TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

  

VIEWING ALL POSTS FOR: JUNE 2007

Saturday, June 30, 2007

3:36 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Finally getting my head around this collaborative art practice and writing thing. Taking onboard all the feedback from recent run of unsuccessful grant applications. Now have some rocking support material from very high-tech international architectural acoustic consultancy. Wait and see.

Worked on the latest round until 3am then had a fabulous day cycling up to Haarlemmerstraat to post it, celebrated with a mushroom pizza - my new addiction from the fabulous moroccan bakery - and found the very cool orange retro shop next door open. Only on fridays. Celebrated again with a present for myself, sparkling blue drink thermos, 'flying crane' brand only 3 euro. Enhancing my new life of less spending money in cafe's and more hanging out in the sunshine with friends. Created a new conceptual art piece for platonic sunshine, which I will post here when it's made. Then you too can create one.

Took the afternoon off and watched trashy movies, with hot chocolate and lemon tart. Fabulously decadent, stormy grey clouds and the most perfect rainbow I've ever seen, every colour separate and distinct. We had a song in primary school from the 'everybody sing' book - now that's dating me, isn't it! - called 'I can sing a rainbow'. Am sure that had an effect on my development towards conceptual sound art ;)

'listen with your eyes and sing everything you see'...

Absolutely loving my life right now. Perfect mix of solitary wilderness and urban sophistication, with a blend of people music and places that is making me smile. Can also sense a shape to the next year, which is a huge relief as it's been nothing but hazy fog until now. The path is opening up before me. I love that. First travel writing pieces done too.

Tried my first dutch sentence today - 'I'd like a glass of rose, please'. Successful!

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

7:57 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Woke up this morning to the sound of trains singing to me. In low bass tones. Really thought someone had snuck into the house and put some kind of john coltrane meets tom waits experimental music on.

Got up at 7am to call Australia, and thought:
'What is this strange liquid gold flowing through the window?
My god, SUNSHINE!'

Yes, that's how bereft summer has been of the big yellow ball lately.
At least in my part of the world.

Feeling pretty damn pleased with myself, have managed to assemble some short, coherent, structured writing pieces for a travel gig. Nice work, if I do say so myself. Had an email from the editor this morning, saying 'You're famous already! Blog got picked up' by an indymedia site. Enjoy the thought of all these people taking a cycle through the industrial port area of town, and visiting the Walrus in Bos en Lommer.

Now for my next trick....

Some culturally and critically engaged words on artists in transit; love and travel; and something else I have temporarily forgotten. Oh yeah, that's right, the bridge project.

Funny how it slips the mind, the elephant in the room.

Apparently my Sybilline moment is over, all the signs were misinterpreted and I am again wandering lonely as a daffodil.

Big Sigh.

Oh well, at least the professional side of life seems to be going somewhere. Here's to free-form improvisational travel writing.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

12:56 PM
Posted by jodi rose

what about me, you ask?
when not listening to glaciers at 3am or talking in sybilline riddles, I am keeping a low profile in the railway cottage, a ladybird outside the window is punctuating the freight trains and the cranes have all stopped work for the day. some kooky jazz recorded in india playing on the stereo.
yesterday I was inveigled into my first amsterdam dance improv performance, playing bridges with double bass. we rocked!
still chugging away up that hill of artistic endeavour and income.

kelaa relaa (Finnish for 'Keep it easy')

Thursday, June 21, 2007

12:52 PM
Posted by jodi rose

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/phoning-glaciers-at-3am.html

Friday, June 08, 2007
Phoning glaciers at 3am

Iceland's Vatnajökull glacier.

The Guardian tells us today about a "unique work of art" that "invites viewers to phone a glacier in Iceland - and listen to its death throes, live, through a microphone submerged deep in the bitterly cold lagoon."
The weatherproof microphone thus "relays the splashes, creaks and groans as great masses of melting ice sheer off and crash into the water."

You just have to call the following number: +44 (0) 7758 225698 (a British mobile phone - non-Brits, beware huge long-distance fees!) to "make direct contact with the polar icecap."

