TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Sunday, October 1, 2006

3:02 PM
Posted by jodi rose

so, I was wrangled onto a panel of bloggers yesterday, for an invigorating discussion which touched on motivation, privacy, ethics, corporate / personal, and much more.

interesting range of perspectives on what is a blog - from the technical description - self-published text, images, sound or video which can be easily updated and formatted - to the very idiosyncratic personal voice or expression, and 'it's my blog and I'll say what I want' attitude.

my lovely co-panellists included:

daniel, whose blog has led to professional opportunity and success;

gemma, who writes without compunction of life, love and catharsis provoking truths, and

lucas ihlein, who designated himself artist in residence of his own suburb. very new fresh eyes, without the fresh charge of being exotic or in an unfamiliar place.

lucas came on the nywf tin radio show and chatted about the sham, the new shop consumer profile - his was 'damaged goods', and another various media I can't quite remember.

last night I tried to engage with some of the music performances, but the laptops and hip-hop just weren't doing it for me. heard mixed reports from the word salon, everything from 'like listening to ministry of sound' (overhead my room-mate on mobile phone) to 'entertainingly bad'. unfortunately don't have my own perspective to add, but jess who came on the show from token word sounded wild and am sure that some of the performances rocked.

it's that time of the festival where you find yourself doing laps of hunter st, having inane conversations with the same ten people over and over again... dipping into events and wandering off. I can feel the ginger beer calling.

a strange part of newcastle down here, most of the buildings are derelict - apparently deliberately, the shop owners are waiting until prices hike, and the council is planning to demolish and build the gold coast down here. yikes. very like hanging out around central station in sydney, am told there are nicer parts of the city and seem to be lots of interesting people around - who actually live here, not imported from syd/melb etc.

made it to the spa last night in sophea and andrew's plush hotel style apartments, still missing the sauna. Pixelache has trained me too well, now when I see media art I expect steamy small wooden rooms.

Had a moment of absolute delight in the experimenta vanishing point exhibition, which opened on friday in newcastle regional art gallery. gorgeous work, two in particular made me giggle - which is a very rare thing in art. 'The Shy Picture', where the people run away when the see you looking (camera movement sensor) and then slowly creep back in. If you get really close, they hide behind a curtain and whisper 'go away'. Delightful and ridiculous and completely engaging.

My other favourite was a two-screen video, with footage of a car park and pedestrian crossing from above, with a hand reaching in and moving the cars and people around. Very silly, again very delightful and watchable.

Another piece with silver objects on a table, when you touched them set off a shadow projection of a very simple animation - lizard running away from a saucer, bird inside an egg whisk - slightly absurdist but also connected. Then, the afternoon music program started downstairs, where people sat seriously in their chairs listening to a brass band play gershwin, while up in the gallery a couple of girls did the charleston. As I was leaving the gallery attendant started swooning cruisie ballroom steps to 'it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing', along the glass wall over the seats, for the amusement of his colleague in the doorway below.

One of the most delightful moments in art I've ever had! Tonight is the live feed radio recipe with pancakes, listen in on the night air, radio national 8.30

Time to stop ranting and go make radio.