TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

  

VIEWING ALL POSTS FOR: MAY 2007

Thursday, May 31, 2007

9:27 AM
Posted by jodi rose

... from the dust and ashes

this is a time of intense, radical transformation - but in gradual shifts.
absolutely everything is uncertain, up-in-the-air and out of my control.
it's surprisingly fabulous! really invoking a sense of peace, being still in the midst of complete chaos and finding unexpected layers of faith.
in myself, in the process of life, in the people who matter to me, in the creative work and community I have built over the years.

everything really does become very simple at some point. there is a logical progression of steps you can take, and beyond that - do you have food? shelter? friends? community? then you're more than fine.

despite there being absolutely nothing stable or definite or fixed about anything in my life (and I mean anything - location; home; career; relationships; creative work; finances; you name it) I have found a home in the world through the network of cultural nomads and fellow travellers, and learned to embrace stillnness in constant movement.

it feels like I have truly let go of the person I used to be. This is an in-between time. a liminal space of pure potential, where everything is unwritten (particularly the future), unformed and can flow in a multitude of directions. to experience the uncertain as a positive state, the unfixed and in-flux as a gateway to new paths and worlds.

a new way of being. to keep this pure atom of joy and certainty within the stillness of my heart, and find the strength to let it grow and unfurl. to know that everything I have ever longed for can be real. one needs to stay present and gently embrace it when it comes. Life as a series of journeys, with the transitions as important as the destinations.

To stay balanced and sure in the in-between. To enjoy confusion as much as lucidity. To hand suspended in the gaps between certainties and let our unknowns take us over. To really reach out to another human being with an honest pure connection in every fibre of our self.

now time to start imagining, dreaming and writing the next chapter.
i don't know who this new woman will be when the kaleidoscope settles into a new pattern, but already feel that I like her very much. She is like an uber-version of me - braver, stronger, more focused, confident, happier, with a clarity and courage I dreamed of long ago, a fierceness and passion for life, purity of heart, and faith surpassing anything I have believed in before.

So back to the reality of my days. They are a strange mix of comfort and quest; moving between cupcakes and coffee with james in his fabulous neukolln apartment, the bezirksamt bear painted in cheerful rainbow colours with cats and a girl in red dancing on the roof; packing up yet again all my belongings in the studio into suitcases; armenian yoghurt soup with jasmine and long afternoon tarot reading then searching for funding options to get her next project supported; meeting mari on her trip to cycle around berlin with a toy reindeer in a more managable version of the mikropaliskunta tour of finland; haydie telling me that the audio students in tampere are very familiar with my work; an old project possibility suddenly popping up unexpectedly in an email from my french journalist and peace activist friend; long rides by the canal watching the swans sail into the twilight; catching up on gossip with katie on our own private jetty; sending smoke signals through the ether; planning a fireworks elephant during visit to sophea's geographically distributed celebration of life; swapping bicyle seats after collecting the orange bike I abandoned on the search for tito's birthday party last week; enjoying a sudden surge of interest from old friends all over the world deciding to get in contact; making plans for the next round of residency/symphony/activity - finally.

something has clicked and the mental-emotional-creative axis is righted again, ready for a new phase of intense work and joy.

'Ideas you believe are absurd ultimately lead to success'
Bik Van der Pol 2007

(Copied from art magazine in boesner trip with isabel and on the wall of my studio providing inspiration in the darker moments and now find they have a 'nomads in residence' mobile studio for artists living workin and researching. yes, perfect)


I believe in love,
and I know that you do too.
I believe in some kind of path
that we can walk down me and you...

Nick Cave (Into my arms)

Yes, there is always a path. sometimes it takes time and effort to find it, others you just stumble through the undergrowth and there you are.

Monday, May 28, 2007

2:06 PM
Posted by jodi rose

I've had two responses to this writing in the past week, the first saying: 'I like that you don't explain everything', and the second 'more down-to-earth information please'. I guess for me the esoteric and oblique is necessary to protect both my own privacy and that of the people who are alluded to in these pages; while the sudden influx of highly theoretical content is actually directly related to the very pragmatic realiity of my day-to-day existence in ways that aren't necessarily obvious to anyone else. Maybe a pattern will emerge over time and these links will come to light, or else it will remain an opaque and uncertain experience. Which leads me back to the latest in high-end art/activist/radical/socialist theory from the frontline:

'taking time'
susan pui san lok talked poetically about how the word for 'day' in cantonese is also the word for sky and earth. working in performance with a chant to open up a space for the pre-recorded to transition into the live.

DIY ballroom dancing lessons, standardizing vocabulary and technique.
'Mobile Ballroom' invited anyone to 'dress up; show up and make the world your ballroom' at vauxhall station, London in peak hour. Beautiful video of people dancing to their own private music, amongst the harried commuters, one girl in a bright green charleston fringed dress, another in pink frilly ballgown. A space opened up for the amateur and spontaneous performance. Not having to be validated or given permission to declare one's right to take part in a particular act.
(in response to a comment about how the dancing was not 'ballroom' dancing as it is usually understood or experience or performed)

Leisure and leisureliness, countering or interrupting a space that is dominated by professionalism and commuters. The presence of the ballrooms dancers in this space was for some annoying, others amusing, and yet more ignored. It doesn't even register as an interruption, just another obstacle to walk around or shut out.

Rob Stowe talked about working with first year art students, trying to get some kind of purchase on moving from being this kind of person to that kind - the kind called 'artist', not 'teaching people how to be artists'. How do you get through the points from here to there?
The musical idea of 'portamento' one tiny movement in semi-tone.

A history of voices, fragments, producing the idea of an archive.
The only way you can be honest to an archive, to produce yourself as a speaking subject, is to maintain a nervousness, a sense of anxiety.

