The Army

I feel like a little kid on holiday with a tired parent.

Lying in the sun all day, only getting up for a long lunch on the hotel balcony has charged me up with ideas and a good spirit. I want to do stuff! Right now I really want to go dancing and have a nice dinner beforehand. We’ve found a few brilliant places at the Portomaso area, where the Hilton is located - for some reason I tend to register this hotel wherever I go. Perhaps it's the ugly, blue 80s logo that draw my attention, or the all American beds and the lounge that attracts.

Yesterday was spent exploring Valletta. The capital is, just like Malta, hugely dilapidated but the 300 year old buildings are still very charming and have a huge refurbishing potential!

We spent most of the afternoon at a rooftop restaurant with amazing views and lots of Villa Giustiniani prosecco. It was a great day. Well, better go wake up my friend now.

These are two of the images from my presentation at Konstfack on Saturday. We did our own modelling to experience the power perspective of the images. No subliminal messages here. :-)

The Dior woman is turned into something wild (an animal) with such sexual hypnotic power over men, that she needs to be controlled and held back, to keep the viewer (male gaze) safe.

The Givency woman is turned into a powerless object (meat or pray: a rabbit) to be consumed by a male sexual fantasy.

Just as in pornography, the Givenchy woman has been cropped out of full proportion, to instead draw attention to certain body parts: her open lips, her naked back and bottom and drawn up shoulder – exposing her left breast. These body parts are in focus to serve a male desire. In doing so, the model becomes an object without power. She is turned into a body to be consumed, in this case: by the viewer. Her mask represents a male sexual fantasy that perhaps the woman is both an angel and a demon? The steps in the background only lead one way and confirm: “there is no return for the whore”. (www.reklamfabriken.kov.se/start.html)

In all visual communication: in advertising, Hollywood, etc. these are very common portraits of women: the sensual goddess or cat-eyed dangerous woman.

None of the women in the above ads are powerful, and none give a fair image of what 'woman' actually is. In fact, how women are still portrayed today build on a long tradition of art; created by men – for men. Traditionally woman has been linked to nature, to represent the un-intelligent and wild. Man’s fear of the wild has created a need to dominate and control.

Traditionally, men have always represented culture, civilization and order. No news there, but why does images in advertising still build on this tradition? I guess it takes a long time to break long-standing traditions. But isn’t it about time that someone takes a fresh approach and portrayed more women from a woman’s perspective? And not a 200 year-old male!?

Having said that, in some countries, women are still treated on the same low level as animals.

The snow in Enköping is gone. Melted by the sun over the last few days. I’ve now got two weeks off from work. I really need it, my body and mind is exhausted from the last work exercise. I also finished my course at Konstfack this weekend.

I double booked myself by mistake, so ended up bringing one of my best friends to school in Stockholm. She had flown in from Northern Sweden to visit. She really enjoyed hearing all the project presentations at Konstfack. Although, I didn’t intend for her to keep up with my work schedule all weekend.

We’re constantly fed visual images in our lives, and don’t usually reflect over their subliminal communication and what they’re actually telling us. In advertising for example, what’s the visual communication we take in regarding masculinity and femininity? And how do we view the models in advertising? Why are they portrayed they way they are? Do we consume their bodies with our minds and fantasy, or are we identifying with them? If so, what’s the identity that we take on? And what impact does this consumption or identification have in our lives and society even?

Does media’s subliminal messages impact how we treat our children differently in school and at home – depending on if they are a girl or a boy? Does it impact how we view a mother and a father and their responsibilities, or men and women at work?

These are questions that inspired me ahead of my work. So in my project, I analyzed two images in perfume advertising from a gender and power perspective. I wish you could all read it but I need to translate it into English for that to happen… Instead, you can view tow of the images from my presentation above!

I must add that Stockholm was much more enjoyable together with my friend this weekend. We managed to avoid most traffic, eat at my favourite Japanese and enjoy the sunshine. 

Today is my last day at the VIKING exercise, which ends tomorrow. The media gaming team has been working 14 hours days to cover national news for Bogaland press, TV and radio. The production of the television news has taken most of my time, with a News broadcast being delivered every morning, and repeated throughout the day.

Working for 10 days straight in a fictional and intense media scenario at VIKING, has been similar to working in the music industry... I have in the last few days been living in a very niche and fun bubble of its own, with little connection with the 'real' world.

