Sunday, December 26, 2010

We come in Peace - on hackers, media and gender


The 27th Chaos Communication Congress (27C3), an annual four-day conference organized by the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) starts tomorrow at the Berlin Congress Center and is one of the largest gatherings of hackers and proponents of open source technologies. These categories: community, culture, hacking, making, science, society say it all and here are links to the presentators as well as often a link to the material to being presented. The website is a wealth of knowledge!


A few randomly chosen presentations to wet your appetite:

Safety on the Open Sea - Safe navigation with the aid of an open sea chart.

AllColoursAreBeautiful - interactive light installation inspired by blinkenlights

A Critical Overview of 10 years of Privacy Enhancing Technologies

Android geolocation using GSM network - "Where was Waldroid?"

DIY synthesizers and sound generators - Where does the sound come from?

They also promote those around unable to attend to gather and join the conference remotely in what they have called Peace Missions, which reminded me of a conference I attended remotely earlier this year:


ElectroSmog << this links to some info about this on de balie website because their actual website is a killer for those with slow connections or on mobile devices.
Even on a large computer screen as I have here: I need to first click away the screen filling popup, and then scroll down past another screen-filling image before I reach any links or content (don't get me started on the usability of this website!) - scroll past all this, click around, and yes there are some interesting articles especially the stuff at the Distance Lab run by Stefan Agamonolis (see a presentation I did on a thesis of his on design for interactive media).

And the conference itself? ...(sigh)... At the time I was going to write a critique of the conference because it was dominated by a few men sitting in a room in Amsterdam - where some men flew over from London. I am so glad I stayed at home (Amsterdam is half an hour north by train). First I wanted to respect the ethos of the conference, that participants don't use up carbon in travel, and second, I found it much better to feel on equal (as much as one can be 'equal' in terms of bandwidth access) with others around the world who hadn't travelled to Amsterdam. The conference was all bad, (I always learn something), but it didn't live up to what it claimed it was abou. It was a real buzz communicating with Zita in Christchurch and Julian and others on a waka in the middle of the Whanganui river! See some fabulous photos of waka.wireless here

Admittedly the female-male ratio of presentations at ccc is no better than was at Electrosmog but access seems freer and the diversity, well there's no comparision of course, it is completely different set-up.

However great things are happening in media worlds such as WikiLeaks (watch this fabulous documentary produced by a Swedish film company (scroll to 25 mins to the Iraqi footage and you will never doubt the important of freedom of open documentation + it raises big issues on secrecy and accountability. I do think that Bradley Manning is a hero (see 23mins into the documentary) and here you can see why OpenLeaks started (at 29:22 mins into the documentary). The documentary stops suddenly and you can watch the final part here (6:03 starts at where the previous one stopped.)
It is great that there's no real squabble here, WikiLeaks takes the strategy of using the media for greater impact on the world, and OpenLeaks works more on the quiet.

And in my own backyard
there's Genderchangers
and the ECT conferences and gatherings,
both run by
and for the fairer sex:)

Friday, November 26, 2010

Crying out for culture (een schreeuw voor cultuur) and Creative Leiden

I thought I'd make this a post about some of the creative initiatives happening in my city, Leiden, in response to the Dutch government announcement to cut all culture and arts funding by 20% (c. 200 million Euros). They also announced that they will also remove the reduced sales tax for art and culture (from 6% to 19%).

In response to this a national day of protest called, "Holland screams (calls out) for culture" (Nederland schreeuwt om cultuur) was held throughout the Netherlands, on November 20th. In most cities people gathered to 'cry out' or 'scream' -very fitting given that the government just announced just a major cut to all arts funding in the Netherlands.

The website for collecting petitions of protest, enabled you to scream into the microphone, while this page has films and photographs of the day of protest.

Here is a news item with links and photos from the culture oriented broadcasting corporation, the VPRO, Photos from the protest in Amsterdam, and photos from Utrecht, and in this blog has a link on youtube of the protest in Leiden - in summary the first speaker informs us that with a 6 week warning of the increase in sales tax from 6% to 19%, theatres aimed for youth in particular cannot survive.

