On water doing solid things

 

A high-pressure system has set over Finland. Theme of the week: Energy. Method of exploration: Visiting places and observing, interpretations altered by mood, reflecting an inner weather. 

                                                        (Not) trapped under sheets of Ice.

Our course at the University continues. Weathers of the days past have compounded. Ice has solidified along the coast of the Baltic Sea. Our course starts to move over temporary ground, as one of the fellow students in our working group puts it. Our group consists of people all connected and affected by the body of water named the Baltic sea. The climate change affects the sea, and we are feeling the changes differently across our coasts. Without ice, we're more exposed to the element of the wind. My friends from abroad aren't used to seeing the ice freeze. It's a rare winter in that it has frozen for the first time in memory over Kiel. Neither does it freeze in Poland except for the most penetrating, protected inlets.

 A lot of us are told as children NOT to walk over ice. 

To navigate this new land extension is hazardous, hence we try to find information online. The averages say it should be thick enough. However, as one of the teachers put's it, there are no averages in nature. The variation can be very site specific and means are just a statistic average. My polish cohort brings up the first episode of the Dekalog by Krzysztof Kieślowski. In it a father and son trusts the computer with its estimation of the ice safety, ending up in cold water and hot tears.

We speak about forgotten knowledge, wisdom that is often tied to specific places and how the currents, weather and seasons affect it. I think of the local knowledge tied to Micronesian navigational charts. I also think of a scene in Je'vida, a beautiful film mostly in Skolt Sámi-language we watch an evening. In it the grandfather passes on knowledge of where the fishes move in the lake and the importance of not overfishing. "An intact fishnet is not always the best", the grandfather says to his granddaughter, who is asking why he's leaving a remaining hole unfixed in the fishnet.

Days when that above presents a bigger danger than what's below.

 While walking across the ice I decide not to, against mine and others expectations, walk underneath a bridge. "Walking under bridges means bad luck" or something like that plays in my mind. Then again, that makes sense only if it's on ice. It's interesting how we use storytelling and sentences to build images which abstractly remind us of very real dangers. We also avoid walking under ladders in fear of bad luck. 

Jody Enders talks of violence in the language of rhetorics, law and education to contextualize violence in spectacle, such as theatre. She uses an example of the scholar Thomas Bradwardine teaching the technique for memorizing the astrological signs of the Zodiac: CONTENT WARNING, VERY VIOLENT "ASTROLOGICAL" IMAGERY

"One places a very red bull to the right of the ram, kicking the ram with his rear feet; standing erect, the ram then with his right foot kicks the bull above his large and super-swollen testicles, causing a copious infusion of blood. And by means of the testicle one will recall that it is the bull, not a castrated ox or a cow. In a similar manner, a woman is placed before the bull as though laboring in birth, and from her uterus as though ripped open from the breast are figured coming two most beautiful twins, playing with a horrible, intensely red crab, which holds captive the one hand of the little ones and thus compells him to weeping and to such signs, the remaining child wondering yet nonetheless caressing the crab in a childish way." - Thomas Bradwardine (c. 1300-1349), De memoria artificiali, scholar, mathematician, physicist etc. Excerpt taken from The Medieval Theater of Cruelty: Rhetoric, Memory, Violence, Jody Enders. 

                                           I think I prefer less violent techniques of mnemonics and affection.

In the medieval time pain was thought to be an effective mnemonics method, hence very violent rhetorics and for example violent astrological imagery were used to memorize constellations through a dramatic story. Isn't some of our modern day rhetorics evoking emotions to give facts a graver depth? That's also one core reason of why I practice art. Write. Hopefully an opinion, an earnest emotional intuition of what's right, wrong, true will be perceived and live on. But what is the technique and its content, and how does it seep into actions outside the work itself?

                                                                     Colliding. Point break.   

I end up confirming my knowledge online: under bridges the currents can be stronger, which makes the ice weaker. Another effect which I hadn't thought about before, "In open, clear conditions, water loses heat rapidly by radiating infrared energy directly to the cold night sky. A bridge acts as a shield, reflecting some of this infrared radiation back down, which can slow the formation of thick ice, leaving it weaker or thinner." But what if the sun gives another Carrington event or even if I just happen to be located somewhere beyond the cellular data reach? What information can I trust beyond sentences which have been woven into my hazy memory recollection?

                                                        "The world is made of doings that briefly look like things"

And E=mc². I'm grateful for these nuggets of knowledge or lenses to look at the world and the self, being reminded of them. They are occasionally seemingly graspable, sensible and then disappearing somewhere beyond, into a subconscious or less prioritized archival unit in the brain as other images of self gain ground. 

