TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

  

VIEWING ALL POSTS FOR: JUNE 2002

Friday, June 28, 2002

9:11 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Have had to take the day off, after being caught up in the Berlin Spin yet again. Resolved to only attend ONE klang opening or concert today and tomorrow - just can't keep up with the pace of multiple back to back events. realised I have quite a relaxed tempo and it just doesn't suit me to get into a frenzy of activity. Except in whirlwind mode, when too much is never enough.
Song of the day is Goldfrapp remix let's get physical.... let me hear your body talk your body talk..... indeed. Olivia never sounded like this.

Friday, June 28, 2002

6:24 AM
Posted by jodi rose

It's all very Alice-in-Wonderland here in jodi-land. I look forward to looking back on this time and seeing when all these swirling moments turn into patterns. Have been reading Philip Roth, 'American Pastoral', he has a great rave about how all we do is get people wrong. Then go away and reconsider and get them completely wrong again.

"You fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try and come at people without an overload of bias or hope or arrogance, as untank-like as you can be, sans cannon and machine guns and steel plating half a foot thick; you come at them unmenacingly on your own ten toes instead of tearing up the turf with your caterpillar treads, take them on with an open mind, as equals, man to man, as we used to say, and yet you never fail to get them wrong. You might as well have the brain of a tank. You get them wrong before you meet them, while you're anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you're with them, and then... you tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again.

Since the same generally goes for them with you, the whole thing is really a dazzling illusion of misperception..... the fact remains that getting people right is not what life is about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong, and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again.

That's how we know we're alive; we're wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget about being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that - well, lucky you."

How wrong am I this time???? Looking for clues, stumbling over the obvious. Finding myself discombobulated, and completely at sea.

Made it through the first two days of Berlin's sound art intensive, played on an 'etheric theremin' at the daad gallery - I love a theremin - this one was very dramatic and atmospheric, making sheets of steel roll with thunder; and some beautiful work today in the stadtbad, a crumbling old swimming pool hidden away in some random building on oderbergerstrasse. There was a diligently placed arrangement of small speakers making swishing waves of sound on the end wall of the pool, and a very sexy piece humming in the basement pipes. Love the abandoned industrial aesthetic. It's the unexpected beauty of derelict buildings and secret spaces that so enchants me about Berlin. Although Ed tells me these places are fast disappearing under the onslaught of capital. Ah progress, erase all mystery with neon lights and swanky apartments and hip bars and trendy cafes and shopping malls.

Defected from the 3rd sound show of the evening after visiting the kunstwerken, that seriously Arty crowd always puts me in a bad mood. (Yes I know, won't be making any friends there now! I'll burn that bridge when we get to it) Although I did have a chat with the artist tending the plants growing up bamboo installation in the garden, he told me they are nasturtiums and he will make a salad feast in october. But the dryness of the art scene really depresses me, and I always feel like an outsider. (hello, I am an outsider!!) Even in Sydney when I know who people were, it's a tough nut to crack. I have been known to make the odd dogmatic response to art, most recently at the tate modern - loved the joseph beuys paraphenalia, hated damien hirst's pharmacy - but make an effort to stay open enough to engage with most art things in some way.

So as I wandered along augustrasse to the ubahnhof, was diverted by a fabulous desecrated old building on oranienbergerstrasse, which seemed to have lots of anarchic art happening, various bars in the garden and on the 5th floor, where the concrete bunker effect had been moderately renovated inside with floor to ceiling windows, but still retained the unkempt squalor. Trying to find my way up to the bar - where I eventually had a long drink that was 2/3 vodka with a splash of orange - I stumbled on to an international festival and exhibition celebrating women cross dressing - so much more my scene! Walk into a room of freaks, queers and perverts and feel right at home. Boys in glitter lipstick (there's never enough of them), lots of girls with interesting facial hair and hardcore attitude, topped off with a drag performance, featuring Kingz of Berlin who did a brilliant boyzone type boy band number. They were all very elvis, in serious leathers with moustaches and beards doing the authentic trashy boyband dance moves and making all the girls in the audience go wild. Also a great NY performer who started with a rap drag to 'Don't push me cause I'm close to the edge...' then stripped off the sweatsuit, socks and cap to reveal a slinky leopardskin number, accessorised with a long red and black wig, high high heels and packing an apple. Very cool.

