes.

Millions of people are wasting their lives shooting fish in a barrel. Doing the bare minimum and obsessing over numbers. Smart people can also make the mistake of being fame-obsessed. You can't just point at the worst stereotypes. They are a distraction. Pointing to the fact that so many people are fame-obsessed doesn't work as an argument.

Cognisant Funeral March

 

Cognisant Funeral March
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-gIFVkvqJA

From The Tearful Portal, out January 15, 2024.