The Leiden city councilor for culture, Jan-Jaap de Haan the second speaker (here at 3'10" in the video in link above) spoke very well: he wanted to sing, but the orchestra is gone, so he has to scream and asks why is culture perceived as a left-wing hobby. Culture informs and shows who we are. The government is focussed on what we are not (very apt reference to the government focus on the fear of migrants and anti-Islamic sentiments).

It made me realise, that yes, without culture, expression becomes noise -yelling and screaming.

It's ironic that the news today is that yet more criminal records have been revealed of members of the Dutch parliament in Wilders' right-wing extreme nationalist party (PVV 'party for freedom' - oh so Orwellian!).
So the current cabinet remains in power, if Wilders' doesn't remove these individuals who lied about their past 'convictions' (!) from his party. Two weeks ago one member of parliament left this same party because he didn't want yet more limelight put on his past. Ironic that a government needs these people in order to remain in power.

And so to Leiden:

Creatieve Stad Leiden

is a blog run by Jeroen Maters which often has ideas or thoughts or reports on cultural related issues in Leiden.

The 24 Nov blog concerns creative ideas for some ugly architecture along a main street, and his idea there is for a vertical garden. I came across this via the Linkedin Leiden Network group in response to a call for suggestions for this empty block.

The old post office next to this block is now used by a collective of artists as a gallery, de Pieter, which focusses on group exhibitions by Leiden artists.

As a result in the down turn in the economy in the past year or so there are more empty spaces in the centre of the city, and so the artists here are able to pay a low rent to the city council for this space. Below is another arts initiative ultilizing empty shops.

Open Makers

Early in 2010 I first heard of OpenMakers which provides temporary studio spaces in the centre of Leiden utilizing empty shops.

In September + October Sen and I built our installation in one of these spaces. What is so great about their project is that it is interdisciplinary and invites artists from all levels to have the opportunity to work on a project. So far there's been theatre, tango, fashion design, poetry as well other visual artists.

Scheltema

- centre for theatre, visual arts, dance, lectures, events, etc
Scheltema is an old wool factory, converted since 2005 into an arts centre.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

New Media Related conferences + publications

I often am sent interesting links or information about conferences, some I can attend.

So I'll add new links to such events and feel welcome to add your own links in the comments.
15+16 Jan 2011: Fiber festival, http://www.fiberfestival.nl/
hosted by:
MediaLab in Amsterdam whose website has numerous links to media mainly in connection with education: http://medialab.hva.nl/

Two things happening in November are:

Game in the City

gameinthecity.nl/2010

18 + 19 Nov, Amersfoort, The Netherlands: the Third edition of the Dutch Game Awards, the annual business awards for the Dutch Game Industry.

Of interest to me is the conference and the session on Sustainability:
* Alma Schaafstal - TFI (Taskforce Innovatie Regio Utrecht [Taskforce Innovation around Utrecht])
(Global Game Jam > will be held 28-30 January 2011)
* Philippe Petit and Rens Vogel – Greeny Games (Be Green)
* Jacky Nieuwstraten – Amersfoort (BioB@ttle)
* Derk de Geus – Paladin Studios (Enercities)
* Bruno Felix – Submarine Channel (Collapsus)

AND in London this weekend the conference:

Besides the Screen:
Moving Images during Distribution, Exhibition and Consumption



New media technologies impact cinema well beyond the screen; they also promote the reorganization of its logic of distribution, modes of consumption and viewing regimes. Once, it was video and television broadcast that disturbed traditional cinematographic experience, revealing the image as soon as it was captured and bringing it into the home of the audience. Nowadays, computer imaging and online networks cause an even stronger effect to the medium, increasing the public agency in the movie market dynamics.
In order to understand how these significant changes in the modes of accessing and distributing moving images might affect cinematographic experience, economy and historiography, we are obliged to rethink not only of its future, but its past as well. Besides the Screen is a one-day international symposium that aims to map research projects on new and old forms of moving image distribution, exhibition and consumption. The conference will be hosted in Goldsmiths College in November, with the support of the Graduate School and the Media and Communications Department.

