TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Monday, November 25, 2002

11:26 AM
Posted by jodi rose

melbourne uni
yes it's been a while, working hard to prepare my talk and then fell in a hole for a week - a bit run-down, slightly flu-ey and melancholic. Back with a spring in my step now, had lots of positive feedback and interest with people from various backgrounds at my talk, one guy who was a bridge fanatic, and the very fabulous Ros Bandt who said "I've been looking for you for 5 years!!" She has just published a book on sound sculpture and I'm in it - with the earliest incarnation of the bridge project in sydney. very cool and lots more to come I hope.

Anyway, climbing back out of the hole (.....what was I thinking, this is a grandiose delusion, I should have been doing small projects and building up a solid base with exhibitions and peformances over the years, 'paying my dues') then had a great chat with Justin last night - one of the finest philosophical minds of our time!
He said 'NO! Don't give way on your desire" (which is, according to Lacanian ethics of psychoanalysis the only moral imperative - we've had this conversation before!) and told me that Thomas, who was also at my talk said the sheer ambition and scale of the project is one of its defining characteristics. Which is good to be reminded of, as I need to start focusing on what makes it unique, and work with that more and more.
Not sure about the 'language' thing, I think it came out of imagining that the bridge is speaking through the cables, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be speaking a language - it can be pre-post or anti linguistic, the important thing is the vibrations connecting around the world to invoke a dissolving. And of course dissolution is in itself a project of transcendence, not necessarily religious, but dissolving this world into something of another realm, who knows what, light, energy, sound? So that's what I need to focus on, and the acoustics and history and mythology of aeolian instruments, which are generally 'speaking' through the wind. But it is not the wind that speaks.
Anyway, enough of these theoretical concerns, time to get it together and play with sounds, and go out and become the art-super-star that I am. Get out from under that bushel, girl! Stop giving myself a hard time about being financially challenged, it actually is fine right now, somehow seem to be keeping the ends from fraying and our great government in its infinite wisdom may see fit to start paying me soon.
Had drinks with richard and sharon and john and kim last night at monties bar up the road - yes, a bit dodgy, but on sultry evening, anywhere is good as long as it's outside - Kim's trying to convince me to go with her to pump class on wednesday, hmmm maybe, need to remember not to spend too much time alone and get all maudlin and discouraged. Soak up energy with other people and just keep moving.