TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

  

VIEWING ALL POSTS FOR: APRIL 2004

Thursday, April 22, 2004

5:13 PM
Posted by jodi rose

this is an incredible time. had a really great and productive meeting with ben, my composer and russell, our sound engineer for the studio time next month. lots of very excellent ideas and possibilities to play with in the composition process. very exciting.

Jonathon - the most wonderful web designer in the world :) - says he has been working on some updates to the site that will help future proof them. What a great concept, asked if he could future proof me too?!!?

On the other hand, the future looks pretty bright, so many possibilities and some of them are bound to pan out. Quick update, must get back to multiple to-do lists now. Very pleased with my multi-tasking capacity, thinking through a myriad of different conceptual, logistic, creative and administrative processes. all the time. so if it ever looks like I'm just staring into space, believe me, the wheels are turning. Lying in bed either until 4am or from 4am every morning, ideas and plans buzzing through my brain, there's a lot more going on than even I am aware of.

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

11:57 AM
Posted by jodi rose

abc radio
harris st, ultimo sydney
Sunday landed back on solid ground, still very disoriented and interrupted sleep patterns.
Tried to read myself to sleep last night with a mix of delueze and gattari nomadology, a biography of bela bartok and listening to the weather matrix and kalvo - cds from finland.
Lisa and I relaxed at the Korean bathouse yesterday afternoon in the ginseng baths, and sauna rooms - hotter than the finnish sauna - so that's one mission accomplished for Sophea and Andrew.
Lying awake for hours with brillian plans and ideas spinning around my brain - have been writing them down, but so illegible who knows if they will ever make sense again. Today lots of loose threads to pick up, organising interviews for trip to brisbane next week, transferring material from helsinki recordings, following up conversations and keeping life running.

realised that eric stands for 'emotionally responsive interactive computing' and the handheld gps device is linked to city listing databases all over the world, and bio-metric personal profiles that will link people with interests or personality traits that may or may not click - some kind of random keyword matching. Something else to develop - it's good to have a frivolous project now and then....

Friday, April 16, 2004

10:00 PM
Posted by jodi rose

das möbel - fodert wohnkultur
burgasse 10, 1070 wien
all warm and relaxed from sitting in the windowseat, soaking up spring sunshine. Konrad advises that if he had just 3 days in vienna, walk around a lot and go to coffee houses. I can manage that. Will try and make it to the balkan fever concert tonight, at porgy and bess, a newish jazz place done in red velvet. Check out www.t0.or.at for info about the activities of public netbase, very happening and subversive media art facilitators, artists and organisers.
Have started to make sense of the map - can find the post office symbols, work out which buses and trams go where, and today just noticed the stops are all marked with little dots, also realised the numbers at the start of addresses correspond to which district of the city the place is - and that is also cleverly marked on the map. It also starts to feel more familiar here, I love my neighbourhood, alles gut.
Disco laundro is taking off into a new dimension, stay tuned for details over the coming months.

Recent comments on living a life dedicated to poetry and beauty:
forget being poetic, men don't understand that - just say what you want and take it :)))))
You're a lonely island adrift in a very lonely sea....
some of the things you wrote are obvious, but others are unexpected

reading in the observer last sunday about emotional computing, which is being developed in england right now. The computer monitors the users heartrate, breathing, pulse, and minute changes in facial expression to detect emotional state, and responds accordingly: for instance, in a call centre when someone is getting angry and frustrated listening to the recorded messages for 20 minutes, the computer will divert that call to a human operator who can 'break the cycle.'.
what I would like to see is a handheld device combining emotional computing with gps mapping, the listings database and personals ads for any city or location in the world. let's call it eric. so that you could tell eric what you are looking for, and then eric would read your breathing, heart rate and facial expression to deduce the state you are actually in, and provide a selection of possible options, which eric would then direct you to using the gps mapping and hook you up with exactly the right person to spend time with, or go on a date or have a conversation, for the mood you are in.
So, for example right now eric might send me to a cosy retro cafe in burggasse, with a hungarian band playing wild gypsy music to have a long girl talk with an erudite, sassy, fun aussie sound sheila called sophea. that's my idea of technology working for you.