However, the article warns us: "Only one caller at a time can get through: [artist Katie] Paterson recommends the small hours of the morning."
So, if you're extremely rich and cursed with insomnia, you can always lull yourself to sleep, sitting up at 3am near the kitchen window with your telephone pressed hard against your ear, listening to the groan of distant glaciers... I tried to get through a few hours ago, but dialed the wrong number - connecting instead to the subterranean roar of Mt. Hood.
Perhaps there should be a telephone directory for natural phenomena.


TALK WITH ME
http://www.radioartemobile.it/

ACHILLE BONITO OLIVA:

A GROUP OF VERY YOUNG ARTISTS, ALL RECENTLY GRADUATED AT IUAV (ISTITUTO UNIVERSITARIO DI ARCHITETTURA DI VENEZIA), GO AROUND THE LAGOON CITY IN THE SPACES THAT HOST THE EXHIBITIONS AND COLLATERAL EVENTS OF THE BIENNALE. THEY MEET AS MANY OF THE ARTISTS AS POSSIBLE THAT PARTICIPATED IN THE BIENNALE THROUGH INTERVIEWS AND WANT TO TESTIFY THEIR PRESENCE LIVE, INTENDED NOT ONLY AS PRODUCERS OF THE WORKS ON DISPLAY, BUT ALSO AS AUTHORS OF A POETIC THOUGHT EXPRESSED WITH THE WORD.
RAM - RADIOARTEMOBILE PROMOTES THESE LOOSE ENCOUNTERS, HAND TO HAND WITH ARTISTS OF DIFFERENT GENERETIONS AND COUNTRIES, UNDER THE GESTURE OF THE VERBAL MEETING AND CULTURAL EXCHANGE. A FURTHER STEP IN COMMUNICATION BEHIND AN ART SYSTEM THAT, RATHER, MOVES UNDER THE PERFORMATIVE GESTURE OF THE PUBLIC EVENT. INSTEAD , "TALK WITH ME" REPRESENTS THE ATTEMPT TO CREATE A SPACE OF CULTURAL INTIMACY THAT PERMITS ARTISTS TO SPEAK AND LISTEN TO EACH OTHER, IN A DIMENSION THAT EXCLUDES COMPETITION AND INCLUDES A SOCRATIC CADENCE.

INTERVIEWS BY:
ROBERTO DE PO
ANDREA DE STEFANI
ELISA FERRARI
ANDREA GALIAZZO
GIOVANNI GIARETTA
EMILIANO PISTACCHI
GIANANDREA POLETTA
DIEGO TONUS
SARA TOSO
CHIARA VECCHIARELLI

more info on www.soundartmuseum.net

----

not sure what a socratic cadence is either. something about juxtaposition?
anyway, a few weird sound art links that have passed my way recently. funny how the moment of conversation seems to be a happening thing.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

2:49 PM
Posted by jodi rose

there are just those days when life is all about picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, getting up and doing it all over again. only slightly different.
if you can't get over it, go under, if you can't get under it, go round, if you can't get round it, ignore it completely and just walk on through!

somehow, it just makes me smile. all the illusions you build up around yourself to keep going, once they pop there is a certain sense of clarity.

this year is all about stripping back to the essence. community and collaboration. being realistic but still optimistic. making things happen despite myself. letting life take over and wash you into new pools.

and hey, a few months writing in the middle of summer in europe. how bad can it be? the worst thing I have to deal with here is the dead rabbits. at least they are a physical entity, much easier to clean up than your own dead illusions or misbegotten dreams. so, new illusions and new dreams.

I did get to wander through the australian sculpture exhibition in den haag with the queen of the netherlands. ok, alongside the phalanx of police and private security who rushed ahead shunting the crowd away from her majesties imperial presence. she had a fabulous purple hat and gloves, and spent time with all the works, even hoisting a pink and green flag that said 'oh yeah'. danced afterwards with the artists and others at the party.
robyn got to walk along with trixie through her whispering trees, talking about morse code. had a very delicious artist dinner at gaeruda restaurant, and then lots of ridiculous throwing ourselves around to rock'n'roll and dance music with richard, anne, and my new best friend lovely young dutch artist in the 'office for contemporary adventures' pavilion. must email her friend with the art hotel in rotterdam. I could be an installation. working on that here already installed in the railway house.