Anyway, that's my brush with the unexpected for today, maybe I'll make it to another one of the noise music things tomorrow. You can sample both flavours
www.inventionen.de for klanginstallationen; www.godrag-berlin.de for subversive genderfucks, and www.noweb.org/dienstbar for noise musik.

Thursday, June 27, 2002

1:07 AM
Posted by jodi rose

I am definitely in the right place now. Klangkunst (sound art - but I like it better in german, as I am eine klang kunstlerin) in all directions, multiple exhibition openings of klanginstallationen tonight and the next few days. ‚Noise-Musik' all weekend, a different festival of ‚new music' - it's all happening.
Lost interest in the football (soccer to you australians) once I left england, tried to watch the game between germany-usa but it gave me a headache, saw a few minutes of another game at udk (art school) where the kids had set up a tv in the canteen, great as the computer labs were empty. So now I have renewed my sense of perspective, it's lovely to walk around while the game is on, as the streets are freakishly quiet. You can feel the concentration in the air, hundreds of thousands of people all focused on a guy kicking a ball through some metal posts. Bizarre. It was fun when Turkey won on saturday, lots of happy faces and crackers going off - a little apprehensive about tonight, as they just lost to brazil. ole ole ole. The thing I do like about the world cup fever is the way people on the streets are zinging with energy and communicate jubilantly with strangers - but am still to see how losing affects the masses.
Settling in to life here, it's such a great feeling to stop and just do stuff for a while. Went to the flohmarkt (fleamarket) down the road on sunday, had a slight excursion into sewing obssession with the great retro fabric I found there. Now ready to take to the streets, dressed a little strangely but it's all part of the great bohemian myth, looking weird.
Part of the reason I love being here so much is not understanding the language makes me immune to all the extraneous information floating around. It's like living in a bubble. It is a deliberate act to speak, to translate, and it tends to be very simple and clear, you say exactly what you need or want to say. Maybe this makes it easier to find the frequency of all the thoughts, emotions, words and ideas that fall through the gaps of everyday communication. So much remains unspoken. even with all these words.
Thinking about the bridge sounds, tuning into the unheard, giving voice to the spirit that is hidden inside, being silent, having a voice, not having a voice ie power, being understaood, not just babbling away like a lunatic or speaking in tongues, finding a way beyond language to connect, to touch. well there is always touch itself. Being heard above the endless chatter of the world.
Anyway, let the theorists theorise, for now I am practising, on bridges. The good c-ducer microphones which got lost between uk-amsterdam are being replaced - a huge thank you to andrew at amg electronics! - and hopefully will be here this week. So the next recording - Brooklyn Bridge! - will be disctinctly higher-fi than up to now. Also meeting friends in New York who are a sound recordist and film-maker, ready to rock on into the multi-media audio visual documentation.