Once you 'think you know' all is doomed.
The uninfluential, delinquent, fallible...

How long does it take to make a work?
To become an artist?

The necessity of finding your own timing, your own rhythm.

A very long silence precedes the moment of speech. You don't know when that first mark will take place, that space between there being nothing and something, then something and something else.

Loss of control, letting go of control, standards, boundaries to create open spaces in which participation or performance is enabled. Not necessarily to valorise or take on the taks of validating one's own practice. The expectation to speak 'about' not alongside your work.

The blog as a form of it's own poetics. To produce yourself as a person (speaking subject) who doesn't know. Who is uncontrollable.
And because of that, you can find a libidinal power and joy. Happy if the work doesn't succeed, but produces a narrative effect between yourself and society.

To make some kind of gap in the urgency of cultural production.

Non-alignment as the 'to come', the condition of [what is] to come, that is not bound in identity, not bound in the accrument of identities and relationship to them. Temporal gaps, interruptions in the notion tof the 'to come'.

'Migrant Epistemologies'

Producing collective share knowledge based on lived experience.
That the desire and motivation to migrate is similar between transit workers and artists. The specifics are different, but in essence very close. 'They do lead a very precarious life, but they are always very well-dressed'. Social formation of an expanded belonging. How can you produce a knowledge that does not serve control?

* overnight break for some nice music from turkey, spain and russia *

I am starting to dream now possibilities for the future which were unimaginable before this moment.

'Urgent Thought'

1. hegemony
2. exhaustion
3. bologna

1. 'In order to understant our current social position: "You should turn your face violently towards whatever exists now." Don't think about what you want it to be, think about what IS. Only by thinking about 'what is' will you find certain strategies to overcome this disjuncture.
What you will see, most likely you will not like, hence the pessimism of the intellect, and the optimism of the will.
Whatever you do see, the reality which exists is not all powerful, there are spaces and fissures which allow for change - through the optimism of the will.

The actuality of the existing is never absolute, or fixed. These gaps and spaces allow for resistance. There is resistance where there is power.
Resistance already IS power in a different mode. As soon as you start to resist, your actions are already invested with power - so there is reason for optimism in the world.

If you turn your face to what exists, the recipe to get out of it will also be found there. You are in this mess; and finding the tools you need to get out of the mess are already there. A strategy which is not escapist starts from where you are. Doing the same thing, but doing it slightly differently. A shift in perception, rather than a radical revolutionary act. A revolutionary form of gradualism. Shifting the real step by step.

in the liberated redemptive state, everything will be the same but very slightly different. Instigating a minor change for me can be a whole lot of change for others. If we think about politics, not a revolutionary break, but through the process of realignment, small changes.'

2. exhaustion

'The limits to a culture of compulsive performativity. The pressure to perform and when it breaks down. What would it mean to resist the need to perform. Strategies of non-performance. What form of unwillingness, non-compliance, reluctance.. to not perform when you are asked to perform. Can we embrace these forms in our art and thinking? Does it take other people, a breakdown, to make you stop performing? When and how do you stop yourself? Utter the magic words: 'I can't'?

Do you ever feel you have been cheated?
Are there ways of confronting people with the 'I can't'. Other ways of putting it to work, by creating moments where meaning remains latent because you can't spill it out completely.

The logic of latency goes against the grain of a compulsive performativity. Leaving things unsaid, unshown, unrevealed; refraining from actualising and putting all things into your performance. Rediscover the power of latency. Art career and timing. In comedy, music, career timing is everything. You need to be at the right place in the right time. When is a good time to talk? Just in time, ready in no time at all...

Leaving space for interpretation and poetry.
Performance is pure porn.
You always have to be up for it, ready for anything.

We are living in times now when time is radically disjointed. Who is setting the time? Email, the constant pacemaker. That we all have to respond to in no time. However there is also a sense of power through creativity, that lies in the ecstatic moments of creative performance - adrenaline rush. To face up to your own potentials might be one of the most challenging tasks of your life, and your greatest responsibility.

The 'I can' is both empowered and indebted. The link between empowerment and debt is at the heart of creative performance.

How could we perform differently?
Freely?
How could we create a condition of unlimited performativity?
Restoring dignity to 'I can't' and performing differently.

Who cares?

You perform because you care. When you care for someone or something, this care means you must act because it is impossible not to. You will find that you can act, even when you thought you couldn't.

When you care, for yourself and others, you may have to turn down work. When you need to care for your friends, family or lover, this can constitute a reason to turn down the offer to perform. The 'I care' is a question of welfare, there can be the 'I care' leading to 'I can't'.

We are liberated - what we need now is a better life.

How do you want to live a better life - in a way that another form, another ethics, and another attitude to social care becomes possible.

***

I'll leave 'rethinking the art academy' and run off now to hear andrew's presentation on special embassies at bootlab.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

1:00 PM
Posted by jodi rose

notes from the road

escalating privilege meta-media caucus
discovered I am a 'self-authorizing artist'
which means 'to use a device against its manual'

and escalating privilege is an IT term for hacking into systems
exploiting the bugs to gain access to resources and permissions
that you normally wouldn't have. you can accept or challenge the notion of privilege, and maybe sometimes just ignore it completely. the borders are porous, although more for some than others.

woke up this morning to watch 'crossroads at the edge of worlds', a documentary by charles heller about the experience of sub-saharan transit migrants in morocco. extraordinary, powerful, sad, very real.

the notion of transparent vulnerability and inviting risk also came up.
being aware of the level of privilege you have but choosing to share it differently. not seeking to close all the gaps, but letting them open the possibility for a new relationship to power and access. is 'privilege for all' possible? could being deliberately vulnerable become a counter-concept for strategic engagement with the systems of power and control? Amplifying vulnerability. To become so open that it is meaningless to try and cross your borders... expose your privileges, to distribute them. We all live in precarity, jobs are not secure, nothing is for ever - what can you pick up and distribute from your position?

