As the time goes by things grow, disappear and change. Every medium requires a specific format. Is it a book that requires pages with letters and us to see in order to get the message or a radio that requires sound and us to hear in order to use the medium. Marshall McLuhan, Canadian philosopher, declares: “Medium is the message.” He explains that the message is not as important as the medium itself. Medium shapes us and with us the whole world as we know it.
With the rise of internet and technologies world has never been the same.
Lev Manovich in his book “The Language of the New Media” talks about the five principles that are crucial when questioning what is new media. First principle of the five is “Numerical Representation”, he explains: “Converting continuous data into a numerical representation is called digitization.” This process reminds me of live beings who need to adapt to the changes in environment in order to avoid the extinction.
I find very entertaining to see ancient things in the internet. My final work is about magic and how it is alive in the internet. The practical side to it is a satirical magick site of my own.
First things first, the meaning. When I was looking up stuff I came across two terms - “magic” and “magick”. Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), an English occultist, started using the term “magick” to differentiate what he was doing from stage magic. There’s some more reasons, but this is the most crucial one. As Urban Dictionary explains: “Magick is art of utilizing natural forces around us to bring about change. Magick is neutral, neither good, nor evil. The practitioner decides how they would like to focus this natural energy.” No matter the Crowley’s intentions still it’s possible to see people using the term “magic” more commonly.
Magic (paranormal), the use of paranormal methods to manipulate natural forces
Magic (illusion), the art of appearing to perform supernatural feats
Magic in fiction, the genre of fiction that uses supernatural elements as a theme”
“Magic or sorcery is the use of rituals, symbols, actions, gestures, or language with the aim of utilizing supernatural forces. [..] The term magic has a variety of meanings, and there is no widely agreed upon definition of what it is.”
Magic sites
Every site is different, but they all share some things.
Semiotics is a big thing. In magic almost everything is based on the meaning of a thing, of what it represents, whether it's a sign, object or material. While trying to find things I stumbled upon a term “sigil”. A sigilis a symbol used in magic, especially in the context of chaos magic. What I found interesting was that Aphex Twin and Die Antwoord practices chaos magic according to this article.
There’s a fan base.
There’s an “about me” section.
Some are not that personal, but some are really personal. The person shares the journey of becoming involved in magic. So there’s some kind of a narrative.
Aesthetics. (Of course there are some very down to earth, minimalistic looking sites like this, but for me it’s more pleasing to look at the exotic ones since we are talking about the magic.)
In Twitter there's usually a lot of bot accounts and there's also one about magic too. It's called Magic Realism Bot.
There's an app called “Sigilscribe” that helps you create sigils instantly.
One of the most entertaining things that I've found was called Meme Magic. This is a great article that explains why meme magic is the reason why Trump got ellected that it was not a coincidence and meme magic should be treated with respect.
Magic very often is associated with tricks. Technology is a very handy tool for making tricks seem more advanced & is widening the horizon. One example is AI, you can read about it in this article. Here's a great site with a lot of code based tricks.
Here'sa guide for that. Vice has also covered it here.
Here's my final work presentation. Here's my practical final work that I did not finish, but you can get the feel of it. There's really a lot of information about magick if you are willing to spend time to look for it. Books, videos, pdfs, articles so on. I actually got really tired when I started to write about it and put it all together afterwards. I didn't even go through a lot of youtube tutorials, videos, there was even one live stream for a ritual. If you are interested you can search for it by yourself.
I hope that no one is going to cast a spell on me after this.
The year is coming to an end. If not the dates in the calendar then there’s always something that reminds you that. Yesterday I Filled out Spotify's "2017 wrapped". It’s a fun visualization of your data on Spotify. You can find out how many minutes did you listened to Spotify, what are your top 5 artists this year, what was your top genre and more.
I found out that my top genre is escape room. Felt really confused, because it was the first time that I’ve heard the term being used anywhere else except when talking about games.