Friday, June 15, 2007

11:29 AM
Posted by jodi rose

... I'm only happy when it's complicated*

garbage.
the band and the concept.
yes, I really do like a simple life

but hey, you can't always get what you want

and you know how they say 'today is the first day of the rest of your life'

aha

that was yesterday
then again, maybe the rest will be much like the first
who can say

hell, time to go gawk at the queen and tell her to get a job
although people say that to me too
maybe we all need to be allowed to do our thing
no matter how strange or weird it looks to others

x

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

2:55 PM
Posted by jodi rose

how much do I love the german beauracrazy?
very very funny interview, the most fun I've had in an office in a long time. strange how the things you worry about most turn out to be the least important.

reflecting on the train afterwards that no-one really knows what tomorrow will bring, it's just that most people are happy to live with a set of assumptions about what is likely to happen. and cling to them in the event of anything unexpected but sometimes it's just better to let go. or completely ignore all the existing structures and invent new ones. so here I am, transnational and self-standing. lovely.

visited a gorgeous baroque garden in krezberg with james, had campari and soda then wandered through the bohemian village across karl-marx allee. real bohemian protestants who came there some hundred years ago, lovely old wooden houses and atmosphere.

had an evening drink with derek and his swedish computer music friend whose name I forgot - sorry - d.rock back from conference in riga, which seemed to involve a lot of beer and smoked salmon, talked about reality engineering and told me I was polymorphously perverse.

this morning met mari in the anchor cafe overlooking the canal, watched the swans and had vanillaquarke with obst, then whirled my way through an impenetrable maze of deutsch finanzamt forms, collected my stuff from the studio, lugged the box around berlin for a while and am about to repack and get on the bus.

'never leave home' one of mari's speculative new projects, I love it.
am going to participate remotely, from wherever home is.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

4:40 PM
Posted by jodi rose

... I wonder how many people realise most of my headings and sometimes parts of the text are references to pop songs, art and books? [Jeannie Lewis album, circa 1980] 'red it's the colour of passion, the colour that the bull runs at.. never out of fashion, though it's often told 'get back'. the colour of blood, the colour of the rose, the colour of a ball bouncing on a clown's nose; red... it's the colour of life'

It's not all fun and games here, am currently sitting inside the bulgarian cafe with free wifi in friedrichshain, eschewing the beautiful sunny day to organise a sea of admin for the german officials. Think they can't help but be impressed by my organisational capabilities if nothing else, at last count have around ten support letters and various documents of plans, projects and other administratively required things.

Had a strangely enjoyable overnight bus ride back here, which I had been dreading to no avail. the first three hours seemed to involve equal driving and stopping for cigarettes and rest breaks, including a rather worrying twenty minutes in an all-night bus garage with tense technical conversation going on. was all ready to change buses, but then we sped off onto these dark narrow country lanes - nothing like the autobahn trip I was expecting, then pulled up in berlin half an hour early. slept fine for a few hours at a time, if a little twisty. not much difference to the regular interruptions to my slumber by the freight trains in my most recent abode.

Speaking of which, it's another of those extremes I appear to crave and enjoy so much. Walking from this addams family refuge of frees spirits and fellow wanderers (aka beautiful misfits and lovely outcasts, depending on your point-of-view) back into the modern world is quite an adjustment, especially after a few days spent dealing with dead rabbits, hanging out having picnics in the back yard, cycling through the deserted industrial streets miaowing for the lost cat, (who soon found himself again) continuing to work my way through the excellent record and literature collection, and have inspiring conversations with visiting fellow wanderers.

Something from john bayley's incredibly beautiful 'elegy for iris' struck me with more than usual intensity, talking about writers:

"What he wrote down was more real tto him than what he had actually seen that day or the one before and was now writing about.

Only memory holds reality.

At least this seems to have been his experience, and that of a lot of other writers too - romantic souls who... made the discovery that for them to remember and to write was to create their lives, and their sense of living things.

The actual experience was nothing beside it, a mere blur, always on the move, always 'disappearing'."
p264

Which resonates so strongly with my current state of being.
The burst of poetry from that thunderstormy day was inspired by - finally - typing up some of the writing I did a year ago in sturovo.

POEM CRAZY

"When I care enough about myself,
I wish not only for things,
but for a way of life
and a way of being.