Intellectual strategies for vulnerability, instead of systems to reduce the known bugs or vulnerabilities, to consciously remain vulnerable.

"the essential philosophical task is never to consent completely to one's own evidences" quoted by the lovely jorella who happened to be sitting next to me, and our comments developed a nice flow and synergy.

***

All that intellectual stimulation followed by gorgeous evening, helped prepare food at Jacob's for his birthday, with Bjorn who was visiting from copenhagen - we met at JK's cd launch a few years ago. Had a great rave then, and last night very nice talking before the party started, about how you create a life of purpose and passion.

Wonderful chocolate chilli-con-carne with guacamole and fetta/yoghurt, and fantastic summer storms. Cycled over to find Tito's birthday party with Johan, a filmmaker who wanted to create the Serbian curling team as a documentary, and was very distressed to find there already is a team. They came last. Ah well. The party was over when we got there. Dropped into mr pong's to watch the end of round-robin ping pong, and then had to call it a night.

***

inspiration from DMT dansk musik tidssbaft article by brandon labelle:

"And with these, the sense of the world's concreteness, irreducible, immediate, tangible, of something clear and closer to us: of the world, no longer as a journey having constantly to be remade, not as a race without end, a challenge constantly having to be met, not as the one pretext for a despairing acquisitiveness, not as the illusion of a conquest, but as the rediscovery of a meaning, the perceiving that the earth is a form of writing, a geography of which we had forgotten that we ourselves are the authors." Georges Perec, Species of Spaces.

***

And today's last words are from Bjork on her latest album:

Wanderlust

I am leaving this harbour
giving urban a farewell
it's habitants seem too keen on god
I cannot stomach their rights and wrongs
I have lost my origin
and I don't want to find it again
rather sailing into nature's laws
and be held by ocean's paws

Wanderlust!
relentlessly craving wanderlust
peel off the layers
until you get to the core
did I imagine it would be like this
was it something like this I wished for
or will I want more?

just for comfort
suffocates the soul
this relentless restlessness
liberates me
I feel at home wherever
the unknown surrounds me
I receive it's embrace
abourd my floating home

Wanderlust!
from island to island
Wanderlust
united in movement
Wonderful
I enjoy it with you

Wanderlust!
can you spot a pattern?
relentlessly restless
restless relentlessly

Bjork 2007

***

I used to think was this what I wished for
but now I have found the clarity to know
that this is already more than I could have imagined.

Friday, May 25, 2007

11:11 AM
Posted by jodi rose

Attended the opening of Summit - non-aligned initiatives in education culture - last night, with inspiring ideas and questions about strategies for creating a new space to imagine the future; through confusion to clarity.

Some random notes:
to disturb the mechanics by which authority operates - with a slight delay or distortion.. to perform something, a dramatic laboratory that calls into question all that exists. 2 weeks before the next G8 summit deliberately - not to protest or lament; we feel the urge and desire to open up new fields. an impossible declaration and action plan.

open source radical activism, not satisfied by wikipedia or the button of creative commons. free knowledge is more than just free ingredients.
a new configuration of the self.
struggle against privatisaiont/capitalism of knowledge production - leave behind a common notion of individual mastery.

forget the eternal lamennt of how bad things are - how beauracratic, homogenised, underfunded etc etc

self organised and self authorised

eduction becomes a site of odd and unexpected comings together
congregate around promise of a subject, an insight, a creative possibility. a community propelled by desire and curiosity.

coming together in curiosity we then don't have to come together in identity. Potentiality and actualisation. The idea that there might be with us endless possibility, that we might never be able to bring to fruition. (gorgeous that makes me so much happiers!!)

To formulate our own questions, as opposed to those posed to you.
those who formulate the questions, perform the playing field.

Room for imagining another way of thinking, so we don't use up our energy in oppositional thinking, but imagining another way.

[This reminds me of what someone once told me about the Vietnamese idea of time. Past, present, future. The past is not behind you with the future coming up ahead, as in western thought. The past is known, it can be seen in front of you, and rearranged through memory and story. The future is coming at you from behind, and is unknown. The only moment you can possibly influence or change is the present. Be now!]

Education can be the release of our energies from what needs to be opposde to what can be imagined.

An experiment in collective self-inauguration.
The intimacy of distance and the patience of disagreement.

Historially, non-alignment explicitly refuses the bi-polar division between US/Russia, capitalism and communism, and denounces the nuclear threat. (1955 and 1961 Non-alignment movement)

This moment becomes every part a jumping off point to all those struggles. Oscillating between an inoperable history and a present becoming future without ever reaching equilibrium. A past potential future.

Some futures that were crushed, halted, or shut down stay with us. We are haunted by the shadows of those futures that did not come into being. They are with us as shadows that cast themselves across us.

Intimate with a defeated radicalism and a defeated future. No language to elucidate yearnings that exceed the desires of resisteance and a defeated radicalism. The exile of our longing for a non-sacrificial freedom. We feel ourselves to be at the dead end of the utopian imagination. That we live in a time at which the utopian imagination is not feasible. Potential of ideas has been captured by capital. The effective register of our relationship to the future has been shifted from utopia to fear without end. [ah, but hugo is building mini-utopias!]

Begin tentatively to imagine acts of a creative sabotage of the future.

To imagine a future outside the boundaries of property.

