TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

  

VIEWING ALL POSTS FOR: MARCH 2004

maanantai, maaliskuu 29, 2004

11:04 AM
Posted by jodi rose

MUU Gallery,
Nervanderinkatu 10,
00100 Helsinki
www.muu.fi

Just arrived back from Stockholm on the Viking Line ferry, many hours of entertainment roaming from the night club bar with fabulous floor to ceiling windows looking out the back of the ship, subjected ourselves to the buffet again, checked out the lame disco and eventually settled on a cabin party which took place in the hall. Being a bunch of media artists, we got the audiovisuals set up, dimmed the lights, and had fun until a ship's officer came and told us off for breaking all the rules, and we had to go back in the cabins.
Sunday in Stockholm is a little blurry, after the gig at Club Fylkingen on Saturday night, very minimal yet still cosy space, with a separate room for performances and drinking, the weather matrix was absolutely sublime, can't wait to see and hear it again this week. Visited the Moderna Museet, which has just been re-opened and saw a great selection of modern art - lots of duchamp, and picassio, some leger and picabia, matisse, you name it. Staying on the red boat hostel was cool, just around the corner from sauna gallery, and up the road from fylinkgen, shopped on gastogatan with sanna, beautiful swedish desingy things everywhere. Bought a pair of knitted wrists, which I'm totally in love with - and match the pointy had Ben is wearing perfectly.
Today is the start of Locative Media workshop, lots of new people arriving and I think probably my best option for a quick trip to Porvoo to record the bridge there. If I can find it! The rest of the week is going to be spent hanging out at the railway station - just talking to andrew about that, what were you thinking??!! Decided that for me location is as much about escape as it is being at a specific point, and I will start getting onto all the trains to see where they go. At least see a few stops more of Finland that way. Have also become addicted to the salty licorice, salniak - dammit should have bought more at the tax free on the ship. Also some of that great caramel filled licorice that we had for dinner on friday night at Sauna exhibition opening, dinner was mashed potato with ketchup at 1am for me, and an enormous plate of kebab for sanna, frank, and tuomo.
Saturday afternoon presentations at CRAC were a great opportunity to catch up in a little more depth with what people are doing - tuomo's www.needweb.org will give you everything you want, and the kick ass kung fu is fantastic, and mikko's earlier project www.animaatiokone.net is great fun - you get to make and animate your own characters in an arcade game style kiosk. very cool. Also met the lovely Peter from Barcelona with aether architecture, www.aether.hu which I can't quite visualise, but will know more when the installation is up. Now, back to the location and some media...... what am I doing again?

lauantai, maaliskuu 27, 2004

1:41 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Sauna Gallery, Stockholm
Bastugatan 1B

The exhibition installation went very well - it was so much fun having 5 people helping me in various ways, Petri and Sanna advised on placement of projector and sound, then moved furniture around and set up the space, dana and voytec went off on a mission to find an adaptor for australian to european power, scouring stockholm for two hours then borrowing one from the hilton hotel next door, and Ossi set up the mixing desk. The pixelache crew arrived at 6pm so I didn't have that strange half hour like when you give a party, wondering when people will arrive. Helena and joanna who run the space brought me tulips and lots of local swedish people came along to the opening who weren't involved with pixelache, so it was very exciting meeting people and getting very positive feedback. the performance on my kaoss pad was very entertaining for both me and everyone else, at one point I was falling off my chair laughing, some great drum beats and synth sounds there. Voytec took excellent photos of the event, hopefully they will be here soon.

the interview on swedish radio was excellent, marcus had really engaged with the concept and philosophy on the website and asked very interesting questions, so we had a great discussion. It will be played next saturday and then is on their website www.sr.se/p3/flipper

We are staying on a very cool hostel, the red boat, on a canal just near the gallery. Tonight is the big club event at Fylkingen with the weather matrix, digital vs analog soundclash, teemuk amfibio and many other exciting performances. now Sanna, Dana and I will go find some art and shopping for the afternoon in stockholm.