After googling I found this article that relieves what’s underneath the genre. As Glenn McDonald, Spotify's "data alchemist", explains: “This is one where the genre comes from collective listening patterns, but I made up the name myself, because I couldn’t figure out any existing one to apply. The vibe is kind of an underground-trap/PC-music/indietronic/activist-hip-hop kind of thing, and I thought of “escape room” both for the sense of escaping from trap, and for the ideas of excitement, puzzle-solving and indoorness implied by the actual physical escape-room phenomenon.”
Glenn McDonald is also the author of a site called everynoise.com. “This is an ongoing attempt at an algorithmically-generated, readability-adjusted scatter-plot of the musical genre-space, based on data tracked and analyzed for 1538 genres by Spotify.” In short, you can explore genres, artists and discover more.
Plus, you can easily preview artists just by clicking on the name & a symbol will pop up, so you know what have you already listened to.
Another plus, the map gets updated.
I feel that I could get lost for a long time in that map just to discover more & more.
Anyways, interesting stuff.
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This is an interesting lecture by Robert Henke where he talks about a problem in music production that there’s no limits and how it affects the workflow. I can see how that can be applied to other art fields as well. He also speaks about genres today, that it doesn’t matter anymore how the music was made so much. Before people tended to use this term “computer music” as a genre. Those days are gone. I believe that, because of the unlimited options, it is so hard to draw strict boundaries when it comes to choosing the genre. As a result, I think, we will see even more different methods when it comes to defining a genre, not only the “escape room” way.
On a personal note, doing this task was hurtful to me in a way. My naive side of me don’t want to believe that I live in a world where there’s something like that as a president. On the other hand, bad things can motivate people to step back and overthink what is wrong and how to do things differently.
In my opinion, laughing at problems and sharing memes is an act of saying that something about the joke is true, in a way agreeing with a part of the joke. The thing that scares me the most about it is - what if the most of the people who laughs about Trump memes don’t actually care and if they would be asked to take a stand they wouldn’t?
Something else that I found on the way:
This is an account that posts gifs similar to this. I believe that it's a creative way of protesting. Trump actions and the way he speaks is really immature. Gif reminds me of a 4 year old kid who is bragging to his parents. I really wish that Trump had as much power and fame as a random little kid who can't influence anyone.
Again joke about Trump being immature. Can it help us if we don't take him seriously? In terms of social media I think it can.
There's a saying in Latvian: "Never argue with an idiot – at first he will bring you down on his level and in the end he will beat you with his experience." Oh, and another one "The more you move shit, the more they begin to stink."
Tomorrow, 6th of December, Finland will celebrate its 100th anniversary. Latvia will celebrate it next year, in 18th of November. Since I live in Latvia for a couple of years I've seen everywhere the phrase ”Latvijai 100” either I have heard it in TV, seen it on posters in the street or someone using it as a hashtag in social media. Although I'm a patriot, it has always just been there, floating around in front of me, I haven't paid a lot of attention to it, till this moment when I noticed a similar phrase in Finland “Suomi 100” and I automatically, straightforwardly thought to myself “If Latvia is only a year younger country than Finland, why are they so different? What is wrong with Latvia?” “The history.”
After Nazi Germany and Soviet Union signed non-aggression pact Finland became a territory of interest to Soviets. ŠŠǿŠ¼Š½ŃŃ Š²Š¾Š¹Š½Š°́ or as we all can understand Winter war started in 1939 when Soviets invaded Finland as they wanted to get it under their wing. Red army had way, way, way, way more soldiers, tanks and weapons, but Finns had amazing snipers, good for them weather conditions (it dropped to −43 °C in January, 1940), soldiers used their skiing capabilities and most importantly they had a strategy so they managed to hold their positions for as long as they had to - till 13th of March 1940 - when Finland managed to negotiate the peace terms with Soviet Union. “When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, Finland entered the war as a co belligerent with Germany.” After the war Finland stayed free.
It's hard to express how impressive (Finnish persistence) and heartbreaking (the massive propaganda, how soviets have treated their own people and still do) at the same time this historical event is to me.
