along the road

Today, the atmospherical sea is all white, as if coagulated light, and full of movement.

Snow is knee-high in the fields, sometimes up to the thigh. A little less in the woods. In settled areas, it turns the cars, roadsigns and railings – the very streets – into organic sculpture, emphasizing the spatiality of all things.

I need not borrow the eyes of Goethe or Wittgenstein. But I would have enjoyed their company in this surrounding whiteness.

By the way, I am now – to my great surprise and joy – coordinator at the Nomadic University for Art, Philosophy and Enterprise in Europe. Whatever artistic faculties I possess, I will bring them into the process.

brief stay in Turku

Going on a one-day trip to Åbo/Turku to see Bengt and Kim for a good day’s work. I walk along the Aura river from the harbour, pass the castle following the old Castle street to the marketplace and cathedral square.

Weather has been less cold for a while now, at times even damp; since days, hoarfrost is building on any surface that isn’t covered with snow. Trees like birds ruffled up in down covering, sheltered in darkness.

In Kim’s company, I experience the city by ear. It becomes an instrument, resounding people’s feet and voices, cars and church-bells and doors opening and shutting; all sounds muffled, all corners softened by the snow.

New Year 2010

Beyond the turning point: light returning slowly. Yesterday -19° C, today it’s -8 only.
Having finished some writing, I will go back to the atelier. Keep the fire burning.

Interplay at the ECP IV

By noon on Saturday, the Russian translator/voice arrives, and we almost have the time to rehearse all together. Once.
And then we are onstage.

And we did it.
Thanks to everyone involved!

Interplay at the ECP III

Early Saturday morning; la Gioconda smiles at me from the shower curtain.

Yesterday, two more nomads of the Nomadic University generously accepted to join the performance, so now only the Arabic voice is missing.

The ECP session begins at 9 am. After a week or more with overcast sky, the sun shines in through the large side window at Artisten. A loose in the programme; I take the opportunity to call for an Arabic speaking person in the audience, and yes – there is actually one.  He accepts to participate.
By now, there are quite a number of persons involved.

Their openness, generosity, sincerity and courage is stunning.

Interplay at the ECP II

preparations; stretching the fabric, attaching plummets and placing the screens onstage

The venue for this session is Artisten, Academy of Music and Drama at Gothenburg University.

I spend Thursday night and early Friday morning checking out material conditions; there are eight screens measuring 1,15 x 2,90 metres available – splendid! the black sheets will fit perfectly on them.
And the plummets will hang from plastic pipes nailed to the top edges. Anders, technician at Artisten, provides me with everything I need, and preparations run smoothly.
But then there’s the human factor. We will need some time to rehearse. And in fact, I do not know who will read the Italian, Finnish and Arabic versions yet. Or, if the Russian voice will arrive in time tomorrow.

As Tooticky points out, ‘everything is very insecure… which is exactly what soothens me’.

Interplay at the ECP I

backstage at Artisten, Academy of Music and Drama in Gothenburg

At the NUrope oasis in Åbo/Turku, June 2009, I staged a two-part workshop named Image upon the wall.
In late September, I was asked to do it again at the ECP session in Gothenburg, December 11th to 13th – as a performance within the NUrope presentation.

The performance, being the visualization of an actual process involving a number of people, then had to be literally re-created; re-thinking the concept, re-calling cooperation partners, re-newing the framing and re-writing the text.

Last Thursday, I took a train to Gothenburg, bringing a box of white chalks, four black cotton bedsheets, five plummets and a text rendered in five languages, printed out in three copies each.

between white and black

Cold snap: a sudden whiteness, extended shadows. Iridescent light.

With the good help of friends – from London to Helsinki, and from Dubai to Södertälje – I prepare a multi-lingual reading performance at the European Cultural Parliament session in Gothenburg next week.

and the world looks back

November, silver. Moisture, dampness: mists and rain, flooded ditches. Silver, and dirt.
I take a walk to bathe my eyes in diffused light. The sound of wild ducks;
I realize the world looks back.

Theories, methods and practices III

And there are no limits to perception.

“Every object, well-contemplated, creates an organ of perception in us.” (J W von Goethe, Scientific studies)