Their blog has more and they expect to produce a publication: besidesthescreen.blogspot.com

Programme:
Saturday, 20th November
10:30 - 10:45 Welcome! [MRB Screen 1]
10:45 - 12:30 First Panel Session

Panel 1a [MRB Screen 1]: Distribution & TV

* Keith Beattie, Exhibiting Direct Cinema: The Realignment of US Broadcast Television and the Development of the Observational Mode

* JP Kelly, In the “Perpetual Now”: 24 and the Distribution of Real-Time
* Melanie Kennedy, High School Musical as a Made-for-Television Tween Musical
* Hannah Andrews, The BBC Film Network: User-generated Content and the Public Service Broadcaster

Panel 1b [MRB Screen 2]: Marketing and/or Participation

* Adnan Hadzi, Why Openness Matters: the Deptford.TV Project
* Marc Stumpel, File-sharing or attention-sharing? Implications of the hybrid economy
* Stephanie Janes, Viral Marketing Strategies in Hollywood Cinema

14:00 - 15:45 Second panel session
Panel 2a [MRB Screen 1]: The (Archived) Image

* Maarten Brinkerink, Open Images: Establishing an Audiovisual Commons
* Ana Carvalho, The ephemeral in AV realtime practices: an analysis into the possibilities for its documentation
* Evelin Stermitz, ArtFem.TV
* Claudy Op den Kamp, The forgotten ones: is audiovisual archival public domain material really freely available?

Panel 2b [MRB Screen 2]: The Shape of (Image) Space
* Stefania Charitou, Projection dislocated
* Sudeep Dasgupta, The Screen beside Itself: Situational Transformations in Visual Culture
* Zlatan Krajina, How to Tame the Sun: Visual Indulgences at a Screen-Place as Strategies of Appropriation

16:00 - 17:00 Keynote [MRB Screen 1]

* Julia Knight, Distribution, Diversity and Digitalisation

Sunday, 21st November
10:30 - 12:15 Third Panel Session
Panel 3a [BPB 1]: Remix, Appropriation & the Amateur

* Felix Seyfarth, Television 2.0: Exploring user-generated video and online participation
* Marin Hirschfeld, Redacted and the Problems with Appropriating Amateur Digital Discourses
* Nicola Evans, Rambo Remix
* Patricia Moran, The image time: procedure of cultural remix

Panel 3b [BPB 2]: (New?) Image Aesthetics

* Patricia Iuva, Trailer aesthetic
* Luca Barbeni, Until the End of Cinema
* Vito Campanelli, The DivX and MP3 Experience

13:45 - 15:30 Fourth Panel Session
Panel 4a [BPB 1]: The Image on the Move

* Simone Knox, Besides, On and Through the Screen: The Transnational Distribution and Consumption of Cinema
* Laura Rodriguez Isaza, Touring the Film Festival Circuit: Migrating Patterns of Latin American Cinema
* Leandro Valiati, Cultural Economics and Movies: Indicators and empirical research

Panel 4b [BPB 2]: As Art: Authenticity, Originality & Exhibition

* Bojana Romic, New Exhibition Spaces: viral video goes offline?
* Frantisek Zachoval, ART-y-CHOK-e
* Catrien Schreuder, Pixels and Places: Video Art in Public Space
* Dominik Hasler, Party as art? AntiVJ and the migration of VJing into the sphere of fine arts

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Oct 11th: Coming out day on the Aalmarkt, Leiden

Then Sen took the flag home and it nows flies from our Leiden-north balcony.

Oct 10th: final impressions of our video installation in the Aalmarkt studio


The five videos are:

The Tears of Rangi | Ngā roimata o Rangi,
16 min. 30 sec.