Some of the ideas at locative media using were intriguing, don't get me wrong, I'm not anti it or anything. Pete Gomes' work using global positioning to map shadows and ephemera for instance, is gorgeous.

Spent half an hour sitting in the park in the sun, watching people. One man across from me was particularly fascinating, he seemed to be totally engrossed in his own face, pulling out a compact mirror every few minutes, peering into it and checking the skin on his chin and nose, for blemishes, or sunspots maybe. Then he would get out some kind of make-up, or sun screen or tan lotion, or concealer, and rub it in, check again in the mirror, sit with his eyes closed for a while and then start all over again. he was tall, thin, wearing pale blue high waisted slacks, with an ugly, nondescript brown lightweight jacket, dark brown loafers, black socks, wavy shoulder length hair. it was very bizzarre.
Had a late night cup of tea at the suburban coffee house round the corner from my hotel last night, cafe Hummel. It was fantastic, dirty laminex tables and grotty vinyl benchseats, waiters in dinners suits with bow ties, a scene from some 50's movie that is almost cool retro but not quite. www.cafehummel.at

Friday, April 16, 2004

7:20 PM
Posted by jodi rose

josefstadtstrasse, wien 1080
lightened my baggage by 4 kg, which only cost 37 euro to post - at 6.50 per kg, rather more palatable than the 36 euro per kg that austrian air charge. won't be recommending them to anyone after the way they turned on me yesterday, extremely unhelpful and seemed to view my distress as an attempt to get out of paying for the excess. when it was actually genuine frustration and despair.
managed to entertain myself for the day, saw an incredible exhibition of images "earth from above" on display in large format outside the museums quartier.
http://www.yannarthusbertrand.com/
http://home.fujifilm.com/efa/
also rediscovered the place bianca took me to in burggasse, möbel, a very cool funky art bar-cafe that sells beautiful designy things. not that I'm shopping, oh no no no. Today meeting Konrad for a coffee, and maybe will check out the balkan festival tonight. on the plane again in the morning. I hope :) have thrown away some junk -mostly bits of paper I picked up here and there, and with a little judicious packing should be fine.

Friday, April 16, 2004

12:05 AM
Posted by jodi rose

vienna
so close to home, and yet so far....
grounded in vienna, slight issue with excess baggage. yes anyone who has seen me travel will laugh, and I did eventually after tears at the airport. Cost 594 euros, almost a thousand dollars australian - cheaper to stay for 2 nights and post or get rid of stuff, the next flight is saturday morning. so the weekend I was dreaming of having in my own bed will be a little delayed.... cargo price is about half, and with creative packing hopefully I can get most of it into the luggage.

staying in the hotel baltic - very funky area, close to university, thought would be best to stay away from vienna's premier shopping st, mariahilfer strasse - but where I am is even more tempting, great boot shop 2 doors down, and a trashy rock chick pvc corset specialist - no more shopping, promise.

must go now and try to contact some people here, maybe go see music tonight.

xxxjr

miércoles, abril 14, 2004

11:26 AM
Posted by jodi rose

adios barcelona

last few days here turned into a whirl of activity. returned to comparatively balanced energy level and emotional eqiulibrium almost restored.
monday evening that beautiful stormy golden light, wandered down to passeig del born and my favourite smoky locals cafe - every public space here is smoky, except the fabulous gelateria salon we ended up in last night, having delectable fragola and chocolate gelato, after the fantastic syrian restaurant in gracia area - where I ran into Matt, just back from camping and having a backgammon tournament with his friend Mauve. Had a campari and rave with them, arranged to meet back there ridiculously early next morning - 11 am, what was I thinking.... went to the leigh bowery exhibition together, which I had just missed in sydney. It was on here at the textile museum in montcaldo, just past the picasso museum, and totally inspiring - such a wild, solid phsyical presence in these insane clothes that he made, although they had been displayed in stick figure female mannequins which looked really weird. watched the videos of various nightclub performances, and an art gallery happening which involved leigh being dressed in a wig-mask with a sequin red clown nose and white hooded eyes, two assistants then lacing him into a lyrca body suit thing with multiple lacings up the back of the legs, on the arms and a built-in corset. During this, the female assistant stripped off her classy gallery chic clothes and danced naked (except for her platform shoes and a strap-on) in the other room, swigging from a beer bottle and doing stripper-pole dance moves. Once dressed, Leigh left the gallery. Also saw the clip for ´walk this way´, which was hilarious.

