west uptowner

This image is of the site of a video installation called "Kuba", after a neighbourhood in Istanbul. There are a few dozen TV's, each playing a video of a Kuba resident talking about ... whatever, their lives, stories they know, hopes, etc. some very interesting moments, but I only had an hour, which wasn't enough time. You could probably sit in different areas listening for over a day. The train was at an unused platform in the Central Station.

Invented today:

A culture nurtured over several hundred years whose main purpose is the creation of one perfect sentence.

A style of speech only spoken by the poor which compels the powerful to listen -- but which does not involve anger, lust, shopping, or religion.

# posted by trev @ 10:56 a.m. 0 comments

We sit under this dome and get connected. I don't think I've ever been online so much while travelling before. Changes.

JP and I were talking about nostalgia -- he figures that nostalgia is something that is hardwired into us, but he consciously resists it. He sees it as slightly dangerous, in that it becomes a kind of reverence for the past that negates the importance of the present. This idea cuts to the core of JP's sense of politics – well, that's my interpretation. He is actively anti-nostalgic, and in this way, anti-conservative.

I don't know what to think -- I've never been to Stuttgart, but there is something welcoming and lovely here that makes me think of feelings of nostalgia. Is there a word for that? "Newstalgia:" -- the feeling of wanting to be home in a place you've never been. Or perhaps: of feeling like you know something about a place, on a subconscious level, when in fact you've never really been there before.

# posted by trev @ 5:48 p.m. 0 comments

19:50 pm: About to start the second show... the germans have asked me if they can open the doors. Soon the masses will flood in (we hope). Funny how in such a short run the success of the show really is based on a bit of word of mouth but mostly on the publicity the festival people have put together. It's a flat fee for the company, so attendance doesn't hit our bottom line. Hmmm... not quite the crowd that swarmed in last night, but they're still coming.

Great day. Went to the Kunstmuseem with JP and saw stuff by Paul Klee, Winter, and a bunch of people I've never seen before. Got to go back and get the gallery collection book to remember it all. There was a long tunnel-like L-shaped room, 2 ½ feet wide and 10 feet high, with 1” thick slabs of beeswax completely covering the walls and ceiling. Brilliant.

Ah, now we've got a good crowd. I fucking love the audience we had last night. They were so focused and alive, even if a little quiet. Here's to another round of that.

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21:30 : GREAT show – some guy started talking last night during the quiet moment when Tracey and Jacob sit in the audience, sharing “energy,” leaving the stage empty. “Here I am. I sit with you, in the darkness, and it is enough. I am simply Mattieu” (or something like that). For a show that is based on trying not to act, but to simple be there, open to the moment and whatever success or failure occurs, it seemed appropriate. That's the unconsidered danger / delight of a very attentive audience: they can get swept up to the point of being a part of the show, if you include them in whatever way. We never had this kind of involvement when in Toronto.

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Invented today:

A march in protest against short attention spans.

A short speech on existence spoken in a quiet moment on a crowded subway.

A method of converting a stomach full of cake and beer into something a little healthier.

A small wallet into which one can fold a whole other life, to be used sparringly, in exchange for this one, when the present needs a rest.

A form of music that makes you dance in such a way that your teeth get cleaned and your feet stop stinking.

A word for speaking out loudly in a crowded place when all others happen to be silent.

# posted by trev @ 7:53 a.m. 0 comments

3pm: Waiting to start another run of “Revolutions in Therapy” -- a quiet show about personal struggles with ... well probably depression and a search for meaning. That sounds so staid. It's an ambitious piece, conceptually, in that they are trying not to be polished about the show. To be who they are that day: just a couple of people talking, in a vaguely therapeutic context.

I'm enjoying working lights in this way. I don't feel the weight of being a designer on the show, but I have to act like one with the design: watch things, make small adjustments, take the director's notes and turn them into what he wants to see. They want to see. Tweak until there's no time left. It is nice that the show is relatively simple, in its own way – no very intense interplay of front lights to deal with, just a lovely arc of lights that rolls along on auto follows, and some cues to fill in the differences.

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4:30 pm: Wow, we just ran the show and I came pretty close to passing out. We need an audience and I need food and coffee.

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19:01 -- had coffee with dinner. Having another right now. Ready for the show. I LOVE how they give you a little cookie with your coffee here. And not a stodgy bit of shortbread or a cheap chocolate chip number – no, it's always a little flaky pastry of a cookie, in the shape of a pretzel, with a baked-on sugary coating. God love the good life.

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9:30 pm: Just finished the show in Stutttgart: opening night. Great audience, they were with it. Maybe the effort of trying to understand things brought them more fully into staying with the show. They were attentive to nuance. It makes you wonder if back home we have forgotten how to ATTEND to a show – that perhaps we have forgotten that we should bring effort or rigour into spectatorship. We have made attendance of an event into a passive thing.

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inventions:

A sonata of vaccuum cleaners, taps on large windows, and computer fans, backed up by a truck engine and its back-up beep.

A zulu curse on your telephone line.

A rap for soothing a crying baby.

A scottish lullaby about a serial killer in the service of the people.

A yearly meal and drink in celebration of one's defeats.

A bank for investing anger.

A light that does not illuminate the hungry.

# posted by trev @ 5:06 p.m. 0 comments

Bea and I are back, and in the two years I have been away, this place has changed. More agitation in the air, more military police in the street patting down students on the streetcorners, more revolutionary graffiti, more desplazados being lectured by cops. This has been one of the few places where seeing a cop was reassuring -- I´m no longer sure that´s true. They all seem like they´re fresh out of high school now. Kids with guns.

Graffiti that left an impression:

No pardon, no forgetting

Closing hospitals is a terrorist act

Re-election = more repression

I hope to see a bit more outside of the city, but must keep travel to the daylight hours.

more to come

# posted by trev @ 6:18 p.m. 0 comments