despite some good times seeing exhibitions, discovering cool things about berlin and catching up with friends, this week has actually been really hard. i've re-discovered how anxious a bunny i am and how much i do like being attached to my things and my set ways, including my sense of place. i found myself doubting, again, whether i really had what it took to move to a country where i only understand half of wtf is going on and if it's really worth it. turns out i rather like my assumptions and preconceptions.
i remember this happened to me when i moved to london for 6 months - i had to lose a lot of preconceptions about the world, and in some weird metaphysical referred process lost a stack of material possessions. well, same thing is happening this time around. [maybe i should have read my own blog before i came, hey.]
i've thought a lot about place this week, what a 'nation' really means - how different another country is, even with this new homogenous global identity crap that we go on about. i've realised how much a citizens identity is actually connected to the public realm: bureaucracy, social norms, weather, what side of the street you drive on, etc. and that the concept of 'freedom' in a democratic state is really only afforded those who 'understand'.
being an outsider is fucking hard. in fact, the two areas which i feel the least like an outsider in is when i go to a gallery and when i go to the supermarket. turns out capitalism is a great leveller. i think i feel ill about that.
i could quite easily go home and feel comfortable and safe, knowing my place in the world. i could make work pretty easily and not have to think too hard about how to express myself. i would be comfortable.
then i thought about my friends back home. i miss them dearly. i thought about a few friends who have never lived outside of australia, who have a comfortable life and who, at times, can get stuck in a conservative view of things. i also remembered my dear friend age, who had a similar time in another country and went home early. i imagined what he would say to me.
i also realised that, actually, maybe you do have to suffer for your art. not for the sake of melodrama, but so that you regularly have your eyes peeled. that you make sure you really do take stock of your viewpoint, that what you have to say is not just from a tiny little black dot in the middle of the pacific ocean. that you come to art from a place which has reduced assumptions and preconceptions.
today, at some stage, i realised that i don't want to always be comfortable. i do want to be challenged and changed - to become the kind of person that is teachable. i want to have to work hard for what i do, but to do great things. and it's hard to do great things when you like staying in your own living room with the curtains drawn.
... you even made to Munich for fuck's sake!" -marcus brown, the kaiser edition, contributor
i don't know if i ever did one of these last year, but i kind of feel the need to do a recap post at the end of this year. probably because it has been one of the most intense learning experiences of my entire life:
the first major thing that happened to me in 2007 was that i turned 30. i'm grateful that i didn't really avoid or have a huge breakdown around it, in fact, i had a massive rooftop party that almost all my friends came to [including 3 separate surprise guests!], but it was still kind of a major deal. on the down side i found myself feeling incredibly single and suddenly stressing about how/when i was going to have children [WTF!! where the hell did that came from??], but on the up side, i realised that i'm getting too old to worry about petty shit, and started rockin' the "i'm too old for this shit" line, regularly.
2. i moved to london for 6 months
a while ago i realised that, in the whole scheme of things, that i knew fuck all about what was really happening in the art world and the world in general. i mean, i read a lot, kept up to date with the news, engaged in discussion and was interested in life, but i just felt like there was a certain kind of experience that comes from travelling, for an extended time, away from one's comfort zones. i chose london because, for me, the london art/architecture/design scene is SO HOT RIGHT NOW and i wanted a piece of it and loads of my all-time favourite artists are english (as opposed to americans from the NYC hood).
in that time, i discovered some amazing things about myself: ★ that i am actually much more of an anxious person than i originally thought (especially if i don't have a place to live or if i don't have a job); ★ that i do, actually, have quite a good sense of humour; ★ that i can make friends easily; ★ that i relish the honesty and forthright-ness, a dominant gene in most australians (and a recessive ones in most brits); ★ in that time i wrote and drew a lot, developed a keener eye, and hung out with a lot of creative/thinkin' types (and stoke fans... ha!) and doing that i realised that i do know a little bit about this art business.