After the non-aggression pact Latvia also became a territory of interest to Soviet Union. 1939 October 5 Latvia was forced to sign a Support agreement with Soviets that allowed them to create military bases in Latvia. That was the start of occupation. All the people who were someone or who had something was sent to Siberia, some got executed instantly, depending on the profession. Only in 1991 December Latvia became Latvia again. Technically from all the 100 years Latvia has only been a free country for 49 years.
This got me thinking about the power that a single phrase can have on a human subconsciously. In this case, personally I was born in a free country and everything happened before me that's why I kind of automatically assumed that my country should be capable of being in a similar condition than the rest of the EU countries. It's scary to think about other automatically made assumptions based on non intentionally consumed information.
I can see & feel all the depression, hurt and poverty from people when I'm home. Most of the people are not satisfied with the current state of my homeland. One fourth of population has moved away to work in Germany, Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Ireland and so on. The Soviet regime can still be felt in the government, in the mentality of people.
I get that it will be 100th years since Latvia has existed. In my opinion, the outcome would be much better if the 49 years would be highlighted more, so everyone would not waste energy to rant about how much better it is elsewhere. Latvia is a new country and people need to be patient and act smartly for better results.
Anyways, wishing well to Finland, happy birthday! May the best of your past be the worst of your future!Thankful to be here.
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If you are interested in real stories of how it was to be occupied in Latvia, I highly suggest this virtual museum (real facts, real memories). It will take about an hour to go through it, so don't just rush in and quickly skip through it whilst checking your phone. It's worth the attention.
If you are interested in the dark and hard war times in Finland, I highly suggest this book by Katja Kettu. I remember that couple of years ago in the summer I was sitting on a bench surrounded by soviet type block houses that are almost in the center of my hometown and reading this book when an old man who seemed wealthy (had a gold watch and was dressed acceptable) came to me and asked in Russian “Do you know even what you are reading? Do you even understand? That book is bullshit.” He tried to communicate more. All I said was that I'm sorry, I don't understand Russian. It was a really weird experience. It was a really warm and sunny day.
I believe that you are what you surround yourself with and that I think that also applies to social media. What I look into posts are unique content, genius thoughts and creativeness with a spark of fun, energy and braveness. All of my timelines (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube) mainly consist of posts from musicians or artists. I feel that I can get most inspired from them. As time goes by I’ve noticed that self care and appreciation has become like a trend between a lot of musicians. I believe that it is really healthy for people to remind them that the core thing of being a human is to be in peace with self. At the same time I can say that seeing everybody doing that it becomes slightly annoying. As we all know the content of social media is deliberately constructed, sometimes even by a team of people, so not taking content from the timeline too personally is a part of media consumption. But still I think that no matter how sceptical you are the messages will get you on a subconscious level and that is why it is SO important to choose what to consume.
Anyways, in 2012, while I was still on Tumblr, I discovered a mixtape from a 19 years old girl from Colombia that was really different from everything that I was listening to at that time, it was low quality, but there was something about the rawness, uniqueness that attracted me. She didn't had a lot of followers. I automatically followed her on Twitter and later on Instagram too. I remember that on Twitter she had only about 200 followers. Now, in 2017, in Twitter she has 274K followers, but in Instagram 558K followers, so I have seen her rise from nothing to everything. So, how did Kali Uchis made it happen?
Firstly, she did everything by herself. She made the beats, recorded herself, made the cover of the mix tape, directed and edited videos, styled everything and by that I really mean everything – starting from clothes and ending with writing style in Twitter. As I have noticed, a lot of musicians now tends to point out that they do all by themselves, no matter if it's giving credit to self under the video in Youtube or writing “I do my own stunts” in Instagram and people really appreciate hard working, talented people. There has also been a lot of jokes about popular singers who don't do anything besides singing, has a team who writes songs, do all the other stuff and still get a lot of appreciation, sometimes more than other people who do much better job only by themselves. I think that all this willingness to support people who do everything by themselves comes from wanting to make a world a better place, a place where people who work hard get the recognition they deserve.
Secondly, she started when she was only 19, so everything what she did, they way she did it was appealing to young generation who is always looking forward to something fresh, relatable and inspiring. A plus is that Kali Uchis is influenced by the greatest female singers, she gives a nostalgic vibe and all that in modern time.
