interaction, part 1: goodbye.

i may be writing a bit about interaction in the next few weeks. primarily because the project i'm working on sits pretty firmly in the 'interactive' camp of arts practice. but also because i've been reading a bit about the philosophical aspects of interaction have been thinking about the dynamics of human interaction - listening, conversation and relationships.

counterintuitively, one of the first things i'm interested in unpacking a bit about is the interaction of 'goodbye'. i recently wanted to say a formal 'goodbye' to a stack of peeps in perth after spending much time in their tribe. sadly, and for a stack of reasons, not many people were able to make it, and i left wondering about the ritual of saying goodbye.

even though 'goodbye' is the end of an interaction between characters, it is also the beginning of a new interaction. it has its own set of variables and etiquette, rarely discussed in white, australian culture. the country of the laid back 'g'day' are also not so formal with their goodbyes. 'see ya'.

perhaps because i move around a lot, or because i've spent time in cultures for which the goodbye is given (linguistically and culturally) more weight, i'm finding that casual-ness a bit unsatisfying.

in schlock pseudo-psycho terms, there is no closure.

it's a metaphysical sentence that has no full stop. and when there's no punctuation, there ceases to be meaning. there also ceases to be intent. and therefore no beginning of the next interaction - the one of 'still friends, but separated by distance' or something.


in coding/system term, there's no } - no end to the instruction, which creates errors, which means you don't have an interaction. in not saying 'goodbye', one nulls and voids the interaction at all.


ok, so that's abstracting it and perhaps creating an analogy that simplifies things too much - human interactions are far more complex than a missing }, / or . but i do wonder if we lack consideration of the deeper sides to human interaction protocol (HIP) in the same way as we now do our other forms of interaction.

aura

at the beginning of 2009, 4 artists from my masters class answered a call for artists to make ephemeral work in a carpark space in collingwood.

at the end of the meeting it was proposed that, rather than install yet more artwork, the organisation (collingwood neighbourhood house) install artists on site, to be there and do what we do. based on a canadian hospital residency program, the idea was that artists on site, engaging directly with the community and making a variety of works is far more beneficial than a slightly disembodied work. it was also an opportunity to have a series of artists working with each other, supporting projects and populating the (previously scary, unsafe) space.




2 years' on, many prototypes and significant funding applications later, the program has recently started, with its first round of artists on site.

roarawar feartata collective are in the space at the moment, and doing an great job of breaching and infiltrating the spaces of the estate in magical and interesting ways. they're getting to really know the nature of the estate.

we had harvest festival on the weekend and although it was rained out, i had the chance to dress up and play character for some Q&A style surveying about art.

we've got a blog that is in its early stages, but i'll link to it a fair bit over the next 12 months. i'll be in residence during september/october/november doing my sound/listening/acoustic works - watch this space.

good and great

today i caught up on some reading, 'cos i'm procrastinating and i couldn't help it. but i wanted to post about some of the ace things i've seen, which mostly happen to be from GOOD.


clapping your hands when you like a band - music and social media.

brilliant posters for the kent state folk festival. they sparked a few little thoughts looking forward to the time when social media and social interaction get really close. i think they're getting closer, but it's gonna be awesome when we really smush them up and really value both.



i also had a utopian idea the other day that the death of television should be welcomed and that it was only ever going to be a small invention on the way to the much bigger awesomeness of the interwebs anyway.

in fact, if i was in charge of cultural radness in australia, i'd get rid of all funding to TV content production, turn it into good production for DVD/online video/live experience and radio; chuck money back into films, gaming, online stories and books. i guess like the media equivalent of thanking a lover for a good time, but committing to a long-term relationship for the future.

but i digress.


tourism is the march of stupidity


i'm a bit of a traveller/tourist at the moment, so of course i couldn't help but LOVE LOVE LOVE this post about tourism and literature by miles allinson. miles is a super-fucking talented writer and thinker and artist-type. readings is a melbourne institution that really supports literature, reading, thinking and artist-types.

BOMF wisdom to know the difference

and then there's the fantastic and worthwhile and 'oh i wish i thought of that' Back on My Feet running program coming out of the East Coast in the US - brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

it's programs like this that remind me that humans are not stupid. we're not heartless. and although life circumstances can freeze over our hearts and minds - at either end of the poverty scale - it is the simple, meaningful, heartfelt actions that really help us keep our shit together.

heyousebutok
oh, and just one more thing from good - a great article about the history of the word OK.
i personally love the spelling 'okeh' and am going to use it from now on.
meh, teh and okeh.
perfect.


image credits:
44th kent state folk festival posters by marcus agency from the GOOD blog
miles allinson/reading st. kilda from his confrontation with falling blog
eric fair image from the GOOD blog/lauren e. friedman [best name ever, BTW]

found(ed) object(ion)

i found these posters, plastered up on bus stops in frankston.

