Indigo: dystopic opera with a touch of metal music

Source

Yesterday I went to see an opera called Indigo, by two composers from the well known Finnish  metal band Apocalyptica. If you have not heard their music, I can strongly recommend it. They play metal with four cellos and they are amazing. Here is an interview (and a video clip of the opera!) in English, if you are interested to read more about the composers and the Opera.

This blog post is an analysis on the story and themes of this new metallic opera which was composed by Eicca Toppinen and Perttu Kivilaakso. I shall now warn you that this post contains spoilers, though with an opera that is not always a bad thing. Quite often one needs to have a significant amount of information about the plot in order to follow an opera performance. Partly because the tradition of opera just is so and the other reason is that often characters might sing their lines at the same time and actually hearing what they say is sometimes challenging. The synopsis with background information and the plot of the Indigo Opera can be found at the Finnish National Opera's webpage. The language of the Indigo Opera is English.

The situation where the story starts is that a corporation called CoOp Co has produced a drug to make people sleep less and hence be more productive. Alas, after 7 years the users get serious side effects, suffer and die. Everyone is eager to save them but the tests to find a cure are very dangerous. Last time they tried the test a scientist, who acted as the test subject, died. In this dangerous test the science team tries to get access to (and data from it) human's deepest level of subconscious, where the key to control sleep resides and that level is called Indigo.

In the Indigo Opera there are several parties who are interested in finding a cure: the company's scientists Daniel, his father, and Aurelia (in love with Daniel), the spokeswoman of the company, the widow of the scientist who died, and the Minister of Propaganda and his General, who represent the governments interests.


Indigo depicting the problems of moral

I think this opera problematizes moral and the relations of "reasons - deeds - results". The situation is severe, victims of the anti-sleep drug are furious and they are becoming an angry mob and the peace and security of the whole society is crumbling. Also the rioters themselves are in serious danger because of the drug. The first moral problem is, by what motives can different characters justify their wish  to continue those dangerous tests. And does it even matter? The Minister of Propaganda (the name gives quite the negative connotations, doesn't it?) only speaks about the health problems of the victims and how they are dying and how that must be stopped. But: he is characterized as a perv-y and pompous dude and you would imagine he is more concerned of keeping his position and maintaining the security of the society, not the victims. Still, he only acts as if he is on the victims' side, so is he morally more dubious than others if the goal and the deeds to reach it are the same? Only his own private reasons to act might be different.

Also the spokeswoman of the company says she wants to save the victims but one of the scientists, Daniel's father, is calling out her bluff while accusing her of the situation. He may have made the drug but the company decided to put it on market even though it was not safe. I think Indigo depicts how often there is no moral high ground to stand on and situations are seldom black-and-white.

I'm sure you all are familiar with the phrase "the ends justify the means" and I assume you know that a moral guideline like that is very problematic (an example: is it morally ok to euthanize every third citizen of a country in order to fight overpopulation? I believe the answer is no). This is the second moral problem: after considering what are the motives behind the wish to act on a problem, then how can one justify the actual actions aka. deeds? There is a pressure to perform that dangerous tests, that is very likely going to kill the human test subject. What means can justify an end like that and vice versa? Of course these two moral problems of motives and actions in relation to results are entangled and make the situation even more complicated.


Indigo depicting the hopelessness of humanity

It is argued, that the spokeswoman is only concerned of the company and it making money. This is proved to be true when Daniel's father confesses his guilt about making the drug and the angry mob kills him. The spokeswoman takes advantage of the situation, and makes the killed man her scapegoat. She storms to the scene with some assistants, blames everything on the dead man, promises to cure everyone (though there is no cure because the new test failed) and distributes some money to the masses. The mass of victims is fooled and they are happy and satisfied with some empty promises and petty money and the riots cease.

My opinion is, that this scene questions the future of humanity and what are our true values. For me the theme of Indigo is hopelessness. It also manifests how human interaction and real encounter between two humans is an illusion. This idea is extracted out of another significant part of the main plot, which is the love affair between Daniel and Aurelia, who both work at the company.

In the Opera, after some debate Daniel becomes the human test subject. He is plugged into a machine and he starts to drift towards the Indigo level of his subconscious. He ends up into a dream-like landscape and meets the previous test subject, who had died. The dead man claims that Daniel is inside his mind and that he controls everything in this other reality. Unfortunately, this reality can not contain two human minds and the previous test subject has to "leave" and it is implied this means he dies for good. The weird realm becomes Daniel's mind now.