Thirdly, the country and the culture. Colombia has always been super exotic and interesting for the rest of the world. I believe that it works out really good for a young artist if you can manage to be visually pleasing. Here's one music video that she made to a song called "Ridin Round", made in Colombia.
Lastly, I want to add that she does not get involved in some beefs in the internet, she posts regularly, but not too much, she prays for those who have had big tragedies, she's super nice, which is a number one rule if you want to make it at all, she keeps in touch with fans, answer to them, retweets, tells how much she loves them and thanks them for everything regularly, says how everyone is special, give advice and adds them on a list in the concert if they can't afford the ticket or really want to come, but everything is sold out.
All in all, I can only say good things about how Kali Uchis uses social media. Everything goes hand in hand, the image she has created with how she is in the interviews and I bet in real life too. Either she is doing really, really good with lying or she just is doing herself. I tend to believe that the last option is true.
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Some things that I've noticed and that seemed worth sharing.
One day singer FKA Twigs in Twitter asked a question about braids, lots of people answered, she created a hype about it and later announced that she will post something special about braids in Instagram, as she later did. Interesting technique how to gain attention and make people interested in a topic for own good.
And Diplo's tweet.
In a way agree, but at the same time you can gain a lot of fans if you say something worth spreading. I guess the key is to figure out a good way to say things in the media so you don't end up like Justine Sacco did.
Since I haven’t mentioned it before, currently I am studying as an exchange student in Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK). One of the courses that I’m taking is Media Channels and Platforms. Realism was one of the subjects that we were discussing in class and one of the tasks was to think of a reality TV show idea, so below I will talk about it in detail.
Name of the show is “Finns in the Hood”.
Since finns are super introverted, shy people and they enjoy seeing other finns getting out of their comfort zone and other cultures reacting to finn mentality we thought that this could actually be a good reality TV show idea. There are finnish participants who can speak english (that's not a big problem, because almost everyone in Finland can) and according to their being and in what subculture they would fit in the best each of them are placed in the absolute opposite environment in the USA. They have to survive there for a week. In the beginning they get a list of tasks that need to be completed during that week. Tasks are the real challenge, because it means that the participant really has to get their hands dirty, for example, a person who don't do anything crazy, dress socially acceptable all the time and are really professional in a sense has to go help this guy to spread his message for a day. If the participants complete all the challenges they win a real, nice vacation in the USA.
This reality TV show is not only funny, emotional, intriguing and entertaining, but there's also an educational side to it. All the participants get to face their weaknesses and overcome their prejudices. Since each participant is in a different subculture show viewers can learn about different cultures and lifestyles. By seeing how participants get out of their bubble and overcome their insecurities viewers can expand their horizons.
I think that this is actually quite an original idea, because I haven't heard of anything like that, but on the other hand I'm not a big reality TV show fan and I don't know that much reality shows. I think the most unique part about the “Finns in the Hood” is the finns who are in the USA, because the most common principle in reality TV shows is that there are local participants from the same country where the show is made.
I think that if we want to involve other media platforms that one of the possible ways could be that participants need to go to a radio shows where they get interviewed, also each of them could get a phone from the show where they have an instagram profile, so they could document their week in USA for fans, hmnnn, what else… It’s hard to think of some accurate examples when all the tasks that they have to do have not thought out yet and there’s just the concept of the show. I guess maybe there could posters with images from some special moments of the show which can be signed by the participant if the fanbase gets big enough.
After writing this, one show came into my mind. In “My Name Is Earl” the main character starts to believe in karma so he makes a list with everything bad that he has done in his life and tries to make it right. Of course this is not a reality show, but seeing unusual tasks and even more unusual ways of doing them kept me hooked to that show. I think that it might work as good in our show.
So, yeah, I hope to see this show one day. Here’s the presentation that we made really fast in the class.
Yesterday my little brother sent me photos from a little book that I owned when I was little. One page of the book started with "Good webpages:". After seeing that photo I remembered that I used to make lists of webpages in real life. I thought that if I will save them in that way that they will stay forever. I guess I didn't trust computers, I thought that everything could just disappear and then what? I wonder if anyone did the same when started using internet?