Presenting in front of the camera and interviewing at large press conferences with photographers next to me; is a high adrenaline job. I felt the same way in the music industry – always going to concerts, socializing and interviewing artists for the radio or web. My brain has been slightly fried in the last week... I'm actually surprised how well I've coped and at the amount of energy I still have! Guess I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie and I still love the action that comes with thinking on my feet and the pressure of deadlines.

To top an already full schedule, me and a friend drove to Uppsala and saw Danko Jones live at Katalin last night. The venue was amazing and it was Danko's first gig in nine years there. It was the perfect ending to a busy day: Headbanging to loud music -mainly about making out in cars, driving a Cadillac and kissing on the first date (as if that’s what he really meant...) The music, packed venue and my pint of Shandy was just what I needed – I’m presenting the news today so also needed my beauty sleep… :-)

Well I’m off to prepare for the final TV News...

So far at VIKING, I have interviewed the NATO general, EU represenative, refugees, politicians, the UN secretary general, a couple of presidents and several tortured prisoners.

I've also been the gang leader in a planned cocaine hijack and shot three men in the head. That was fun. In fact - it was caught on CCTV camera and therefore made the International TV News in Bogaland this morning:
           
http://www.youtube.com/user/12media?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/NoIgbNufZhQ

Thursday 7 April 2011

Ever since I was a kid I’ve been scared of finding objects in bought food that aren’t suppose to be there. It’s not always a concern, clearly, but in certain situation the alarm bell instinctively goes off.

As a 13 year old, I was around a friend’s house playing Super Mario on Nintendo and eating a pastry from the supermarket at the same time. I started to feel something hard in the whipped cream part, and thoroughly swallowed everything - apart from the object. It turned out to be a piece of a nail, a typical chewed off piece of ladies nail. I stopped biting my nails as a 10 year old – but I still remember how they look. My friend was chocked I think. The feeling of having sucked on someone else’s chewed off nail was so dreadful it created a slight distress of ever having that happening again.

Today when I was having dinner in the big restaurant at work, which is currently catering for over 2000 people, I felt something small and hard in my chicken pasta.

Evidently, my alarm bell went off. I felt I had no choice but to go through the same process as last time, and therefore swallowed everything, apart from the object. I took it out and it was a small blue bead from a necklace or piece of clothing. OK, it wasn’t as bad as a nail, but still – how gross! I complained loud and clear but before I even got half into my sentence my new friend at work – we’ve known each other for three days now – exclaimed: Wow! Perhaps you have won something! Who got the bead? I burst out into a loud laughter that had our whole table turning heads. What a fantastic view on the situation and what a genius thing to say?

My mood completely changed. I mean, what are the chances of shit always ending up in my food? Perhaps it’s even lucky? I’m completely cured of my paranoia! Plus, next time I’ll just spit it out if it doesn’t feel right.

Tuesday 5 April 2011

I was absolutely buzzing with energy all the way home tonight, managing to call three friends before I reached my door.

I’d done an 11hour day at The Swedish Armed Forces biggest event of the year. 2500 people from 31 countries has flown in, so the town is packed with international militaries, police and civilians from over 40 organisations, such as Save the Children, UN and Amnesty International. It’s a huge media training exercise going on. It’s called VIKING, and my job is to create the media scenario, which will simulate game play for the attendees. The base has been turned into “Bogaland” and our international TV station and national radio will broadcast on “Zulu” time. I love it!

Apart from working as a multimedia producer, reporter and journalist, I will be presenting the TV news at our English speaking TV station. I will be working together with a guy who currently presents the news for Swedish Television. I’m so excited about it and that’s why I’ve been high and buzzing since dinner. Oh, that’s a perk too. We’re getting fed breakfast, lunch and dinner for free over the next 10 days.

If my last mission - the six days in the forest - had the feel of a music festival, the energy at VIKING reminds me of the MTV Awards. I really love working with big live events like this, and it's great to be surrounded by so many enthusiastic and dedicated people.

Tomorrow will be a long production day. Today mainly involved prepping and attending around a 1000 seminars. I have a real difficult time sitting still and hearing what they’re saying during speeches and seminars. It’s like watching little puppets behind a podium moving their mouths and not having a faintest idea what they’re talking about. And I was really trying hard to listen!

