TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

  

VIEWING ALL POSTS FOR: MARCH 2005

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

1:35 AM
Posted by jodi rose

aussie sound sheila's rockin helsinki!
we just made our first media appearance for ääniradio, on the coolest net radio station ever - yo mc mute!
http://www.bassoradio.com/
hung out in the very cool studio set up in an old bed factory in kallio, waved at the webcam and talked experimental radio for 90 minutes. had a great time, surprisingly we had lots to talk about, and plenty of material to play, and invited our gracious host to come play at mbar and program a show for ääni. He does the demo program, of unsigned local acts... very street, very underground.
although it's always a little strange when people meet me and say they've been reading my web diary... I feel so exposed ;)
came home after not eating all day except for porridge this afternoon (it's been a slow day, I'm sick again, everything aches) and rustled up a meal of fish fingers, frozen peas and carrots and squeaky cheese (leipojusta -the finnish haloumi mmmmmmm)
it was almost like a balanced meal
watched too many buffed bronzed girls and boys gyrating their perfectly tanned toned midriffs on mtv for a while, sufficiently mindless to drive me back to some kind of cultural production. maybe time for some italo calvino difficult loves before bed. ,)

Monday, March 28, 2005

11:05 AM
Posted by jodi rose

still snowy in helsinki
remind me never to move to finland...
altho my research into scandinavian easter practices has uncovered some culinary gems, the Finns have a weird easter porridge, it's like mushy malted rye bread, but fazer makes these really cool chocolate eggs that are inside an actual hens egg, the Danes eat chocolate on toast everyday, jacob couldn't fill me in on any more easter-specific chocolate activities, and of course as I mentioned, the Swedes cover bare tree branches with coloured feathers - yellow, purple and orange.
having a very strange time, for anyone who thinks this looks glamorous, believe me it's not. looking forward to getting back to australia, way more than I ever dreamed I would.
something about never quite knowing what's going on around you isn't quite working for me this time. usually it's relaxing being in a bubble with all the extraneous information, advertising and voices around you just sounding like babble, but for some reason at the moment its exhausting.
not that I'm complaining, very happy to be here, excited about the various projects and all the cool fabulous people coming over for particle wave and pixelache, can't wait for the festival. just a bit more stuff to do first..... wish me luck!
after a weekend destitute in denmark and sweden, really enjoyed the contrast of my business class flight back - thanks to frequent flier points with Scandinavian (SAS), altho I forgot to check in at biz counter and didn't realise I could use their airport lounge - which was a pity as I couldn't even buy a cup of coffee, and they have it all laid on there. anyway, the service on the plane was luxurious, had a tablecloth for my fold down table, hot towel, red wine, cognac... all good.
came back in a much better frame of mind - maybe I just haven't been drinking enough lately? next mission - find places to go out and get trashy in helsinki. lucky lizzie and mike are coming over, they're bound to help with that, and also mark who is a complete trashbag (in the best possible sense, darling!)
have decided alcohol is key to happiness - in short term at least.
best get on with preparing for my project, really hope the bridge stream happens somehow. been having conversations with people, but no real testing yet - nervous and excited about going out to the matinkaari or heureka silta bridge sometime in the next few weeks and trying to hook them up with mikes, and a data card, see if we can get those cables streaming.
thinking through the live performative aspects of it, trying to give a sense of location and excitement to the audience.....

Saturday, March 26, 2005

4:42 PM
Posted by jodi rose

another saturday, another scandinavian art school...
still decompressing from last 3 weeks very intense.
staying with alison and jon in malmo until tomorrow
this morning took a sauna in the sea baths
then dipped quickly in the freezing sea
and lay in the sun on long wooden pier
wandered round looked at some art
came home and slept on the couch
millions of things to do, but taking sunday off too
back on the particle wave train monday
easter thing here is coloured feathers in the trees
yellow and purple and orange
kids dress up as witches with rouged cheeks and freckles
and either give candy away or ask for it,
no one quite knows when so randomly all weekend.
taking time away from helsinki has been surprisingly restful,
feel kinda shellshocked, a little wary and very stressed
doing my best to stay grounded and focus on the work i need to do
and make the most of being over here, which totally rocks.