torstai, maaliskuu 25, 2004

10:23 PM
Posted by jodi rose

thursday 25th march

Had lunch with mari today at lasipalatsi cafe, it was so great to see her again. She has been working on an interactive game with parliament for kids to learn about politics, and also something about gender equality in the workplace. We are meeting next week to plan for the performance on saturday night at club gloria.
Met with andrew on the way to the ferry, in a spy assignation at the tram stop, he came running out from mbar in jeans and shirt - no jacket in helsinki is very noticeable, it had been snowing since I opened the curtains at 7.30am, not really falling very hard, but swirling around in flurries - and I handed him the keys to the apartment from the door of the tram.
The silja line ferry to stockholm was definitely an experience, we hung out in the marco polo bar downstairs, very bold and the beautiful decor, great portholes to watch the ice going by. Went to the buffet and everyone ate waaaaay too much, but very delicious, lots of seafood and potatoes and salmon and desserts.

keskiviikko, maaliskuu 24, 2004

5:32 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Testing... just changed the setting to Finnish time, maybe that will help me convert to it as well.

keskiviikko, maaliskuu 24, 2004

4:53 PM
Posted by jodi rose

moi! So, I missed the 18:40 ferry to Suomenlina last night, and so also the secret bar aka officers club. But I have a feeling there will be another chance.... Decided to catch the next ferry at 19:40, because it was so beautiful down at the harbour, with the evening lights twinkling and darkening sky. Quite an experience, cutting through the sheets of ice - they are slowly melting now, but there are still some large slabs floating around. The ferry back was even more exciting, as you can hear the hunks of ice thudding on the hull of the boat - mixed with the sound of water trickling in the heaters, a strange auditory sensation. Met up with Sophea and Andrew on the island, they took me over to John's place at the nifca residency studios. Stopped to buy a bottle of something at the shop - very puzzling range of light beer, alcoholic lemon or lime fizzy drink and pear or apple cider. Didn't try my selection in the end - red wine seemed much safer. So John made us his famous garlic pasta - apologies to anyone I may have breathed on inadvertently today! - and we chilled out in the shared lounge room with an incredible selection of books in swedish, danish, icelandic and finnish. Walked back to the 11pm ferry, the island is magical and still at night, watched some ice cracking from a bridge, made it home by midnight. was planning on having lots of sleep and getting up at 9, but jetlag had other ideas and I woke at 5am again, restless and full of ideas and plans. Eventually just gave in and got up, cleaned the fabulous apartment, wrote a few lists and set off to film the matinkaari bridge.

Very different landscape to last time I was here, at the end of April 2002 - the lake is completely frozen and all the paths onto the bridge are through snow. Yes I may be a little obsessed by the snow, but the last time I saw any was in about 1978, and we don't ever get any in Melbourne or Sydney. Canberra sometimes, but I try to avoid going there. It started snowing while I was wandering around videoing, maybe I will go back and record the cables again to hear the seasonal differences in sound. Came into the city and met Juha and Ossi, went to Club Gloria to check out the tech requirements. It's fantastic, an old cinema with semi circular balcony and a great dance floor. saturday week is going to go off!!! There may or may not be a bridge on stage, but there will definitely be lots of cables twanging and popping and some atonal kantele (finnish zither) and cello, with live video manipulations.

Now I am compiling the sound for stockholm installation, to go with footage from anzac bridge and hopefully matinkaari in spring. Not today's footage, I messed up the white balance and don't think it will turn out that well. But hey, I'm a sound artist!

Leaving for Stockholm on the Silja ferry tomorrow afternoon, and have an interview with national swedish radio on friday morning. They are doing a theme of bridges this month, so that was perfect timing!