i also did some amazing and cool things in london, including:
★ went to interesting 2007 and coffee mornings ★ met a whole bunch of bloggery/twittery types who i now consider friends. in fact, meeting these people and having them as friends was actually the highlight of my trip. my time would not have been the same without them;
★ went to [pretty much] a gallery every day, including the national gallery and the tate modern once a week ★ went to swan lake, performed by the english national ballet, at royal albert hall; ★ danced to banghra and indie brit pop in the middle of the night and jungle drum'n'bass in the middle of the day; ★ walked along the moors of west yorkshire and visited the graveyard where sylvia plath is buried! ★ visited almost every place on the monopoly board (except vine st, whitehall and fenchurch station). [ok, well that was more as a bonus of actually living and checking out london, but hey, it's a cool thing to be able to have done!]
3. visited dubai. i did this on the way to and the return from london and as i posted here, it was an amazing experience that gave me a level of experience, empathy and cultural insight that i really did not expect. in fact i relish the time i got to spend here. it was only a small amount of time, but it was incredibly meaningful to me. one of my best mate's lives there, which helped, and i would easily go back there for a visit.
4. did a 5.5 week mega art grand tour around europe. i documented this trip on this blog (here, here, and here - actually pretty extensively, really), but it was the most amazing thing to happen to me this year. i visited munich (for fuck's sake), hamburg, berlin (briefly, but enough to have a pic featured on a schmap guide!), prague, linz, vienna, venice, milan, athens, turin, lyon and paris. i can't really articulate in this post what a fucking amazing time i had, but it was life-changing. i also went to 3 biennales in that time, an electronic arts festival and a swag of great galleries.
5. moved back to melbourne (and lived with my folks) for the first time since i was 17... and spent just a little bit more time being poor and looking for work (ha!). i love my folks. my mum and i are like two peas in a pod, but after having had a huge level of independence and a sense of my own identity for such a long time, going back to live with my folks, in an area where the buses often only run once every 2 hours, has been intense. revisiting areas i used to live as a kid has been eery, and it's yet another time of discovery and making new/regaining old friends. i'm still in the process of this and it's still kind of nutty (eased when i finally get into melbourne in the new year), so it's hard to write about it with a level of pragmatism just yet, but i do know that it has highlighted some of my core character traits, good and bad.
despite some of the difficulties, i am getting to hang out on the aussie coastline, with country skies, the smell of eucalypt and sound of magpies and cicadas, in a beautiful house with a view. now that #6 has happened, i'm better able to enjoy this time and take advantage of my good fortune.
6. got a great job at an arts org and accepted into a post-grad course for next year. talk about a great way to end an intense year. i'm looking forward to settling in a little this year, putting on an exhibition, studying, maybe doing a wee bit of a travel, but generally having a nice and relaxed year.
thanks to everyone who read this pile of drivel this year, put up with the slight madness and who even came back more than once. love and kisses to those regular commenting-types and you gorgeous people that i met through this and other blogs.
a subscription to parkett. this 'magazine' is more like a book published every 4 months, a collaboration between artists and writers and usually features some really kick-arse artists from around the world. woo hoo!
a lovely red mohair rug by mercer + reid. warm, red and with a lovely checked weave, it's perfect for slightly chilly melbourne evenings.
a lightly "fly on the wall" mirror. i saw these a few weeks ago and put one one on layby. some sneaky family member spilled the beans and paid it off for me! how cool is that!
an old-school map of paris. ah, one of my spiritual homes, it's lovely, doesn't even feature l'avenue des champs elysees and i'm looking forward to framing it to put up in my new place (wherever that may be).
And still on this past weekend, while visiting Sydney and Wollongong, I had to do some leaving behind and I’ve been thinking a lot about my memories and how they relate to a feeling of home or displacement. In fact, when writing about my relationship with these places and my memories, I realised that they replicate information architecture and data code.