"our sense of self can, upon examination, be seen as a complex flow of mental and physical events, clustered in clearly identifiable patterns, including our physical features, instincts, emotions, and

attitudes, etc., continuing through time." - the XIVth Dalai Lama, in the Introductory commentary of the Buddhist Tibetan book of the Dead, first complete translation ed. 

Walking on ice allows such a clear physical experience to connect theory with, a "thing" or object to be perceived in the context of the lecture earlier, a reflection mirror for inner metaphysical, philosophical and psychological mono- or polylogues that can be touched, licked, listened and hugged whilst wrapping one's mind around it.

It's water dancing with weather, forces doing things over a certain period of time, so that water becomes a solid "thing" we can walk on and write "nIce" on it's snow-covered surface with our footsteps, becoming through dialogue aware of the multiple possible interpretations of signs and the fragility of conveying meanings with good intentions. 

Regarding semiurgy, semiotics and signs, ice has lately not only been in the news due to the biggest ice sheet formation over the Baltic Sea in the past 15 years, but also regarding the oppressing havoc ICE in USA causes and stands for. Write "Fuck ICE."

Another theme of observation we're asked to do as part of our study task, is to observe our approach to the site that gets chosen. We talk as we walk towards our destination. We have named our small working group the "Icebreakers" and plan to see the icebreakers in Kruununhaka. Talking of our approach, we use observations of other humans, those walking or traces of them to navigate and decide if it's safe, but I assume we're all doing the same, those of us who don't own ice thickness measuring equipment or knowledge of the currents.  I remember wanting to say I have this vague hunch that bay's are unsafe and often involve currents. I don't end up saying it out loud. Maybe it was selfish knowledge withholding, not to scare the others before our adventure or maybe I just got distracted by something else that emerged while discussing. Maybe I was saving it to utter at a convenient time, but of course forgot about 'til now.

Following other's entries on ice brings us to colonization of grounds. Paths also make it physically easier to reach the same places other's have been to. From colonization of ice there's a short path to pondering on the larger themes of colonialism. Following others, paths of seeming ease and trusting it's right, safe or the way things are can also be an ultimately painful endeavor, immoral and lethal human tendency. We ought to be sensitive to how we approach.

We approach Tervasaari, Tar Island. Once a hub for the Finnish proto-industrial tar trade, also a link to our  involvement in colonialism and entry into capitalist world trade. Back then Finland itself offered the raw resource as part of the Swedish kingdom and their organized tar export to the international markets, largely the British Empire and Netherlands. The resources were spent and large parts of the profits went to the kingdoms merchants and the tar bourgeoisie in the tar capital by the port of Oulu, albeit also profiting the poorer Finnish regions such as the peasants of Kainuu, where the tar production largely became consolidated after the southern deforestation.

            Geographics, places, ice: visual compositions of compounding temporalities and movement through space and time.

Filming The Beach, a young DiCaprio portraying a hitchhike adventurer partly caused a mass influx of tourists to the natural area of Maya Bay in Thailand, ultimately causing enough damage for it to be closed (later re-opened with more conscientious stricter rules). I'm also thinking of the paths of grey widening on the fells in northern Finland or paths in Nuuksio nature reserve, ever widening, corroding around the tree roots. 

                                    And just like that, a visitor might unexpectedly, occasionally fall in, through the ice.

There is another risky, sometimes hurtful and dangerous part of the ice I like. It acts as nature's great democratizer on the streets. So many of us humans act as urban citizens who attempt to carry ourselves so well mannered and collected on the streets, dancing our ways through well established social choreographies and traffic rules which have been organized through great effort to meet expectations, usually without failing. But when ice sets on the streets, you might slip unexpectedly, usually rapidly attempting to rise back on one's feet again, perhaps with a slightly embarrassed smile on the face. If there is no rush to get up and attempt to remove the attention of the bypassers, a worry might set in: Are they okay?

We pass each other so effortlessly on the pavements, in our cars, buses, trams, escalators without asking that question. 

If they're still not getting up, the bypassers might, hopefully, get the impulse to turn thought into action and rush to see if they need assistance. 

Usually, so far always when I've been on either side of such interaction, we've been rather fine, escaping with minor bruises to the body or ego at worst. That empathetic smile meeting a slightly embarrassed and  surprised smile is in its core equally human and needed I propose, as our need and strife to control things.  One of them is sadly much neglected and rarely seen. I'd imagine there'd be a lot more love on the streets if we'd see each other fail, be surprised, softly, slightly embarrassed, ready to be embraced or ready to help, reaching a hand, asking whether you're okay. 

                                                     Until ice one day shall again just be a thing to slip on.

For now, ice still holds open temporary accesses to places to be affected by through new approaches. But beware, stay relatively safe!

                                                                        More on that later.

     Some guys using what I presume to be hot steam to melt ice from the drainpipe. Water, water, water in many roles and robes.