It reminds me of when I started my production company in London and spent a weekend taking speech and sales classes in order to convince my future clients. One thing I learnt is that there are two types of people: cat and dog people. A cat person need to feel involved, talked to directly and have some questions and movement captivating their attention during the pitch, otherwise you’ll loose their attention. Well, the cat people wasn’t catered for today and I was lost in space for half of it.

Starting to feel slightly spaced now too. I’ve just had a long essential oil bath. A shop here emptied their health section last week and I got some amazing deals. Apart from Herbal Bath products, I discovered the most amazing organic lotion I’ve ever tried – Lemon Fresh by Lavera Yum!

I've had a lovely weekend with my dad in Enköping, and today I've had a sunny day off from work.

I have mentioned the writer Mats-Eric Nilsson in my blog before and in one of his books, he explains the concept of real foods. It’s also a guide to the foods that aren’t fake in our shops. Since I had to return 'Äkta Vara' to the library today, where I am now, I’d like to share some of his words. I've translated sections and parts into English for you.

“Mankind has throughout history learnt to eat around 80,000 different types of plants and 3000 of these has widely spread around the world. However today, only four – corn, soy, wheat and rice – stand for two thirds of the calories we consume. The astonishing large number of foods in modern grocery shops makes it difficult to see that the actual number of plants in our diet is constantly becoming fewer. The food industry are growing only a tiny group of plants, mainly corn and soybeans, in order to produce their wide offering of processed foods. They are using chemicals for financial reasons – it’s simply too expensive to use natural foods as ingredients.

Most industrial food ingredients are based on a real product (mainly soybean or corn), however it’s usually been taken through such a rigorous chemical process, it can’t really be recognized after the procedure.

Since soybeans are used to produce a huge number of substances for the food factories, the manufacturers want us to believe that the beans are needed to feed the world’s population – it’s even what the news is telling us. However, nobody tells us that a large portion ends up in our ice cream, cookies, crackers, bread, margarine and ready meals. And since a growing population is starting to eat the same foods we are, the demand of corn and soybeans are becoming bigger.”

Nilsson also talks about the vitamins in our foods: The vitamins are hardly extracted from fruits and vegetables. They are created synthetically in China or India, where the environmental laws are less strict than in the West. To take care of the vitamin process and the remaining chemicals from it, would be extremely complex, inconvenient and expensive in the West. So many food manufacturers has moved to Asia, and started polluting the world from this end instead. Plus, it’s much cheaper. So from the industrial food manufacturers point of view, this is more profitable business.

“By adding food preservations which makes the shelf life longer, today’s grocery chains that can buy enormous bulks of fabricated foods for less and store it in their shops, and then they encourage the consumer to continue storing the volumes in our homes too. There’s hardly a consumer who’s asked for this extreme shelf life, so whose idea is this?” Nilsson asks.

Something I noticed whilst reading the book was that Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream brand pride themselves with being climate neutral and caring about the cows. “Instead of milking natural resources, the cows are milked instead”, it says on the pack. It’s a sweet message to consumers. However – the soylecitin – also in the B&J ice cream – is hardly a climate smart ingredient. I suppose the average consumer doesn’t even know what soylecitin is. And I won't bore you with a page long chemistry class...

Nilsson writes:

“Never before have we spent such little time on buying and cooking food,

We have never before used such a small portion of our salaries on food,

We have never before known so little about the food we buy: how and by who they are made or what they even contain.”

Before reading Nilsson’s book I read that soybeans are grown on fields that are so heavily treated with chemicals that the earth becomes useless after three years. Then new land needs to be found for the soybean. The areas are often rainforests. So the world’s soybean crops are obviously leading to deforestation.

Considering we get our drinking water from the world’s forests, as well as much oxygen production, which lead to clean air - it doesn’t seem like a good idea to grow any crops in an unsustainable way. Without water, oxygen and clean air, we can’t exist. Whether or not we’re aware of it in our day-to-day lives, we come from nature and we live in symbiosis with it. Humans have never been separated from nature – we’re the same living and breathing organism. So, by favouring the industrial food business as consumers, we’re slowly killing ourselves.

Sweden is not at the forefront when it comes to the food debate, and we’re behind the UK as a result, what is mentioned on the ingredient lists are not as strict over here. Some of the foods we buy in our shops contain taste enhancers (yeast extracts or E621 – MSG), colourings, and preservations – that aren’t allowed in dog foods!