Sydney is a city I lived in for almost 10 years. I spent a large part of my early adulthood there, I did some growing up there, I made a few friends and I studied there. While it’s not the basic core of my OS, it’s a huge patch on it. But seeing as I pretty much outgrew that place, it’s a seriously old package. I love the people there and I can treat the place as a city to work in, but it became quite obvious that I categorically cannot live there anymore. It has a strangling, cold and merciless feel about it, within which I don’t feel like operating.
And then at the opposite end of the spectrum,Wollongong. I went there on Sunday afternoon and while it felt the most familiar place that I’ve been in the last 8 months (since leaving it), it was like seeing an ex boyfriend and realizing that he is still an arsehole – it’s a place that I know and gave a whole lot of myself to, yet there is nothing for me there anymore.
It wasn’t easy feeling those feelings, having those thoughts about those places. It’s not easy having a changing relationship with a very important part of anyone’s identity: one’s place.
[which has prompted me to amp up my support for indigenous and homeless charities]
After this weekend, I’ve come back to Melbourne with a renewed vigour and appreciation, but it also reminded me that my first 6 weeks here hasn’t been easy, because of that sense of displacement from my memory here. I left Melbourne, troubled, at 17. So, coming back some 13 years later, as a completely different person, my relationship with the place is complex. I’m creating a new interface of my place, re-writing over old data, yet maintaining and building on old data. It’s exciting, but a process for which I have no code and ‘last known good’ is not that helpful.
In fact, the ‘last known good’ is actually 10,000 kms away, across the other side of the world in London. That’s where my most recent character memories are and it’s strange to have them as free-floating agents, not tied to anything tangible or recongisable.
I’ve decided to come at this thing with a new outlook though, actually inspired a lot by what I saw and heard at Interesting South. Interesting times indeed.
Update: my box of bits and pieces arrived from London tonight– perfect timing – full of my journals, books, postcards, art materials and artworks that I shipped back here before I left. Sorting through them has sort of consolidated and defragged a lot of stuff!
On Thursday I spent the day/evening at Interesting South. For more info about exactly what that is, go here. Or here. And to find out more about where it came from, go here.
During the day, I joined the wonderful Emily and her band of troupers to help transform the Bondi Pavillion Theatre into a cosy home away from home for those attending the conference. I was hoping that the set would invoke the sense of watching people chat in their own home. Kind of like a super-sized dinner party. With microphones and powerpoint. It seemed to work well and it did feel nice and homely. I even made tea for all the speakers and that turned out to be really fun and a nice extra element to the whole occasion.
I only got to hear bits and pieces of most of the talks because I was fixing tea (and definitely didn’t have time to draw like I did in London, but I still heard some amazing things and met some really lovely people at the conference afterwards.
Here’s a hodge-podge snapshot of what I got:
Dan Hill and his spectacular system for keeping check on energy output: “I’m not suggesting we all have huge numbers above our buildings, keeping score. Actually that is what I’m suggesting”
Errol Flanagan's fantastic presentation on perception and understanding "What's green, sir?"
Dr Adrienne Withall’s great study of Happiness parts I and II, including the fact that 50% of one’s happiness is genetic (oh shit) but that 40% is outlook (woo hoo!).
I loved the Happiness Manifesto and the Make Slough Happy campaign, of which I only remember a couple of points:
•Be grateful for at least 3 things a day •Smile at a stranger •Reduce your television contact •Talk to a good friend for at least an hour a week;
Pia, the Sydney Dork-bot Overlord (how cool is that title!) reminded me that I need to go a Dork-Bot meeting in Melbourne, and see people “doing strange things with electricity”;
Adrienne and Pia sipping tea
The 3 Tims:
Tim Baynes, the scientist from an unnamed scientific organisation, who talked about sustainability in terms of the exponential growth, which was scary and exciting at the same time;
Tim Noonan, who is a fantastic performer and who can read people’s voices as a way of knowing more about them (vocal, instead of body language);
The evening went so quickly and like someone on the night said, it didn’t feel like 17 speakers, more like about 9. And the conversations in the club afterwards were similarly fantastic, including how much to reveal when blogging, what others would speak about and whether SARS was worth getting excited about.