Friday, March 25, 2005

1:43 PM
Posted by jodi rose

having a slow quiet day after all the excitement last night.
see pics here of fabulous looking danes and some random australian girl in the fog.....

ideal bar riga




the ideal bar was indeed superbly dim, atmospheric and very hip. chatted with bjørn and anita, brandon, lisa, the fantastic joni came along with nis, another bjørn based in berlin did a totally out-there dj set, he was dancing away working the knobs and faders in time, way cool german electronica-dance-minimalist-lotsmore. met at least three people during the night who were at my performance at overgaden festival in august last year, not so strange as it was actually jacob's gig - but really sweet to have so much positive feedback. ended up in riga - way cool underground vibe bar with funky staff and yet more incredibly looking people. ran into jonas oleson there - who made one of the original bridge remixes for me, chatted with him and his bandmate osmond - fabulous norwegian goth boy - about their electro band 'europussy'
have to run now for a walk and coffee in versterbroge
lovin the fresh air and above zero temp
xxx jr

Thursday, March 24, 2005

3:19 PM
Posted by jodi rose

walked straight through customs and out into copenhagen airport, no passport control, nothing. I love that, once you're in europe you can wander around no-one asks you questions about where you're going or what you're doing. well, in the schengen state anyway - don't know what that means, but that's where I am. it sounds like some kind of sausage, schengen smallgoods.

staying in jacob's gorgeous shop-front apartment in westerbroge, walked up the hill to the park this morning, all muddy paths and twisted black branches, brackenish wilderness feeling; now chilling out with cups of tea and helping jacob choose his ensemble for tonight.

cd launch at ideal bar, vega - just round the corner.
http://fonik.dk/current.html

it's really lovely to be here, hadn't realised how stressed i was in helsinki, by the constant cold, and just feeling like I had to be doing stuff all the time. well, I did, but having now written 10,000 words of my thesis can relax and go back to only doing 2 major projects at once. one of them has grown from the very small experimental prototype for live networked bridge stream into the second act of the opening night concert for pixelache and particle wave - not sure exactly how that happened, but I'm going to think of it as a small experiment, not some big deal in the chamber music hall at sibelius academy.... where Sophea has suggested playing the streams through different speaker channels, so it will be my first experiment in surround sound performance. very exciting. my idea is to spatialise the sounds geographically, but jacob also suggested building the structure of the bridge around the space or hanging the speakers in outline of the suspension cables. we're cooking up ideas for future collaborations - I'm trying to convince him to wear a purple velvet suit tonight! - maybe we can do something at ircam sometime, I will be going to visit the archive in paris.

there's something that feels quite hard and unrelenting about helsinki, the architecture perhaps (hi to melb band of that name) or the constant minus temperatures, or being in an apartment out of town that hasn't been lived in very much so it has a strangely empty feeling.

jacob's place is fantastic, all very simple, warm wooden floors and dark wood furniture, great bookshelves, lovely studio where I am sitting writing now looking out onto stone turrets and bicycles, cosy and minimal at the same time, with character, warmth and a sense of calm - the kind of house I aspire to. one day, only mine will be beside the ocean... oh and a library of 1920's 16mm russian and german films in the cellar... too cool.

trying to take a holiday but have to log in now and check the emails haven't spiralled out of control.. jacob is going down to his cellar for the silver suit and red shirt.... pics to come!

Sunday, March 20, 2005

12:21 PM
Posted by jodi rose

well, I've been walking on water again!
most of saturday afternoon, hanging out with sophea, wandering between
unnisaari and harakka islands
it is a very strange sensation, looking at the ice beneath my feet wondering just how thick it is, and feeling it bounce a little when we walked,
some of it was frozen in waves, like they had just crashed around a rock and then froze there
and the ice had all these different levels of crunchiness underfoot, some of them quite disturbing, was never completely convinced that I wasn't about to fall through into the freezing water - which you can see out the heads is not frozen very far, and the shipping lane kept open between where we were and Suomenlinna, or we could have walked out there too!
group of people set up a picnic and ice skating party between the shore and unnisaari island,
looked very cosy with their fold out chairs and thermos, did some lovely swooping and swirling skating moves
last time I was at unnisaari involved sauna and dancing for the isea closing party - very very cool - although now there is a hole cut in the ice for people to dip in after their sauna
we didn't have that in summer. www.unnisaari.com


