TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

  

VIEWING ALL POSTS FOR: SEPTEMBER 2008

Friday, September 26, 2008

10:39 AM
Posted by jodi rose

ahhhh gorgeous; the sun is shining into the boat, people drifting in for breakfast and out again to make final adjustments to installation and soundcheck on the canal boat for the first audio cruise... life continues it's inexorable flow...

Thursday, September 25, 2008

11:40 PM
Posted by jodi rose

ARCHIPELAGO - sound cruises

European Sound Delta is an travelling artistic residency that took place during summer 2008 : two boats simultaneously navigated upstream on the Rhine and Danube rivers from the North Sea and the Black Sea to finally meet in Strasbourg.

On board and in each of the stopover cities, thirty international artists were invited to record their sound environment (field recordings, interviews, electromagnetic and sub-aquatic spheres...) and to use the shared sound materials to compose pieces and produce live concerts along the itinerary.

At the end of this trip, a floating listening lounge is unfolding as an Archipelago of creations: embarked on a specially fitted sightseeing boat (a 3000 Watts 4.1 embedded sound system), one will discover there the 27 sound pieces created on board by the residents but also the 10 imaginary audio landscapes from some ten guest composers. These 7 cruises along the Strasbourg canals will each be punctuated by a live performance taking place in a different background each time. At the same time, on the "Nuits Electroniques de l'Ososphère"' site, the Mirror Ball installation will display visual documentation of the two parallel journeys...

ESD is therefore ending after 3 months on the water, a long vibratory cruise is echoing this finale along the sonic and aquatic waves of Strasbourg.

Full Details on the project : http://www.sound-delta.eu
Full program of the festival : http://www.ososphere.org
Join on Facebook : http://www.new.facebook.com/event.php?eid=79706835524#/event.php?eid=26026574109

Conception and coordination : Collectif MU (Paris-France)
Associated curators : Valérie Vivancos et Joachim Montessuis

PROGRAM

All departures: Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art embankment

Friday 09/26

** Openning cruise **
2.30 pm to 4.30 pm
with a concert of Aki Onda

** Concerts in the MAMCS Auditorium **
6.30 pm to 09.00 pm
with
Rainier Lericolais (France)
Christian Zanesi (France)
Phill Niblock (USA)
Katherine Liberovsakaya (Canada)

** Mirror Ball at Osophère main site **
10.00 pm to 04.00 am
video instalation of Vincent Voillat

Saturday 09/27

** Cruise 1 **
10.30 am to 12.30 pm
with a concert of Michel Guillet (France)

**Cruise 2**
01.00 pm to 03.00 pm
with a concert of Rainier Lericolais (France)

**Cruise 3**
07.00 pm to 09.00 pm
with a concert of Aki Onda (Japon-USA)

Sunday 09/28

** Cruise 1**
07.00 am to 09.00 am
with a concert of Michel Guillet (France)

**Cruise 2**
02.00 pm to 03.30 pm
with a concert of Michel Guillet (France)

**Cruise 3**
04.00 pm to 05.30 pm
with a concert of WPMG (Brazil-France)

FREE ACCESS on reservation (booking : rendezvous@ososphere.org)
Tickets out at the reception desk (MACMS embankment) 15 minutes before departure

Thursday, September 25, 2008

11:34 PM
Posted by jodi rose

We arrived in Strasbourg to a media frenzy - well, one tv station and two journalism students, still it was nice to have the new energy on board, when they met us at the port and final lock to sail into town. I'm barely coherent, it's been an intense 4 weeks, and the festival this weekend will make sure we finish on a high note.