i found them so despicable that i tore them down. thankfully, no one seemed to want to stop me doing that.

i found the whole experience completely weird. it's not like frankston isn't without its fair share of violence and rape. not to mention its filthy drug habit and general trashiness. it's just that it's mostly white there.*

i found the whole dialectic aspect of it kind of strange too - some racist wanker puts up these posters in prominent places, trying to sway a particular section of the public, and then i come along and tear it down - my action conveying a specific retort. and that , in a free country as ours purports to be, both actions are as 'valid' as each other. as much as i wanted to vomit all over the creator of said racist propaganda, i value the freedom of a politic which supports this kind of exchange - where he (and i'm being gross in my gender generalisation here) puts up shit i don't agree with and i get to take it down. equal and opposite reaction again.

i found it quite important to be having a 'remote' clash of values, in the public realm. on equal footing almost. rather than it being facilitated through the all-powerful broadcast media, or the insidiousness of behind-closed-doors-deals-and-policy that happens at either end of the big power structures. it was almost mano e mano. one citizen against another in hand-to-hand combat.

i found out what what frankston looked like according to its sound a while back. it might be interesting to see what dandenong sounds like. and compare the two - see what frankston would sound like if it ended up like dandenong.








*disclaimer: for those not from melbourne, frankston is a southern outer-suburb which has had a bad name for years. it's pretty low on the socio-economic scale and has a disproportionate amount of young pregnancy, amphetamine abuse and unemployment. superseded only by toorak (i jest, just). and my generalisation about frankston is just that. of course there are amazing people in frankston, doing some fantastic things. and plenty of ordinary people doing lovely ordinary things. naturally, this post isn't really about them.

the bottom line is not a design tool

yesterday i finally got to see the inside of the seaford surf life saving club. the [award-winning] building designed by robert simeoni is amazing and after seeing its exterior when first finished, i was hankering to check out the insides and have an awesome coffee right out on the beach, raising some cash for the club in the mean time.

i'm not sure how mr simeoni feels about it post-occupancy, but i'd have to say that i can definitely see the difference between the intentions of the person who designed it, the person who is running the space and the people who are using it. i can't speak for the SLSC, but the cafe is such a disappointment - it oozes bottom line design.



the space is all clean and raw materials - joined recycled pine beams, marine ply, stainless steel struts and wooden floors. the kitchen itself looks well-designed and it oozes potential. but, at 1:30 on a sunday afternoon, there were 5 tables, when it should have been rammed (even with the rain) and it was almost as cold and lifeless as the fake bodies being rescued by the crew next door.



the tables were cheap plastic crap inside (and, ironically, beautifully recycled wooden ones saturated outside) and the chairs were even worse. there was off-the-shelf salt'n'pepper shakers (i know, but it's obvious when they're on the table!) - no sense of either cosiness, or attention to details or even community spirit. it was all a little rushed really.

and, had i my way, i would have included a corner seat near the front window, with a table of newspapers and an amazing view; and a huge communal table with some more reading material and better seating - something with character. i also probably would have 'lowered' the height of the interior by about 30 cms. the place is pretty low and wide, and i think that the decor really needed to reflect that. as it is, it's angular and jarring.

you can tell that the owners of the beach cafe have seen dollar signs and tried their best to replicate what they think would be a good look, without a sense of connection, passion or authenticity. hell, even the line protecting the birds from the glass (or vice versa), was a half-arsed line of orange tape, obscuring the amazing horizon. surely they could have found a better way that that?





and when you design with this in mind, you make a cold place and your job difficult. in fact, a place with a little attention to detail, good atmosphere and true spirit half the effort in running a social environment is taken care of. when people feel comfortable, or welcome, cosy - you know, it's hospitable - the service, food and quality of coffee doesn't get quite so much scrutiny and you can afford a bit of leeway.




however, with its awkward spaces and empty feeling, the sub-par food, the awkward staff, bad logos and uniforms at the beach cafe (and that title!) were obvious. in fact, we didn't even want to stay for coffee and/or sweets, that's how 'perched' we felt. given the beautiful building, it was disappointing.

and, in terms of bottom line, if you have 5 tables an hour NOT making an extra $12 on upscales, for 8 out of 9 hours' trading, 5 out of 6 days a week, you're losing a minimum of $2400. not to mention the lack of customer retention - the novelty of the beautiful building will wear off soon and you have to sustain them somehow. an empty box with a coffee machine doesn't cut it - not in seaford, or anywhere else.

whinge whinge, whinge.

a few weeks ago, i had a self-righteous whinge about my mildly annoying delays on the trip home from europe.

thankfully, i've finally got around to having my arse kicked, by being reminded how fuckin' awesome it was that i could a) fly to europe; b) afford to do so; c) have an amazing time there, with the ability to communicate with friends and strangers in different languages and cultures and d) all of the above.



