too brief a connection

the end of SCANZ is fast approaching and now the ADA [Aotearoa Digital Artists] crew are here to join us for the last couple of days of Presentations and discussions. we have been lucky to be party to the work and thoughts of all the artists here and although we arrived with a plan in mind this two weeks has seen our work evolve and expand and gain in layers and richness


after working hard all day to get the set-up happening in the gallery we were looking forward a relaxing evening. starting with the Opening of the latest exhibition at jUStart [the exhibition space run by Justin ]– Justin and Kim are students at WITT, documenters of the SCANZ residency and willing if sometimes unwitting accomplices in the nefarious deeds of the SCANZ participants..

It was a great way to start to wind down [although it seems this is always the time that Karla and Leena are winding up because while Helen and i went back to the Gallery, it seems that after the opening the others hit town [in fact they were not in room 6 at all last night!] – our only concern now is that they make it to the gallery in time for the evenings events...

Verdigris

On arrival at the Govett Brewster today the verdigris on the door reminded me that i have some more green images to contribute to Raewyn Turner’s project – in exploring and photographing the environment i have in mind the work that others are doing to respond to the strands at SCANZ [environmental response and for us to explore the notion of dis/connection] really on reflection the connections happening through this residency are really quite phenomenal


to illustrate - even today, as we were working in the auditorium the Govett Brewster education programme was about making shadow puppets – for the ability to re-create dancing with the stars [we too are exploring shadows, for the notion of presence the ability to cast a shadow confers]

one of the fabulous tech people who helped us with the set up today was Leonie Smith who has just had a show at the Govett was discussing the work she is doing on flux
or ‘satellite gaps’ as she called them which is the very area Becca Wood [who we are sharing a space with] is exploring - and which is of course what any work that happens live over the internet is permeated with

and then there is the fact that Stella has a beer named after her… and so does Karla! which is really what we needed after scaling Paritutu today…

Dis-traction

it is interesting how many of the themes and ideas from the range of projects are appearing in other projects, these recurrences are forming patterns that are beginning to reflect the response to the environment that we are all attempting to make [and in some cases the Location – Dis-location we are feeling] some of the patterns to _our_ work seem to be recurring – the struggle with the internet and life [work, health, family] influencing the progress made


an environmental response i enjoyed is under one of the bridges on the hike down to the beach. The grafitti I had photographed and appreciated [thanks to New Plymouth Kids] was rollered over in buff on today’s jaunt – so fresh that we covered our fingers in paint checking. but by the return journey the silver scriber had already started afresh and left a comment for the perpetrators of bland


and talking of fabulous patterns I found this woman in downtown New Plymouth yesterday who makes great slippers [am happily wriggling my toes in the faux leopard skin interior of the ones i bought yesterday]

AND finally, we found some enthusiasts willing to climb taranaki with the C5 guys - will their quest finally meet with success?!

Grouphug

Finally were are all here and working together as a group. We are hugging a lot to make up all those years when couldn't but virtually ")kiss" & ")pop".

The working issues are usual regradless of the physical or virtual presence: internet was down at the gallery. Well, ok, it is easier now because it is easier to be present when you have a body, not just an avatar that doesn't get access.

But we have been playing with the projectors and developing an idea but that is still a secret...

kicking up your heels

today we heard from Lynne and Grant, they were up at Turoa skifield [Lynne reports that it was fun looking after Karla and that they are looking forward to seeing K, Dan and the girls in London] - on Mt Ruapehu looking west they tried to cast their shadows on Taranaki for us.
i think we missed them because it was about that time we were doing Adam’s FLOSS 101 workshop

Caro and i went for a walk in the early evening and were blessed with sighting two Ruru [Morepork] on silent wings, the moon came out and lit sparkles all along the black sand beach, turned the ponga ferns to silhouette and the edge of clouds to paua

later at Matinee we were treated to a sonic event that at first seemed to be messing with internal organs – a noise creating vibrations that distorted bar-room conversation in an interesting way – next came a driftwood symphony, repeated clicks and tocks prompting one punter to comment “it needs a baseline”…

me i watched the reflection of the mirror ball and imagined it was winking back last night’s party – as Caro Bossy in Second Life says “when in doubt just dance”

SUNday

again the SCANZ team disappeared off to the four corners of the compass, the Govett Brewster gallery, the beach, the mountain and a farm - while we celebrated the arrival of the sun, as well as Karla and Leena, with a picnic at the accommodation [it was wonderful to be all around the same table and really there’s nothing better than a quiet Monteith’s Pilsner in the sun]

Stretching the legs and checking out the neighbourhood revealed glimpses of Taranaki and while down at the beach we finally found out where Leena had been staying all this time – although it’s a lot better knowing they are safely tucked up in number 6!

