Archive for the 'travel' Category
Ah, Singapore, where the weather is balmy. Its my first Asian country. My fellow passenger David from www.xm-asia.com described it as Asia on Training wheels. It is certainly that. I was at the Sleepy Sams only an hour after getting off the plane, no queing for passport control, bag already on the luggage carousel, easy to obtain travel card, and quick. Compared to the hours lost in other countries post the plane, this was great. Now to tell my body that it is not 1.30 in the afternoon.
So now off to find some food…probably Malaysian.
Image via Wikipedia
I was at Mashed08 in Alexandra Palace . There is a good mix of hardware and software hackers, but I like the hardware ones best. It’s a bit like working with children ands animals. It should not be done in 24hrs unless you are really experienced. I spent too much time on a prototype when i should have spent time on the sketch, A learning experience, but I did dip into using python to talk to Arduino , and that was a valuable lesson.
Joycewalks was great. A small crowd to be sure but still the unexpected occurred. We we navigating the city using a generated map, and text from the Lotus Eaters chapter of Ulysees (Joyce), but the local made an appearance in stories of art projects been and gone, the history of the area. Crossing the city with a different purpose brings a different accenting. In the interest of the piece we started at a pub in Newcastle, and with a pint under our belt proceeded to walk away from the busier parts of the city, through the orchard road tunnel(a graffiti project), past the arts council and it’s smoking room, the telegraph bar(and talk of it), the old wall and down the green jungle of an escarpment to the tyne river. In the process of the tour we passed buildings in all states of disrepair, gentrification and post gentrification. The vodka bar that was open a few years ago, now is just a dusty dancefloor, a sign in fake russian, and an advertisement for £2 shots, the warehouses still being converted, the old cobbled road and smooth granite for the wagon wheels of old.
So it became more than the text, of course it was always going to be, we are all waiting for the serendipity of connection with our environment and our fellows.
Photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sctv/sets/72157605657658132/
Image by eggenbergurbock23 via Flickr
It Bloomsday tomorrow and I am celebrating with a walk in Newcastle UK . I have generated a walk based upon the lotus eaters section of James Joyce ’s Ulysses. This is made possible by Conor McGarrigle Joycewalks interface which uses the googlemaps api. This is part of the 1000 Joyce walks event.
Im not sure if the Australian experience is unique, or mine typical, but the premise is that Australians that travel are obsessed by it, by what it means, by the process of being transplanted, separated from home. Show me any Australian artist apart from Stelarc that has not this idea of travel encoded at a deep level in their thoughts/art works.
I wish we would all stop moving, but we are children of a new and old culture, a hybrid split.