We learned something in this confusion, where our heads are spinning so fast, come moments of clarity. Focus on unexpected, unforseeable, non-directed. Creative situtations so unexpected they can produce something new. We want to confuse in order to open doors, to create something new.

***

Lovely. That was my mash-up of all the speakers, you can read them in a far more coherent form on the OPENING NIGHT summit site.

It's amazing to be in a moment where life is so completely up in the air. Nothing is fixed, nothing is known, nothing is certain. I love it.
Had a moment of despair yesterday, when retracing my steps still couldn't locate the missing dates and times of my past few months.
Dropped around to see James, he was watering roses on the balcony, made me vodka with passionfruit, lime and tonic, and helped fill out the first of my many forms. Easy, after all. This morning had a call from the official to make an appointment for the next stage, where I hilariously said absolutely everything you never want to say to a German official, but had him chatting and laughing by the end.

Stayed in Andrew's spare couch in his borrowed flat on Pappalallee.
Woke up to mango juice, turkish coffee and stories read to me.
It is possible to be anywhere in the world and be at home, with friends, food and community. I'm in love with my life again. It's fabulous.

You throw yourself into the ocean wholeheartedly, body and soul. Then at some point, you just have to let go. Let the waves wash over you, the sun warm you, feel the sand between your toes and the winkd across your skin. What remains is clarity. I crave the ocean today.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

2:06 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Meanwhile, the following radio broadcast and concert will feature some old and new work, from the Bridge Guard Diary to the Global Bridge Symphony in collaboration with composer Michael Bates.


Trans Europe
Sunday 27 May 2007
ABC Radio 8.35PM

Transcend Europe's real and imagined boundaries in a program which crosses a series of bridges to evoke an always connected landscape.

How have these bridges - which link histories, cultures, identities - been maintained for so long? What's lost in translation between languages and time zones? What exists between three generations of women living worlds apart? Travel with us through Trans Europe in The Night Air.


Spectrum 03
3 concerts of electroacoustic & contemporary music
24-26 May, Meat Market - North Melbourne

Free admission to all concerts

Spatial sound concerts featuring performances by SIAL staff, post-graduates and guests. This year's program includes new works from composers and sound designers working in the Studios, a feature concert of chamber music by Karlheinz Stockhausen, and electroacoustic works recasting the soundscape of urban environments.

Concert 1 : From the SIAL Sound Studios - Thursday 24 May 8pm
Works and performances by SIAL Sound Studio researchers.
New works by Adam Yee, Jeffrey Hannam, Kristian Elkholm, Scott Brewer Nicholas Murray. Performance by Michael Fowler (keyboards/electronics), Timothy Constable (percussion) & Tristram Williams (trumpet/electronics).

Concert 2 : Stockhausen concert - Friday 25 May 8pm
Performances of Der Kleine Harlekin, Aries, Vibra Elufa, Komet, Drachenkampf & Tanze Lucefa. Presented by guests, staff and post-graduates who have collaborated with Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Michael Fowler, synthesizer ; Karen Heath, clarinets ; Stuart Gerber, percussion ; Tristram Williams, flugal horn; Ben Marks, trombone.

Concert 3 : Auditory City - Saturday 26 May 6pm
Electroacoustic works influenced by the soundscapes of eight cities - exploring ideas of memory, demolition, absence, desertion and ghosts. Curated and presented by Lawrence Harvey on SIAL Sound Studios' 40 speaker sound diffusion system. Works by Diego Garro, Steve Law, Hildegard Westerkamp, Lawrence Harvey, Jodi Rose, Justin Bennet and Peter Holmes.

Spectrum 03 is supported by RMIT University, the Australian Research Council and Arts House City of Melbourne.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

2:02 PM
Posted by jodi rose

yes the strange opening hours and multi-lingual forms required for ongoing happiness of life have sucked me into a vortex of bezirksamt and anmeldung odysseys. guess it's time to step up to the plate and take the next round like a woman. misplaced my diary yesterday - the one I write appointments and travel times in - and I feel completely lost. Like having part of my brain removed. Retracing my steps in hope it will appear and unmelt all my synapses which have fused together while spinning out of control. Life just gets stranger and more complex every day. Hoping it will simplify again soon and good things happen.

That's all for now, time to go meld with the bezerkers.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

11:19 PM
Posted by jodi rose

ok, this is getting ridiculous, I now have the keys to not one, not two, not three, but FOUR bicycles. just acquired Hugo's fabulous red dutch bike for 30 euro, and I'm not giving that one up, it's a keeper. Govinda's black and red mountain bike will have to go back to Katie once her knee heals, and the pink one I left in Ines and Ed's back yard in Bos en Lommer until I return to Holland. The fourth is only half mine and is a lovely purple waiting on the magic driveway at sloterdijk.

so even though I'm from some perspectives you could now say I was homeless, destitute and unemployed at least I have transport!! And from another angle life is filled with abundance and possibility.

and hey, life is art it life is art is life... or so they say.

gorgeous evening by the spree, chatting with james and florian and ben about 19th century portraiture, architecture and bridges (funny that)
with promises of introductions to some excellent bridge architects.

today was dealing with beauracrazy in it's absence - the place I need to go is closed on wednesdays and still have many forms to fill out and letters to translate. It can either take a day or a month, depending on who you talk to. At least that gives me some leeway in the eternally evolving life-plan. People keep asking: 'how long are you staying?'
It's one of those existential questions really. I know how long I would LIKE to stay, and where, but somehow this is not up to me. The ultra-zen state slipped for a while today into maelstrom of art chaos but seems to have returned now.

Professional life is catching up with me too - concerts and features and profiles galore. Very insane time juggling all these different realities.