after the superb indian feast [thanks to Sara and a dedicated crew of helpers] there was the opportunity for SCANZ and non-SCANZ people to ‘swaray’ with the assembled crew here


after joining and orientating at the swaray stage participants could check in the luxury Caroshotel in preparation for the attending the Conference of Rumorology [and in a set-up closely resembling life here at WITT there was an adjoining paddock full of sheep!]

things started off well and all the stages were busy with visitors then some strange bug hit the network! – the staff and guests were left in a state of confusion when the manager got locked out of her hotel, a particularly wet and dispersed conjecture hit the conference and the delegates all left [although its rumoured they will return next week] the GE specialist in the pink lab coat was last seen forlornly counting sheep - there was a whisper she was endeavouring to herd them in an effort to get into Alex’s SCANZ film project

Sore muscels

O boy, biking 40 km was way too much all of a sudden for me. I am totally exhausted. I have arrived to residency many hours ago but I have been resting. Helen kindly brought me orange juice and rubbed my calves but I can't stand up yet. I will write more later on, now I must sleep.

out and about

yesterday while half the SCANZ people were out in the wilds of taranaki counting sheep we held another UpStage workshop. This time we limited the numbers to just the Out-of-Sync team Norie and Maria. They learned about the online environment and we set about creating a stage for them to hold the Conference of Rumourology as part of the ADA – Swaray [tonight Sunday at 9pm NZ time]

we were so busy we didn’t notice the bomb scare when this bag was discovered in the Carpark outside the accommodation block – closer investigation revealed it was from some well meaning but shy person dropping off a range of Pharmaceuticals to assist in getting Trudy out of her room and back into the Swing of SCANZ things [there have been so many disappearances and mystery illnesses this last week - is this a mutant computer virus sweeping through the group? people are dropping like flies! where is everybody i mean has any one seen Andrea Polli the last few days?]

After all that excitement it was time to head down to the Govett Brewster and check out the performance part of the 'What Colour does Sound make' exhibition. Pity Karla and Leena had to miss the eerie sound of the Nguru played by Richard Nunns [by just looking at her bicycle you can tell Len would have loved the Japanese ‘Rock-n-Roll’ as well….]


helen and i are extremely excited Karla and Leena are going to be back with us again – and luckily with Gillian Fuller on the job as ‘Quarter Mistress’ we definitely have enough sugar to cope with Len’s sweet tooth!

Biking to New Plymouth

I have been in one the greatest party in my life! Amazing group of absolutely crazy people arrived yesterday and we have been dancing and singing and laughing and eating and dancing and singing...

But now it is time to go back to the 'camp scanz'. My hostesses asked me to take a design bike to New Plymouth to their friend who will paint it 'pimp my ride' style. It is only about 40 kilometres (so they say) so I will be cycling back to Helen and Vicki, and hopefully also Karla has returned by the time I get there. Shouldn't take to long unless the road is still flooding.

See you soon!

flashing lights

Well SCANZ people certainly are causing their fair share of controversy in the Taranaki region - First there was the search for the missing Avatar Body Collision members at Waitomo caves and the road block at Awakino... maybe that set the tone?

Since then there has been ‘the incident in the bar’, the dramatic episode of visual and sonic artists getting ordered off Port of Taranaki land [for apparently trying to engage with a group of seals] the same artists were later chased out of a disused fishery building downtown

there was some CCTV of furtive goings on in the local supermarket but the MOST remarkable event was pulled off by one of the project team

in a spectacle not to be topped, our very own Ian called forth not one but two fire appliances! this was not an act of frivolous wrong doing, no, our master of misdemeanour was merely trying to get the smile back on the dial of the lovely but poorly Trudy

will the accounts of hullabaloo cease here? probably not - for only this evening how many times did the bathers at the Pure One get scolded for talking too loudly?

shadowing events

this was an impromptu performance where Caro recreated the twin shadow towers by taking a cell phone image of Wolfgang’s projection – it was definitely a sense of place shifting and time distorting as we worked into the night…

woke up this morning thinking about where i am and looking at my feet on the carpet, so far away from the place i usually stand and yet i am feeling strongly here and focused - this of course set me wondering about len but she seems to know how to always land on her feet…]

here is a picture of karla’s feet that lynne sent me [apparently k said it was a picture of the inside of her head – at least it looks beautiful] looking forward to when we can all point our toes at each other

as you can see helen and my feet very much off the ground as we sorted out details for the presentation at the Govett Brewster next weekend. We were assisted in our technical quest by the very helpful Bryan and the space looks fantastic!

there is such a sense of the community that are supporting the group of SCANZ artists in their endeavours here – in the shifting clouds and sun even the sky seemed to be indicating a revelation

Ukelele Duet

Woke up to find some things were real, some not.
I love it here with Grant & Lynne. Perhaps I'll do my part of the residency from taranaki....