Same time at the other reality it seems that Daniel has died during the test and that others did not get enough data of the process to make a cure for the victims of the drug. Situation is quite hopeless and people grieve Daniel's death. In the end of the Opera Aurelia decides to be the one last test subject in order to try to find Daniel and to get the much needed data for the cure. She is aware that she is sacrificing her life in this attempt.

Aurelia reaches the Indigo level and meets Daniel. Then follows a scene in which Aurelia and Daniel sing a very emotional song about how "they live forever in their love" which can only be seen ironically, since right after the song Daniel "must leave" like the previous test subject and Aurelia is left alone in the realm that now has turned into her mind. She is sorrowful for about 30 seconds but then she realizes how amazing, vast, and beautiful her own mind is and becomes almost deliriously happy in her own solitude.

The Opera ends, and there is no reassurance that the people in the reality got the data needed to make the cure and could save themselves. Quite hopeless, don't you agree?


Final conclusions 

The conventions of opera songs reinforces this ironic way to interpret the end of the Indigo, since opera is a genre in which great emotions and epic fates are shown by epic music: the more forcefully and knowingly something is expressed the flatter the actual emotions behind it become.

I liked Indigo very much and especially how it uses those conventions of opera and thus can comment on them. I loved that the grim situation of the characters did not get magically fixed but actually shows how Deus Ex Machina sort of plot twists and especially ways to save the characters are a mere illusion.

I hope you enjoyed reading this and please comment what do you think about opera, dystopias or the Indigo Opera if you've happened to see it!

Gothic Art in Spotlight: In a sleep so deep it might be death

Happy and prosperous new year!

Today in Gothic Art in Spotlight I wish to write about an artwork by Finnish sculptor called Mia Hamari. The artist prefers to be called a sculptor but she creates beautiful paintings too. The work I am concentrating to is actually an oil painting on wood with two small wooden sculptures attached to it.

The work is called Valvojat which could be translated as the Supervisors or the Guardians or even as the Overseers. It refers to the idea that when a human is sleeping, spirit entities, like guardian angels for example, are guarding the sleep and that no harm is done to the person sleeping.

This is a very bleak painting. In the museum's info sign it read that the painting depicts "a sleeping boy". I am not sure how eternal that sleep is, if you know what I mean. Even more uncanny is the point of view: the boy looks like he is watched from an adult's viewpoint, while the boy is lying on bare ground. If one looks at the painting straight from the front, that other wooden figure looks like a melted wax candle, you know the kind people used to have in a wake.

Actually, the wooden sculptures are like small protecting totems. The other one at the top corner is shaped to resemble a stuffed toy dog and the other is slightly more ambiguous. It could be a doll or some sort of a toy bear. The face is distorted and a bit creepy. The skin of the boy looks damaged in some places, hinting of violence, and makes this painting ever so disturbing.

The painting is quite large and this painted little boy is as tall as a living 7-year-old. Or at least I thought so at the time I saw it, I have no idea how tall an average 7-year-old is. It was an impressive painting in the Oulu Museum of Art. This artwork was made during the years 2009 and 2010. The artist's own son was the model for this boy.

This ominous sleep the boy is in reminds me of old shamanism and pagan religions that were flourishing in the woods of my homeland centuries and centuries before the actual state of Finland. Shamans would often get themselves into trance to travel to the lands of dreams and even death to seek knowledge and help from various spirits.

Thanks for reading, and do tell in the comments what you think of this little boy!

A Scary Christmas Legend: Nuuttipukki from the North

Happy Holidays!

Since it is the season of Merry, I wish to share with you an old  and perhaps a bit sinister folklore story related to Christmas. Most of you are probably aware of the legend of Krampus, since an American horror/comedy movie came out this year with that same name. Really shortly said, Krampus is a mythological creature from the Alps, who is a sort of an Anti-Santa Claus. While Santa rewards nice people, Krampus punishes the bad ones. This post is about a whole other entity from the Nordic countries. This tradition spread from Sweden to Finland centuries ago, probably in the Middle Ages.

The spooky creature I am going to write about is called Nuuttipukki (it is translated as the New Year Buck in some sources), who is a horned, goat-like humanoid with an entourage of masked folk and he visits houses during the Saint Knut's Day. It used to be on January 7 but nowadays Saint Knut's Day is celebrated a week later. The tradition of Nuuttipukki still remained on the first week of the new year, though.