The Moving Heart | Te Ngākau Nekeneke
3min 33 sec, song: Whānau Mārama by Toroa Pohatu, Aotearoa | New Zealand

The Two Lands
16 min 9 sec., voice: Sonja van Kerkhoff

The Dark Valley,
14 min 10 sec

Heart of the Land | Te Ngākau o te whenua
3 min, 33sec

Saturday, October 9, 2010

More photos of our new video installation on Oct 9th





                                      

Tama worked on the outer skin of planks and Sen found that dipping the wood into the canal made them flexible enough to stop breaking when bending them for the bow of the boat-house.
Photographs from a few days earlier are here

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

October update on our installation in an old shop on the Aalmarkt, Leiden

On October 1st Sen started building the front wall and doorway and I started work on the ceiling lights and the illumination for the suspended harakeke and piupiu.

We hope to have all the videos, sounds and lighting in place by Sunday October 10th when we will have an open day for visitors. OPEN: Aalmarkt 17, 2 - 6 p.m.

We are also on the look out for bits of carpet as Sonja will use what carpet she gets from people and the street as a layer underfoot. A layer of the land from this part of the world. Each contributor of carpet will receive a photo later showing how their carpet was incorporated into the sculptural landscape inside this structure.

"The tears of Rangi", the final video (now 16 minute long) is almost finished and I am also working on an 18 min version of the video "Heart of the Land". For the installation the most videos will be much as longer so the sounds, music and voices work more fluidly in the space. View some earlier versions of the videos on my vimeo page.

For earlier photos of this work see September 2010.
 


Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Update on the new installation at Aalmarkt 17



Walls are almost done. Next more work on the lighting, putting the video screens into place + work on the ceiling drawings.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
To how it looked on September 18-19 >>

Sunday, September 26, 2010

The Leiden 2010 Arts Route - Kunstroute Leiden 2010

<< Left: For the annual open artist studios weekend (18 + 19 Sept) we shared our space with painter and musician, Anneke van Rijswijk who hung her drawings and paintings inside the framework of our "kainga".
Alet Kortenoeven, who was the previous occupant of our OPENMAKERS studio had drawings along the walls and a small room where from inside this you could look through funnel-like holes containing objects with the city as a backdrop. And across the window and on the television was the "there is beauty in the city" photo-magnet project. >> Info about the Leiden project

We had about 300 - 400 visitors over the 2 days!
A huge contrast to the 30 or so who visted our exhibition 5 minutes away in the Morstraat Kapsalon. However Sen liked it that he was able to read and be out of the crowds. More about our work in this show is here: www.sonjavank.com/09aderna.htm

About 150 artists showed work in around the city and one place that stood out for me was the COC exhibition. Downstairs was a poem in English and Dutch (see photo on the left) which made a strong visual and metaphysical statement against the mirror wall and upstairs were prints and cartoons by Suzanne van Rossenberg among others. All the work not only celebrated gay and lesbian identity but did it with such wit and magic.

Then on September 20th (see photo on left) Alet took the last of her work out and we had room to pull the "kainga" forward to finish the bow and to work on the curved contour. We worked most days from 2 till 7, while in the evenings and mornings I started or finished new edits for the videos. Premiere Pro is a wonderful programme and I've now discovered the open source Flick DVD is good for creating the dvd side of things.
It still takes a computer about 10 hours to render a video, which I then throw it onto a dvd and then view it the best tv we have to test the quality and then I tweak what is needed and start all over again. See some earlier results here: www.vimeo.com/sonjavank

Saturday, September 18, 2010

More work on the "kāinga a roto" (boat-home)

This photo shows that we have now straightened the frames so that they are vertical and started adding permanent braces which curve around the outside.

On Friday (17 September) we put in two tv dvd monitors and had these running to decide on the size of the windows we will build for these on the inside. We've gone for making the two first windows 19 inches. We also had the marante plywood cut which will be 90 planks, each 13 x 240 cm long, placed over and along the outer structure.

At the Gamma it took a man and a machine about half an hour to do all this. This was much faster than the 6 we cut using our bench saw, where all 4 of us held the large sheets.