Thursday, June 20, 2002

2:40 AM
Posted by jodi rose

Delirium has set in again - something about being back in Berlin is making me all light-headed. It's gorgeous. Just when I was approaching something akin, or possibly leading to a more even state of being. Have been advised by Lizzie to drastically reduce my sugar intake, in the interest of levelling out the highs and lows - which may not sound all that drastic, but as sugar is my major food group, it's actually quite a challenge. There's sugar, and then everything else - didn't there use to be five food groups? After two days I can report an incremental change in mood levels, not swinging quite so wildly. I secretly quite enjoy the intensity but am viewing it as an experiment in personality sculpting, and remain open to all possibilities.
Developed an insatiable addiction to the world cup whilst in London, my god the Korean team were so cool!! I loved the stadium full of red devils fans drumming and singing alternately Beethovens 9th (ode to joy) and petshop boys (?) Go West - which worked together quite well. Looking forward to the germany/usa game on friday, which I plan to watch with a bunch of locals going absolutely wild. That is evidently what is missing from my life, the sheer intensity of cheering on your team, the thrill when they score and devastation when they lose. And you thought this would be a world-cup-free zone. I'm growing as a person, let me tell you! More on Becks' hair, apparently Posh thought it looked a little scruffy during the last game - and he had to fix the mohican himself at half-time - so she's flying out his hairdresser to do something special for the match on friday. The world waits with baited breath. or is that bated, as in abated? ah grammar, you know they cancelled grammar for the entire state school system the year before I learnt any. Shows, dunnit? I would have liked to learn some basic english, it would make learning another language much much easier. I mean, what is a nominative or accusative article, and all those infinite tenses, I can never sort them out.
Speaking of time, I remembered on the train out to Stansted airport (the joy of cut-price travel), watching the country-side flash by, someone told me once about the vietnamese past/present. Instead of looking in front to the future, with the past behind you, apparently they see the past in front, you can re-arrange it as memory changes, it is already seen and known, while the present surrounds you and the future overtakes you from behind, unknown and unfathomable. Pretty cool. More on trains and time in my stars from jonathon cainer yesterday, he said that when you're on a speeding train, life seems to be trundling along at a normal, pace, while to someone observing you are flashing past at ridiculous speed. slow down. As I keep telling myself ...... s l o w d o w n.
So, here I am in Berlin, slowing way way down.

Monday, June 17, 2002

6:51 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Time is very strange. Only in London 10 days and it feels like years. We could be back in Surrey St, Darlinghurst, with the live studio audience and changing installation window. (Lizzie and I shared a run-down patchwork house in our late-mid twenties which also featured an overgrown forest garden, purported to be home to a stray hippopotamus, although this was never verified.) So the days here have passed in something of a haze, gorging myself on trash novels and videos, and becoming uncharacteristically overtaken by world cup fever. Watching every game with face painted at the pub on the corner, hanging out on the street afterwards with the locals, cheering at passing cars. Although no-one was chanting after the nil-nil game, doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it? I was very entertained to note in the game on Saturday that Becks spent half-time having his hair re-styled into that naff mohawk, after it was all limp from the rainy first half. It was great to see japan win the other day, those boys are so cute, I'd quite like to see them play brazil.
Finally made it out of the house on the weekend, and Shoreditch really is pretty happening. The Columbia flower market on sundays just around the corner is a seething riot of colours, plants, people, birds, and of course flowers. Very delicious. Checked out Spitalfields market, lots of interesting directional fashion by up-and-coming designers, artists hawking their visual treats, books, food, and of course a crowd gathered in front of a telly showing the game.
Have regained my composure to a degree, after the intense roller coaster whirly-gig of the last few months, must be some of that english reserve seeping in. That or the cathartic release of football. I have to say that after watching a game it's easier to understand the fans going out on a rampage when their team loses - it's possibly the most frustrating thing I've ever sat through, especially when no-one scores. 'A man without a goal' needs some kind of resolution ... but I never did understand sport.
The anaemic pink roses are blooming in the churchyard across the road, rising above the soggy pile of cardboard boxes dumped by one of the discount shoe shops, that has been there since I arrived. Maybe the boxes have changed, but the sodden, depressing unkempt effect is the same. I have developed a charming hacking cough, which I blame entirely on the pollution. How anyone can live here for years without permanent lung damage is beyond me.
Today's adventure is the recording of Tower Bridge and the Millenium bridge. After that, I can go back to Berlin.