xx jr

Thursday, March 17, 2005

10:40 AM
Posted by jodi rose

woke up to a dreamy snowy morning
magical
everything downy and soft with new snow
covering up the old yellow and grey
on the bus ride into arabia
(suburb named after the ceramic company,
media lab lume is in their old factory)
all the coloured wooden houses in pasila
like gingerbread cakes, layered with icing
out of a fairy tale
for me it's magical and enchanting
but i guess for the Finns it's just another snowy day
the road clearing machines are out driving around
with their front end shovels - according to someone
the amount spent on clearing snow each year is 5
(or 0.5 I can't remember am very bad with numbers)
of Finlands gross national product. but there would be no
industry or product if everything stayed covered in snow, so...

am very glad to have people like john and sophea around
makes the research process far more intuitive
if you can have conversations about things
that take place quite naturally and don't have to chase up an expert
in some office or different world who may or may not have any idea
how to realise the plans you have

anyway, now I don't need to spend €500 on a new 3G phone
and there is one at media lab we can borrow and test with
introduced myself to tao, one of the lecturers here, who teaches
interactive television and cinema and is curating a section of pixelache

saw the most vibrant colourful fabric on hammiente from the tram
swirly geometric abstracted flower/chaos shapes in pink and red
on a white background - very finnish
may have to start redecorating juha's puistola apartment
very exciting have the option for homewares and non moveable stuff
although it is only 3 months, feels like could be here for years

especially since spring is coming
eventually
it't here in southerrn europe, 20° in seville yesterday
still -8 up here, and the birds haven't migrated yet
very late spring, everyone says it's cold for this time of year
but I'm happy to have a final blast of winter
get right into that melancholy poetic vibe
can see why scandinavian design is so light and clean
everyone wears coloured reflectors during winter, it's so dark
shaped like bats or hearts or cartoon figures - trying to find one

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

8:54 PM
Posted by jodi rose

ok that's a bad in-joke, based on a conversation kate had with the head of dept here about the centre for music, mind and technology.. why didn't we think of that.. trying to come up with alternatives.. sisu is a finnish concept of chutzpah which roughly translates as 'able to go out in the snow and kill a bear' or something like that

anyway, I digress
had a very productive discussion with sophea and john evans (aware mobile media guru yes you remember him and andrew from january, now back in helsinki from oz) after he finished building our new database for all the ääniradio sound files - what a legend, knocked one up in a few hours! - asked about how exactly i would get the sound into the nokia 6630 3G phone I was advised would be the best way to get cable sound streaming from the bridge in helsinki. if we don't have a wifi spot by some chance floating out the back of media lab or over near the science centre in tikkurila.

In my complete technical ignorance my first thought was we could stream via a gprs card in the laptop - but apparently it has two bandwith option - crap and really crap!

The idea now is to use a 3G data card, although the only ones available from the shop I went into today were 100mb for €18.30 per month, and then €1.74 per mb after that - which could get very expensive very quickly especially after a few tests...

John pointed out that 3G has a lot of latency and dropped packets (neither of which are good things particularly in a live performance) also we know the 3G cards are meant to have good download speed, but not much about their upload facilities..

I thought that we could send the files through bluetooth, then john suggested using a laptop and connecting to the net via the phone - but then he remembered that model doesn't have a network serial connect - the earlier models do, but nokia took them out due to security concerns.