Congrats to Emily and the Sydney Coffee Morning* crew for a fab time and keep an eye out for Interesting South 2008
Big thanks to Piers and Richard for these pics on the flickr.
*[watch this space Melbourne bloggy kids, I think I’m going to start a Coffee Morning]
As I mentioned previously, I’m going to be speaking at Interesting South next week. I’m doing some designy –type things-ish for the theatre set and I thought I’d show you what I’ve been up to in the last couple of days.
Ben and the other cool kids from The Design Conspiracy were the Official Platinum Design sponsors for the original Interesting in London. Their brief from Russell included these points (as stolen from Ben’s blog – thanks Ben):
•It must be interesting. Obviously. But there is a fine line between interesting and downright messy.
•It must encompass the principles of web 2.0 (by that I mean updateable, participatory, flexible and interactive) whilst being offline quite a lot.
•It must utilise the attendees as collaborators.
•Assume zero budget.
•It must be able to dictate the look of the hall.
•It must be carbon neutral.
•It must be good.
So, in developing some ideas for Emily and the gang, I tried to play along to the same rules (and to play around with that lovely logo). And this is what’s been happening so far:
Lots of enlarging and some photocopying. [I’m pretty sure that’s not exactly carbon neutral, but the paper is recycled and it’s better than getting vinyl lettering printed]
and then cutting out and up,
generally messing about with the logo. [It feels a little bit wrong somehow, like years of abiding by IP laws are just being frittered away… tee hee, welcome to real life 2.0.]
wondering what it would look like as an upholstery pattern
and of course, the obligatory cat-sitting-on-the-work shot.
it’s getting a bit exciting now. see you next week in sydney!
i've been thinking about language lately, and the universal nature of the word 'fuck' - understood in almost any language, especially when followed by the word 'you'. i've also been thinking about how much i swear, kidding myself that i don't swear that much.
well, here it is in millions of colours:
so, i've decided that, in the spirit of ramadan, lent and other ascetic festivals of a religious nature, i'm going to abstain from swearing for one week.
there’s something really weird about finishing off a trip. a sense of relief, sadness, and something inexplicably warped about it – something resembling inertia.
and perhaps I really needed to see all that stuff because I’ve been forced to head home early and there’s something easier about a divorce when all you can see is the crap.
in preparation for leaving, I head back to a few of my old haunts and to make sure I caught up with a bunch of friends I had made here, which was more important than anything.
I went back to soho, drew in the national gallery, popped to the tate modern louise bourgeois show (which I will review later, but suffice to say, it bloody rocked!), went to see control, wandered around chancery lane and discovered gorgeous wine bars near charing cross.
I caught up with as many of my London friends as I possibly could and would formally like to link to (as a form of web 2.0 props) to the following boys and girls , in no particular order, who made my time in London and Europe a fucking awesome time:
And of course my little crew of Lauren’s Ladders: Will, Seb and Nina
In fact without these people, who found me through my blog, or others’ blogs, I know that I wouldn’t have had the time I had.
It will probably take me a few days to a) get over the jetlag and b) process the enormity of my trip, but once I do, I need to post about some of the random things that I’ll take home from my trip – those weird little things that will stick with me and influence my life forever more.
Thanks again to all those peeps and now it's time for phase 2 of world domination: the MFA
1. Signage, signage, signage! People, it’s not that hard, really, to spend a little bit of time, effort and money into really developing your signage. And how about, once you’ve put it up, try it out. Get someone to give it a trial run to see if it really works – there’s nothing more annoying than following signage that just fucking ends no where near where you’re ending up.