Managed to take in 3 of barcelona´s gastronomic delights last night, starting with the famous sardines at tapas bar behind the shop - written up regularly as one of the top eating experiences in europ - just down from the blue window which was picasso´s studio once (and round the corner from carrer avinyon, which peter tells me was the inspiration for painting demoiselles dávignon, so even though I didn´t make it into the picasso museum, he´s around....) drinking red wine from those jugs with a long pouring nozzle, very tricky, then the syrian restaurant and gelato. delightful.

am now ready to go home and sleep in my own bed for a week, so it´s been a successful travel experience.

xxxxx jro

lunes, abril 12, 2004

8:06 PM
Posted by jodi rose

later that day....

went out to find the calatrava bridge, somewhere in the city but no-one knew quite where. The bridge name being Bach Felippe de Roda II, and knowing it was over a railway, decided to head towards the street with the same name and hope it was the right place. Peter came with me, took the metro out to Clots, and walked for a while amongst the multi coloured high rise apartments - then there it was. Gorgeous, simple, gleaming in the afternoon sunshine. Fantastic life going on underneath the bridge, with 4 games of volleyball, people hanging out playing cards, music, laughter, chatter. It was a relief to get out of the old tourist filled town and into the city where the majority of people actually live. Peter took some photos on his fantastic old large format camera, we listened to the bridge - completely unlike any other, and particularly musical. This project I´m proposing to Santiago Calatrava will be gorgeous when it is done, wanted to stay and talk to people about life and how they used the bridge, but was feeling shy and low energy, so we came back into town. Stopped in a pasteria to buy some little cakes, and the radio was playing "bridge over troubled water." last time I heard that was after the trip to glienicke brucke in potsdam, berlin.

Will decide on locations to return to, and spend more time in the future. Must go upstairs now and deliver the ingredients for nigel to make cheesecake.

lunes, abril 12, 2004

12:27 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Carrer de caputxes internet and phone place.

Finding my time here a little baudrillard, and a little italo calvino. Managed to miss the wailing easter parade completely - quite a feat in a city so full of signs and icons. But when you can´t read the signs, or understand the language and the icons have no meaning or reference point for you (not having the - dubious - benefit of any kind of religious upbringing at all), then it is all so much noise. My friends had gone out to the country on friday, to eat calzots - special spring onions with salsa - and not having a mobile number here, or any kind of plan to meet, we missed each other. Wandered around with the lovely peter, he showed me an amazing market square that is being rebuilt by the very famous architecture firm he was working for (enric miralles), and used to be a poor peoples market place but looking at the incredible mosaic over the entire roof, which is in three wavy curves, the rent is definitely going up.

It´s quite strange to have gone from this ultra connected, networked, technologically mediated experience in helsinki to a practically medieval state in barcelona - no phone line, no mobile, no computer at home, not even a clock - I only know what time it is when the cathedral bells ring on the hour from 8 or 9 am. But maybe that´s all giving space and time for reflection and filtering of the previous two weeks.