On September 16th about 6000 Leiden citizens registered at the Waag (medival weighing house, a few metres west of our building) for the annual, free herring and white bread (google "The relief of Leiden of 1574" to find out more about this. This article in Dutch is about this). Many of these spent a good 5-10 minutes standing in the queue outside our window. Typical comments were about how stupid we were building this, because it wouldn't fit through the door. One of the advantages in speaking English to each other while working is that, we don't need to respond as most assumed we couldn't understand them. The other common comment concerned expressions of surprise that a woman as small as I was was handling tools and seemed to know what I was doing :)

The people in the queue were of all ages, but going by their comments and the fact that they didn't seem to notice the numerous images and texts on the windows explaining in Dutch that this was an art project, obviously were people who don't visit art galleries. However we had a number of interesting and friendly conversations with some who did notice that the Leiden shoe-makers shop was now a studio + gallery for the "There is beauty in the city".



More about the there Beauty is in the city exhibition is here

Monday, September 13, 2010

Studio - Aalmarkt 17, Leiden



                    
Read about how you can participate in the "there is beauty in the city" project here. This exhibition in the window combines global views with Leiden views.

I have this studio thanks to
OPEN | Makers, a Leiden city culture project which gives artists a studio for 2 months in the middle of the city.

On September 12th the first frames for the installation Kāinga a roto (Home Within) were raised in place with Tama, Toroa (his teeshirt bears the text: Das Wort "Vegetarier" kommt aus dem Indianischen und heißt:"Zu Blöd zum Jagen") and Sen doing most of the work.

More photos will be added below documenting the progress.

Four of the five videos to go inside still need a some work but you can get an impression of these on my vimeo page. These are: The Heart of the Land, The Two Lands, The Dark Valley and The Moving Heart.

For the installation there will be no titles or credits and some will be made longer so they loop seamlessly and so the soundscape of the space works as an entity.
These plus the new one I'm still working on will be for sale as a DVD package from late October onwards.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Wanted: Beauty in the city

>> Lees het in het nederlands

"There is beauty in the city" is an exhibition of images by artists around the world in "OPEN | Makers aan de Markt" (www.openmakers.nl) at Aalmarkt 17, Leiden, 3 September - 13 October. Participants are invited to provide images of Leiden that will become part of this exhibition.

<< Photo: There is beauty in Sydney, Australia, photo by Siobhan Tarr. More images on the blog


"There is beauty in the city" is a global art project initiated by British artist, Anna Francis in 2008 and now managed by Glen Stoker. The Leiden part of this project is coordinated by Sonja van Kerkhoff.

This show will combine global views with Leiden views. Participants receive a magnetic sticker with the text "There is BEAUTY in the city" which they place in their city and photograph. For the Leiden exhibition, we invite you to come to Aalmarkt 17 to collect a magnet for 4 euros from September 3rd onwards, 3 - 5 pm while stocks last, or make an appointment via: sonjavank AT gmail.com

Choose your favourite corner of the city and leave the magnet there for others to see. Be creative.

The first 25 individuals to send or deliver their image will have this shown in a second row in the shop window, as well as having their images become part of the blog and future exhibitions around the world. At the end of the exhibition, participants can come and collect their images to keep.



Gezocht: Schoonheid in de stad


"Er is schoonheid in de stad" is een tentoonstelling van beelden van kunstenaars van over de hele wereld in "OPEN | Makers aan de Markt" (www.openmakers.nl) op Aalmarkt 17, Leiden, 3september t/m 13 oktober Deelnemers worden uitgenodigd om foto's van Leiden in te sturen, die vervolgens deel uitmaken van de tentoonstelling.

"Er is schoonheid in de stad" is een wereldwijd kunstproject, begonnen in 2008 op initiatief van de Britse kunstenaar Anna Francis, en wordt nu beheerd door Glen Stoker. Het Leidse deel van dit project wordt gecoördineerd door Sonja van Kerkhoff.