i promise to never whinge about travel and/or technology ever again. i know, i'm spoilt.

the third place and vicarious taste

while i was showing will some of my fav. places about melbourne, i mused about the importance of the third place. i know, it's quite an old theory now, and i've gone on about it a bit in the past, but i had a new revelation in its relevance to design, aesthetics and identity.

following on, i guess, from the musing about designing for places to eat, i was wondering why i like my favourite cafes, restaurants and the other social public places i frequent, noticing their decor.

take one of my regulars - kent st, for example - it's a complete mashup of stuff - amazing light fittings, second-hand furniture, sit down arcade game, numbers and signage, photographic mural and pink walls. there's some stuff that i would totally have in my home, and other stuff that i love, but couldn't live with it.

which i think is a vital part of the third place (and an area that i'd be interested in pursuing some more - especially with design/interior stuff in mind.) it is these places in which we get to experience an aesthetic that fulfills us, or challenges us, or resonates with us, but in which we can't participate in our own environments. that we need places to be lavishly decorated, or quirky, or completely sparse, over the top or completely minimal - so that as a society we can take some of that with us, own it without possessing it.

and that communal places - cafes, bars, clubs, restaurants - hell, even swimming pools, gyms, shops - are the places in which we need to invest a level of innovation or courage or outlandishness (in terms of interior design/decoration). that, as well as feeding, entertaining and socialising us - the third place, the social space - teaches us an aesthetic, or perhaps provides us with a range of aesthetics from which we can then discern our own. the third place, it seems, is in the business of taste, on all accounts.

image credit: the fabulous barista miss browne at brother baba budan, taken by janey on flickr

it's no big deal, just the future of humanity

i know this has been doing the rounds for a while, but i finally got around to watching it. there was a moment, something about 'if she's given half a chance' that made me almost cry.

[update: i find it interesting that sanitation comes above commerce. nice to know]

from swiss miss, via a cup of jo

how awesome is that poster!

and the irony of it doing the blog rounds whilst there there are two design festivals on in melbourne at the moment. ha! although, perhaps i don't get the last laugh, because instead of being able to get out and about and check all kinds of nutty stuff, i've been indoors all weekend, flat out with a sore back. stupid back.

handsome boy modelling school

last wednesday was a night full of arty type openings. i fully intended to pop into the RMIT architecture open studio, then head over to Pieces Of Eight in north fitzroy to check out the My Pet Rock show.
ambitious plan, to say the least. sorry to melanie and the gang for not making it - i'm sure it went off.

the open architecture studio, however, was amazing. blew my mind open, actually, because a whole bunch of stuff got me thinking. thinking about the hand/eye/brain aspect of model-making. thinking about design for the other 90%. thinking again about airports. thinking about what makes up a city. i have to post about all of them actually, but today maybe just a thing or two about modelling.

i always wanted to be a super model.

no, i jest, i'm talking about model making for design - architecture, interior design and landscape design. obviously it's about getting the form right. about transference from brain to hand to eye and back again. a pathway that only really works when you get out the balsa, or the veneer, or whatever you're using. and i think that pathway is matched only when one sketches. that physical manifestation of thinking. perhaps this is what they mean by craft.

there were so many amazing models in the place, it's kind of hard to know where to start, but one of the projects i was really interested in was one in which students made architectural designs using atypical modelling material: pencils, foil, plexiglass and ear buds [q-tips for you kids in NYC]. actually, the q-tip one got me thinking about the possibilities for taking architecture into areas/applications with no architectural design experience and being able pass on tools for 'shaping' easily (and with a little help from j&j).

they reminded me of the images of model-making with indigenous communities i saw at process a few months ago with martyn hook and peter.. peter, hmm, someone. anyway - they were using straws and blu-tak and cardboard to design appropriate housing for cape york and torres strait families.

anyway, it also reminded me that craft, model, make, design, develop, space and shape are all verbs, and that the process of making forms which reflect a space is equally as (if not more so, in some areas) important than the beautiful forms you see in other areas of the studio. don't get me wrong, some of the elaborate models were amazing, and i love a slick model, but this project in particular reiterated the joy and purpose, the process of creative discipline and spacial design.