Thinking a lot about place, and borders, how you can cross them, how do you dis-locate and re-locate yourself in the world. Migration being one of the main issues globally today - check out zoe´s magnetic tape migration project, it is one I mentioned a few years ago website to follow - and coming from a privileged western country like australia, I guess there is a certain expectation that I can cross boundaries quite easily and be wherever I want to be. Finding out that this may not be the case, especially as border restrictions are getting tighter, all that biometric information which the US wants to force every country to collect on anyone crossing boundaries anywhere. Making interdisciplinary sonic nomadic lifestyle an interesting challenge. But then I am very stubborn and if there is a way I will find it - maybe make relocating myself an art project, then I could apply for funding.... ;)

Reading Invisible Cities: ´desires are already memories´, thinking about how you create maps to orient yourself in a place. For me as individual human beings it is about local knowledge, conversation, interaction with people in a place - we locate ourselves through communication with other people; satellite imaging and gps are all very sexy but unless you´re a pilot, sailor or taxi driver don´t seem to play much part in everyday life. Whereas Sanna telling you about the laundry with a sauna, that serves breakfast all day sunday, or finding directions to a friends house - go behind the cathedral, along montcaldo, past the picasso museum, over princessa (it´s a big street with cars) until you come to the square, turn left and if you can´t find my house, just shout: I will hear you. Pascal telling you about a great nut shop, chris and nigel walking you to the original churros place behind the teeming shopping street, people marking the location of the place you need to find on a map for you. This is how I position myself. I have also developed a fascination with ´transcultural mapping´on a personal level - how do people from different cultures and backgrounds express and receive love, what are the main areas of miscommunication, do you speak the same language, does it matter? I wrote a list of questions for some of the interesting people I have met this week, now just need to find the time and space and opportunity to start asking them. Love crosses borders.

Reading an article in Sunday´s Observer, by Mark Haddon (writer of the curious incident of the do in the night time, apparently a best seller for children and adults, one of the new ´crossover´fiction category)
he says:
"At 20, 25, 30, we begin to realise that the possibilities of escape are getting fewer. We begin to picture a time when there will no longer be somewhere else and far away. (we have jobs, children, responsibilities) And if many of these things enrich our lives immeasurably, those shrinking limits are something we all have to come to terms with... You´re stuck with who you are.. but use your imagination and even the most narrow humdrum lives are infinite in scope, if you examine them with enough care.
.. the book is about how little separates us from those we turn away from in the street. It´s about how badly we communicate with one another. It´s about accepting that every life is narrow and our only escape from this is not to run away (to another country, another relationship, a slimmer, more confident self) but to learn to love the people we are and the world in which we find ourselves."

NOOOOOO! I want to run away, I want more and different horizons and new experiences and unfamiliar language and sights and smells. I want to expand my boundaries and cross borders and be wild and crazy and free. I want more from life.

There was a post on the locative list, about a project similar to the workshop we had just done, taking place in Australia and promising to offer the 20 chosen artists a unique space for play and experimentation without defined outcomes. What struck me most about it was the incredible layers of hierarchy - there are 3 curators, 5 facilitators, one co-ordinating facilitator and an "Internationally renowned" artist there to make sure it is an important event. Somehow that seems to miss something about bringing people together and giving them space to play and experiment, it´s like you are trying to ensure that whatever happens will be momentous and charged with cultural significance - something I read as part of australia´s lingering cultural insecurity. We have to bring in an artist from "somewhere else" because just us doing it on our own isn´t quite enough. Whereas the european art world may be totally euro-centric, as someone pointed out, and it may seem obvious. Coming from a post-colonial discourse where there is a strong engagement with de-constructing the hierarchies of assumed cultural centres and who gets to assign value and wield authority, claiming that there are no margins or periphery, it´s all "centre" begins to seem a little wishful thinking.

viernes, abril 09, 2004

6:20 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Still a little dislocated and lost in barcelona today.
Even though I know where I am now. Much colder than Helsinki, these atmostpheric old apartments are draughty and have no central heating. So much for a week in the sun : )
Cat Power concert last night was interesting, she kind of lost focus half way through, and started saying, oh, this sucks, sorry. Which she is apparently famous for. Some of the euro-trashy audience talked loudly all through the concert, which no doubt made it harder for her. Vulnerable and honest, but also kind of annoying - if you are going to get up and perform in public, at some point you need to deal with being in the spotlight. But then, it is very rare to see someone admit to all their insecurities like that in public. Maybe what I´m doing really does suck, but no-one will tell me, kind of thing.
Anyway, I know how she feels today. It too will pass. The venue was lush, all dark red wood panels and chandeliers, another old cinema turned music venue.