Time to go see Jasmine DJ and let the world take care of itself.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

2:57 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Arrive to a surprisingly warm evening, spring has reached Berlin at last.
The apartment is even more spartan then when I left, although tanya and ben deliver an airbed so at least it's not the floor this time. The glamour.

Meet Andrew at Hermannplatz in the morning, and finally get to meet the fabulous Miss LeBomb also. We bond over the genius of Paul Vervhoeven, and her doodle gallery, with plans to visit a 30's bathhouse in neukolln on sunday and hear a danish sound artist friend of hers play next week. Stories from Andrew of the nomadic artist's space he has just helped set up in Istanbul, based on the traditional Karavanserai. A place for nomads to rest, refresh, eat and exchange ideas, songs, experiences and nourish each other before returning to the road. 'We made it for you, Jodi, there's streaming wireless and a fabulous bridge, the bosphorous which is already lit up at night with crazy LED's'. Me: They definitely need it to sing, who do I call?!?

Suddenly life has gone back into hyper-drive, am hoping the nice relaxed zen state I've achieved over the past two weeks will last until the end of the day, at least ;) Hugo is talking about his 'informal architecture' at the DAZ tonight - he wanted to build a 'realistic utopia' that could add something beautiful to the everyday world, and has this gorgeous fold-out green-stripey contraption on wheels, that contains a chair and awnings, which he sets up in various places and films people interaction. Apparently a bunch of punks walked off with it in F'shain, tore up some of the canvas to wear as skirts - he was thrilled!

Tomorrow is the 'little babylon' transit lounge exhibition/party.

Miyuki wrote to let me know that the Bridge Guard Radio Diary is finally going to air this Sunday, as part of the Trans Europe program she made for The Night Air. So tune in or download!

And the Global Bridge Symphony (in progress) is part of the 'Auditory Cities' program on a 40 speaker diffusion system at SIAL in Melbourne.

Now for a final moment of respite compiling 'songs for the road' after my rail listening experience, before going out to deal with life again.

Monday, May 21, 2007

12:53 PM
Posted by jodi rose

cleaning packing final moments
leaving this safe haven for a beauracratic performance art piece in berlin
looking forward to six hours on the train daydreaming out the window
will miss those sweet sweet stroop waffles
x

Sunday, May 20, 2007

11:41 AM
Posted by jodi rose

'Aichaku is the Japanese word for the emotional attachment one can feel for an object or artifact. That deserves affection not for what it does, but for what it is.' Based on an extreme form of Shintoism, which teaches that every object is alive, and has a spirit; paper, trees, rocks, buildings, bridges! even bicycles.

John Maeda, Simplicity

This is exactly what I'm feeling for both *my* bicycles. Although one of them is shared, I'm allowed to love it.
Painted the first purple and the second 'mystic violet' which is a kind of metallic dusky pink. That's the one I rescued from the canal - where it was definitely abandoned, despite what threes anna says! There's just something about it that makes me happy. The curve of the frame where you step through, the simplicity of having no gears or handbrake, the shape of the handelbars, all give it a very cheeky and fun spirit. I'm taking it back to ride in berlin, much to the amusement and surprise of my friends here.

Tickets booked and trains to catch. It's been so lovely having a break from constant movement and non-stop art. Although we did manage to fit in quite a few experimental improv dance performance and music gigs, in between lounging around reading and going to dinner with various people. Having Philippa here was incredibly grounding and rejuvenating, exactly what we both needed. I didn't manage to write 'properly' every day, but have new energy and focus, and lots of notes.

The last two weeks have also provided a much-needed respite from the world, retreating into simplicity and sunshine with no obligations or responsibilities. Not sure how long I can keep the 'present-in-the-moment' vibe going once I get back to the maelstrom of life. It's so delicious I will gently work on staying in that state, being as free of expectation and ego and desire as is possible, while fully engaged and involved. Tricky.

The idea of 'choiceless awareness' is one I'm liking now. From 'The Invitation', where Oriah talks about 'the difficult choices we make, and how if we can be still enough with what is in our hearts we find the place of choiceless awareness called 'Chui-ta-ka-ma' by the Native Americans. Where it is clear which choice is a choice towards life, and where we can make no other.'
I have floated into this sense of incredible clarity and calm, and hold that in my heart with the hope that it can light the way out of confusion for others too.

a few words from Bob:

Hey Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me, I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship...

I'm ready to go anywhere,
I'm ready for to fade
Into my own parade,
cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it...

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky
with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea,
circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate
driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

2:32 AM
Posted by jodi rose

letting go...

letting go...

letting go...

or

free fall through featherless flight

'an artist's life is bright and gay
she lives on air from day to day
.. but always there are dreams

the dream that fame will come some day
and love is never far away
she wishes too for herself and you
that dreams may all come true.'

(quotes from song lyrics by graham lowndes; 'free fall through featherless flight' classic jeannie lewis album)

saw the most incredible performance tonight by a singer trained in both hawaiian hula and butoh. my god what that woman could do with her voice. shivers.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

12:31 AM
Posted by jodi rose

Philippa arrived on Saturday from London to watch Eurovision with me, and share the remarkable good fortune of a comfortable house with a fine bath. After the excitement and disappointment of the finest pop culture europe has to offer - realised we could vote, oh my god the exhilaration - so each sent an sms for Ukraine, and were devastated when they came second.

We've settled into a rhythm of long walks, writing and exploring the city. Today she took me to her favourite places along the nine streets, paying homage to the popular design mecca of hema, before rampaging through h&m, the atheneum bookstore and a truly wonderful hand made shoe shop across the road from the brightly coloured mexican design kitsch palace which is home to my dream panniers. Silver with Frida Kahlo-esque flowers sprawling over them. Gorgeous.