Must go now, my brain has melted.

tiistai, maaliskuu 23, 2004

2:42 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Back at Lasipalatsi. I ran into Ossi and Juha having a meeting with Pixelache organisers in the cafe after I went downstairs from here yesterday - I love it when you're in a new place and already randomly running into people you know.
Last night had a spare hour before dinner at Sophea's, so decided to have a swim at the Yrjönkatu Swimming hall. Luckily it is swimsuite optional, so bathed nude with lots of other ladies. Increibly lush 1920's classical building, with huge columns, gorgeous tile work, private cabins upstairs, and lovely old wooden lockers with wire mesh, also had a sauna.
Activities with public nudity are alway fun, after spencer tunick experience with 5,000 other people in melbourne at 5am on a winter sunday morning. that's us on the front page of http://www.spencertunick.com/

On my way now to video the matinkaari bridge behind the arabia factory - woke up too lage to get to porvoo, and one of the locative media people is interested to com e with me, so think I will leave it to next week.
Have a new phone and sim card - mobile no + 358 417 006 117 from outside helsinki and 0417 006117 if you are here.

A friend told me a joke when I asked about the main cultural differences between finland and australia:
what is the difference between an extroverted Finn and an introverted Finn?
An introverted Finn stares at their shoes while talking to you, and an extroverted Finn stares at your shoes.

Told it to Juha this morning and he laughed, said that in summer people are much happier and more friendly. I also asked do I look funny? People keep staring at me. He said, diplomatically, you are very ... colourful. Well, yes and I guess I get that at home too.

Back out into the drizzle - no snow today, sadly - will hopefully catch up with the signal process people at helsinki railway station in about 15 minutes. Doing an escalating public intervention with mobile phones, sound and I'm not sure what else exactly.

maanantai, maaliskuu 22, 2004

3:26 PM
Posted by jodi rose

At MUU Gallery, which is a Finnish artist association and work space for media art.
Nervanderinkatu 10,
0010 Helsinki
www.muu.fi

The signäl pröcess workshop is happening in a loose format here. Not sure what exactly, the kids were out recording around the railway station last week, and Tommi is going to record the trains today. He just told me a story about when he was composing music, having an epiphany playing this one chord, everything stopped, he played it again and the world looked completely different.

Sophea is going to word me up on activities to date, just had to deal with my overflowing email inbox - apologies if your email has bounced back, please try again now. Or alternatively try singingbridges@hotmail.com

Met John Hopkins, who taught at the media lab here, and introduced me (over the interneet) to mari when I was in Helsinki 2 years ago and took part in difusion project. He is staying over on Suommnelina (sp) island, doing the nifca artist residency. I may be going out there tomorrow to discover the 'secret bar' with Andrew Paterson (who is organising the locative media workshop) and Ossi (Pixelache producer who met me at the airport - luckily he read my travel diary and realised I had no idea where to go once I got here) - it is an old officers club and sounds intriuguing.

Now I think I am going to Porvoo tomorrow and will make a recording of the bridge there - if anyone in Helsinki is reading this and wants to come along, please email.

It's very exciting being here, has stopped snowing for now, but I still need to find the fantastic second hand shop near katastro.fi and get myself a snow proof jacket. Since I don't even häve a rainprööf one. (total misuse of umlaüts but they'rë so cüte on the keyboard) And Julaine wouldn't let me bring two.

maanantai, maaliskuu 22, 2004

1:01 PM
Posted by jodi rose

hei in helsinki! it was snowing as the plane touched down yesterday afternoon, and didn't stop until late this morning. So much for those people who told me 5 degrees is not that cold - Julaine! - one degree above zero is bloody cold, almost freezing, in fact :)
Had fun last night wandering around the supermarket, most things vaguely recognisable from the pictures on boxes, and had to find the picture for fruit and veg on the weighing machine and it printed out the price. that took a while, but was kind of fun in the end.
Looking for signal process people to connect with - new contact phone no in helsinki on twiki page.
back at the lasipalatsi, free internet in the library which I rememered from last time - it's fun being here agäin, recognise some of the shop signs and ocassionally even know where I am. off to find MUU gallery now, and then a sim card.