Now, we're back to the original idea which I had mistakenly thought was gprs, but is in fact a 3G data card, that goes straight into your laptop and you can go online and send huge files to your hearts content. or at least I hope so.

sophea's alternate suggestion is to use the phone line - hey, that sounds kinda cool and very simple - and mix a couple of lines to increase the signal quality - we have to contact someone who may have done something like this and get more info about the details... anyway, I really like this option, cause my original idea about the glebe island bridge is that the cables are the voice of god, and when I made the first recording the fabulous peter wellings, chief engineer at rta came down the stairs with one of the models of the bridge in his hand, saying, it's god on the line! it was a very cute moment and even though I can't defend this notion in an academic theory paper, it has a certain currency and intrigue for people who aren't stuck in a world where everything has to be referenced and proven.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

6:55 PM
Posted by jodi rose

i hear voices... or, voices control me
t-shirt by Finnish mental health advocacy group

pirate activity in arabia continues
albeit slight interruption today
meeting with john and sophea at mbar
they're working on database now in class
for which the students have to participate in the broadcast and production
power = being able to set the agenda
and get people do to stuff you want them to

menu from monday night

grilled haloumi with green chilli and couscous

fry red peppers until oil slightly red, add couscous and turn until covered in oil, then add boiling water and leave to soak
fry bananas and set aside
fry haloumi with green chillis
serve with squeeze of lemon
yum

marmalade icecream and blue curacao

open box of icecream with penguin on it
pour crazy coloured liquor and enjoy ;)

all delicious!

Monday, March 14, 2005

12:45 PM
Posted by jodi rose

The dangers of reading Jeanette Winterson in a foreign place and overly susceptible poetic mood will soon become apparent. Forgive me for quoting heavily in this entry - I don't have words of my own right now.

Realising how entirely dependent we are on people around us. Even more so in a place where you don't speak the language, have no grounding and can never quite find your bearings. I keep getting lost because I think I know where I'm going enough to not look at the map - and am often only 4 or 5 streets away, but in completely the wrong place.

Had an amazingly weird dream last night - well it was crystal clear and even more disturbing in its strange clarity - all these spiky freeways built high in the sky, thin concrete curves with no railings and cars going across, but not joining together yet, and another section of solid thick concrete train bridge with carriages already on it waiting to be able to go somewhere and the road we were travelling on was mostly finished and much closer to the ground, but also had no railing and missing sections.

Other part was about the woman I was travelling with, and trying to unravel this riddle together, stopping at the crime unit and watching three fighter jets in the sky next to us, almost in the treetops, two of them crashed into each other, and the third disappeared with my companion - as I wondered what had happened to her, got back to the backyard and found she had been swapped with a young child who spoke only french, who I knew that it was my job to look after and bring up. Spookily uncanny... all those things. Then I decided I needed to do kickboxing classes and be more active. There you go.

I feel like something fragile has been shattered. Trust? Faith?
You need to have faith in people, someone said to me yesterday, talking of a moment when they had lost theirs. They built it back eventually.
This is my journey, I choose to share it with you.

(From) The Power Book, by Jeanette Winterson

'Be confident, even in your mistakes. There is no wrong road. There is only the road you must travel. And if the road leads nowhere? Turn your Nowhere into Somewhere.

What a strange world it is where you can have as much sex as you like but love is taboo. I'm talking about the real thing, the grand passion, which may not allow affection or convenience or happiness. The truth is that love smashes into your life like an ice floe, and even if your heart is built like the titanic you go down.

Only the impossible is worth the effort.

This is a virtual world. This is a world inventing itself. Daily, new landmasses form and then submerge. The buried treasure is really there, but caulked and outlandish. Hard to spot because unfamiliar, and few of us can see what has never been named.

The stories we sit up late to hear are love stories. It seems that we cannot know enough about this riddle of our lives. Nothing could be more familiar than love. Nothing else eludes us so completely.

I do not know whether science will formulate its grand theory of the universe. I know that it will not make it any easier to read the plain text of our hearts. It is plain but it seems like a secret alphabet. We train as our own Egyptologists, hoping the fragments will tell a tale. We work at night as alchemists, struggling to decipher the letters mirrored and reversed. We are people who trace with our fingers a marvelous book, but when we turn to read it again the letters have vanished. Always the book must be rewritten. Sometimes a letter at a time is all we can do.

My search for you, your search for me, is a search after something that cannot be found. Only the impossible is worth the effort. What we seek is love itself, revealed now and again in human form, but pushing us beyond our humanity into animal instinct and god-like success.

The wilderness is not tamed. It waits - beautiful and terrible - beyond the reach of the campfire. Now and again someone gets up to leave, forced to read the map of themselves, hoping that the treasure is really there. A record of their journey comes back to us in note form, sometimes just a letter in a dead man's pocket.

