TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

  

VIEWING 10 MOST RECENT POSTS

Thursday, July 24, 2008

10:59 PM
Posted by jodi rose

all set!
cabinets polished, video's running, sound levels good, text hopefully straight now, lights, camera...

art :)

saw a fabulous collection of signs on the way home today, via queensway for the phenomenally cheap printing service - new name cards and way cool stickers with bridge fm logo - first, I can't remember exactly, it's scrawled across a piece of paper somewhere in my bag 'moral home services' or something like that, then 'corrupt practices investigation bureau', and finally, the 'friendship clinic and surgery'. This friendship needs a transfusion. Actually, mine are doing just fine now.

Thankfully the glitchiness seems to have mainly been transferred to the work, and now only have to wait for the doors to open and people to listen.

Quote somewhere last month, 'I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone'. Yes, genius. Although it's a strange position, doing this kind of gig. You dream something up, have a series of meetings with a team of highly specialised people who ask you what you want in great detail, they go away and make something, come back with it, you go away and make something, change this or that, refine it some more, dim the lights, and there it is. Whatever strange apparition comes from the imagination to be made real - it could be anything, that's the fun part. I can see how artists get into doing seriously demented work, when you just have these kind of resources and validation mechanisms at your disposal. Oh, the fun we can have...

Sunday, July 20, 2008

10:36 AM
Posted by jodi rose

Sunday morning.
Another day
another possibility
things WILL change.
It's inevitable.

as nigel said earlier,
'something will happen. it always does.
it's impossible for nothing to happen.'

half-inclined to delete that post from last night,
but being true to the artistic process, I'm leaving it.
all part of the creative ebbs and flows. sometimes you're down in the gutter, others up in the stars.

and it's a messy undertaking being human. especially when you let the other humans affect you.
which is kind of unavoidable, if you choose to engage with them, not be locked in a tower or retreat to hermit caves and untouchable aloofness.

all the dark, sticky parts of being alive can keep us together or make us fall apart - either way it's all good material when you're making art. 'The shard of glass at the heart of every writer'.

I could tell you what I wish for, what I dream - right now it's just too vulnerable, being transparent, on display is such a strange way to behave.

Back to more glitchy bridges, some we can repair, others have been washed away.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

9:03 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Crumbling and messy tonight. I guess it had to happen. All that high energy socialising, meeting so many people, having strangely intense connections, and then nothing. Like the smoke gently curling from Lucas's second home speaker rig at his noise gig on thursday night, I seem to have missed something along the line. Got my wires crossed. Signal to noise ratio seriously out of phase. Not only here with new and unreadable situations, but other places too, remote transmissions glitchy and making unpleasant energy vortex appear. Hmmmm.

I've been channeling it into art for most of the day, focusing on noise and glitch for the second video sound piece, and that is satisfying, to a point. After that though, you need more human interaction and comfort. It's that disconnect as well, between public persona and high profile engagement, with personal circumstances and situations. Does my head in every now and then. This is a 'now'.

Went for a swim, thought that might help. The pool was completely still, it started raining, gorgeous. Floated in the raindrops for a while. Then lightning. Dear me. Such a fragile rose petal today. Someone left the cake out in the rain.

Here I was, thinking maybe there was some chance of things making sense after all.

Really can't do much more of this. Eternal optimism just ran out. Que sera sera.

Friday, July 18, 2008

7:54 PM
Posted by jodi rose

yay happy birthday to me!
having a fabulous time, thanks to all the lovely friends, here there and everywhere.

even working the emotional state of glitch yesterday into my sound process - nice synthesis of life and art. swimming helps too, refining ideas and thinking through structure, content. all coming together, I hope. will definitely be more personal than originally intended - something about punking up my life has a good effect on the art, or so it seems. more free, more real, more related. still definitely on theme - 'border transmissions', although more interpersonal borders and states than political, geographical ones.

anyway, I'm all pink from the sun - yes, finally made the trip to sentosa, coincidentally for a birthday bloody mary, but also to record the suspension bridge there. beautiful, finally, singing cables! a little late but plan to come back, so will develop a live component for next time. and it's very poetic - apparently the southernmost point of continental asia - although we did ask: 'what are all those other islands out there?.' Guess not part of the 'continent' - now I really have to go to Turkey and get the Bosphorus bridge into my ears, perfect resolution, the other side of asia linking europe.

