#jenny holzer abuse of power comes as no surprise etc

[agnesandhilda]

see this is what I'm talking about when I say that the standard superhero/sidekick dynamic is a child abuse nightmare waiting to happen. an extremely small, insular society full of people who exist outside traditional systems of accountability not that those always help and in fact act as a sort of pseudopolice in themselves, and who are the only ones able to check each other's behavior. an extremely wealthy man kidnaps a child and his friends (also super-empowered pseudocops) are internally torn up over how to investigate him, or whether to investigate him at all. superheroes (ostensibly) exist to handle crimes the police can't, but who polices the superheroes? because they're certainly not doing it

[anocccularpatdown]

thank you @its-always-philly-in-sunidelphia and @ptsunnydee  for tagging me!

rules: answer 17 questions and tag 17 people you want to get to know better

nickname: leo, lee, or "whatever I'm into atm"-iot by my close friends. Like Halloweeniot, whaleiot etc.

zodiac sign: libra, libra rising, sag moon

height: 5′7, just about

hogwarts house: Slytherpuff. Literally all tests has been 50/50. I recently found a Reddit hate thread about me, how I was an ugly sjw blabla, but halfway through it got into a wild rant about how they didn't think I was worthy of calling myself either a Slytherin or a Hufflepuff and it was the funniest hate I've ever gotten.

last thing i googled: Samhain recipes haha

song stuck in my head: this Gregorian chant I sang with a choir once. It's really pretty, and the nun who wrote it was super badass. She was like "nah I can have relationships with other women because God said I could", and got away with a bunch of shit women didn't usually get away with because "God told me it was ok". Hildegard von bingen, look her up! Also listen to frondens virga by her, it's really beautiful.

following: I'm on mobile and can't really be fucked to close this to look, but a few for any hyperfixation I've had the last 6 or 7 years plus some randoms hahha.

followers: One of the things I really like with Tumblr is that you can't see how many followers people have, so I'm not gonna say. Not that many though.

amount of sleep i get: most nights I get 0-5 hours, and then one day a week I sleep like all day.

lucky number: 7 because I'm nothing if not a cliché. I don't like even numbers.

dream job: There is this one old man who lives in like a shed in British Columbia that has worked with monitoring my favourite orca pod for the last 45 years of something, and that's my dream. Working with sea mammals in general. Failing that, literally any job where I can work with taking care of and helping animals. I already do that a bit on my spare time since I can't really work due to illness.

wearing: Black pyjama shorts, black long socks, and a white Jenny holzer t-shirt that says "abuse of power comes as no surprise" on it in black blockletters because I'm sexy like that.

favourite songs: hard question because it changes all the time! Today it's probably "Jeremy" by magnetic fields, "love again" by palpitations, and "a burning hill" by mitski.

instruments: I wish.

random fact: I used to squat for years, so by now I'm really good at housing laws and pretty sufficient at DIY (although having grown up with a mum who fixed any and all things herself, I was already pretty good with tools and shit).

17 people are a lot to tag, and I think most people I think of has already been tagged, but here's a couple at least: @brownwithafrown (if you have time :)), @soupcharlie , @itsactuallycorrine @glam0urmuscles

[saa-na]

and again, from my pov as a historian interested in marginal history: most of the sources about marginal groups, be it gay people, trans people, sex workers, "the criminal underworld" etc are from an outside point of view, written inside the systems that hold power over the marginalized groups.

through reading these primary sources and the research that uses these sources it has come clear to me that medicine and psychology have contributed widely to controlling the lives and experiences of marginalized people. sex work, crime and lgbt+ phenomena have famously been pathologized. homosexuality used to be classified as a sickness, sex workers have been subjected to diagnoses because they "must be deviant" to trade in sex, crime is in the dna apparentally and trans people still need to be diagnosed and at least here in finland sterilized to legally change their social security number to match their gender.

i'm not saying that psychology or medicine is evil and i still believe that getting a psychological diagnosis can help people get the care they need. i myself am still fighting to be diagnosed for that reason. but what i'm saying is that disgnoses are tied to cultural and historical contexts and, in the words of jenny holzer, abuse of power comes as no surprise

[gaytog]

Whats ur classpect (also i forgot what a casspect is)

Classpect is a Homestuck thing. SBURB outfits each of its characters with a “hero title.” John is the Heir of Breath; Rose is the Seer of Light; etc. Although a few of the classes and aspects have been explained in canon, most of the system remains open to interpretation. I like bladekindeyewear’s classpect meta, so that’s what I’m going off like 99% of the time.