Wednesday, June 12, 2002

12:04 AM
Posted by jodi rose

I've been feeling enigmatic, and not much like sharing. Besides, who wants to listen to someone trying to make a decision for days on end - it gets tedious so quickly. Just make up your mind and get on with it, luv! Now I have made my decision, and London is brighter and life starts to flow again. Really don't enjoy that state of limbo, being stuck in suspension and not quite being where you are, but neither moving forward nor back.
Just briefly the background context is this: when I was 19 and won a trip round the world (an a $1 instant scratch lottery ticket, but that's another story...) I came to New York for 4 days, met some great people who offered me a place in the warehouse they were moving into and I really wanted to stay. For various reasons I didn't, left to have an excruciating holiday in greece and turkey with the patriarchs of my family, and then three months stuck in London, wishing the entire time to be back in New York. Well, that moment passed, I never did go back, still haven't to this day. I've changed, NY is very different, and I don't think it would have the same effect on me now.
I wish that just once, that moment would continue. It only needs to be the one time, if it endures. Not to be captured, set in stone, or caged, but to just keep flowing deeper and stronger to become more real, vivid, tangible. The abstract philosophies and fleeting connections are not really enough. I'm sick to death of the ephemeral. I want a bridge that lasts, that is real.

Here is the Ben Okri passage I mentioned earlier, about an invisible bridge. Bear with me indulging in an extensive quotation, as I found it so powerful and resonant when I was arranging this journey, and still do. ("Astonishing the Gods" published by Phoenix 1996 p16-26)

"The bridge, completely suspended in the air, held up by nothing that he could see, was a dazzling construct, composed entirely of mist. He was bewildered by the insubstantiality of the bridge. It too seemed to be made of light, of air, of feelings. '
What holds up the bridge?' he asked his guide.
'Only the person crossing it,' came the reply.
'You mean that if I am to cross the bridge I must at the same time hold it up, keep it suspended?' 'Yes'
'But how can I do both at the same time?'
'If you want to cross over you must, there is no other way.'
'And if I do not cross?'
'You will be nowhere. In fact, you will be worse than nowhere. Everything around you will slowly disappear. Soon you will find yourself in an empty space. Then you will stiffen. You will lose all life. You will become the image of what you essentially are. Then.... you will become the statue of your worst and weakest self. In the morning, collected by the garbage men and set up in the negative spaces of the city as another reminder to the inhabitants of the perils of failing to become what they can become. I assure you, it is better to try to cross that bridge and fail, than not to try at all.' "
the bridge then becomes invisible, then fire (when he leaps onto it screaming, just before he disappears) then water:
"the faster he swam, the slower he moved, till it appeared as if all his confused efforts only succeeded in making him go backwards. He resisted this paradox of motion with all his might and all his fear, and soon found himself near the beginning of the bridge again. It was only then that he remembered the mysterious quality of grace that his guide had hinted at. And he remembered only because he didn't want to have to go through it all over again, making all the mistakes of his confusion. So he swam more gently, more slowly, and he wasn't at all surprised that this made him travel faster through the water. He was beginning to enjoy the serenity in this discovery when it occurred to him that he was swimming in the air, in an illusion, in a dream, and that at any moment he would fall through the water into the dreaded abyss below.... then he realised that towards the end, the bridge had turned into air, and into dreams."

That is how it feels, the more you try to hold on, the further into the abyss you fall. Give up and let go, and float back up to the air. Now, having asked for a sign, and receiving three, I feel it would be churlish of me to ignore them. What is the point of continuing on this eccentric path of a sonic bridge nomad, if I don't follow through and go where my intuition tells me? It all becomes a cheap mockery, an empty sham if I recoil from living bravely and putting into practise the philosophies I espouse.

To quote a little more from Ben Okri, p 37
"The air was full of harmonies. He breathed them in. Elated with the harmonies in the air, he was surprised to find that it wasn't the buildings... that so affected him.... but the myths and the magic in the air. All things invisible had a hidden glow to them. He sensed in that world something higher than marble and gold. He sensed a spirit of hidden light everywhere... The myths in the air made him feel as if he had left his body and entered a temple of world dreams. This was compounded by melodies heard and not located. It occurred to him that the city was composed of songs, and that the stones were singing.... the yellow order of it all and violet perfection of the streets had been erected, put in place, and shaped purely by music, and by spirit. It was the harmonies in the air that made him sense that the visible city was a pretext and a guise for an invisible realm. All things suggested something divine."