viernes, abril 09, 2004

12:19 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Basilica de Santa Maria del Mer
Barcelona, Good Friday

Sitting in the cathedral, ancient dark wooden pew, simple curved shape and thick black steel legs bolted onto the wood. Today when I slid open the rickety white doors to the balcony, and heard singing floating across from the church I had to get out into the morning, instantly. By the time I was dressed the bells had rung 10am, so I had missed the morning service at 9.30 - you have to get up early to catch the faithful at prayer - but the church was almost empty.

Observing people as they come in, the devout move slowly, quietly with a soft walk and gentle footsteps, I don´t usually notice someone is there unless I look up. The tourists start to accumulate, wearing noisy clothes, their jackets rustle, walking quickly, opening guidebooks, referring to maps, cameras flashing - in a hurry to see the designated wonders of the cathedral and get to the next site. Very few sit down and absorb the space, or contemplate or have even a moment of stillness.

A little like me those two weeks in helsinki - I wanted to spend time every day in the railway station, taking part in the signal process and locative activities and games, but kept rushing around, busy busy busy until twisting my ankle made me stay in one place for longer periods of time. Made a commitmment to myself that I would visit the cathedral every day, for at least an hour and just be in the space, observe people and notice how my relationship to the place and people changed over time.

Woke up this morning with a line from some 80´s song in my head - I fall apart, in matters of the heart - can´t remember the song or who sang it, as crick says, Barcelona is where all the trashy pop songs you never wanted to hear again come to die. Although I enjoyed eartha kitt playing in the taxi on my first day here - I love men, what can I do, I love men, they´re no good for you....

As the song was still going through my head in the church, it transformed into a quote from the andy warhol ideas book, which Sanna bought in moderna museet, Stockholm - I never fall apart because I never fall together - and then I remembered a verse of a Yeats poem

Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold
mere anarchy is loosed upon the world
the blood dimmed tide is loosed,
and everywhere
the ceremony of innocence is drowned.
the best lack all conviction while the worst
are filled with unbridled passion.
surely some revolution is at hand!
surely the second coming is at hand.....

and what rough beast, its hour come round at last
slouches towards bethlehem to be born.

I always loved that in high school, it´s totally dramatic and over the top, and I have probably misquoted it horribly, but there you go. Talking with a friend who has moved here, about my poetic inspirations in helsinki, he was saying that he wants more poetry in his life. I´m like, you live in barcelona, have a great lover, fabulous apartment, plenty of money - but I guess these things all become mundane very quickly, (when you have them) and you still need to find the enchantment and wonder in life anew every day, no matter what your circumstances.

So then, as I sat having a quiet moment asking for guidance and some assistance in keeping my faith in various things, 3 notes of airy church organ played and slowly faded into the stones. I looked up to where the handsome older man with silver hair was moving around the instrument, and gestured playing piano, asking - are you going to play something? Yes, he smiled at me.

The lights had come on around the stone columns, and the metal statues inside the chandeliers were also illuminated. I heard singing coming from outside, and then the organ playing again, something I didn´t recognise. Slowly a procession of women moved into the church, many older, some young, a dozen nuns in dark brown jackets with stony grey-brown habits, a woman singing into a microphone, and behind them a group of children in white, some with armour and others carrying handmade signs that sade ´pau´- peace. Realised I was at the start of another service, and although tourists are asked not to come in during them, as I was already there, decided to stay.
Next came a procession of men in ankle length black outfits, with thick gold chains, carrying a life-sized statue of a gaunt jesus in loin cloth, nailed to the cross. They stood at the front of the altar, one man had jesus in a holder on his thick leather belt, two others stood at each side with wires to keep him stable. The priest talked (in Catalan) about violence, terror, idealism and I can only guess what else.