Nuuttipukki and his friends roam around the village and go from house to house insisting to have leftover foods and alcohol beverages after Christmas. It is bad luck not to yield to his requests, otherwise he might scare your animals, trash your garden and harass your servants (and he might still do that after food and drink, you never know with Nuuttipukki).

I wish to stress that this was not something that happened on the level of stories but in the reality too and it was not the master of the house who organized it. It was usually young men from another village who dressed as Nuuttipukki and his fellows and they might be quite drunk and mischievous. You could not be completely certain that food and booze would keep them happy.

This tradition was alive and kicking in Finland until the Second World War. Here is a photo from 1926. I believe the broom in this photo is part of the costume, to make this person more goat-like, so it is not a witch thing.

Source

The blackmailing (that resembles trick or treating) was not the only reason for people to let this creature and his companions to the house. The other reason people were willing to let these rascals in was that Nuuttipukki was supposed to scare off the spirits of the dead before they became evil possessing spirits. It was believed that Christmas and its celebrations lured the spirits of dead relatives back to this world. This is the oldest reason for this carnivalistic celebration: the masks were to hide who was the one scaring the dead away so that the dead could not have their revenge on this person or persons.

Here is a photo of a mask of Nuuttipukki from the 19th century Finland. It is made out of sheepskin. This mask is from the collection of the National Museum of Finland and the photo was taken by Markku Haverinen.

Source

Interestingly, Nuuttipukki is an older character than Santa Claus in Finland and the character of Santa resembled Nuuttipukki until the 1940's. Imagine Santa with a face like that! Even more, in Finnish language Santa is called "Joulupukki", so it is a very similar word with "Nuuttipukki".

As mentioned previously, it was believed that the dead Finns like the Christmas and in today's Finland it is still customary to commemorate the deceased relatives on Christmas. We take candles on the graves and on Christmas Eve the graveyards are astonishingly beautiful seas of candlelight. We also bring candles on the graveyards on All Saint's Day (about the same time as Halloween) to commemorate the dead and on 6th of December, which is our Independence Day, to commemorate the dead and especially those who died in the wars in which Finland fought to keep its independence. As you can see, the Finns are very respectable towards the dead.

Source

Thanks for reading, I hope you found this interesting and entertaining!

Creepy Reads Review: Addams Family - an Evilution

This volume has sat on my bookshelf for about two years and for some odd reason I have not featured it here on my blog. The Addams Family - an Evilution is a kind of an entertaining research on Chad Addams' creation, the Addams Family and how its characters evolved over time.

For me, the first Addams Family experience was the movies made in the 90's. After that, the old black and white TV-show. And finally I saw this book in an online shop and had the change to really read some of the original comics. This reversed order is quite understandable when regarding the fact that not the comics nor the old TV series were available at the period of time and the geographical place of my childhood. The point of this personal rambling is that the movies had shaped the way I saw the characters of Addams Family and I was surprised how different some of them are in the comics.

The Thing has changed completely from the comics and it is not even sure if the lurking little humanoid of the comics was the Thing. The old TV series made it to be a hand and I must say it is a delightful character. The Thing of the comics is seen on the photo of the front cover, it is spying the family from the window. In many of the comics there is this small creature lurking and watching, always outside of the family. In one single comic the Thing is something else than an observer: it is seen as a mere hand changing a vinyl on the family's gramophone. It is most likely this comic that inspired the character for the TV show.

The children too are relatively different and their way of interacting with each other has changed a lot in different media. In the comics Wednesday Addams is a sorrowful, quite timid child who is more like a sidekick for her brother in many pranks. This is the most astonishing difference for me and I must say I do think it is in a way improvement that Wednesday is much more livelier in the TV show and the character of the movies was a strong female role model for many a young girl.

"Well, don't come whining to me. Go tell him you'll poison him right back."

I believe though, that if Wednesday had been more livelier and stronger character in the comics, it would not have worked as well. The dynamics of the family members would have changed and it would have required alterations to the other characters too.

Morticia Addams of the movies is much more similar with the comics' Morticia. Her character in the TV series is much more warm and kooky. I do not think this is a bad thing, it is merely an observation. I love all the incarnations of Morticia.