We've been talking a lot about the shift from one kind of lifestyle to another. Something more soulful and present, being deeply engaged with life. Rich in spirit rather than cash - which comes easily to some of us ;)

I skimmed the pop psychology book 'excuse me your life is waiting' to find the main idea about vibrations somehow familiar. Resonating at a higher frequency. Consciously and with intent. Have read a similar concept in Sufi mysticism, and some pagan writings. Right now the pink bakelite switch Tiki gave me at our last session has become a glowing lighthouse. Beacon of pure energy beaming out into the world with slowly sweeping rays lighting the path across the rocks.

Refining the process of seeking guidance and help from wherever. You can ask and ask, but need to actually recognise it when it arrives and receive it.
Like the man in the flood, sitting on the roof of his house while the waters rise. Someone comes past in a boat and says: 'Hey, hop in!' and the man replies 'No, I'm waiting for God to save me.' The boat putters away and the water starts lapping at his feet. A little while later, a helicopter flies over, with a ladder dangling down within reach of his fingers 'Climb aboard', the pilot calls. 'Thanks, but I'm waiting for God to save me', replies the man again. He drowns, and strangely goes to heaven. Where he asks God, 'Why didn't you save me?'. God sighs in exasperation and says: 'Well I sent a boat and a helicopter, what more do you want?'

On my morning walk along Erasmusgracht I see a white bicycle abandoned in a waterlogged wooden boat. Next to it is a floating birds nest, with two tiny chicks and the round black mother with red beak accepting another twig from the papa bird. That would make a great photo, I think, the bicycle in the boat. Walk a few steps further, turn back, and think - actually, that would make a great bicycle! So I continued around the park and as it was still there when I returned, decided it really was meant for me. Pulled it out, half drowned, the handlebars caught on the rim of the boat, then almost knocked the poor birds out of their nest as it swung round. Finally managed to lever and haul the bike up next to me on the grass, where upon closer inspection it had one completely frayed tyre, but was otherwise intact, and seemed to pedal smoothly. It's exactly the kind I was dreaming of, an old-style dutch step-through with backpedal brakes and no gears. The essence of simplicity. Walked into the house and said: 'Philippa, God has sent us a bicycle!'. She had the tyre fixed and is out now gallivanting around the city on it.

There's some definite synchronicity going on here. Walked into Philippa's old work studio after saying 'we need to find someone with a boat', and her colleague said, 'Let's catch up on Thursday, I'll call a friend with a boat to take us around the canals.' Spooky! Even more than Berlin. Now if God would just send me $50,000....

Very much enjoying the down-to-earth life I have here.
Yesterday I scraped the rust of my borrowed bike, after I learn to change the tyre last week, and then painted it purple. Leaving the remains of the old crest intact.
Then dug the moss out from between the glass on the new windows for the van, and cooked 'surprise chef!' in the kitchen. Emer used to love that game whenever she came over to my house. Shell pasta with spinach, tomato, garlic, onion, mushroom, courgette and blue cheese. It was ok, not nearly as strange as some of my Slovakian bridge guard meals, and perfectly filling.
Watched 'The Station Agent' for atmosphere, and some very macabre, but funny French animation.

This evening Sara took me out for dinner, told me about her trip to Slovenia, and discussed the vagaries of creating a life that can be both mobile and grounded. Talked about the intensely present and yet completely suspended state I'm in now. Couldn't have got to this point without breaking down, falling apart, and letting go completely through the time in Berlin, and now starting to see how the path unfurls before me. Walking home tonight along Haarlemerstraat I noticed a familiar sparkling colourful display of lollies, and realised I had found the papabubble shop. Bizarre juxtaposition of old life and new, being a lollygirl in previous incarnation, and proximity of close friends in another time and city. Made me a little teary.

'How long have you been here?' asked a friend last Thursday. I honestly couldn't remember. 'Years', I replied. It feels like it. Checked my diary and it was exactly a week. Lizzie wrote to me about a dream she had which captures this mood and sense of time.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

10:41 AM
Posted by jodi rose

Somehow it seems I manage to do just enough tweaking to keep a professional life afloat. Amidst the endless angst and existential musing. Lucky I don't have a 9-5 job or this would all be impossible. A personal life however, is another matter entirely. But let's not go there.

Listening to Piaf who gives a nice mix of jaunty chanteuse, tortured outcast to a Saturday morning - ahhh mon dieu, just this once - Bravo! Her songs have a particular resonance for me, having seen my wonderful ungodly godmother Jeannie Lewis singing them when she played the role in the Pam Gem Musical 'Piaf: The Songs and the Story'. Mum took me to Melbourne to see her when I was about twelve, there is a very cute photo of us, Jean and Cathy in front of the piaf poster, I look 12 going on 24 with rolled up jeans, a stripey velour top, and desperate to grow up. How things change...

I'm reading a book about simplicity - called, funnily enough 'The Laws of Simplicity' so far, in relation to technology, life and jazz drumming. The author, John Maeda confesses to having been responsible for artwork that led to those spinning flashing things all over the internet and apologises early on for this. He talks about the rhythm of simplicity and complexity, how the counterpoint and phrasing between them keep life interesting, and indeed bearable. Which makes sense, it's impossible to be complex all the time ;)
Some days you really do need to just feel the earth beneath your feet and watch the clouds drift by. Preferably with a cuppa tea and nice conversation.
Which all explains a lot (to me anyway) about these last few months. So in need of some downtime. Balance balance balance. Caught up with a friend last night - Christina - who I originally met in Helsinki, on the beach of Uunisaari Island for the private sauna at the end of ISEA, and bonded over the following years Pixelache. She's now living in Amsterdam, and asked 'how do you manage to relax, traveling so much? You're never 'at home'. Yes indeed. Tell me about it.

