TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

lunes, abril 12, 2004

12:27 PM
Posted by jodi rose

Carrer de caputxes internet and phone place.

Finding my time here a little baudrillard, and a little italo calvino. Managed to miss the wailing easter parade completely - quite a feat in a city so full of signs and icons. But when you can´t read the signs, or understand the language and the icons have no meaning or reference point for you (not having the - dubious - benefit of any kind of religious upbringing at all), then it is all so much noise. My friends had gone out to the country on friday, to eat calzots - special spring onions with salsa - and not having a mobile number here, or any kind of plan to meet, we missed each other. Wandered around with the lovely peter, he showed me an amazing market square that is being rebuilt by the very famous architecture firm he was working for (enric miralles), and used to be a poor peoples market place but looking at the incredible mosaic over the entire roof, which is in three wavy curves, the rent is definitely going up.

It´s quite strange to have gone from this ultra connected, networked, technologically mediated experience in helsinki to a practically medieval state in barcelona - no phone line, no mobile, no computer at home, not even a clock - I only know what time it is when the cathedral bells ring on the hour from 8 or 9 am. But maybe that´s all giving space and time for reflection and filtering of the previous two weeks.

Thinking a lot about place, and borders, how you can cross them, how do you dis-locate and re-locate yourself in the world. Migration being one of the main issues globally today - check out zoe´s magnetic tape migration project, it is one I mentioned a few years ago website to follow - and coming from a privileged western country like australia, I guess there is a certain expectation that I can cross boundaries quite easily and be wherever I want to be. Finding out that this may not be the case, especially as border restrictions are getting tighter, all that biometric information which the US wants to force every country to collect on anyone crossing boundaries anywhere. Making interdisciplinary sonic nomadic lifestyle an interesting challenge. But then I am very stubborn and if there is a way I will find it - maybe make relocating myself an art project, then I could apply for funding.... ;)

Reading Invisible Cities: ´desires are already memories´, thinking about how you create maps to orient yourself in a place. For me as individual human beings it is about local knowledge, conversation, interaction with people in a place - we locate ourselves through communication with other people; satellite imaging and gps are all very sexy but unless you´re a pilot, sailor or taxi driver don´t seem to play much part in everyday life. Whereas Sanna telling you about the laundry with a sauna, that serves breakfast all day sunday, or finding directions to a friends house - go behind the cathedral, along montcaldo, past the picasso museum, over princessa (it´s a big street with cars) until you come to the square, turn left and if you can´t find my house, just shout: I will hear you. Pascal telling you about a great nut shop, chris and nigel walking you to the original churros place behind the teeming shopping street, people marking the location of the place you need to find on a map for you. This is how I position myself. I have also developed a fascination with ´transcultural mapping´on a personal level - how do people from different cultures and backgrounds express and receive love, what are the main areas of miscommunication, do you speak the same language, does it matter? I wrote a list of questions for some of the interesting people I have met this week, now just need to find the time and space and opportunity to start asking them. Love crosses borders.

Reading an article in Sunday´s Observer, by Mark Haddon (writer of the curious incident of the do in the night time, apparently a best seller for children and adults, one of the new ´crossover´fiction category)
he says:
"At 20, 25, 30, we begin to realise that the possibilities of escape are getting fewer. We begin to picture a time when there will no longer be somewhere else and far away. (we have jobs, children, responsibilities) And if many of these things enrich our lives immeasurably, those shrinking limits are something we all have to come to terms with... You´re stuck with who you are.. but use your imagination and even the most narrow humdrum lives are infinite in scope, if you examine them with enough care.
.. the book is about how little separates us from those we turn away from in the street. It´s about how badly we communicate with one another. It´s about accepting that every life is narrow and our only escape from this is not to run away (to another country, another relationship, a slimmer, more confident self) but to learn to love the people we are and the world in which we find ourselves."

NOOOOOO! I want to run away, I want more and different horizons and new experiences and unfamiliar language and sights and smells. I want to expand my boundaries and cross borders and be wild and crazy and free. I want more from life.

There was a post on the locative list, about a project similar to the workshop we had just done, taking place in Australia and promising to offer the 20 chosen artists a unique space for play and experimentation without defined outcomes. What struck me most about it was the incredible layers of hierarchy - there are 3 curators, 5 facilitators, one co-ordinating facilitator and an "Internationally renowned" artist there to make sure it is an important event. Somehow that seems to miss something about bringing people together and giving them space to play and experiment, it´s like you are trying to ensure that whatever happens will be momentous and charged with cultural significance - something I read as part of australia´s lingering cultural insecurity. We have to bring in an artist from "somewhere else" because just us doing it on our own isn´t quite enough. Whereas the european art world may be totally euro-centric, as someone pointed out, and it may seem obvious. Coming from a post-colonial discourse where there is a strong engagement with de-constructing the hierarchies of assumed cultural centres and who gets to assign value and wield authority, claiming that there are no margins or periphery, it´s all "centre" begins to seem a little wishful thinking.