Then all the faithful stood up and walked to the altar, taking a wafer and kissing jesus´ foot. Many older people were helped down the stairs, one tiny woman had thin permed blonde hair and wore a full length fur coat. After everyone had kissed the lord, he was carried out - lying down this time - and the service ended.

jueves, abril 08, 2004

1:12 PM
Posted by jodi rose

carre del caputxes, barcelona
got completely lost trying yesterday, wandered around for hours looking for the apartment - walked past it several times. thought I had taken my bearings, but after a long lunch with the boys and remy, taking a different route home, the building was completely unfamiliar, and the key almost worked in another door, trying to remember what the apartments across the laneway looked like - very hard to distinguish. Altogether a strange day. But I know where I am now - not on the map, but in physical location at least, and found my way into the basilica de santa maria, which is one building away from the piso. It would be very calm and delicious in the church, except for the constant tramping and rustle of tourists talking and taking photos. I will try to go back early in the morning.
Going to Cat Power concert tonight, at the Apollo and now it is time again to go meet the boys at papabubble for the 2 hour lunch check out the shop on website designed by the lovely Peter from aether architecture http://www.papabubble.com/

miércoles, abril 07, 2004

1:39 PM
Posted by jodi rose

upstairs in a smoky dark wood panelled internet cafe, a few blocks from crick and nigels lavish apartment in the sexy gothic part of barcelona. Arrived yesterday afternoon, had a long hot bath in the back of the shop (they lived upstairs for a year, and it´s the biggest bath I have seen in europe, a full sized one!) with some freixenet champagne from the corner shop. Barcelona is somewhat surreal after helsinki, or maybe it is anyway.
Still a little spaced out and not quite sure where I am or what day it is, but that´s enjoyable in a way. Dislocation can be fun!!

time to go down to papabubble and meet nigel for lunch - he´s promised we can go to the chinese restaurant for ánt going uphill´

martes, abril 06, 2004

10:36 AM
Posted by jodi rose

freiraum, quartier 21, museum's quartier, Vienna

very glad I spent the time and energy choosing exactly the right pensione in vienna, it is the perfect decompression chamber from the crazy wild fabulousness of helsinki. Already I am missing the impentrable language and cultural architecture, and of course my cocoon of constant companionship with a selection of wonderful, intelligent, bright, fun gorgeous human beings.

Wandered into the museum's quartier just round the corner from pension quisisana - gorgeous 60's decor, the best chandelier I have seen in a long time in my room, lovely family run warm welcome and a good long night's sleep - and now I am in a room suffused with pink light from multiple neon globes on hexagonal space shapes. It is an exhibition called 'pink light: the epiphany of philip k dick' with ambient electronic music and a selection of contemporary archeological material collected from urban locations - which is the emergent theme of the last week, for me anyway.

http://pinklight.net/pub/Pinklight/

Still filtering and processing everything that has gone on, there is a sense of having slightly tilted the framing of my imagination and thinking about the work I am doing for masters and ABC residency and I can feel things clicking into new places. We will see where it leads. Had another conversation with andrew about the application of archeological/ethnographic reading to the process and material for my new collections of bridge sounds. Inhabiting them over time, and watching patterns and rhythms emerge. I am very excited to have rediscovered the poetic and personal elements of the work, which has become very abstracted and theoretical over the last few years.

Yes, came over all poetic in helsinki. Well, wouldn't you!!!??

Now I am going to see Eva Hesse exhibition, and get myself to the airport and on the plane to barcelona. Crick and Nigel YAY!!!!!