Now there's almost all my life in the computer. I have grown into trusting it. I believe that new generation who has never experienced not having a computer will never do such a thing as writing something down like that. Nowadays there's cloud.
Remembered an episode ''San Junipero'' of a TV show Black Mirror where dying people can be uploaded to the cloud and live there forever.
Everything has changed so radically in such a short time. I wonder what the future will be like. Let's just buckle up and see. It seems a bit scary if you think about it that we treat devices humanly - trusting them or not trusting them.
I’ve been listening to hip-hop seriously for about five years now. It is a genre that is lead by the men mostly. That's why it is super exciting to follow how women grow in the hip-hop and to discover some new artists. In 2014 was the first time that I heard something of Princess Nokia. After two years of almost silence she released an EP ‘1992’, later she added 8 more tracks and released it as an album called ‘1992 Deluxe’. One of its greatest tracks is ‘Brujas’.
I chose this video for its strong values, appealing aesthetics and uniqueness plus I enjoy the song. If you follow Princess Nokia you can see that ancestors play a huge role in hers everyday life - she prays, do rituals and educate herself to become stronger and to improve the well-being. In the concerts and interviews she reaches out to young females and encourage them to do what they want, speak up, be in peace with themselves and achieve goals. For me as a young female, who listens to hip-hop, thinks that it is important to explore ancestors and celebrates uniqueness this video and the song itself speaks to me strongly. Below I will try to dig deep about the meaning of the video.
What you hear?
Yemoja
In the beginning you can hear a song from the Yoruba religion in honor Yemoja – African Goddess of the Ocean and the patron deity of pregnant women. “Yemoja is notably addressed as mother of all the gods in the Yoruba pantheon, in which over three hundred gods and goddesses abound.” “In her path of Okutti she is the queen of witches carrying within her deep and dark secrets.”
According to this“The Supreme Witch, known more colloquially as The Supreme, is a worldwide status recognized among the witches descended from the Salem Witch Trials. While most witches possess only a handful of inherent supernatural gifts, the Supreme is said to embody multiple, if not all.”
[Verse 1:]
We is them ghetto witches
Speaking in tongue bitches
She is referring to being a mysterious and magical women with her other women fellows from the ghetto.
Sage on the door is used for keeping the bad energy out and purify all who enter. “Fall on the floor” as I understand is meant that the person who just entered had a lot of bad energy that changed so radically so it caused the person to faint.
Princess Nokia here is saying that she with fellows are more powerful than “you”. After that she's describing the characteristics of girls from the ghetto. “North, East, West, South” is a reference to a ritual – Calling the Quarters.
An orisha is a spirit who reflects one of the manifestations of the supreme divinity in Yoruba religion. “Alter” is ”a pseudonym of an internet forum user's primary account. By saying “got coins on the counter” she could mean that she is ready for the next that's coming.
In this verse she is proudly stating her heritage. The roots are from Africa, but after Atlantic slave trade her ancestors was brought to America. She proudly declares hers Afro-Latina background and states that being a witch has been always in her blood.
She has people around her with similar view that are like relatives to her. Coven is a group or gathering of witches who meet regularly and Princess Nokia is in the lead of it. Witches usually have the power to shape-shift into different animals. By saying that “you don't know who you loving” she knows how to manipulate very well.
“Better light you a candle; I heard the nighttime was black” By this she could mean that you should look up to her, how she is doing it, she can lead you in the bad times. Also maybe it is a reference to the saying “better to light one candle than to curse the darkness” which means “In the face of bad times or hopelessness, it is more worthwhile to do some good, however small, in response than to complain about the situation.”
If “you” will not be careful about how to behave, Princess Nokia will be your trouble.
To cast a circle in white is a reference to “casting a circle of protection is a way for Wiccans to protect themselves during magick work. It creates a high-energy space where you can safely carry out your magick, without the interference of any negative or harmful entities that might otherwise be attracted to your metaphysical energies during rituals and spell casting.” Princess Nokia can defeat anyone's desire to hurt. Nothing can stand in a way of her, because she is really strong and powerful.