sunnuntai, maaliskuu 21, 2004

9:07 AM
Posted by jodi rose

At Vienna airport, standing internet kiosk - forgive my typos. well and truly delirious, and a danger to myself and others at this point - only in retail terms, just saw a bag that would be great for all the gear I'm lugging around.......
anyway, after flight to melb, 2hr layover, 7hr flight to Kuala Lumpur, got out of the plane and all had to line up and re-board that was fun! - then 11.5 hour flight to vienna. had about 3 hours sleep, but Lauda air very good, almost up to singapore air standards,. my favourite part of the plane ride was the birdseye camera at the front of the plane, so you can watch where you're flying. fantastic. although dark when going over afghanistan and tehran, but saw fires burning out the window. So cool watching the lines flash by on the runway when taking off although I had to change to the map and flight info on landing, watching the ground rush up to meet us was a little disconcerting. Now I have a few hours to fill in at the airport before flight to Helsinki - can't get into my email, some weird server error, so still have no idea what to do once I get to Helsinki airport. Roll with the punches I guess - have some mobile phone numbers so I'm sure I'll manage to get in contact with someone, eventually :) Promised Oskar I would visit santa for him at the north pole.
Managed to overcome my fear of turbulence - chatting to lovely girl on flight to melbourne, realised that if anything goes wrong you can worry about it then - or not even, since there's not much you can do - so really pointless to spend the next 22 hours in a state of mild panic about the engine dropping out of the plane. ALso seeing it as a metaphor for life, you can't be scared of a few rough patches in the road or a bumpy ride, most times it's not actually going to kill you. Imagined I was on a big coach with wings, going down the hume highway - equivalent to a patch of med turbulence! Relaxed on the big jumbo jet - it was very Viennese, called 'picasso', with wood veneer and muted lighting, almost like a theatre set. And the vegetarian food was great, lots of fresh fruit and salads. Will try the email thing again, more soon from Helsinki. xxxjr

torstai, maaliskuu 18, 2004

8:23 AM
Posted by jodi rose

only 2 sleeps to go now! very scattered week trying to get too many different things done. Having to pare back my to-do list on a daily basis. The lovely Phillip has been sorting out my equipment, it's such a relief having assistance from a real sound engineer who knows about microphones and DI boxes and what have you. I'm doing work on the samples and composition for performance, very much looking forward to that moment when you settle into the plane and watch the movies, eat and sleep. For, oh 22 hours. great! thinking positive now.....
no room in my head left for much else, which is good. trying to get CD covers made, and sort out technical stuff and be artistic. lordy.

this is club gloria in Helsinki, where I will be appearing on saturday week: http://nuoriso.hel.fi/gloria/index.php3

what else? can't think. back to the small dark room with pro-tools in it.

lauantai, maaliskuu 13, 2004

3:23 AM
Posted by jodi rose

crazy week, in a crazy world. I've been sequestered in the studio working on material from field recordings, selecting musical sounding sections for composition and producing a revised version of the raw material for CD sampler. Emerged to hear about multiple bombs in Madrid, people dying, and general horror of the nightly news. Not much you can do about it from so far away, or even being there, except keep being present in your life and living every moment. It's very tragic to think of all those people going off to work in the morning and becoming random victims of this strange world terror - but even more sad if it becomes a reason for the government - in spain, but also any govt in any country - to justify increased military spending, fear and paranoia. It's interesting to see the whole country go into mourning for 3 days, and all those passionate protests and rallies on the streets, having a specific period when you can feel and express your feelings is very sensible.
I think we (in Australia) have lost touch with how to grieve and experience loss - or indeed any strong emotion, must be that english colonial history coming out - and Good old little Johnny coming out saying there is no relationship between spain's troops in iraq and the terrorist bombing in madrid - for fear that australia will be perceived as a target for the same reason. He is an insult to the intelligence of anyone with half a brain cell. The global village thing is taking on a slightly different perspective than the utopian visions of those cyber-gurus from Marshall McLuhan to the mid 90's.
Article in the 'Good weekend' magazine today about the possibility of airplanes being shot down by various extremists with access to ground to air missile launchers; keep on breeding the fear, and soon no-one will ever leave the house again.
I refuse to have anxiety about air travel, leaving in a week for Helsinki and Barcelona which is incredibly exciting. Going out into the world, experiencing different people and places is one of the things that makes life worth living for me. As the STA travel ads say: The world is still an amazing place.