2. Tourist information booths. I know they might seem a bit daggy, but honestly, theyr'e fucking vital and they could be really simple. Just make sure they are in key places like Airports, Central train stations and a couple of the main areas in the centre of town. You could even be a bit innovative and have collapsible ones that you could take to specific areas when there’s a big event on (like the Grand Prix, or a Film Festival). They need to give out maps, be staffed by people who at least speak the local language and one other (probably English) and are open at least as long as the plance they’re in (if not 24hours!). In fact, they could just be like John So’s info people that stand on the corner of Flinders and Swanston Sts in Melbourne, giving out info and maps to tourists, so you get to really connect with your tourists, AND you’re employing older people and ex-homeless in the mean time (Rob – do you have any connections with cities looking to refine their tourist industries? Mayor of London perhaps?).
3. Access to Money Although most of us tourists have money with us when we arrive, sometimes things don’t work out that way and we need to get some, or we need to change it. Make sure that there’s both a Cambio/Wechsel/Change booth in the main Airport and Train Station (and boat terminal, if applicable) AND and ATM. How about one next to the other! That would be kind of sensible – put all the money type places together!
4. Access to transport and tickets Firstly, read step 1 again.
Go on, read it.... read it!
OK..
Now, make sure it’s easy for both your locals AND tourists (or are time-consuming and bumbling fools, we can’t help it) to access transport system/tickets. Make sure there’s working machines and an open person to talk to, in case something goes awry, as late as the system runs (tourists arrive at all times of the day, usually way after your peak hour commuter has gone home). And always have a daily ticket available – it’s just common sense to be able to jump on an off transport and you’re making your way around town. If you don’t want to make it cheap, fine, be like that, but at least have one.
Extra loving touches
Late night food. In my experience, Germany (and Austria to some extent) had their priorities well sorted. You can get food and beer at all times of the day at the major stations and airports (including supermarkets!). When tourists have just come off a long haul, or are about to jump on a train across 15 borders, most will want to grab food of some sorts. Be nice and give them a range from cheap, nasty, exlusive’ and healthy (a little from each is always nice).
Easy and affordable baggage storage. There is nothing more of a drag than having to check out of your hotel/hostel./hovel at between 9 and 12, not leaving until 6 hours later and having no where to store your luggage. Having lockers is a really easy way to go about it, or if you want to really make things complicated, you can have a whole office connected to it (including Lost and Found – that always helps). It means that your tourists can continue to enjoy your beautiful cites, without having to get major back strain, or fuck off your citizens by running them over with those annoying suitcasewheelie things.
All of the above will certainly go some way to a happy tourist and we all know what happy tourists means: they spend more money and tell more people how great you are, which probably gets you either a myspace page/facebook group or re-elected, whatever takes your fancy.
Just a quick update in the middle of a nutty week of social butterfly stuff (gigs, ketchups, beersphere, ladybloggers and hopefully a bit of bhangra in there somewhere.)
Last Thursday evening, Spinach held a private view for the installation, Red Thread and it was a really lovely evening (just like everybody said it would be) - I felt completely spoilt by Martin and the rest of the Spinach crew. Some wonderful people turned up - bloggery peeps, ad folk, acting folk, other artists and dear friends. Poor Nina (die Scheißeköpfchen) got lost along the way, but she was there in spirit. As were various twittery friends who sent me text messages, and of course my parents, who are always with me in spirit.
I've not had an opening/private view in which I just 'rocked up' to before. He Said She Said was close, but I still spent a bit of time helping organise things beforehand. This was 5-star treatment, which was great! I did a little bit of a walk/talk through the space, going through the process and some of the little details with a few people and got good feedback from everyone. I was even hoping for a bit of flack! I got up and did an impromptu chat in front of everyone as well, which i think i bungled a bit, but hopefully it made sense. True to form, Young Will took a photo of it. Thanks Will.
