Sunday, August 29, 2010

ISEA - Exploring the Zollverein

The stairs went up about three stories. At that moment I wasn't even sure if I was allowed to go up there. But I wasn't the only one going around there taking photos, so I just continued following the metal structure. When I got to the top of the stairs, I realized that this was not just an emergency exit behind the restaurant. There were many people passing by, all coming from the other direction.

As I kept going, following the metal construction, which had now turned into a long bridge, I started to realize that this walk was going to be a bit longer than just climbing up the stairs. The metal bridge was at least a hundred meters long, leading all the way over the wide terrain to the building on the other side. Under the long bridge were railroad tracks. Trains must have been driving up and down here once, transporting coal around the complex.

While following the path, still up on the bridge, I started to realize how big this complex is. The pathway, on which I was walking, is just a small part of the area. The complex is full with buildings, connected together with bridges, stairs and railroad tracks. These days the complex has been turned into a cultural area, but the industrial site still shows how it must have been.

While wandering around the area, amazed by the giant constructions, I realized that I could not recall anything from the lectures that morning...

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

ISEA - A day of nonhuman performativity

The symposium in Essen continued with a morning about nonhuman performativity, followed by a motion lab, which turned out to be a set of lectures just like the other days. ISEA is a symposium of lectures. That's what it is, that's what it is supposed to be and that's what it will always be.

Luckily there are enough breaks inbetween the talks to get in touch with other participants in a more informal way. During the lunch break I had a very nice meeting in which I learned that it is actually very easy to recycle old paper into new paper all by yourself. All you need is a blender, a pan and a plate of metal with small holes in it, similar like the screen to put in a window to prevent insects from flying in.

There was no time to write down the instructions, since the next session was starting already. But instead of spending also the afternoon in the room with lectures, I went for a walk outside. I took the back door from the restaurant and climbed up the metal stairs that happened to be there. It was the best decision I could have made. Suddenly I found myself in an amazing structure of metal stairs, bridges, cables and buildings. It wasn't until then, that I discovered the amazing area of the Zollverein. Wandering around this industrial jungle made my mind float away much further than any of the lectures had managed to do that morning...

Monday, August 23, 2010

ISEA - The opening keynote

I arrived at ISEA in the afternoon, nicely in time to attend the opening keynote by Brian Massumi. The keynote turned out to be a flow of thoughts, without a visual (powerpoint) presentation to back up the words. In general, without a visual presentation, it is extremely difficult for me to follow a lecture.

That was no different here. There was not much of the keynote that stayed in my mind... Or maybe it is better to say, I didn't understand much of the lecture at all...

The only thing that I understood from the hour and a half event, was that Massumi was philosophizing about events and their relation to each other. The main point of the lecture, at least as far as I understood, was the question: if two events happen at the same time, but without any relation to each other - for example I am working in my garden and at the other side of the world a plane crashes - how do these two events influence each other? What is their relation to each other? And what is their relation to art? How do different (random) events influence art?

Okay, that might not even seem such an unusual question. You could even say that there were already many  philosophers discussing this theme. But the way how Brian Massumi was explaining his thoughts, was surely different. This question was only the starting point for his talk, but it was as much as I understood from the whole presentation.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

ISEA - Zollverein Essen

So I arrived at ISEA this weekend. The first location is Essen. Essen is one of those many cities in the Ruhr Area that I have passed by many times on the highway, but where I have never stopped to see the town. This is the first time that I am not just passing by, but that I will actually be seeing something of the town.

Well, seeing something of the town is not exactly the right way to put it. ISEA takes place at the Zollverein, which is located in the north-east of Essen, close to Gelsenkirchen. The Zollverein is where I will spend all my time in Essen.

The Zollverein is a small city in itself. It is a former industrial coal mining complex. Since about ten years the site is officially recognized as industrial heritage. It is on the UNESCO list of world heritage sites. And it surely deserves that, the spot is truely amazing.

The whole construction of the industrial complex is still there. Long railroad tracks on the ground and long steal bridges up in the air are both connecting different buildings of the complex. Next to the walking paths are huge steal cables, which were once used to transport things.

These days the place is like an urban jungle, made out of steal, rusty after all those years, where you can go for a walk on a sunday afternoon. It also seems the perfect location to have an international symposium about electronic arts.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Fifteen minutes at ISEA

I'm invited to Ruhr2010 to do a lecture at ISEA2010. ISEA is the biggest International Symposium on Electronic Arts. The event will take place from August 20 until August 29 in several cities of Ruhr2010 in Germany. I've been invited to do a lecture presenting my recycling arts work, which I would like to show in connection with my work in the virtual space.

I've been preparing my lecture for quite some time already, but only today I found out that just 15 minutes are reserved for my presentation at ISEA2010. I presented my work two years ago at ISEA2008 in Singapore and during that symposium each presenter had 30 minutes, 20 minutes for the presentation and 10 minutes for questions and answers. But in Dortmund only 1,5 hours are planned for 5 presenters.

So I will have to present my answer to the question of the relation between virtual reality and recycling arts in 15 minutes. Which creates a new problem in itself. Because I don't even know how to present the question in just 15 minutes... How can I explain the answer to the problem if I cannot even explain the problem?

I guess I will have to change my strategy now for this presentation. Maybe I will even have to read my own articles again on how to present an artist's statement. And I guess I will have to write a few articles very quickly now on how to present an artist's statement in just 15 minutes.


Thursday, August 5, 2010

Connecting virtual reality and recycling arts

What keeps me less wondering, is the big success of Paul the Octopus. The small creature, only two years old, that became so famous foretelling the outcomes of Germany's soccer games at the world championship. Somehow it seems to make perfect sense to me, that a creature strange as an octopus, fascinates us so much.

We will probably never know, how it was possible for the animal to guess all the outcomes correctly. And knowing now that his predictions were always the correct ones, I would have preferred not to know the outcomes of his fortune telling, before the games were played. But there is not much to do about that afterwards.

In about two weeks I will be visiting Ruhr2010. Paul the Octopus is living in an aquarium, somewhere in one of the cities of Ruhr2010. Who knows, maybe he has his own installation by now as part of the European Cultural Capital program. He would be one of the most famous participants.

I will be at Ruhr2010 at the end of August. I will be giving a lecture on the relation between recycling arts and the use of the internet. Or more precisely, a lecture looking into what connects reycling and the digital age. Or, in other words, on the connection between virtual reality and my work creating wallets from empty milk packages...

I've been searching for an answer to that question for about two years now. Maybe Paul the Octopus can help me to find a connection...