Although this last week comes closer than anything I've experienced in a long time, even back in Australia. But that's another story. A quiet night on the couch with the cat and a video certainly helps calm that frenzied tone that life can build into. Last night it was Marjoleine Boonstra's 'Haven: Roaming Through the Night', a gorgeous melancholy documentary about the industrial port area of North Amsterdam. Right near where I've been staying. Wonderful characters, who all inhabit the harbour in various ways; the English woman who cleans and looks after the old russian submarine (now a party venue), the night watchman for the boats, a dinghy worker responsible for mooring the huge ships, the striking looking woman who lives inside the old dock. As their stories unfold you have a sense of these incredibly hard lives, told with so much humour, grace, and love that their poetry and dignity resonate deeply.
The whole 'living outside society' thing, being slightly able to counteract the forces of capital-status-money and survive somehow. Very inspiring and atmospheric.
With a beautiful soundtrack, with a subtle mix of haunting music and water/boat sounds.

Which takes us to this morning. Almost enticed into lying in bed for another few hours looking at the trees. It is Saturday after all. But no, Philippa arrives this afternoon and there is my favourite market on prinsengracht to go find bread cheese fruit vegetables.

A final word from John on blogs and simplicity:
'Like most blogs, it has been a place where I have shared unedited thoughts that represent my personal opinions on a topic about which I am passionate. I discovered that the readership resonated with the topic that underlies it all: my struggle to understand the meaning of life as a human technologist.'

Indeed, I can only hope. Really is time for some editing and coherence. Give me strength.

And a last final word from Piaf:

No je ne regrette rien.

xx

Friday, May 11, 2007

3:03 PM
Posted by jodi rose

The cats and I have snuggling down to a fine art. Although Malika (the pretty golden Egyptian one) sleeps on the bed and eats inside, while 3-pot (who really does have only three legs and a cute squashy face with half-white paws) eats outside and sleeps on the couch, with a tendency to hiss when they're in the same room.

There's something very calming about hanging out with cats. Do nothing but snooze and purr all day. Lovely.

While I'm really working on this bohemian lifestyle. Yes, although excruciatingly aware that I should be at least attempting to spend my time more productively - writing grant applications, somewhat coherent folio pieces for freelance work, composing, negotiating, follow-up networking - it's all I can do to unravel myself from the covers after watching the rain for hours, run a bath and make breakfast.

Sometimes you do find the quickest way between two points is the least expected path. The one where you meander with seeming lack of intent vaguely towards some undefined point which turns out to be in fact the best way to get there. Which, as my friend noted was a little circuitous and 'just like me'. 'What?', I asked, completely inept, but trying anyway?' 'Well, that too... No, you have a flat tire and start working on the handlebars.' Ah yes, that. Sideways not highways.

It reminded me of the Scottish fairy tales I read in Glasgow last year, where someone wandering along the woods is deciding which path to take. The sunny, easy-looking way along a gentle hill with flowers and butterflies quickly turns into a torturous winding descent into rocky hell; while the steep difficult road strewn with obstacles and thick bracken, eventually opens out into a beautiful meadow. The third path may have been abduction by the fairy queen to her land, returning after only a minute to find seventy years have passed and you have been forgotten by all.

Cheery, those Scots.

Now I'm attempting to collect some Dutch phrases; and if not any fairy tales yet at least I do have an old joke.
Finished 'My 'Dam Life' by Australian writer Sean Condon, who claims the phrases 'he has a silver roof' and 'sleeping with the bicycles' refer to a heavy mortgage and being taken care of by the Dutch mafia into a canal, respectively. Although the one Dutch person I've polled had never heard of them, he thought they were worthwhile inventions.

Last night's gem was from the band leader Martin, a dapper man with trimmed silver mo and a gorgeous 1926 pearl-inlaid banjo who apparently introduced one song with; 'If the clarinet and tenor saxophone duo doesn't bring a tear to your eye, you can f#&*g leave now'. 'What's the definition of serendipity?' I don't know. 'Looking for a needle in a haystack and finding the farmers daughter.' Aha. It was that kind of crowd.
Very cute old-style pub outside Lieden (half an hour from Sloterdijk) with a magnificent assortment of old tools brass instruments, coffee grinders, kitsch paintings, billiard trophies, old mugs, wooden implements... and cows in the paddock next door.

The band played New Orleans meets Dixieland jazz, working up a nice swing to the evening, and the over 70's crowd was warm, enthusiastic and beautifully turned out. I chatted with a couple of musicians who played the month before and had wry insight into the ego/agenda clashes of their band (which had just broken up after the gig); another distinguished gentleman pianist with cigar did his best to stroke my cheeks and flatter me with completely over the top admiration, from which I was luckily rescued by a friend with the house special for dinner - outisje? - dark rye toast with a slice of cheese and fried egg mmm delicious. The final story of my evening was unexpectedly intense, as someone started chatting to me in Dutch, and when I apologised that I spoke only English, told me about his year living in Singapore and another in Guinea. On the KLM flight out in 1951 or 57, the pilot flew straight into the ocean, and of 160 passengers, this man was one of the ten survivors. He laughed, and said 'Do you know why I survived?' 'No', I replied, horrified and intrigued. 'Because I asked to be seated next to the hostess. I like being near a pretty girl on a flight, and so we were in the back of the plane. When the tail broke off on impact with the water, we floated long enough to be rescued.' My god. At which point I had to leave. But I thanked him and we took a moment to reflect on still being alive, fifty years later. My Grandfather would have loved that story, he was a geography professor and traveled the world extensively in the fifties, largely (on his own admission) to admire the pretty girls. Ah men.