torstai, maaliskuu 04, 2004

1:50 AM
Posted by jodi rose

latest news:

Singing Bridges now online in Australia Ad Lib a fantastic project by sound artist and violinist Jon Rose (no relation!) who plays and records fence wires.

"Australia Ad Lib, an interactive guide to the wild, the weird and the vernacular in Australian music.
These pages feature a selection of the most iconoclastic, larrikin, do-it-yourself performers working in Australia today.
The mind numbing mediocrity offered up by the global- music-mart can't be avoided; but while using this archive it can temporarily be ignored. We've gone for the radical, the un-compromised and the often unheard music; the stuff that gets swept under the mainstream carpet. "

http://www.abc.net.au/arts/adlib/default.htm

The security guard at the ABC car park asked me this morning who I wanted to kill. No-one, I said, I just want to make people happy. 'You don't look like you want to kill anyone', he laughed as the boom gate opened. Then I remembered I was wearing my 'Kill the Morning After Girls' T-shirt. Ironic merchandising by a Melbourne band, part of the retro rock'n'roll scene. If I ever do decide to go rogue and start up a sleeper cell, this open face and friendly smile will be a great disguise!

Of course I'm much more interested in listening to bridges than blowing them up - although if one was collapsing from natural causes (a la Galloping Gertie) I would very much like to hear the cables popping as they snap. Listened to an interesting piece in the studio yesterday, one of the 'Earclips' series being mastered. In it a musician and sound artists sets fire to a grand piano, which was apparently worthless having previously been damaged by flooding. The microphones placed both inside and out of the structure record the sound of the wires as they break, and eventually the microphones themselves are destroyed. Sounds amazing.

Had a refresher course on Pro-Tools with Steven, am now unstoppable and ready to create a virtual bridge symphony. Sourcing alternative contact microphones, trying to track down a polymer hydrophone, if anyone knows who makes them, please contact me. Any kind of piezo transducer that is flexible and has good low frequency response. The Schaller Oyster's have been fantastic, but I think there are frequency ranges that I'm missing out on them. Getting serious now about tech.

maanantai, maaliskuu 01, 2004

8:14 AM
Posted by jodi rose

"had we but world enough, and time..."

My head is spinning today - trying to work out how I can possibly get to all the fabulous Finnish bridges I want to in the two weeks I'm there. Included in that time is a weekend in Stockholm, a week doing the Locative media workshop, and 2nd weekend for Pixealache festival. Can't leave any earlier as the ABC Studio booking for that week is crucial in getting some work done on the sample CD, which I really want to have ready in some form at the festival and exhibitions.

Wishlist includes the Porvoon Jalankulkusilta in Porvoo (which is reasonably achievable as only an hour from helsinki on the bus), Heureka Silta in Vaanta - the cables look like gorgeous wings, almost closed over the bridge, also seems fairly close in fact right near the airport, then the Lumberjack's Candle Bridge in Rovaniemi up near the arctic circle. Apparently a landmark of the town, close to Santa Claus' village and either 12 hours by train or a short flight which is only affordable if one stays for at least 3 days - and being time poor, as well as cash poor, both these options aren't looking great. But it's such a fantastic location and I've been wanting to get up there since last time I was in Finland, 2002.
This website has photos of bridges in Finland. http://www.algonet.se/~pwh/finland1.htm