When a reporter became aware of this, the Swedish “Jordbruksverket” was contacted for a comment - their food expert explained: “The human has her free choice… But animals can’t read the list of ingredients - that's the difference and that is why the rules for animal foods are a lot stricter.”

It sums it up really:

You and I have a choice as consumers. We obviously have a responsibility towards ourselves – to what we put into our bodies - but also to what we feed our children, and what we feel is acceptable for the world that we all live in.

We can all make a difference, we just need to live by the belief that we can.

Twice, I have worn my green uniform to and from work.

I felt surprisingly relaxed with it on, as if I have now gotten used to it, even in public. I’ve also noticed that most Swedes are too polite to stare, and perhaps they’re also used to often seeing the army outfits in Enköping. There are around 1000 militaries here.

The other day, however, I had just come out of the grocery shop when I noticed a man staring me straight in the eyes until I had passed him on the pavement. It felt like a hostile and challenging gaze, as his face was serious and eyes wide. Not Swedish by birth, his face met mine in an aggressive way.

I didn’t see the point in staring back at him. If he doesn’t like militaries, it’s his problem, and I wasn’t interested in challenging his look. With his intense gaze, he came across as a killer machine to me – or perhaps he saw me as one? I felt more like a pussycat, carrying my milk and cream for my pancakes. 

Not because of this incident, but a few other experiences – I have decided to stop wearing my uniform out of office hours. There are a few reasons to this:

Bringing home my uniform is like bringing home my work. My working days feels longer the longer I wear the uniform, since the rules around it are so strict.

The truth is, I don’t identify with being a soldier. But I can take on the role, and several others if the situation requires it – at work for example. Since I don’t identify with being a soldier, I can wear the uniform and look at it with distance to who I am, also in my home.

So from this aspect, I find it OK to see my uniform inside my wardrobe along with my other jackets and shoes.

However, I don’t want to! Haha. And it really doesn’t fit my wardrobe. The boots gets muddy and the uniform smells of fire and it gets dirty like none of my other clothes. But most importantly, it's not comfortable. Although changing sizes several times, the crutch always rests on my thigh and the shoes are too wide. These clothes are clearly not made for a woman! Plus, again – seeing my uniform in my flat is like bringing home my work. And I wish to keep my home a neutral zone, where I can act and create without restrictions.

For these reasons, I have placed my day-to-day military clothes, along with my army gym clothes in the female dressing room at work. The big locker is next to the showers and sauna and a beautiful relaxing area with comfy chairs, plants and a glass table with magazines. This is where I prefer to start my working day as well as finish it.

Have a great weekend everyone!

This week I’ve also been in Uppsala, 40mins north of Enköping. I spent an evening there catching up with one of my best friends over dinner and drinks.

We went to a place called “Plock” located in a modern glass building with high ceilings in central Uppsala. The garlic-marinated mussels were amazing, but the rest of the food wasn’t very special and definitely over priced considering both ingredients and size.

Although, I was super impressed with Plock’s self invented cocktail menu; apart from a classic champagne and blackberry aperitif, I tried one of their cocktail recommendations consisting of Absolut lemon vodka and Geikkiekan sake, fresh pineapple, lemon, coriander, ginger and some sugar. You have to try it!!

Served in a tall festive glass with lots of ice and a straw, it looked a bit like a Mohito, but wasn’t as sweet. A success in opinion.

On our way out, we saw Plock’s diploma for being voted Best bar in 2008 - probably in the Uppsala area.  

We’ve been raising tents in the military this week. We’ve put them up in snowy weather, wet weather, dry weather and sunny weather.  And then down again. Then up. And then down again, for about two days. We’ve become quite good at it and they’re absolutely massive tents. So this week has involved a lot of physical work.

I've also attended “kettlebell” for the first time. In the late 20th century Soviet science verified that repetition kettlebell lifting, is one of the best tools for all around physical development. 

The instructor is the strongest man I’ve ever met. He’s Finish, but talks English during class. I'm glad, as speaking Swedish with a Finish accent sounds kind of harsh...

The one hour class went well and the instructor complimented my balance and asked: “What’s your sport?” I told him I used to figure skate when I was younger, which made me wonder: Are those jumps and sitting down pirouettes 15 years ago still paying off? I suppose the sports we practice as children, are vastly significant to our adult physique.

The kettle bells class is the best full body workout I’ve had in a long time and I can highly recommend it!