So often we shrink our dreams
and expectations to a small,
dank room of desire
with no windows,
not to mention doors.

I think what we dream or wish for ourselves,
no matter how limited,
is what we get.

We're told not to be greedy.
We don't want to be disappointed.
'Don't get your hopes up'
We've heard many times.

'Be realistic'

Poetry takes us to a realm where it's both possible to discover what we deeply wish for, and to begin to imagine it; the first step in making it happen."
p168

'Nothing comes into being until there are the words'

'According to ancient Hebrew wisdom, sounds, or words, produce reality. Letters and words are ELEMENTAL CREATIVE FORCES central to making things happen.'

Yes.
I excavate back to the source
the unspeakable, inaudible vibrations
and what they tell us -
how we can express and connect
communicate and be changed by each other
this is it

'Poetry is uncontainable; and therefore dangerous, ignoring the established order. Poetry and freedom can't be separated. Poetry takes us places we might never have imagined we would go. Poetry can be incendiary, revolutionary, outside bounds and rules and systems.'

YES.
My life is poetry.

[same thing, just with a little additional context]

Writing to a friend, a fellow sound artist just back from recording the sounds made by his ears in a high-tech science lab in copenhagen:

'Ah dear, I remember that feeling so well - needing to plan things and being stressed about it all - but it feels a very long way away right now. Have done so much work in the past few weeks on 'letting go' and 'being present in the moment' that I seem to have achieved some kind of zen state of grace. It's really nice. I have no idea of my future beyond tomorrow - quite literally - but it's absolutely fine.'

Indeed it is damn fine. Although a few possibilities are taking shape, and if the German authorities look favourably upon my suit, I will be covering the Australian sculpture exhibition celebrating 400 years of connection between the Netherlands and our fine country, which is to be opened by Queen Beatrix and features a very glamorous artists ball.
Glad I brought my ballgown ;) Managed to get myself on the invites list, and supported by Robyn to write a piece for Real Time - she said, it's time you did some work girl - ah hell, I know! - but also that 'I really want to read some of you writing.' How nice. It was a friend at art school who told me he read everything I wrote as poetry. Hell, you should see my to-do lists. They're epic quests :)

Saturday, June 9, 2007

11:00 AM
Posted by jodi rose

I know, I know, I know.

It's a little embarassing, but kind of the only thing that made sense at the time. Wandered out of my medieval village life back to the modern world and found myself enjoying high speed wifi while sheltering from the storm at the Podium Mosaiek. Amazing ride home through thunder and lightning, giggling with glee. Finally got to use my Dutch yellow poncho.

The clouds are banking up again, looks like another night of wild weather.
Although I feel the storm in my life is about to break, mid-next week brings resolution on a few tenuous threads. And as for the rest, ah well, that's a whole other life. Have the sense of clarity about to shine through, and in the meantime, there are books, cats, people, rabbits and music.
More than enough to keep an artist-in-limbo occupied and happy.

On the professional front, a whole raft of new developments are in progress, but you know an old flatmate used to say: 'touch a fairy and the fairy dies' so I'm leaving them to grow wings in their bubble a little longer.

Wonderful influx of visiting artists and australians this month, going to see Robyn and her light sculpture in den haag next week, then aphids are doing their tiny percussion show there, and other visitors on the way.

What can I say? There is too much and too little going on to speak of.

Friday, June 8, 2007

5:51 PM
Posted by jodi rose

I am addicted to liminal states
in between worlds
the door always open to new possibility
nothing is fixed or definite
meaning slips lightly through my lips

Transmix rainbow cement
I don't need to find inspiration
simply sift through the fragments
let the story unfold between lines

it needs to be free form improvisational poetry
with space to breath and unfold and inhabit
so now to find my way into the cadences and rhythms
let the writing tell me how it wants to go
be still tune in and listen

something like a jazz novel through lived experience
I write my life as poem I live each day as poetry

Sunday, June 3, 2007

4:47 PM
Posted by jodi rose

'I am so accustomed to living on a metaphysical trapeze that I forget that other people tend to enjoy more solid ground.' *

yes.

*[from 'The Time Travellers Wife' by Audrey Niffenegger]