Love is worth death. Love is worth life. I do not know if what I hear is an answer or an echo. Perhaps I will hear nothing. It doesn't matter. The journey must be made.'

end quote.

If I can't have impossible love, I will have impossible bridges.
'I'm all out of faith, this is how I feel, cold and I am shamed lying broken on the floor' ('torn' but the original version not natalie imbruglia. I know, the words are the same.. but the story is not)

Sunday, March 13, 2005

11:40 PM
Posted by jodi rose

sunday 12th march 12:16am

today I had my first walk on the sea. it was kinda scary, the ice had huge cracks in it coming away from the shore, but that didn't seem to bother anyone else.
then again, a few people have had to be rescued this year already...

also tried my first chocolate on toast - a very fine Danish culinary tradition, courtesy of the lovely Andrew. wafer thin dark chocolate letters - so you can write on your toast and then it melts. mmmm

we had another note from the neighbours - it says:
Jos, yöhäirintäsi jatkuu vielä, viime yönäkin klo 03.00 asti, isännöitsijään otetaan yhteyttä.
Vaunta (or valinta) on sinun!

which is completely outrageous, because when Juha and Kate did come in at 1.30am they tiptoed up the stairs and talked in whispers - even I could hardly hear them.
strange finnish 9 to 5 people with oversensitive ears...
they just don't like us cause we sound lively and fun - literally we tiptoe around the house, and get these complaints.

had dinner at the seahorse, fabulous as always.... although one day I will make it to dessert and try the Finnish pancakes with strawberry jam and cream. not sure how they're different to other pancakes, but it's research I look forward to

Sunday, March 13, 2005

12:21 AM
Posted by jodi rose

been having that kaleidescope feeling
everything shifting and changing
you can never quite find your feet
the ground beneath is never solid
and keeps moving
then months or years or weeks later
you realise, aha, things were falling into place
I just can't see the pattern from inside the kaleidoscope

went to visit the ice stonehenge on friday
amazing, with dissolving photos inside ice frames
had a good meeting with sophea and bought art - angel box
from the cigarette machine at m.bar
later on the train platform a man kept smiling at me
he eventually said: you seem happy,
hmm yes I'm a bit happy, I told him - and are you?
no, he said, I'm not happy. that's a shame, I replied and
then we went into different parts of the carriage
the whole trip home I was wondering, why wasn't he happy?
when we both got off at puistola asked him,
and he hesitated, is it that you're in finland in winter?
partly that, he said, and he gave his hat away - said
you need to give everything away until you can genuinely say
I have no more to give.

Sunday, March 13, 2005

12:15 AM
Posted by jodi rose

tonight was the warm-up for pixelache on suomenlinna island, and it's still going on but I had to come home early as woke up with razor blades in my throat.
trying to minimise the illness and get out of the cold early tonight,
very sad to miss the potential disco laundro. great to see all the pixelache family again, petri and tuomo and ville and aura,
and meet some new people - helen and heiko, who are the artists in residence at nifca doing really lovely installations with interactive architecture, sound, light, pollution...
check it out www.hehe.org very very cool autonomous modular units....
and the fabulous thor magnusson who makes software for visual music controls, can't wait to play with some bridge sounds on it.
he and enrike are giving a workshop at media lab next week, will try and visit for a few days.
and really how often do you get to meet someone called Thor - definitely a highlight so far.
When I had my mini-cd release tonight, playing a few tracks I asked him to pick a number between 1 and 14, to choose which ones to play,
and he quickly whipped up a program to select them - so we had 13, 9, 7 and 3. totally ace.
http://www.ixi-software.net/