ok now, enough talk, time to recover from last nights hardcore punk socialising, love you guys!!!!

picked up dvd of performance art piece on the bridge last week, doing a little more with the sound before I watch it, so not trying to fit to image - which doesn't come first in this case! garlanded with gorgeous scented frangipani's by the lovely lynn, and now watching a movie with kelly, very low key.

more talks on sunday at nus cultural centre, if you haven't heard enough about bridges already - on live 938 radio living room yesterday, in business times today... time for a little anonymous lounging.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

10:19 AM
Posted by jodi rose

ok, so you might think this is a form of procrastination, but actually it's very productive. Something about filtering all the dross/floss from my brain, which frees up space for important things.

Just writing this morning to say: It's my birthday!!
well not today, but this week.

Feel free to send cute punks bearing lychee martinis and assorted decadent offerings to my door.

Alternatively, just send money...

...or a birthday kiss

xxxxj

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

11:38 PM
Posted by jodi rose

reliving my trashy teenage years through one of the silliest covers I've heard in a while...
perfect for when delirium sets in :)

Kid Quaalude i love rock'n'roll on stfu music

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

11:14 PM
Posted by jodi rose

stop the press... I've finally done it!

in at the museum today, checking out the cabinets for my work, and I realise that it's the most minimal piece I have ever managed to create. mind you, it took an exhibition designer and team of contractors to actually make, but, the point is, no frills and furbelows, no bells or whistles, no colour and movement (well not yet anyway), no clutter or baroque anything of any kind. Strictly functional, anonymous looking signal box type structures, with pearl grey glossy finish and perfect windows for the tiny screens and speaker - the latter spookily are exacty the same size as portholes in the fire hydrant cabinets. The grey blends perfectly with the walls. Genius. No-one will ever know it's 'art'!!!!!


Got the spacing and placement sorted out, thinking through the concept and content a little more, but really just need to get the material in and play around. Now for the fun; add two parts glitchy noise, a few bars of abstract textural variations, and top with minimal bell tones. Voila!

It really does amuse me sometimes, having conversations with 'serious' musicians, I realise that my attitude to 'composing' is one of happy mayhem, more about finding a path through the sound, and trying to strip away as much of my influence as possible, to get to something like the essence of a sonic object, less layers, less manipulation. I had the absolute pleasure and privilege of hearing Walter Murch speak at the australian film and tv school, when I was 18 or 19, and his philosophy has always stayed with me. Doing the soundtrack for 'Apocalypse Now' (that's twice referenced in one week, although the first was maybe private email about fruit skins used to create fragrant white smoke, we got lucky with the rain on hot lights in the walkway... but that's another story) and he said people were inevitably impressed by the 200 or so tracks made with various audio layers. But the ultimate, he said, is just one track, or zero - the most high fidelity sound is the one people can hear inside their own heads. I guess that's why I became a conceptual sound artist! ;)

Hordes of art friends streaming into singapore next week for isea, can't wait, and feeling sad that it's already coming to an end. I'm not ready to go back to berlin, and leave this nice tropical bubble. How will I survive?? Eeeeeeek. Guess the European Sound Delta trip along the Danube will provide a nice landing buffer for 3 weeks. Came up with a genius plan to streamline my workflow and production for that, will keep it under my hat for now. Stay tuned.

Tommorrow night think I'll just talk esoteric philosophy. Need a change from process and outcome oriented details. Abstract high art all the way.

Monday, July 14, 2008

10:37 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Post-Museum have kindly agreed to host an evening of short, but sweet ISEA2008 Artists In Residence presentations.

Every artist will be given 10 minutes (that is: exactly 10 minutes) to present himself/herself to the wider Singaporean audience.