Still, there are plenty of beautiful people here to admire, the Dutch being on the whole ridiculously tall and good-looking. As Mr Condon points out repeatedly.
It kind of makes you feel exotic I guess :)

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

12:54 AM
Posted by jodi rose

We drove into the service station and there it was.
A sign that promised not only an autopoet, but a poetmaschine as well.

Earlier today I saw a restaurant advertising 'Confusion Cuisine'. Wonderful.

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

12:52 AM
Posted by jodi rose

Last night I dreamed about tiny jars of vegemite in a wooden rack, but when I looked closer they were all empty. Something Australian fading away?

Certainly being in Amsterdam has meant leaving the Aussie posse behind in Berlin. No more escalating squeals of conversation as the enthusiastic pitch rises above anything the Germans are murmuring.
Kept getting in trouble with Joni on our night of multi art openings, for screeching and being ridiculous. But hey, sometimes you need to and that art scene was waaaay too serious.

It's such a relief, the last week has been the closest to 'normal' I've had in a long time. And that's saying something, when it started with a mad journey into neptune's haven, included picking up and delivering a white piano; a lounge-room chi gong session; a trip to einhdoven - the netherland's most criminal city, which is about all it has going for it apart from various philips cultural activities - where I met ambient experience innovation designers and ate fabulous spanish figs and turron (almond halva); then back to my friend's sunny driveway and a long time drifting by reading 'dream brother' on the couch (a bio of tim and jeff buckley, fascinating, sad, nitty gritty of inspiration and life as a musician); until moving to egidiustraat in bos en lommer. Having fun with the Dutch language, it sounds weirdly close to english at times, and the pronounciation never fails to amuse me. Hence a hideous street. Anyway.

There is a fabulous venue around the corner called mosaik, and the erasmus park at the end of the street beckons on the next sunny day. My new apartment (for the next two weeks) is completely plush and filled with every mod con, including a pepper grinder with a push button mechanism that defeated my dexterity for a good five minutes or so.
The lounge room features a lamp made of sunglasses and bookshelves that look like stacks of books piled precariously against the wall, until you read closely and find the bottom book is the shelf. Also a white perspex table that glows from within, and a jigsaw globe. The most exciting thing about it though, is Philippa coming to visit for the Eurovision Final on Saturday. Planning a small drinks gathering with my friends here, who seem to be accumulating by the minute. It's wonderful. Definitely feels more like 'home' than anywhere I've been floating lately.

Having been existentially fraying for some time, it's very nice to finally unravel enough to find an end. To what end, who knows?

The musical education is nice, slowly working my way through a friend's incredibly thorough and esoteric collection. Singing Drums (Pierre someone), Herbie Hancock, Tom Waits, John Zorn, Steve Reich, Tony Williams, Sun Ra, Zappa and so much more... Sadly the magic driveway has been a little sodden of late, and work on the big yellow bus goes slowly. Very much enjoying the atmosphere of dedicated hard work and focus that goes into this DIY life though, it's a nice grounding moment after so much conceptual experimental this and that.

Working on my own innovation strategies and ambient design, and I now have an elephant!

Thursday, May 3, 2007

2:50 PM
Posted by jodi rose

I woke up this morning on the 17th floor of a high-rise apartment where the only green is on the walls of the endless corridors... and now sit typing looking out at oak trees, gently swaying dandelion flowers and a grassy verge on the other side of the freight train tracks. ah bliss.

Sent a few demented e-cards from the machine at Gate A13 of Berlin's Tegel Airport just before boarding the plane at 8am. In transit... to another world was definitely the most prophetic.

What a place to land. Wonderful ramshackle cottage with bright orange door frames, Indian posters, and the wildest collection of drumming-figure toys I have ever seen. Everything you could imagine needed to unwind the springs of tension after relentless activity in too many small cubes; and recover or completely unravel from existential fraying, art overload and crisis over direction and purpose in life.

Sunshine in the driveway, parked myself next to the most beautiful van in the world - bright yellow, dilapidated merc with rivets and woodstove; met the cats - one peering from an upstairs window, the other who eyed me suspiciously for all of ten seconds then stretched langorously for me to scratch her belly; coffee, oranges, and freight trains. what more could a girl need?? My host is out inspecting a xylophone somewhere in den hague, and neptune's harbous is opposite. The area is a great mix of industrial and super-peaceful, about twenty minutes bike ride out of amsterdam, and already I can feel a week of reading and writing unfurl before me. sheer joy.
Bring on the ice-cream!

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

9:35 PM
Posted by jodi rose

it's been a steep learning curve the past few days, finally getting my head around the ftp process for archive.org and doing all the boring metadata necessary to upload the pixelache conversations.

today I went down to the mayday festival in kreuzberg, checked out a few punk and hip-hop bands on various stages, but decided to leave before the riots began. these guys from the famous impromptu concert in the paris metro were singing on adalbertstrasse where i'd left my bicycle, and being filmed by a professional crew along with half the crowd on their mobile phones or digital cameras. decided to upload it too just for fun. although as you can see, video really isn't my thing!

mayday street concert

also put the process of isabel sweeping the cellar, and ping pong game between jasper and kenzee up on transitradio on the 'underscore' page.


then reading the comments in the original 'naturally 7' performance, found this Washington Post article about a world famous violinist who played for an hour at a washington DC metro station, and precisely seven people out of 1,103 stopped to pay any attention or listen to his playing.

Yes indeed there's no time for random beauty on the streets in this world. art and beauty need a context and a frame to be appreciated, is the summary of the article, which made me really sad. if you have to be told how important and valuable something is in order to appreciate it, well that leaves you wide open to all kinds of mediocrity. when heart-stopping beauty is around us every day if we only notice it.