I call myself a Seer of Life, or “one who passively understands power.” Life is the aspect of energy: the eagerness, optimism, and raw power needed to act upon reality. I’m not exactly bursting with energy. Actually, I used to identify with Life’s opposing aspect, Doom, which entails lack of energy, loss of power, hesitation, and restraint. I spent most of my childhood as a very Doom-oriented individual (one might even say a Witch). A hero title, however, is not just a reflection of one’s personality; it represents one’s ideal and fully actualized self. I’ve become convinced that my ideal self is bursting with energy.

I have a quiet and persistent joy that motivates me to act. I work best when I follow my gut and work on whatever project I feel like working on, not when I subject myself to a system. And my value system is grounded in Life. Doom entails law-and-order thinking: you break a rule, you get punished. Life is the opposite. I believe that people should be free to do whatever they want, as long as they aren’t hurting anyone; free to make mistakes and learn from them; free to live and grow naturally, without artificially imposed consequences. My vision of justice is preventative and restorative, not punitive.

Life is also about indulgence in one’s desires, a la Trickster Mode; while Doom, as I said, entails caution and restraint. I’m generally a much happier person when I say “fuck it” and stop worrying about consequences (key word is “generally” – finding balance is always important).

A Seer “knows her aspect comprehensively;” and as a passive class, shares this knowledge with others or uses it to guide them. “Knowing Life” means two things to me. First of all, I want people to adopt my Life-based values: to understand, as I do, that letting people live freely and without restriction leads to people being healthier and happier. Secondly, I would like people to understand that a specific kind of power – that which is wielded over others – invariably paves the way for abuse and violence.

“Abuse of power comes as no surprise.” –Jenny Holzer

[ceb1700]

Artist Research - Jenny Holzer: “A pioneer in using public art as social intervention, she was one of the first artists to use information technology as a platform for political protest”

Like Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer’s work is heavily focussed around the use of statements and using language to communicate messages and themes to the viewers of the piece. Holzer has created pieces of work on the outside of buildings, walls and fences: Holzer’s work is heavily focussed around the use of lighting and technology. In previous projects, Holzer has projected particular statements onto significant buildings, which link to her theme, such as war, violence, politics, etc. The statements projected, are specifically created to highlight a specific theme, manipulating the principles of language to engage audiences and evoke change. As Holzer said herself “symbols are more important than things themselves...There’s a fine line between information and propaganda...Your actions are pointless if no one notices them”. In addition to this statement, the reason why Holzer uses lighting, projection and technology so much in her work, is to wrap the viewers within the subject of the message, to make the message more impacting, furthering the chances of change within both the viewers behaviors, but also within the society itself. Holzer is always on the look out for new ways in which she can communicate her message, using various mediums to do, with examples being: street posters, painted signs, stone benches, paintings, photographs, sound, video, projections, the internet and text-based light projections/instillations. As one critic stated about Jenny Holzer’s work “her stark one-liners call attention to social injustice and shed light on dark corners of the human psyche.” Example include:  “PRIVATE PROPERTY CREATED CRIME” “ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE” “PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT”. Like Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer aims to generate debate and make us think critically about our own lives, as well as the social and political problems which impose our daily actions and choices. 

I love Holzer’s use of radical and vibrant colour and lights, as they are striking, intriguing and mesmerizing; they make you want to go and understand the meaning behind them, whilst giving you the opportunity to understand the different ways in which people react to such instillations, something in which I am wanting to include within my own work. 

I find the use of statements to evoke change and to perplex others, interesting, and is something that I will definitely be incorporating into my own work: to make people question there actions, and the social norms that we all have to live with. 

Elements I will be taking from Jenny Holzer’s work -

- Use of lights/technology to aid visual experience of the viewer

- Use of statements to perplex viewers to understand the message behind the work

- Use of bright colors to also intrigue and involve idea of radical

References: -

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/jenny-holzer-1307

https://www.theartstory.org/artist-holzer-jenny.htm

http://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/37678/1/jenny-holzer-on-how-to-get-the-message-across