The ultimate Scandinavian bridge experience is the Utsjoki Saame Bridge, between Utsjoki Finland and Saame, Norway - it's almost off the map, right up the top of the land mass and the northernmost cabled bridge in the world. That one needs at least a week to get to, being accessible only by bus from Rovaniemi or Ivalo. Maybe it will have to wait until the extended tour of Finland. "The silver colour symbolizes the salmon in the river Tenojoki. The anchor box of cables on the upper end of the pylons resembles a salmon tail. Ice cones designed to decrease the load of ice floes were planned for the lower end of the bridge piers. The deck spans at the Norwegian end of the bridge were determined by the size of the largest ice floes. The total length of the bridge is 316.5 metres. There are rest areas around the pylons on the bridge deck designed for the viewing of salmon fishing."
Obsession, it can drive you mad - one of the radio producers muttered as he wandered past my desk. Indeed, closer to the edge of sanity today than I have been in a long time. The process of detaching from everyday life is well underway, starting to have that floating feeling more often, not quite anchored to any known structure. The lovely Lea from Radio Eye reminded me about Indira's net (see 'concept' page) and that's the state I'm in - pulsing points of light stretching across space and linking up in a vast network of bridge cables.
Now might be a good time to share a few lines of Hart Crane's poem to Brooklyn Bridge:

"Through the bound cable strands, the arching path
Upward, veering with light, the flight of strings,
Taut miles of shuttling moonlight syncopate
The whispered rush, telepathy of wires....
Sybilline voices flicker, waveringly stream
As though a god were issue of the strings..."

I love that. Funnily enough found it long after I'd dreamed up this project, with the voice of god in the cables.
Just for the record I'm not religious in any way, shape or form - being brought up by an anarchist socialist mother, but the search for meaning, something more than the ordinary is what brings a sparkle to life for me. I could never be one of those 'young british artists' engaged with the everyday - I want transcendence, I want passion and spirit and magic - and I want it NOW!!!

Saw David Bowie on Friday night, had a few magic moments, he was the most relaxed performer I've ever seen, just hanging out having fun, chatting to the audience as though we were old friends, and giving good rock star in his poses and gesturing. It was a blast hearing some of the old songs, and pick from the new CD were 'I'm afraid of Americans', and 'Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole' - I loved the Jonathon Richman version years ago.

Enough ranting for now. Hello and welcome to all my new friends and visitors

Full program now available on www.pixelache.ac

Did I mention singing bridges is the main even in Stockholm on the Friday night?
At the Sauna Office for Contemporary Art, which does lots of cool stuff:

"Sauna is an interdisciplinary office for contemporary art on Bastugatan 1,
Slussen, in central Stockholm. People with experience from art, journalism
and architecture run Sauna on an ideal basis. The office is small, only 21
m2, and this is the foundation for the continuous project we're currently
running called "The Extended Space". The space functions as a workspace,
meeting place and exhibition space - a place where private life meets public
life.

Sauna offers artists and other active within the cultural sphere, in and
outside of Sweden, the possibility of an altered and expanded exhibition
space. We also want to contribute to a process where a broader audience get
more acquainted with art forms that are not distanced from life itself;
current developments in society, as well as the most vital questions of the
individual and the collective.

So far we have developed a range of different projects of which the
following is just a small selection:
* We began our activities during autumn 2002 by showing video works outside
of the art institutional context in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Johanna Billing,
Jonas Dahlberg, Annika Eriksson, Katarina L?fstr?m, Gunilla Klingberg and
Cecilia Lundqvist were the Swedish artists who's video works could be seen
by a Mongolian audience - including homeless children or women at the prison
in the outskirts of the city.
* The Norwegian artist Lars Traegde showed "L'Orangerie", a project
consisting of a mobile orangery integrated into Saunas office space, a soil
less garden, a system of roots that may travel the world to wherever you may
be. The orangery demands neither daylight nor soil and is run by a technique
that's developed in cooperation with NASA.
* At last year's version of the Stockholm Art Fair Sauna were invited by the
Swedish art fanzine Mars. Sauna decided to create a room - an extended space
- for the fanzine and its editor, Paul Steen, as well as the visitors of the
Stockholm Art Fair.