Thank you to all the pixelache crew, juha for the juha magic in making it all happen; petri for the special dancesteps; sanna for the translations and everything else; ophra for the tlc, and voytec for the lama shadow puppets and 'britney died on friday' photo, tuomo for the disco laundro, all the artists for your great energy; ANAT for funding my trip; and sophea and andrew for organising the workshops; sophea also for the warm welcome, girltalk and arranging for my luggage to be collected when I couldn't walk; andrew for the poetic inspiration in various forms, and all the participants - I love youse all (in aussie accent) Ossie Ossie Ossie OI OI OI

I have joined sophea's art-disco-synth-electro band - will post the site for t-shirt later.

xxxjro

domingo, abril 04, 2004

4:25 PM
Posted by jodi rose

here is the right location for the work I made in locative media workshop.
the database had a little trouble reading text messages in finnish, strangely, so there are some weird looking characters. the sound is binaural so best listened to through headphones.


http://aware.uiah.fi/wishlist/

domingo, abril 04, 2004

4:09 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Kiasma Cafe
sitting at a table of people all networked on their silver ibooks. scary, or as sanna would say - a skary skenario.

last night's performance at club gloria was very well-received, more applause than just my friends in the audience could have made, and lots of enthusiastic whistling and cheering. I will have to listen to and watch some of the video and dat documentation to hear what it was like, being focused on trying to hear what the boys were playing on cello and kantele, and make interesting choices with the bridge manipulations. Also I had slipped down the dark, steep narrow stairs going on stage, and twisted my ankle, so was in quite a lot of pain during the performance. But the show went on - just meant I was a lot more subdued than I would have been, not dancing around and laughing but sitting with an occasional smile to myself. Just went to the hospital this afternoon, very efficient only took an hour to be seen, and it's not too bad, I need to try and not walk too much for a few days. So now I have a wheelchair from kiasma to cruise around the gallery in, and for my 2 airport experiences will also need to arrange something like that.
Anyway, I was very impressed with my first live performance being on the other side of the world, in a big club, with a huge backstage area and drinks rider, live video, two musicians and three people taking video. Rockin' aussie sound sheilas in helsinki!!!

Presentations for Locative media yesterday morning had a lovely flow, moving from historical/performative and contemporary archealogical readings of the space, to various performance interventions, sounds, and poetic responses. My work is up on website www.aware.uiah.fi/wishlist, but it doesn't seem to be working today, so I will check with John to see what's going on.

Must go now, write a few postcards, maybe make it to the sauna bar tonight for final pixelache drinks and debrief. Then sleep for a week. It's no wonder I fell over, had reached a point beyond tiredness and past delirium where I have found this strange lucidity, that ebbs and flows, but I can always snap back into action in a moment. Kept feeling like the ground was moving under me (it is, said someone) and that I was gently swaying.... It has been amazing being involved in so many different activities, meeting new people, having great conversations - there is a level of energy and engagement here that is very exciting. Coming back for ISEA on the boat in August.

viernes, abril 02, 2004

10:08 PM
Posted by jodi rose

suomennlina island hostel

writing this in between sending images with sms text fragments from the phone. It will be up website will from tomorrow, as we are giving presentations from the signal process and locative media workshops. 'connecting via the internet'... indeed.
here is the website I was looking for earlier, with the aware things www.awa-re.net

today is the day of many in-depth discussions, with Villje and Sami from Grey Zone Weather Matrix and Kamppi Reconstruction, about composing, architecture, weather, some connections that came up between their work and mine during the presentations today .... their websites are www.cncd.fi
www.cmt.siba.fi/samjarvi/kamppi/index.html
after that had a long conversation with Lex Bhagat, who interviewed me for a book he is compiling of sound artists, it was one of those times when suddenly all my ideas were so lucid and I could articulate them clearly - he recorded it, but now I am wishing I had also for the program I make about the other 2 projects. We are all part of the landscape sampling section of pixelache.