I'm completely addicted to living on the water, being back on land will be so strange. Had the most wonderful journey from Mainz, we all got to drive, and I totally fell in love with steering the ship. It takes a lot of concentration, staying aware of the shifts in current, and keeping a steady course - all those seafaring metaphors come to mind - but is incredibly meditative. Having to navigate according to the river signs, left being right, in order to go straight you zigzag, just focusing on the next buoy and staying attentive to all the conditions around you, really helped me experience that whole being in the flow thing... feel like I understand a little more now about life and love. And that's all you can hope for in the end, to be present and appreciate every moment. Which indeed I do, but right now I am going to deeply appreciate a lot more sleep! Working on the archive in between concerts over the next few days, hope to get some semblance of the story up to share with you. It's impossible to keep up with everything, even moving at 6km an hour, the days go by so fast and are so full, there is no way to tell it all. Writing between the lines, I will try to be concise. Acting with intention, consequence, and being implicated are the keys to this week.

I love that expression - it's from Jerome, his quebec english has some lovely peculiarities, we were talking about travel and how different the experience is when you have a project or way to connect with people, and he said 'yes, it is good to be implicated'. Indeed. And I am.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

10:33 AM
Posted by jodi rose

we leave this morning for strasbourg, four days navigation and eveyrone onboard is part of the crew - how exciting; I learn to take the wheel!!

yesterday was perfect, woke up early, cleaned the kitchen; went for a walk, recorded the next bridge along - fantastic 18something train bridge with princess towers in the pylons, where people live. picked wildflowers on the way back, made scrambled eggs and coffee, had a hot shower, watched the river flow from the deckchair for a while, walked into town and had retail therapy at the goth/punk shop and oxfam - fabulous pirate fingerless gloves and mother-of-pearl cufflinks total 10 euro - worked on my sound piece some more, took another walk to the city with eve and phil, had another beautiful meal; finished the final mix and uploaded the track at 3am... love's pirate.

in a few minutes we set sail, and life takes a different rhythm again.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

6:37 PM
Posted by jodi rose

"If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun."
Katharine Hepburn -

Friday, September 19, 2008

12:31 PM
Posted by jodi rose

...apocalypse, now and then

resurfaced after the 12 days navigation from linz, almost with my sanity intact. the longest time I have been offline in as many years. writing this now before opening email, as I have a feeling that my life is now in complete chaos...but maybe it´s not so bad. Nicolas said, very helpfully last night, ah go another five days and you will be a completely different person, with a new life. Yes, I have almost forgotten what the internet is... such a strange concept, you can type words into a computer to people all across the world, and they answer you. Bizarre. Living a very zen life, every day is a new scenario, the constant change is kind of soothing in a way, drifting along between riverbanks and factories. We had a fabulous week of concerts in the locks between Reggensberg and Nurnberg, some of them 24.6m high, the largest in europe, apparently. Knut, Sarah, Dinah and Jean-Philipppe making various interventions and improvisations with the sound of the machinery singing as the boat goes down. I went to record the sweetest bridge we stopped nexto, during the three hours we spent in Frankfurt yesterday, and randmly met another bridge sound artist who was cycling over, he stopped and asked me áre those contact microphones? why, yes they are, he told me about the bridge composition and installation he has opening this weekend at the offenbach festival, where the boat was meant to be moored but events collided to make that impossible. So now we head straight to strasbourg. I am still in two minds about wether to stay after monday or not, have a ticket back to berlin and some semblance of sanity - perhaps - or else stay on board and take my chances with the sound art collectif. maybe they will adopt me and take me back to paris with them, although it´s all gone very french farce in the last few days... still, that´s an improvement on the totally feral week before. On the bright side, I have made 3 new compositions, and edited 2 versions of the performance in Linz, so at least it´s been productive.

What next, who can say? stay tuned....

Monday, September 8, 2008

6:35 PM
Posted by jodi rose

a calm reflective day, perfect after the mad maelstrom.
wandered around lentos kunstmuseum this morning, with curator talking about work, then found miha so had long chat with him about the process and performance - nice inside story there, that I can't go into now.
took a break from media art with a visit to the oskar kokoschka show upstairs, magnificent, decadent, degenerate art!!
the world is gently rocking under my feet whenever I stand still today, find myself swaying a little. guess that means I have my river legs.
back on the stream tomorrow morning, good bye from linz xx