Friday, March 11, 2005

4:59 PM
Posted by jodi rose

sibelius academy, centre for music and technology studio
lurking up here waiting for my camera to download so I can take lots of photos of the pixelache warm up on suomenlinna island tomorrow
also my first european cd release party!
http://pixelache.ac/2005/front.php
loving being here today, in helsinki and at siba, one of the most traditional formal academies in europe, making crazy radio art projects happen. totally rockin' with the aussie sound sheilas kate and sophea and me.
checked out stonehenge in ice behind kiasma yesterday, amazing photos deconstructing inside the ice frames
pink twins and kaffe matthews noise gig at the rock church was pretty intense, lots of crackling and electrical sounds made me wish for some gospel music.... but it was an amazing experience. wandered the streets in minus 10 degrees after looking for a bar called the body shop (as in body repairs as in auto shop) eventually found it and had a great conversation with richard about making connections and art and life... that's what I live for. those conversations and activities. and we're doing our best to make sure everyone who comes to helsinki for particle wave will be getting plenty of both inspiration and production activity.
must go now and get home in time for the sauna.

Tuesday, March 8, 2005

12:11 PM
Posted by jodi rose

pictures from the downhill sliding in tapiola

tonight is a concert by kaffe matthews
at umo jazz club, and tomorrow night with the pink twins at the rock church!

today is brighter and snowier, and things are taking shape.

Monday, March 7, 2005

6:02 PM
Posted by jodi rose

reading pico iyer: the global soul
perfect text for a state of displacement and disconnection
talks about 'how to find moorings, foundations, fixed points in a broken, altered time'? and 'very few [of the books speaking of our global future] have spoken of our dreams, our disconnection, our displacement, or being lost within a labyrinth of impersonal spaces' and on jetlag ' a realm of spaced out dreaminess where something in one doesn't engage, and something else comes loose, so one is left either skating giddily, heart wide open, on the surface of oneself or feeling mysteriously clogged somehow, heart high in mud'.

indeed.
had a lovely 'global soul' experience on the train sunday morning, two boys trying to say 'it's a very sunny day' in finnish through english, I looked up and smiled then the woman next to us helped with the finnish - they are studying here from tanzania, where it's mostly sunny, and she talked about visiting sydney and cairns where it rained a lot. but no snow in either place...

on my way to mika and lasse's place in espoo for their winter party.
had my first downhill sliding experience (well ok first physical rather than metaphoric) on a sled - it was fast and fun and very silly ended up covered in snow from taking the corners too tight, and the hill was much bigger than I expected. then had first sauna for this visit - damn it's been too long!! mari and esse made cabbage soup, very delicious with celery, pepper and creme fraiche, and hot chocoloate with rum (do you see a theme developing here?) mikko et al came along after the ice fishing, although didn't want to discuss what they had caught.

today is writing up plans, ideas and oh yes that 10,000 words. hmmm
best go and get to work now ;)