Then back to the MUU gallery for a locative meeting, quickly transferred the binaural railway station recording from DAT to pro-tools so I can burn it to CD in the morning, for listening in conjunction with my picture/text fragments and also Pete is using some of the escalator sound in his video. there are some images and other things from the workshop here - http://www.muu.fi/signalprocess/index.html

Tonight, I have been hanging out with Alice at her NIFCA residency studio on the other side of the island. It is quite amazing, with the 300 year old sea fortress around you, and pieces of old military machinery around the landscape. We ate delicious soup - it's quite hard to get hot food here, unless you eat at a restaurant, which is strange, all the cafe's kiosk type stuff you can buy easily is cold (but then public waiting places like the ferry stop are incredibly well heated and draught free -
and talked about art projects. Her website is www.hostelprojects.org and is really intriguing, playing with the assigning of cultural value, setting up an umbrella for many different curators to work under, since you don't always need money, but not having an institution or some framework behind you can make it very difficult to arrange projects and get funding, also they have an informal parasite residency program where you invite people to share part of the residencies you get. Some gorgeous ideas too about barter and generosity, the hostel badge allows people to ask for help of any kind from anyone else wearing one. Alice tells me that over the years, people often think she doesn't like them or their work, due to a combination of speech tone and not being effusive in a way that is recognisable or readable as appreciation or interest. And she remembers people for years after meeting them, so created these fabric text bands to sew onto their clothing. Can I sew one onto yours? How beautiful, yes of course. So now I have a lovely red strip on my swedish wrists (like woollen gauntlets or gloves with no fingers) that says
'ajattelen teitä koko ajar'
in finnish, there is no separation of future tense, so the phrase 'I think about you all the time' also means 'I will think of you always.'


Sanna translated the text I am using into Finnish, it's gorgeous in another language! Kaipausta ei voi kartoittaa GPS: llä
Seisomassa kadulla, nauraen
Haluan vain jonkun haluavan minua
Kaipaus ylikuormittaa kommunikaatiolinjat
Meillä on yhteys

that's all for tonight, I must concentrate now on completing this work and then get some sleep.

viernes, abril 02, 2004

9:45 AM
Posted by jodi rose

The trip over from the island was so beautiful, a thin layer of green ice breaking up as the ferry went past. I want to stay there forever.

Now it's almost time to walk over to Kiasma and get ready for the presentation. Moving very slowly today, ...... my pixels are aching!

Party on the island last night ended with a disco in the laundry at 3am, and the 10 bed hostel room I have been sleeping in alone for 2 nights was filled haphazardly with the comatose bodies of media artists.

Here is the website for the island, so you can visualise the surroundings http://www.suomenlinna.fi

Talking with Juha and Sanna at one point during the night, they told me 'you are now part of the pixelache family... what are you doing in 2005?' Yes, I think I am free. According to Tuomo at dinner on thursday night - the Sea Horse, very delicious traditional finnish food, although someone else I spoke to said it used to be a 'snot house' and something of a health hazard, but it has new owners now (has been there since the 1950's) - we cän support ourselves to stay in helsinki by writing poetry and selling it on the streets. Hell, I guess it's as good an option as making media art!

Speaking of which, I am embracing new technology, and having been very sceptical about the whole phone with video and camera thing - why would you need that, it's a stupid idea! - I am now completely hooked. The locative media workshop has 6 nokia 6600 phones with all kinds of gadgets inside them, you can take video, record sound, take pictures, send email, and use bluetooth (although I still haven't worked out what that is exactly). So I have been roaming around with one of them all day yesterday, and creating my work using fragments of text sent as sms poems with images taken at the railway station. The images and text are sent via sms to a database thing called 'aware' and they can be viewed as storylines on the web. Many people in the workshop have been talking about movement through space and making interventions to engage the public, and I decided that I would inhabit the space poetically in a solitary manner. The work I am making is based on an emotional state at a particular time and place - Helsinki Railway, Platform 9 1:31pm Wednesday 31st March 2004 - and then collecting images in response to that experience that illustrate themes of isolation, desire, connection, technology........

Andrew, who is facilitating the workshop has used this 'aware' technology in various forms. they are very intriguing and poetic explorations of place and mythology and..... here are some websites because I can't explain it.

http://mlab.uiah.fi/~apaterso/projects/mm/o/mapmyths.html

http://www.karosta.lv/
http://www.inari.fi/