What I really like about The Addams Family - an Evilution is that it has the comics in it but also a culture and literature analysis on the comics and it ties them to the social environment and the historical era they were created in. I can warmly recommend reading the old comics of Chad Addams and also reading this particular collection with cultural analysis on it too.

Picturesque city of Tampere

Lady Nancy from Retro Electric mentioned in a comment, that I should show more photos of the aesthetic sides of my hometown. I live in Tampere, Finland, the population is about 300 000 and it is the largest inland city in the Nordic countries (Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland). Tampere is an old manufacturing town and sometimes people call it the Manchester of Finland.

These two photos are from the older area of the city center of Tampere.

The houses next door to my flat. Unfortunately the building I live in is not this photogenic.

The eastern orthodox church. I walk past it every time I go to the university. Slightly off-topic: I have made progress with my master's thesis and things are looking good!

I would probably kill for getting to live in that green house, preferably in the tower.

This red and white building is a theater. In the upper window you can just see the huge chandelier they have.

A couple of days ago we had our first snow. Alas, it did not stay long but it made everything much prettier. The city of Tampere is divided by a river. It is beautiful with a park area on both sides.

The final photo is from the old factory, which nowadays has a shopping center, bars and bistros, museums and other facilities for culture, and a cinema.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you liked the photos!

Creepy Reads Review: Taxidermy Art by Robert Marbury

I bought a copy of Robert Marbury's Taxidermy Art - A Rogue's guide to the work, the culture, and how to do it yourself on my trip to New York last spring. I think I bought it from the museum shop on MoMA. Marbury is one of the founders and the director of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermy and an acknowledged artist.

As the title suggest, this book is non-fiction and for a person like me, who has little knowledge about how to actually make taxidermy or about its history, this was a good and informative opus. I also like the way Marbury writes, he does not became too repetitive even though the book consists of artist presentations and there are only so many ways to express certain basic information.

After the introduction to the book at hand there is also a short and compact introduction to the history of taxidermy and also to those historical persons who contributed to the development of taxidermy practices. I like that part very much, that the contemporary artists are contextualized like that.

Taxidermy Art introduces artists from all over the world, which is fantastic. Well, most of them are from the US, a few from the UK, and a couple from Europe and New Zeeland and Australia. But as the opus states the artists introduced in it are the most popular and well-known ones at the moment. It seems that taxidermy art is more popular in the English-speaking world and hence most artists are from those countries. The book presents 21 artists/artist duos.

Here are two of my favorite works and I would love to have one of these (or another of her works, her website is like a candy store for me!) myself: Still Birth (Green) and Still Birth (Blue) by Polly Morgan.

Lisa Black from New Zeeland makes gorgeous works in which animal and machine merge. I had not known about her works if I had not bought Taxidermy Art.

I can happily recommend this book. The photos are fantastic and in the end there are even instructions on how to make a taxidermy oneself. Though it is not like I am going to try them anytime soon.

A tiny bit late Halloween post

It seems like many bloggers had a lovely Halloween and I too had a relatively good one. I've been buried under my studies (no change there) but I did manage to go to my student association's Halloween party. Since the common stereotype is that every day is Halloween for goths, it is not a big deal that I am a bit late with my post.

Me and my friend decided to dress with a mutual theme and we chose this old computer game Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Nobody recognized us, of course, but we had a really good time.  We dressed as the two personalities of a one vampire: Therese / Jeanette Voerman.

We bought some fangs from the local costume shop and the fangs were no good at all. They were cheap but unusable. The shop did not have more expensive ones, so we had to take what was available because we were horribly late with the whole costume idea. We decided it about 48 hours before the actual party. In the end we did not even use the fangs but that did not matter. :)

I used that metal nail file in the photo to make those fangs a bit smaller but they were still really impractically big. The glue thingy did not work or I did not have the patience to wait it to work. The instruction was a bit vague about how long one was supposed to wait with it.

Here is an original photo of the character Therese Voerman, as you can see, she has decided to wear glasses, though I'm pretty sure her eyesight as a vampire is exquisite. Easy to dress as, so I am not complaining!

Source

The much more useful product was moonlight white make-up, which worked really well, expect it dried up my face even though I had put a lot of moisturizer underneath. It looked good and that's what matters, right? :) Unfortunately the lighting was not good and hence it does not show well in the photos. Life's small annoyances, eh?

This beautiful scenery is from the centre of my home town. The city councilor or some other entity has decided to install lights above the river. The Autumn here is so beautiful.

Have a lovely November!