“The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of South America and of the Caribbean.” The lines again highlights that a lot of culture and rituals are taken from hers heritage from Africa and one should do more research. She demands that her's heritage needs to be respected.
What you see?
In the beginning you can see the Yemoja – African Goddess of the Ocean and the patron deity of pregnant women standing in the water. It is not possible to see hers face, I believe it is that way to create more mysterious and magical effect that she is not human like, but something more.
Around the goddess are four women – four witches all dressed in white, because the colours of Yemoja are blue and white. Looks like they are praying to the goddess for their well-being.
The second place of the video is in the nature. You can see some scenes with women doing rituals like casting spells in the nature, using cards and other stuff.
The third place that is shown is in the ghetto where all of them have kinda like schoolgirl outfits – more regular.
After that we are back in the nature, but now we can see Oshun – “a Nigerian Yoruba deity of the river and freshwater, luxury and pleasure, sexuality and fertility, and beauty and love. She is connected to destiny and divination.”
Oshun
Women dressed all white are bringing yellow flowers to her to show her theirs appreciation. Yellow flowers are Oshun's favourite flowers.
Now women are dressed in traditional Taino clothing. “TaĆno people were among the indigenous people of the Caribbean. At the time of European contact in the late 15th century, they were the principal inhabitants of most of Cuba, Trinidad, Jamaica, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and Puerto Rico.” Princess Nokia is a Puerto Rican.
Scenes of different women holding a snake and a little girl being around. I believe that it has something to do with snake symbolizing rebirth, but I'm not sure, because I couldn't find exact info about Taino tribe's meaning. “Snake Spirit has divergent symbolism in Native American tribes ranging from a huge monster that swallowed people in one gulp to the far more positive meaning of fertility (Pueblos) and rebirth (Ojibwa). One story from the Hopi tribe tells us of a winged Snake that communicates with the Earth Element. To honor this Spirit they have an annual dance that offers Snakes to the serpent, making prayers for the health and well-being of the tribe. Here and in several other North American tribes, Sneak is a rain-bringer.”
Then there's a scene where three women are braiding hair to the fourth one at the same time dressed all in white again. When they are in white they are representing Yoruba culture in which taking care of women hair takes a great role.
Since Yemoja is also a goddess of fertility the scene where all the women are soaking the dress in the water that could mean that they are praying for their own fertility and well being.
Then there’s a couple of scenes of Princess Nokia dancing and playing hand games with sisters.
Scene of magically appearing in different place in the ghetto. This is an example of one of the seven magical abilities that a witch can have known as "The Seven Wonders". One of them is Transmutation, it’s “the magical ability to move instantaneously from one place to another without physically occupying the space in between.”
It was quite tricky to wrap my head around the ending.
At the end of the video there can be seen two new women, one of them has horns. The meaning of horns could represent masculinity. In modern Pagan Witchcraft movement also known as Wiccathere is a Horned God which “is viewed as the masculine side of divinity, being both equal and opposite to the Goddess. (..) For Wiccans, the Horned God is "the personification of the life force energy in animals and the wild" and is associated with the wilderness, virility and the hunt. (..) In traditional Wicca, the Horned God and the Goddess are seen as equal and opposite in gender polarity. However, in some of the newer traditions of Wicca, and especially those influenced by feminist ideology, there is more emphasis on the Goddess, and consequently the symbolism of the Horned God is less developed than that of the Goddess.” Since the artist is all about female power it could mean that woman with the horns represent woman being powerful and having it all.
In the last scene you can see previous sisters now dressed all black with two new women disappearing in the foggy night. I believe that it could mean that they are going for a hunt for those who misbehaved.
There's really a lot of information about magick if you are willing to spend time to look for it. Books, videos, pdfs, articles so on. I actually got really tired when I started to write about it and put it all together afterwards. I didn't even go through a lot of youtube tutorials, videos, there was even one live stream for a ritual. If you are interested you can search for it by yourself. 
