Friday, July 30, 2010

On the road through Germany - part two

All the way through Germany, we were listening to different German radio stations. On that certain day, each and every radio station had just one topic that needed to be discussed. In the morning the comments on the various radios were still a little sad. But as the day continued, the comments of the people on the different radio stations became more and more optimistic again. And almost all listeners who were calling in to the different radio shows agreed that it would at least be better to finish the tournament with winning the game for the third place than with loosing the game for the first place...

But the most important topic throughout all the different radio stations of course, was if Paul the Octopus had been 'forecasting' the outcome of the play or if he had been 'predicting' the outcome of the play. It is two weeks now after the final game of the tournament and Paul the Octopus surely is one of the winners of the event. Just today I read an article about his popularity in fortune telling China. On the other hand, there was another article which was raising the topic if the outcome of certain games had been determined in China...

Which has kept me wondering now for some time already, how it is possible to determine the outcome of a soccer game before the actual game is being played? I know that it is happening more often, but I keep on wondering how...

Saturday, July 24, 2010

On the road through Germany - part one

It was the day after Germany had lost the semi-final against Spain, when we drove on the A3 motorway all the way from Duisburg to Passau. Traffic was slow in the morning rush hour before Köln. While standing almost still in the early traffic jam, I noticed the flags along the highway.

Small German flags, dirty and broken, were lying in the grass next to the road. Small flags, the ones that can be mounted onto a car, sticking out at the roof. Looking at the flags I imagined disappointed people, listening to the soccer game while driving home in their cars. I imagined angry people ripping off the flags from their cars, just after the game was finished, throwing the flags along the side of the road, while still driving on the motorway.

At first I saw just a few of those flags. But as we slowly moved on in the traffic jam, I noticed more and more of those flags along the way. It was a strange image, especially since there was still one more game to play for Germany.

We were standing still for quite some time, trying to reach Köln in the traffic jam. But all this time, moving so slowly, I didn't manage to make a good photo. I've tried to catch quite some of the flags with my camera, but practically all of them turned into a vague combination of colors merging with the side of the road once captured on the photo.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

A summer soccer break

It has been a month now since I started writing for this blog. It is the middle of July now, Netherlands has just lost their most important game of the last decade and the temperatures are too high to even think about writing an artist's statement. So I will start a little summer break in my blog posts.

Instead of giving advice on how to present yourself online, I will post some photos and videos to keep you entertained during summer. And since soccer seems the only relevant topic, I'll start with posting some football related material.

The final game is finished and again Paul the Octopus made the correct prediction. But nonetheless today is the day that the Dutch team will tour Amsterdam. And for one last day the Dutch will go crazy again, supporting their national soccer team.

I've been living again in the Netherlands since September. But knowing Austria and Slovenia, I realize that it is nearly impossible to describe the Dutch craziness when it comes to supporting their national football team. So I'll share some photos with you of the area where I live now.

I took these photos last week in the city where I am staying now in the Netherlands. This is just a small town somewhere in the Netherlands. All over the country, from north to south and east to west, you could find similar looking houses and streets. Until sunday that was...

I am far away already by now, writing this article near Graz in Austria. I've never really understood this thing about soccer. But after being away for so many years, experiencing it all live again in the Netherlands, I have to admit, there is something special about it...


Saturday, July 3, 2010

Presenting your statement to the world

Now that you have written a short text about your work, you will need to think about how to present your text to the world. This step is more important than you might think. You might have spent hours and hours already until now, carefully choosing the right words to exactly describe what you are doing and why you are doing what you are doing. But the secret ingredient to really sell your work, is 'it has to look good'.

In general 'people don't read'. And if they read, they just scroll over the text. They will quickly read through your text, pick up some words and then make up their own story out of the things that they already knew. What really impresses people, is how you present your statement to them.

You might think, now that you have spent so much time digging into yourself, finding out who you really are, spending even more time to pack everything into a few sentences that describe exactly what you want to say in just 250 words, you might think that now you're ready.

You might think that these few sentences should be enough to get your message across. But here I have to disappoint you. These 250 words are only the beginning. Writing your artist's statement was a good step for yourself to realize who you are and where you stand, but unfortunately it is not enough to convince the rest of the world of your qualities as an artist.

In the following articles I will look into different possibilities how to present your work.