All I can say is, the city makes my heart sing.

Friday, June 07, 2002

8:24 PM
Posted by jodi rose

The bubble has burst. Finding London mostly bleak and damp, in a rather subdued mood and soggy round the edges. Beautiful to be at Lizzie and Mike's, chilling out with cups of tea and after meeting all new people for 2 months, it's such a relief to have someone who knows you, has shared past experiences, a common frame of reference, and is entirely gorgeous. Met up with Crick and Nigel, many travel adventures and photos and great coffee in a simple wooden coffee roasting shop on monmouth st, wandered around shopping in covent garden, walked over the hungerford bridge which has lovely not-exactly-cables, that look great but don't think they will sound of much. Going to the tate modern today, and to walk over the millenium bridge. But even this isn't enough for me to like being in London.

Suddenly became aware of the apparently imminent threat of nuclear missile exchange - talking with Pip in the kitchen yesterday about how the prospect of nuclear war terrified us as kids in the 80's. She would wake up in the night and listen to the radio, in case it had already started and we didn't know (australia and new zealand being so far away) and I often woke in the morning wondering if the world had already ended and this was the afterlife, only we couldn't tell the difference. So now, I really hope it doesn't get to that, but if it does, you all know I love you.
I made a conscious decision not to write overtly political stuff here, as it is a moment of fleeting mood and experience that I am recording or expressing, not anything solid and definite. But embarking on this journey is deeply encoded with my beliefs and involves making choices about how I want to live on this earth, what to engage with, what matters and has value, and that is communicating, connecting, following my heart, dreams and intuition, maybe inspiring a moment of daydream or contemplation in someone else.... the poetic is political.
There is also a background context for the decision I am still making about going back to Berlin or not, which I may go into later. Or not. Time to go and see crick and nigel and maybe london will have something beautiful.

Wednesday, June 05, 2002

9:51 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Help wanted!

Personal assistant & travel aide sought by international nomadic
architectonic researcher, currently engaged on world bridge tour.

If you are focused, calm and resourceful, you could see the world, meet interesting people and hear the voice of bridges up close!

Tasks include:

updating and maintaining database of arts contacts and network;
fundraising, ongoing sponsorship and promotion of project;
translation, instruction and interpreting in 4-5 languages (english and german essential, prefer also finnish/spanish/japanese/slovakian/french);
engaging sound recordist and engineer at each bridge location, arranging editing time and facilities;
planning and managing schedule, appointments, interviews, travel arrangements, meetings;
noting, cataloging, and archiving philosophical musings and esoterica;
instruction and daily class in iyengar yoga;
logging and archiving sound recordings, transfer and back-up of sound to alternate format;
liasing with collaborators for re-mix project, sending out sound, collecting and compiling results;
researching bridge structure, engineering and resonant frequencies;
applying for grants, residencies, and other opportunities as relevant;
general administration, responding to email enquiries;
attending functions, events, art openings etc.

Desirable Qualities:

excellent written, aural and non-verbal communication skills;
demonstrable ability to remain calm and good humoured while negotiating multiple tasks under stress;
experience in arts administration/higher degree research/small business management viewed favourably;
able to work effectively both independently and as part of a small team;
remaining supportive, grounded and focused in close proximity to a mercurial temperament;
background in liberal arts, humanities, philosophy or social sciences essential, as is being erudite, quick-witted and easy-going.

Salary commensurate with fundraising skill.