Some of the highlights of the night for me including a good chat with Tom [Spinach MD] who initially was feeling a bit 'challenged' by the work, but had come to understand it and relished the partnership of creativity and business; seeing that Claire had lovingly tied her red bauble to her office phone [which for me is a real sign of engaging with it, not just finding somewhere to put it]; having dinner with a fantastic bunch of people afterwards, where there was much lively discussion and really warm feel to the evening; giving out some presents [just like Satan Santa]; really feeling how much Ali and Francesca and Helen and others at Spinach really enjoyed having me around and found the work and the project really worthwhile - so much so that I'm going back for another day next week. yay!
there is something very sinister about day 2. day 2 after exercise is always the day that you feel the most pain, day 2 after a big night out always feels like the longest day ever and day 2 after heartbreak is like the third level of hell from dante's inferno.
and so too, today started out a bit hellish with the installation. i had to rearrange my plans a little and started in the afternoon. and when i walked in, all the gaps in the work almost screamed at me. i found it a little hard to get going, and when i did, it was all wrong. after the flow of yesterday's effort, i found it hard to make bold decisions or to take down anything i had put up.
and when i was an art student, this kind of frustration would really get to me - countless times i remember crying in the toilets at art school, convinced i was never going to get it right. thankfully, somehow, i've matured a little bit past that. while i felt the frustration, i just kept moving through it today. i initially disappeared into a corner of the agency and focused on quite an ornate section and focused myself in some detail. interestingly, i have used corners before as a restorative space, and gaston bachelard writes about it in his Poetics of Space.
And speaking of space, today i really used it. thankfully i had the luxury of space, and after the initial focus on detail, i just kept moving from one area of the agency to another. if it wasn't working, i moved onto the next, not focusing too hard on the problems, but just working on continuing to create solutions. like having several projects on at once - no time to get bogged in shit when you're on the go.
and so today i:
made webs
made more balls of wool
plaited
threw fanciful streams over walls
made great strides of clear thread
and in separating lines, made an image for the girls
made bold statements, then chopped them up
and in doing so, made a creature
And next week, Spinach have generously decided to have a private view, so that others can come and check out the space. it's on thursday 9th august 5:30 - 7:30 at 144A Liverpool Rd, N1. If you'd like to come, please email martin[at]spinach.co.uk to RSVP or leave me a comment.
it's been a while since i've had occasion to 'track' an installation process - the last couple of shows being group shows that pretty much went up in a day. in fact, regular readers will probably remember entropy at platform to be the last time i subjected you all with a blow-by-blow account.
well, i'm at it again.
some of you may already know about red, thread - a site-specific installation in the research agency, spinach. for others, read here, here and here.
usually, installation week is hell. it's a mad rush of hoping that it all comes together as well as planned, pitting yourself against the clock, struggling with wavering confidence as you hope your ideas are, in situation, everything you hoped they were in development and then there's the inevitable sleep deprivation/bad diet combination.
well, i can categorically say that this installation has been so far removed from that, it's almost unbelievable and exactly why i want to continue working with research/planning/advertising agencies from now on. organising the show was as easy as a chinwag with Martin, Spinach's Creativity Director and about 2 hours of well-spent time spent putting ideas to paper (not 15 years of justification and budget development). materials have been really easy to obtain and have served me well and so far, i'm making some great progress and having loads of fun. i actually feel, for the first time, like being an artist is a respectable profession! way-oh!
today i did the essay equivalent of a plan and first draft. i've mapped out an introduction, given myself an idea of what's happening in the body of the work, have a conclusion planned and will head back to tweak and finalise the conclusion.
i did some fun things today like
knitting (i took video footage, but am a bit embarrassed by it, so i'm holding out on it for now),
i made some red bow butterflies.
i've wrapped locker keys in wool,
and started to entwine a partition in the stuff.
i've let things drape
made some nice taut lines
and make some knots and bits and pieces.
i've had loads of fun, enjoyed engaging with the spinach kids and i'm looking forward to day 2, tomorrow.