Wolfgang Dream

The Wolfgang Dream:
It was 1971, New York, and the towers were still under construction. Me and Wolfgang were on the wharves in New Jersey, looking across Hudson at the golden columns. He said we were the wharf rats, the indigenous survivors that would watch the towers fall. I kept coughing; Manhattan seemed very far away and he laughed: 'No distance at all' . Remembered then what Artaud had said about the plague making "...its presence known in those places, to have a liking for all those physical localities where human will-power, consciousness and thought are at hand.." In the background someone was singing 'Donna Donna', and Grant was playing the ukelele, fast, tenderly, and I rose up to join him.

Bad Weather

I got caught in the middle of storm while trying to hitchhike back to New Plymouth. The road collapsed and I fell in the ocean. I managed to swim to a beach house and the group of ladies who live there insisted that I stay there and wait until the weather gets better. Actually, this is not any old beach house but pretty fancy villa. I've been fed and got clean underwear too, which feels really great after being travelling for days without any extra clothes. My hostesses are organizing a party today and are expecting some great musicians and other artists that will come if the weather allows. BBQ is hot already.

Don't worry Vicki and Helen, I will get there, and I am sure Karla is on her feet already.

lunch – a performance in itself…

but in the afternoon we began to fulfil the brief of our Digital Strategy application and ran our first funded UpStage workshop!

Here is Caro who got in ahead of the crowds clamouring to join and worked toward the creation of her Virtual Hotel, by end of the afternoon she had some rooms operating and even some unruly staff - by the end of the day she had created an environment so real it was like being there!

Best food event of the day was finding this group who in the guise of funding a group from the local Kura Kaupapa to Rarotonga have set about creating the BEST seafood fritter [ingredients include Paua, Crabmeat and Fish – delicious]

Karla and Leena well we know they are ok [at least we know Len is still breathing but she is… well there was this guy who heard some funny sounds in the bushes and tried to discover her at least through her sonification]

and again in the evening the eclectic mix of presentations exposing what a diverse and interesting group have been assembled for this residency


with an earpiercing whistle umatic started the evening with their journey into video and sound [I think Leena’s travels so far will make an interesting path through sound transit [once a few kiwis upload some sounds!!!]

xiu li and jim lead us through collaging paper to performance to video and sound [one page of images exploring the culture of self for xiu li through to jim’s solar powered machine feeding back collaged language]

Trudy who is tirelessly working to make life here at WITT as productive and rich as she can - has always been working in connecting artists – her interface with this group of artists has been unfailing. Works i want to check out further are sonicflux and the educational tool built around distributive justice [OR you could also always just go make babies in Embryo]

Janine showed us systems of observation, her work with remote perspectives and invited us to try and attain the meeting between the ‘intimacy of proximity and the vertigo of distance’. Ian introduced us to hybrid cultures [lei, bastard children and the bite of consciousness [he also ADMITTED to stickering a town during an exhibition – could he be the one pasting new Plymouth with the heart len stickers?????]

Finally there was Wolfgang… we forgave him for sleeping through our presentation on Tuesday night and honoured him by staying awake through the THIRTY SEVEN minutes [accurately timed by hen] of his

actually i was transfixed by the journey through BBS, monkeying around with installation and video and the first media art repository in command line – he works with our sense of _being_ here

And strangely now we are watching the 24 hour loop from his office window where in a short time the twin towers will play out our collective absorption of mass media [in ‘real’ time video] we are left 'looking at the work until the work looks back at us'

Tracking myself

I got bit worried when hen&vicki suspected that I have gone as far as south island. And it occurred me that I have crossed "a big water", twice even, first by tiny plane and then I was on some yacht. To get an Idea where I am I loaded my GPS tracker to show me the route where I have been during my stay in NZ. So here is the map that I got, I Think it is some sort of Disney tracker with all these symbols but indeed I have been in south island. I think that is where I did my chanting ritual to cure Karla. Now I am close to New Plymouth but I don't know where exactly because the blue star is on top of the name of this place. But it is a picturesque small town that has lots of weird people and funny bars with good Vodka.

where there's smoke

so the day started off so strangely – it was hard to concentrate on what we were doing downstairs [what with worrying about Karla and Leena… and whether there would be enough vegetarian sandwiches at lunch] luckily after that some of us went to the Govett Brewster to check out the Len Lye archive

there were some rumourologists there [I got a shot of them observing a group of SCANZ artists – and they said they detected a rumour in the drainpipe that Leena and Karla had been to the gallery on Monday!!!