Deze tentoonstelling zal wereldwijde perspectieven combineren met Leidse perspectieven. De deelnemers krijgen een magnetische sticker met de tekst "There is beauty in the city", die zij in hun stad plaatsen en fotograferen. Voor deze expositie in Leiden nodigen wij u uit om bij Aalmarkt 17 een magneet op te halen voor 4 euro vanaf vrijdag 3 September. Open van 15 tot 17 uur, of maak een afspraak per mail: sonjavank AT gmail.com

Kies uw favoriete hoek van de stad en stel daar de magneet tentoon voor anderen. Wees creatief.

De eerste 25 afbeeldingen die worden in- gestuurd of geleverd worden weergegeven in de tweede rij in de etalage, evenals in de blog en in toekomstige tentoonstellingen over de hele wereld. Aan het einde van de tentoonstelling kunnen de deelnemers hun afbeelding ophalen.

OPEN | Makers aan de markt zet kunstproductie in de etalage. Makers krijgen voor 2 maanden een ruimte, Leiden krijgt zicht op de Leidse kunstproductie.
OPEN | Makers is geïnitieerd door Cultuurfonds Leiden.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

A functional beauty

Beauty is a human virtue or quality. It is about what we choose to see as much as how we see. So I placed the "there is BEAUTY in the CITY" magnet on my back, stood on the balcony in my apartment and faced my city, Leiden. This is my view of my city most days. Some who see our balcony wouldn't consider it very beautiful, with the tools and ladder and so on, while others wouldn't consider all the flats around us as very beautiful and neither do I, if I am seeing beauty only as form. What I find beautiful about where I live is that I can easily walk or cycle to where I need to be and that we can use our small balcony for working on new art projects. And this isn't the first time I've used our balcony as inspiration for an artwork, the 3 minute video begins from where you see me standing here

There is BEAUTY in the CITY

The There is BEAUTY in the CITY art project is a collaborative project with the people of the world. It encourages a reframing and rethinking of the urban spaces that we inhabit - using a magnet as a tool to renegotiate familiar territories.
The project was started in March 2008 by UK artist Anna Francis
(Her blog -http://annafrancis.blogspot.com- also has links to other art projects too)
in Stoke-on-Trent for the Axis Festival, and has had over 200 images submitted from over 40 photographers/artists which are shown in exhibitions and festivals as well as on the blog managed by Glen Stoker.

“Anna says the project allows people to see the place in which they live in a new way, and differently.

But she is emphatic that it is not just about creating a photo-album: "The project could easily be (mis)interpreted as an effort to simply collect and label images of urban spaces and indeed if the project was to be undertaken by just one person or one individual, this idea of 'beauty' could become very problematic."

"But the fact that many people's views on 'beauty' are included in the project makes for a very interesting end result. The fact that many different people are working with this phrase on their own terms means that the idea of there being beauty in the city is open to a wide variety of interpretations."

BBC website, 9 April 2010



Participate!

If there is a corner of your city that you want to draw attention to, or label as beautiful, you too can join in. Details are on the blog (thereisbeautyinthecity.blogspot.com) which also has photos of places where “there is beauty in the city” sent in by others across the globe.

There's also a facebook group for this project here

Thursday, April 22, 2010

The wonders of technology - a response to the Eyjafjallajökull smoke screen


Around 1906 `Abdu'l-Bahá wrote: "...all the members of the human family, whether peoples or governments, cities or villages, have become increasingly interdependent. For none is self-sufficiency any longer possible..."
(Selections from the Writings of `Abdu'l-Bahá
(Haifa: Bahá'í World Centre, 1978), pp. 31-32))

And in 1936, Shoghi Effendi discussed this theme in reference to "A mechanism of world inter-communication..."
(Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 203)

Screenshot taken this morning >>
on the website: www.flightradar24.com which shows real-time flights in Europe. The yellow dots are planes flying or landing.
The pink R + E indicate, Reykavik + Eyjafjallajökull