Applications close June 28th 2002

For further information or to apply, please email jodi@singingbridges.net

Tuesday, June 04, 2002

7:37 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Faced again with the classic berlin architectural dilemma on losing what I had written for the second time this morning - rebuild what was there before, or start afresh. Usually a blend as I can't remember word for word what spilled out of my hands just moments ago.
Slept in possibly the strangest place so far, a loft rented from Mr Gabriel, which was in a run-down building behind the american embassy and so he assured me very safe. That's if you feel safe surrounded by police, which I never have, particularly not after mayday in berlin. It was reached by climbing a white wooden ladder into the den with purple roof, tigerprint pillows and wood panelling. Bianca had misgivings when he insisted on taking me to see the room alone, but think it was a left-over fairly justified slovak repulika paranoi, and it was comfy and very cheap.

After my breakfast of kava and opium makeva sladke plnky (coffee and poppy-seed pancakes) on the way from the post office to the internet cafe, stumbled onto the Milan Dobes museum. So now will totally contradict myself to rave about the sheer delight of art. It was amazing, light and colour and energy and movment bursting off the walls, crazy, fantastic, what a way to wake up!! Working since the 60's in dynamicky konstruktivismus svetelnokineticke objekty - obtickoreflexni objekty, or visual kinetic and luminous kinetic objects. Spinning lights with coloured things sticking out that made patterns as they moved, and paintings of simple abstracted shapes from the movement of the light. Some wild op art, whirling with black/white and blue/white geometric patterns, then later works using the shapes for metal sculptures and walls of reflective spheres, silver sparkly things, gorgeous! Left with heart pounding and head spinning, to wander the cobbled streets of the old town part of bratislava. Milan certainly succeeded with the intention to "influence the psyche through visual perception... the emotive effect variously directed to lyricism, optimism,
melancholia and either soothing or provoking the mood of the spectator."
Now if I could just do that with bridge sounds it would make me very happy.

Tuesday, June 04, 2002

4:55 AM
Posted by jodi rose

Made it to Vienna on Saturday night, only my luggage stayed in Berlin. I swear, there is some kind of gravitational force field around that city, but enjoyed my last few stolen hours and was able to let go and move on. Hope that now I will be able to actually meet people where and when arranged, as the force field also included numerous mis-connections and not quite making it to the right place at the right time. Left me bemused yet philosophical and will no doubt contribute another layer to the ever-evolving conceptual framework of the unfinished bridge symphonies. Better to leave conversations open than say goodbye and have nothing more to say. Wandered around Vienna for a night and a day in the same clothes, Bianca convinced me to go on the break dance ride in the Prater, which made me ill, and then the ferris wheel (not the historic reisbad from 'the third man', but the blumen one) which gave us both vertigo. On Sunday morning, decidely grumpy and sick of the same old clothes, we walked a few blocks from our flat and there was the Hundertwasser house. Made me instantly happy, it was so gorgeous, especially in the context of the endless monumental indistinguishable apartment blocks from helsinki to berlin to vienna, to stumble upon this lush oasis of curves and whimsical colours and trees growing from balconies and a jungle on the roof, it was gorgeous. Today took the bus to Bratislava, where I have found my new favourite bridge. The only one so far with a 60's revolving bar/cafe on top where you can sit and watch the danube flow, looking over some 14th century castle, in counterpoint with the highrise socialist apartment blocks on the wrong side of town. People say the bridge is an eyesore, but I think it's fantastic, the UFO effect is even more pronounced up close, and the decor is perfect. Vinyl bar and banguette lounges, brown and yellow table linen, brown metal lights with a silver rim and bubbly glass spheres, it was heaven. Time now to wander the bustling streets of the old town in search of more Slovakian delights, had can't spell it but haluski (fried soft cheese like haloumi) and something else which turned out to be chestnut puree, and vinea, a grape fanta, all quite fabulous.

Saturday, June 01, 2002

8:15 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Good lord I just can't seem to leave Berlin. This morning I arrived early at the airport, checked in, had my last fruhstück, posted my last wish, walked up to the security clearance x-ray thingys and an announcement came that due to technical difficulties, all passengers on flight 272 to vienna please go to the check in counter. So the plane could not leave the ground, and I am flying later this afternoon, giving me the opportunity to ride around on the u-bahn and wander in the sunshine for a moment longer.
This is getting ridiculous!!!!