What: 14 x 10: Short & Sweet.
Fourteen ten-minute presentation by the ISEA2008 Artists In Residence
Where: Post-Museum (MRT Farrer Pk, MRT Bugis)
When: Wednesday, 16 July, 19.30h

The presenters: (in alphabetical order)

Andreas Schlegel & Vladimir Todorovic
Clea Waite
Georg Tremmel
Gon Zifroni
Jee Hyun Oh
Jodi Rose
Kelly Jaclynn Andres
(Kristian Lukic is away)
Mei-Kei Lai
Marie Christine Driesen & Horia Cosmin Samoila
Momoyo Torimitsu
Nigel Helyer
Shilpa Phadke & Shilpa Ranade
Tad Ermitano
Zach Poff & Nate Aldrich

Monday, July 14, 2008

10:25 PM
Posted by jodi rose

troublesome news from the australian art front - a reminder not to take your freedom for granted:

the rise of the art police

"Artists are involved in creating stuff that pricks bubbles, and creating objects of beauty and delight that enhance the ways we see ourselves as a society. There's a mismatch between what happens in the artistic domain and the political-media domain, however."

Because of the nature of their work, artists are often easy targets for critics, evangelists, advocates and politicians.... But what effects will these events have on local artists? Will artists become more cautious - indeed, fearful - of creating work that may offend? And ultimately, what impact will this have on a community's search for greater understanding of itself?

"Every society needs to be extremely alert to the potential that may start in a benign way but can develop into full-scale repression of opinion," she says. "So although this episode may sound like a one-off case, or some people may see it as peripheral to the main game, it can be the beginnings of a climate of intolerance that affects everyone."

Winikoff is also concerned that politicians, activists and media commentators in recent weeks - particularly those in the tabloid press - have overlooked artists' awareness of society's morals, and their intelligent understanding of the social and cultural Zeitgeist.

"... the process of art is not just about making pretty pictures, but about a very profound examination of ethical principals and meaning," she says.

"Artists and those people who publish commentary on art are engaged in a very serious enterprise, some of which can include testing the boundaries of ideas and opinion. But that's why we have to look at art as being in a different zone from just aesthetics per se or entertainment. That's why art claims a special zone of consideration."

"I think it's very serious for the arts," Winikoff says. "It's when you start being worried about repression, and when opinion and intellectual debate is being quarantined or closed down. The consequences are very serious, not just for art but for intellectual and social development."

Corrie Perkin | July 12, 2008 | The Australian


..and there I was thinking it might be safe to go home again. Maybe it's time to start that bridge punk thrash metal band...

Monday, July 14, 2008

3:01 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Ok, back to local hardcore...

Thursday night is a gig at the Substation, with Justice Yeldham on tour from aus, doing his bloody glass set, and uber-cool speedcore breakcore industrial techno Nanny State Noise, fantastically satirical and danceable. Sample lyrics 'I can ban chewing gum... make it stick', hilarious and brilliant. Full line-up includes Cher Tan, independent film-maker and full-time punk rocker - can't wait to hear her live too.

Date: 17th July 2008, Thursday
Time: 9pm
Venue: The Substation Foyer
45 Armenian Street
Singapore 179936
Free admission. Donations are welcome.

JUSTICE YELDHAM

What's been described as "a trumpet player trapped in a two dimensional universe" is in fact the unique audio work of Justice Yeldham, a maverick musician with an unhealthy obsession with sheets of broken glass. By pressing his face and lips against the glass whist employing various vocal techniques ranging from throat singing to raspberries, he turns disguarded household windows into crude musical instruments. Resulting in a wide variety of cacophonous noises that are strangely controlled and oddly musical.

wyxmm...
...doesn't mean anything. Made up from a series of random but coincidental letters. It looks like, but not entirely, a word that sounds like, but not quite like, something that can be pronounced. The sound/tunes/music/noise created are exactly the same.

wyxmm, an emergent esoteric sound artist, excels at disarming melody lines and using random sound samples to add texture to his pieces. His works can be said to be a cross between music and soundscape.

NANNY STATE NOISE
Nanny State Noise was founded in 2005 in response to Singapore's political system. Blending techno, speedcore and samples from various political speeches with a Nitendo Game Boy, Nanny State Noise has since performed at several events and released an EP through his MySpace site.

CHER TAN aka THE GIRL ATOMIC
Cher Tan is a freelance writer, independent filmmaker and full-time punk rocker. She is a free spirit who believes very strongly in passion and the beauty of art and aspires to break barriers where no one has ever ventured before, not only with her films, but also with her writing. Cher is also an active member of the Lion City DIY collective which is made up of entities like herself interested in creating a better world for everyone, starting with themselves and the people around them.

More singapore design + art at CulturePush