After that excitement we had to have a drink! … in an unnamed bar in town we found this chick who was convinced it was Leena she had shared a fag with and THEN said she had even taken her for a ride on her bike! And we have started seeing these around town….

Luckily not long after that we got a text from Lynne saying she had picked up Karla so finally Helen and I could relax and think about the presentations going on back at SCANZ

Some awesome introductions into what others are doing and it is great to make connections and see opportunities for collaborations like according to Caro how UpStage can be a solution to 'virtual hotel real estate' [workshop at 2pm Thursday!] this picture from Nina's presentation is one that resonated with early ABC work, and Karla would have loved seeing a version of the worldx students thoughts in Ken’s emotional weather meter
Hearing all the thoughts and projects of the group at SCANZ and the turbulence of our first residency together are like an extreme weather event, a whirlwind of impressions and ideas

Everything is fine

Poor Karla got some sort of belly-bug and had to be rushed to doctor. It was all bit nerve wrecking because she was clearly in pain and we had to perform right then. She went really pale and fell on the floor at one point whispering show must go on.

After that chaos was over I went to a small pub in the village we were at the moment (forgot its name) to have a drink and met this Maori woman Ngaio who told me to go up in the mountain and calm down the gods so that they would cure Karla. I figure why not, (when in Rome..) So I have been up there somewhere dancing around a rock and trying to chant some Finnish spells because Ngaio didn't want to reveal me any of the Maori ones.

Heading back to New Plymouth now. Helen and Vicki have sent me many text messages with a bit irritated tone. I have to find Karla and then we hitch back there I suppose.

Altered States

I'm lucky, I like hospitals, having spent a considerable amount of my late teens & uni years doing part time employment in research hospitals in my home town. I understand the rythmns and rituals and am prepared for minor personal indignities, the handing over of my body to professionals. I easily tolerate the paucity of hospital food. Above all, the elemental generosity of the people who work in health care can move one to tears. So, I am a good candidate for institutionalisation.

I didn't eat possum pie and I didn't have my stomach pumped. But I did eat a brownie from the Acid Man (wired guy who picked me and Len up when we were hitching, and deposited us at Inglewood internet cafe). I reckon that little chocolate morsel was heavily imbedded with seeds from Datura Stromonium. Once Datura has entered your blood stream, it can remain in your system up to 3 months. The other interesting thing about a Datura hallucinogenic episode is that the person having it has absolutlely no cognition that they are hallucinating.

Okay, so at 52 I am still failing to abide by the most elementary precautions of travel: a) don't take rides from guys with eyeballs on sticks; b) don't eat homecooked deserts from said guys. I have only myself to blame.
But, despite the extreme nausea, mild public embarrassent (imagine: rolling around on floor of internet cafe, drooling and moaning), this has been one helluva of an interesting experience. Come to New Zealand! Stay in our health care facilities! Examine the inside of your head!

I am now safely ensconced in the care of Lynne, and have a new bed awaiting me. I think this is the way to see a country: become a patient and test out the loving kindness of its people. NZ is scoring pretty high right now.

P.S. I am NOT pissed off with Len. She had me in stitches as I puked, while managing hands-on typing to UpStage, ordering Cafe Manager around, calling the medics, holding my feet back from the ensuing pile of bile, and I think she might even have lit up a fag at some point. In retrospect I am glad she didn't come with me to the hospital - she is a huge distraction and besides, she owes it to us to continue her dionysian research.

presently

Presence and abscence for a distributed performer, is the grit under the wheels.

The last time I sat next to Len and performed with you all at a distance, we were in Bremen. Now you are are just up the road, but really could be on another continent.

What affect has distance? How much distance counts as 'far' or 'near' in cyberformance. In Bremen, Len and I performed onstage together for the first time, while Hen was in Europe & Vi in NZ. I went backstage at one point, came online to join the dispersed performers on webcam but...
Oh, Len gesticulating wildly. Acid indigestion? No, apparently we are due at the swaray.

road trip to taranaki

this afternoon the sun came and drew everyone outside one crew decided to go for a walk on the mountain [we tried to get Karla and Leena to come, but K was worried about what the cold and wind would do to her skin and Len was more interested in meeting the shag on the shoreline]

there was a data discourse in the car on the way up - how would data display the beauty of the rainbow that greeted us in the car park? What sound would all those colours make? Here are some pictures especially beautiful was the Ngatoro walk we did – a hobbit trail through snow and greenery [a feat of step climbing for bionic hen]


the peak briefly appeared for us as we climbed the snow laden track then back in the trees we stopped for awhile to listen to the percussive music of water dripping off the moss

Len sent a sms saying they had decided to come up the mountain after all [they tried hitching but went to Inglewood instead of turning off] – our only hope is that they make it back for the presentation tonight!