Sunday, March 6, 2005

10:40 AM
Posted by jodi rose

so far I've been lost once each time I come here.
the first was - actually twice that trip - on the metro, which is pretty silly as it has one line with a fork in it - managed to get to the wrong end of the fork.... and then coming home in a taxi to mari's place, walked up the stairs to her apartment - which had someone else's name on the door. looked exactly similar in every other respect, ran up and down the stairs to all the floors a few times, feeling more and more twilight zone-ish, then finally walked out of the building and realised I was in the B not the A. The second time was in August doing aaniradio stuff with sophea, teri rueb, keith and I got her out of the office late one night and on our way home to her place, got completely lost a few blocks away. can't remember the april moment, but am sure it happened. the latest occasion was - hmmm my mind has gone completely blank... oh that's right, coming home the other night caught the 74 instead of 75 bus and it didn't go to puistola station, but somewhere out in the wild, in the middle of the night, in minus 15 degrees. standing at the bus stop wondering if another one would come along, or I should start walking in what I thought was the direction of the station, where I know my way, then a taxi came by so jumped in it.
But it's a very strange feeling having no idea where you are, whatsoever. Mostly we live in such familiar environments it's hard to be genuinely lost. Forget gps and all that palaver, it can tell you the co-ordinates but not necessarily where you are... not that I even have a device. very un-locative media of me. in fact, as a media artist I really suck. don't even have a laptop. if anyone wants to donate one would be much appreciated. driving me insane not being able to work on my own computer here. or an ipod. particle wavers please bring an apple for jodi :)
Anyway, back to being lost - it's a weird feeling, and I keep having it, even when I know where I am. Kind of off-kilter, not quite in my centre of gravity. Mostly I LOVE being here, for whatever reasons, but the last few days have completely lost sight of why and what it is I'm doing. Here, there or anywhere. Experiencing that sense of dislocation which I crave and adore when feeling stuck in one place for too long, but can also turn on you and become a yawning abyss of self-doubt and anxiety. Specific and general. What am I doing here? What am I doing anywhere? Can I even begin to pull this off?
Having scraped together enough money, begged, borrowed and imagined, to get myself over here, and hopefully survive for a few weeks longer, it's really difficult to keep finding the energy to make all these tenuous connections link up into something real and solid. I love my people here - sophea had her beach party today, loads of fun, lovely friends and marianne's gorgeous interactive water sound installation - sonic paddling pool - but had to pike on the dancing afterwards. I know. It's shockin'. The just keep dancing girl; NOT DANCING?!?!?!? What's going on with that?!
Maybe just need to lay low for a while and get some writing done. Putting heaps of energy into particle wave stuff, and really looking forward to all these wondeful people coming over to make radio.
And starting experiments with bridge streaming in april, when all the software artist/developer people and other fab bridgetechheads have converged. But that's the thing with process based research, you don't actually know in advance what the outcome will be. Still, it's taken me a long time to get to this point, all through art school I couldn't stand not having everything sorted out beforehand, which meant that the process part was fairly spurious. So I'm really glad to have reached a place in my practice where I can genuinely explore ideas and find ways to realise them without knowing the answers in advance. It just can be a little nervewracking. Especially with multiple other aspects of the project relying on the outcome. Oh well, if it doesn't work here, it's not going to work anywhere, Finland is the most networked and communication oriented place in the world, I think. The alleged introversion of the Finns notwithstanding.
Tomorrow is Mika's winter party, with downhill sliding, sauna and cabbage soup. Can't wait! and it means a trip to Espoo, where I've never been - loving getting to see different parts of helsinki. Kallio and Sornainen are fabulous, but enjoying having a new hood.
fingers and toes crossed that some of the funding comes through - ozco & anat, please please please - or I'll be on the plane home next week. Not much fun. Don't want to think about it. Sometimes we like living on the edge, others it would be really great to have some stability and comfort and security. Ah well it's all an illusion anyway, so may as well get used to living in constant uncertainty and learn to love it. At least new possibilities are more likely to open up, if your life isn't prescribed and fixed. Having a CD launch on Suomenlinna Island as part of the Pixelache warm-up next saturday - more info soon. Write and tell me stories, am feeling very disconnected.

Friday, March 4, 2005

11:32 AM
Posted by jodi rose

favourite things about helsinki
the sparkly snow
crunchy underfoot
flying in over frozen archipelago
being immersed in the opaque finnish language
first day here and already running into people I know
at siba improv, richard who is in juha's kallio apartment
in kiasma cafe, mikko from animatiaakone and kick ass kung fu
hanging out with sophea and kate wild plans and ideas
meeting mari on the steps of the russian cathedral for opening of photographic exhibition in the crypt
potato soup and tea with rum at andrews
walking through the icy streets in minus 15 degrees past various cool bars and ending up in the strangest one of all people so drunk they could neither walk nor talk, still trying to pick each other up
anticipation

Friday, March 4, 2005

11:26 AM
Posted by jodi rose

favourite things about london
lounge room disco in clapham with pete, ben, d'elph and sho
breakfast at the wolsely (next to the ritz) with philippa and nick
seeing Joshua Jackson there and overcoming my sudden faux english reticence to go up and after apologising profusely for interrupting his breakfast, tell him he has brought me so much joy over the years (Pacey was the rockingest character on Dawsons Creek, bad boy, rogueish charm works every time... and so much sexier than dawson) and introduced myself, told him I record bridges and gave him a CD.
then went home and watched the final 2 hour ep in philippa's west end apartment - very glad to find joey finally came to her senses and chose him after all. sadly didn't make it to see Joshua's west end play - a life in the theatre, by david mamet with william shatner - but it certainly made london fabulous for a minute.
then visited lizzie in hackney, gorgeous house, lovely max and mike, all moving to barcelona soon. the lives people lead ;)