Sunday, September 7, 2008

4:50 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Life in slow motion today.
The boat is tilting a little less, now eve and vince discovered a flood in the water tanks, excess pumped out and so far we're hoping for it to be a burst pipe and not a hole in the hull. Came back from a brief wander round Linz, to find the cosy family dealing with potential disaster - I love this tiny floating world so much, it's getting harder to deal with 'real life' out there, am being treated so well and have this great artist cocoon to inhabit. Checked out a few films in the animation festival - great spanish one with two bad granddaddies having a wheelchair race, almost to the death - randomly saw one of my favourite performances so far; the perfect human outside lentos, a tall lanky redhead in white scifi suit, dancing strangely while surrounded by old radios; dropped by the brucknerhaus where everyone lingering at the festival has the same glazed look in their eyes. Saw an excerpt of fabulous stop-motion animation, madame tutli putli, winner of the golden nica for film, gorgeous journey on a train to warsaw, chess game going on in the luggage rack above her, great atmosphere and characters, and the most beautiful eyes, real human instead of glass.

My very very favourite thing so far was the performance in the slovene night at lentos kunstmuseum, which I only found out later was by miha ciglar and his collaborating partner; with a fishbowl of soapy water, metal cable in his mout, creating a lovely glitchy and bleepy electronic music, with the most intriguing part being the body chemistry between the performers.; will have to upload video, it's a little hard to describe. Gorgeous, poetic, romantic, human... I love having the slovene crew to hang out with, they're totally divine. Have plans to join the slovene space program, which is apparently run by artists; according to another miha who is working with dragan on anti-gravity theatre and other cosmonaut projects. Of course the french are totally fabulous too, doing their usual mix of work and play with dedicated intensity, there is something admirable about being able to dive into life so hard and deep. I aspire to that level of immersion. Now it's all I can do to keep up with making the bridge recordings, being in the endless socialising and only just finding the energy for art administration. Letting quite a few things slide.... sorry anyone who's been inconvenienced by my sudden drop in signal. Had a cute conversation with Dragan, theatre director for the antigravity show - must find out the name - he said something about the bridge sounds and signals; and as I'm working with Aljosa (who collects all kinds of signal territories as his speciality), I got to say, "he's the signal, I'm the noise". which I was, another noisy bridge performance last night, on the boat, with fabulous luka and luka doing their magic; and signals from aljosa's collection along the danube; plus a special secret guest piece from fred, whose demented accordion composition worked beautifully along with the boat travelling into linz, which I recorded in the last ten minutes of our trip.

so, life isn't making any more sense; if anything it has become even more totally incoherent, the situation may be critical; then again it could be the light at the end of the tunnel making all those crazy patterns. We can only keep going and find out later where it was all leading. Am totally aware of just how lucky I am, to have this interlude from the world, moving in another element, at a different pace; everything changes. Even had my own personal particle accelerator at the beginning, left me stripped raw and transparent, after the fusion took place, it's a gift to have that kind of intensity, whatever form it takes or doesn't. I think that I'm becoming more the person I dreamed of being, although leaving fragments of myself everywhere along the way.

As Einstein said; I'd rather be an optimist and happy, than a pessimist and right. Or in the words of jane wagner:

"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool."

Monday, September 1, 2008

10:17 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Still in Vienna, meant to leave for linz early this morning but some problem with the oil for the boat meant we did circles on the danube for hours and ended up three bridges further along from where we started this morning. running on reserve battery power now; had a wander out to the millennium centre and taste of bright lights, sabrina was craving some less medieval life, but we may lose the antenna again any minute.
recorded another 3 bridges on sunday, with fabulous sound from eve and phil doing on-site percussion interventions; and unexpectedly beautiful piece from the jetski cables going round and round and round. chilled out at the vienna city beach bar afterwards, swimming and sand with a lounge groove dj, then one last bridge where joachim and gael spotted us from the water and picked us up for a ride in their motorboat to the next bridge along. lovely synchronicity.
zen time now, deep breath and back into the flow of river life.
more from linz when we arrive, hopefully on wednesday.