Last Friday morning, messages via my Facebook friends indicated that planes were not running and then I saw the pictures of the cloud and smoke!
Now a few U.K. papers are wondering if the 6 day no-flight ban was over-cautious, but I think, thanks to the wonders of technology a disaster was avoided. Sure people had to stay longer or find trains or buses, or be creative or flexible. It was clear from some of the messages I read, that some travellers had never slept in an airport before. Welcome to my world!
And others complained of having to make train changes, which meant carrying their luggage themselves. Welcome to my world again.
Others complained that information in their non-English speaking country was not in English and I smiled, they could send messages to facebook but didn't know how to use babblefish or communicate by adlibing. We English-speakers are the laziest people :)
Then I thought of these facebook messages that were coming in and how people were using this technology to share their stories. A lot of it seemed to be about uncertainty and frustration and I thought, hang on, a catastrophe has been averted.

Yes, I wasn't travelling and my experiences have taught me to travel light, but still I found it kinda of nice to have a sky free of planes for a few days. To be looking at the sky more often for signs of volcanic ash and glad that the red sunsets were a reminder of the wonder of nature, rather than pollution.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

new 2 minute video by Sen and myself

This is our submission for a call for videos to celebrate Europe where at least 50% of the video utilizes EU archival material.

We decided to contrast stills from our own travels with that of their footage, on theme of Europe as a place for exploration into new territorities - a Europe as a compass or clock, a place without borders or with changing borders.



You can also view this on their website in a larger size




A compass tells us that every direction has its possibilites.
We have taken the theme of a 'compass-clock' as a way of showing our personal experiences with diverse European cultures. The video starts at zero for us, the Netherlands our home for the past 20 years and then turning clockwise, snapshots of us and our children flash by against various modes of documentation to create a dance between the personal and the public record.

The music is a remix of music by friends of ours: Sandy Hoover (U.S./U.K, with credit to Los de Abjo (Mexico), and Kath Tait, U.K. www.kathtait.com) who like us were born outside of Europe but have spent decades enjoying the opportunities of living and working in Europe.

"Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends."
wrote Maya Angelou.

The footage we have selected from the European Commission audiovisual archive contrasts fleeting moving images of Europe in various ways to show aspects of European life-worlds, such as shots of cities, institutions, some projects supported by the European Social Fund (ESF), as well as historical events, with still images of our family in locations such as the Hague Peace Palace, Legoland in Denmark, Oulu + Helsinki in winter, Estonian, Latvian + Lithuanian towns, Polish + Czech mountain tops, German streets, Italian waterways, the Spanish sea, Luxemburg, Belgian, French + Irish churches and views, and ancient Scottish stones.

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
Marcel Proust.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Aotearoa | New Zealand travels

Dec 13-16, 19-20: Auckland then Christchurch
Dec 16-19
: We drive to Dunedin, visit the Otago Peninsula + friends
Dec 20
: We hitch to Nelson
Dec 21
: We hitch to Takaka
Dec 21-25: We stay near Collingwood
Dec 25-26: > Nelson > Wellington > we hitch to Eltham, Linda takes us to Tahora
Dec 26-Jan 2: Tahora Folk Festival
Jan 2-6: We are in South Taranaki then Whanganui
Jan 6-12: Whanganui > N.P. > Parihaka Festival > N.P. > Eltham > Kaupokonui beach > Whanganui
Jan 13-15: Roadtrip with Ans along the Desert Road > Rotorua > Tirau > Te Awamutu
Jan 16-20: Te Awamutu > Auckland > Helensville > Waiuru > Te Awamutu > Pirongia
Jan 20 - 26: Whakahoro > Along the Whanganui River > Jerusalem
Jan 27: Whanganui | exhibition > Ratana > P.N. > Otaki > Wellington
Jan 27-29: Wellington | Te Papa > Porirua
Jan 29-Feb 1st: Wellington > Auckland Folk Festival | airport farewell

Ravensbourne view


Macandrew Bay



See my
New Zealand Photos Page
for more images



Variable Oystercatcher + gull, and a seal (below) at Pilots Beach







See my
New Zealand Photos Page
for more images