The transit lounge is the archetypal transit space, the point where the hyper-global + hyper-local coincide; a location which blurs traditional conceptions of geo-political boundaries, creating pockets of international space within the borders of individual nation-states. An in-between space, it exists relative to a fixed departure and arrival point, not to the area that surrounds it.

The Transit Lounge is a series of overlapping residencies for Australian and German artists and architects in Berlin. It is also a blog where themes relating to the project will develop, collaborations will be initiated and sustained, and observations on the city collected. The Transit Lounge invites you to participate in these transnational conversations by commenting on the blog.

For more information email us: transit [AT] transitlounge [DOT] org

The transit lounge is supported by Culturia and the DAZ

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

First "Hello" from Alma in Berlin

Hello to everybody,

my name is Alma, I live in Berlin and will be one of the blog moderators, though I'm still wondering, what a "blog moderator"really IS - but as we all are more or less dealing with "floating subjects and identities" (and what is THAT?) I'm sure that I will find a way how to generate a floating moderator...

I'm very happy to take part in the Transitlounge 2007 - in 2006 I was a visitor and I liked the way how Miriam and Katie managed it to focus more on processes than on products (everybody is speaking about that - but only a few people are able to realize it).

Apart from my interest in processes I'm also linked with Transitlounge by my research project on tourism and art. In my opinion every artist that takes part in an "artist-in-residence-program" is a kind of tourist - so most of you will soon follow some of the tourist's paths in Berlin. As your steps are led by images and imaginations about Berlin I'm interested in the way how you now create your "mental map" of Berlin (before you go there), how you will realize that map and how you will surely always change and re-create it (when you're here) and last but not least how you'll reconstruct "Berlin" when you're back in Australia.

That's why I don't plan to be your guide - I suggest that it'll be better the other way round: Maybe I could follow you and your steps and you will be my guide. I want to be a kind of shadow - but an active one who speaks to you, who asks some questions, who collects your images and words and who tries to connect them a little bit. So that's my first step in trying to be a moderator: to create a visible and unvisible shadow.
Hope you'll like it.

Happy to see you soon
and best wishes from Berlin

Alma

4 comments:

outbackfella said...

so if i feel like i'm being followed? a great pillar of mental security that one
another installation about the virtual panopticon or just rear view mirrors on the fahrrad...
a map of going mental --

Alma said...

i don*t want you to feel paranoic - or maybe only a kind of productive paranoia? with little tiny mirrors á la smithson placed in the landscape of your mind. aren't you followed by your own pictures of berlin?

outbackfella said...

ironie - don't worry, i'm watching me too
and not paranoid - trying to remember the suspicion that everything is going right? somethingoodanoia? i think its more concise than that...

jodi said...

Hey Rob, I only know it from the free will astrology site:

Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You With Blessings.

"Rob Brezsny says the apocalypse is now, so let's dance."

I know that returning to Berlin in March, it will be a different place to the one I left last July and almost completely changed from the first meeting with those magic streets on mayday 2002. But there also seems to be a parallel life that continues there with or without my actual presence, and somehow I slip easily back into the stream each time. The reality check in Australia is almost over, and I'm so ready to step back into this unreal life, with Alma the friendly shadow! Every time I tell someone here in Sydney that I'm going to Berlin, they sigh 'aaaah... Berlin!' with a kind of longing, even if they've never been there.

In my mind, it is the place that most feels like 'home' of anywhere in the world; it is where I will play the piano like Keith Jarrett, and be open to the possibilities of each moment, stumble across unexpected adventures, dance all night, and catch the S & U Bahn home at 4am where it feels like the party is just warming up and everyone has a drink for the road and something to say to the person next to them.