The Mix Tape

Saturday afternoon, Age and I finally caught up for a good ol’ natter. Three hours later and we had covered everything from NYE to car demand ideas (with a weird space-jump in between), love, sneakers, europe, music and pretty much everything in between. He’ll hate me for saying so, but hangin’ out with him is like hangin' with my clued up, spunked up, lovely kid brother.

pinched from your facebook pics

One thing specifically that we chatted about (and, surprisingly agreed on - ha!) was the humble mix tape and how much both of us love the whole concept of sharing music with friends and lovers. I miss being able to knock up a mix tape (thanks to a limited iTunes library and all my CDs and vinyl in storage), but I absolutely love the mix tapes I've been given, which I've decided to share with you all:



•The Dave Peddle Mix
For my birthday, a dear friend of mine, artist-in-waiting Dave Peddle, made me a mix tape of the coolest shit ever and it pretty much accompanied my trip around Europe. See the cool stuff on there? Mr Brightside by The Killers, Jean Grae, Peaches, Aliens by Dr Octagon (which is my marching-through-paris song), and Gabrielle by Ween (my iPod singing song).

I wouldn't ordinarily have half of that stuff in my collection, but that's the fantastic thing about the mix tape, you get to try new things, in a customised kind of way!




•Toodle Pip 1 & 2* by Young William
When I was in London, Will and I hung out a lot. Both of us were unemployed, opinionated and music snobs, despite otherwise being polar opposites. Will's knowledge and experience of (especially british) pop music is fucking phenomenal and I asked him to make me a mix tape before I left. There is such cool stuff there! [He only had 2 points deducted for including an ABBA and a Smashing Pumpkins song in there]: Clampdown by The Clash, Blackbird by The Beatles somewhere in there, and my personal favourite, Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) - starting with the perfectly apt lyrics: " she ain't got no money, clothes are kinda funny, hair is kinda wild and free"

Toodle Pip 1 & 2 have now become my soundtrack to being back home, having left some of my heart in London. Plus, I've definitely gained a finer appreciation for some of the classics and for that really sweet, well-crafted pop tune again.

*There is a Toodle Pip 3, but I keep losing it and it hasn't made its way to the library yet.





•Jeremiah's Mix
This one I found by accident! Before I left to go OS, one of my oldest, bestest buddies, Jem sent me a package returning my copy of The Dresden Dolls CD [which he had pilfered for 4 months before I even got to listen to it, haha], plus a bunch of other cool stuff that I needed to listen to: Tom Waits, Nick Cave (both Bad Seeds and Grinderman) and then this random disc with no writing on it that I thougt must've been blank. I didn't import it and left it back in Australia.

Then, yesterday, I get in the car to listen to some Grinderman, I put this mystery disc on, just to see what was on there and fuckin' hell, there's this awesome mix tape on there!

There is some serious music cred happening there, plus the cheeky bugger included On Golden Brown and The Passenger, two of my secret favourite songs of all time! I love my friends!

It is exactly this really personal, cool, loving thing about mix tapes that I totally dig. I even still call them mix tapes, despite the last time i made one on a cassette was about 6 years ago, when Caroline from Big Heavy Stuff organised an aussie mix tape Yahoo group, but hey, it doesn't matter.

I'm slightly miffed that my current iTunes doesn't quite get the concept of the mix tape - with all of these CDs, I've had to laboriously search for what the tracks are because ol' Gracenote can't identify the burnt CD, but hey it's only a minor detergent [sic].

Now, with all this musical goodness happening, I've got a renewed love and excitement for the mix tape, so watch out some of you :)

from fourth plinth to third place

A couple of years ago, I heard about the idea of the third place: not home, not work, but the other place where people spend time in a comfortable social setting.

It came up in the development of a website for an old workplace and, unsurprisingly, the internet and online social networks are the new third (or fourth) place for people [which I can attest to, given the time I spend on blogs and the people who I’m friends with because of them].

I have thought about this ‘place’ every now and again, in relation to creating a particular environment for artwork, and of course it was brought home to me especially when I was in Europe, sitting in die platz or la piazza with everyone else.


And even more recently, I’ve been thinking about it in terms of how I’ve spent my summer.

Almost every day I go here.



The coffee is good, the barista is cute and it feels homely. The owner is a lovely woman who loves her regulars and they always know what I order: short black.

Creating that kind of atmosphere is not only good business sense for Victoria and the gang, but vital to the health of the community and the individuals within it. It provides an avenue for me to sit, enjoy being around people, without necessarily having to interact, and to feel ‘a part of’ without having to know any prior social codes or language.


And then, after I go there, I go here.




It’s my other third place, but more on the level of a public private place. When I’m out there in the water, swimming or floating, listening to the sound of the waves against the sand, I get introspective [in a socially-acceptable way].

I saw on someone’s delicious list recently (probably from the ever-referenced Dan Hill) an article about the place of the beach in the Australian’s psyche being similar to that of the church as a place to ‘cure what ails ya’. And I’m inclined to agree, really. I always feel better after a swim. I feel more connected to who I am, my body, my place in society – a mental, physical and spiritual salve, the role that the church plays in religious populations: a third place.


Given that I’ll be doing a lot of work in the public sphere this year, the idea of connecting with people publicly when they’re most open to being connected with is an important one and you can expect more on this soon.