UNDERSCORE - PHOTOS

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RE CONSTRUCTION DECONSTRUCTION RECONSTRUCTION

transit lounge exhibition
UNDERSCORE

isabel cordeiro
jasper knight
kenzee patterson
jodi rose
isabelle toland

thursday april 26 2007 19:00-22:00


Underscore is an exhibition comprising five international artists who have each been participating in the Transit Lounge residency at Josetti Höffe, Berlin. For this show, the artists have been working collaboratively and individually on a series of new works reflecting on their experiences of Berlin, while also addressing the theme of the residency, "transit." The resulting sound, installation, and video works explore marginalised spaces and discarded objects. In this case, the underscore serves to underline the spaces in between, the ignored and the unnoticed. In a reconfiguration, the familiar and the preconceived are conflated with the lost and forgotten.

26.04.07 19-22:00 UNDERSCORE

Zwischenpausen

"I like the freedom of bring suspended between two places; all anxieties of purpose taken care of: for this moment I know where I'm going." *

The process of conversation has been shifted and re-interpreted for me in a number of ways through undertaking this project. The first night at r e: set live improv in the transit lounge provided a space for meeting new people and forced me to overcome shyness, asking complete strangers to sit down and talk with me (only two people said 'no') and then having old friends eager to catch up. Listening to them again in the following days as they were uploaded to the website, I found myself experiencing a strange sense of instant nostalgia, memories forced into being before their natural time to re-surface.

After three days of Pixelache Festival madness in Helsinki, not only did every pixel ache, I began to feel like a conversation vampire, sucking the words out of people. Anytime there was a good conversation and it wasn't recorded I had a sense of loss, and felt out-of-sorts when drifting through the kiasma lounge with no-one to talk to. Eventually this prompted me to create a more structured framework, so that in the time 'off' I could talk naturally, without the pressure of wishing to trace every word through the microphone. Eric Minkkinen was my neighbour in the lounge area, and convinced me to sign up and 'perform' a conversation for his leplacard heaphone concert. I talked with Keirjsti, a Norwegian conceptual artist whose work with knitting and capital punishment left no words of response, and told me 'art is my home.'

'home is a very temporary place. and most of it maybe in ones heart or somewhere in ones body... the portuguese and brasilians have this beautiful word for this strange kind of longing to leave but never really arriving ....saudades...'

On returning to Berlin, to the incessant longing that is never satisfied by one place alone, I found my relationship to conversation shifted yet again through the prism of history and personal stories collected and told in 'Stasiland'. The process of monitoring and documenting conversation became filtered through the resonance of the past specific to this place. It is layered with the apparatus of power; if we are watching you ergo you are an enemy of the state.
The power of radio to transmit information from the 'other side' of the wall is a common theme, and when the decision was made to allow free travel this also came over the radio.

Listening back to the collections of voices from Helsinki with this in mind, I am struck by how many of the artists and random people I spoke to expressed anti-authoritarian and overtly political views. Interrogating the technology itself with Armin; questioning the value of the concept and framework of participation by Andrew; exploring violence and harmony through the writing of Teemu; explicitly recording 'permission to use this conversation' as instructed by the executive producer at ABC Radio; finding a new form of interaction with multiple pathways and endless associations. Now a new conversation has started, and we continue to listen to the voices of freedom on the air and in our hearts.

"How easy it is for the interviewer to assume moral authority by virtue of the fact 'he' gets to ask the questions" *

* Anna Funder 'Stasiland'

PLACES OUT OF PURPOSE (12.04.07 19 - 22:00)

Ι attribute to my self the task to find places without a task, without a function.
I name them Places_Out_Of_Purpose.

Places abandoned by their rulers, by their function.

Could you detect Places_Out_Of_Purpose within the limits of your own apartment?
Are there Places_Out_Of_Purpose in virtual spaces?

How can you disturb the linearity of spaces?

Zwischenpausen
radio in transit
start a conversation
invent a story that could have occurred
a place consisting of words

traces of failure
places of possibility
the moment of destruction

TRANSIT LOUNGE RADIO CONVERSATIONS

TRANSIT LOUNGE RADIO

every conversation is an invitation

A hyper-local, transnational, hybrid radio: collecting and
transmitting conversations with people who
pass through the transit lounge.

Start a conversation; tell a story about the places in
between - what inspires and keeps life interesting, adventures,
dreams, failures, the Future...

Radio in Transit
Receiving and transmitting from wherever you are.

To converse, visit the transit lounge on:
April 4 + 5, 14 - 18:00

To listen, visit the transit lounge on:
April 12, 19 - 22:00
or online:
http://transitradio.wordpress.com/

hello berlin

I'm listening to a Lee Hazelwood song 'nothing' on 2SER, a duet half in german, and only understanding one word in ten. Better get those four language courses I borrowed from the library onto the CD player now. Hope that immersion will bring back some of the forgotten deutsche from high school. It was great having a chance to meet some of the transit loungers in newtown before they headed off to various places on the way to berlin, and I'm looking forward to receiving the image/text/video/sound from our exquisite corpse to play with when I arrive.

Thinking a lot about the nature of connection, how ephemeral or lasting that moment can be, and becoming intrigued by the missed connections section of craigslist. Such incredible yearning and poetry expressed for someone glimpsed on the subway, usually a moment of eye contact taking place, but neither person having the courage to step forward and speak, or a short conversation but no further details to meet or reconnect. So the dreams and hopes are posted in this anonymous forum, where they become a hymn to longing (and hotties).

Wondering, in a life of constant transit, when do you decide to stay?
When is the pull of gravity or desire or stability stronger than the pull of adventure, the unknown... and desire? Where have you traveled to for a kiss? asked a friend in Slovakia last year 'hmmmm; Glasgow, Helsinki, New York'.
Happy Valentines Day!

I took myself on a lovely sonic adventure courtesy of soundtransit, taking me from a stormy night in sydney to bubbling mud in karosta via Tibetan roof thatching, old factories along the canals of montreal, crows in cuba, and woodcutters in latvia who kept our friends warm during their stay. Completely fantastic, design your own itinerary and book a flight around the world through the sonographic contributions of an international community of sound artists.

Maybe I'm jaded and weary, but I'd like to talk to friends in the same place and time zone. Preferably the same room.
I've developed an insatiable craving for embodied interaction rather than virtual.

This is what I'd like to explore during my time in berlin at the transit lounge.

An open invitation to conversation. Who knows where it will lead, or what we might uncover or discover? People tell you all kinds of things, if you just listen. And keep asking questions.

Unlike the wonderful dropping knowledge project in berlin last year, I won't be talking to experts or seeking answers to important questions. I'll just be talking to people - on the streets, in the gallery, in bars, cafes, bookshops, grocery stores - listening to their experiences, ideas, take on life, moments of transition and change where they willingly leapt into the unknown; and sharing some of their favourite music. (copyright issues depending)

People often ask me: why bridges? And I think it's largely the simple reason that they are points of connection and departure. Not in one place or another.

They offer the possibility of change, and then there's always the river, flowing away beneath you, to and from somewhere else. I have a pathological fear of being stuck or trapped, I like to be near an open window or the aisle seat so I can always get out quickly if necessary. The bridge between one place and another lets you leave, and it lets you arrive/return.

I've noticed in the course of my adjunct career as a gonzo radio journalist making out-there cultural features, that when you talk to someone with a microphone in hand, it creates another level of intimacy and purpose to the conversation. Often allowing you to go deeper, somehow people just open up to you and often you can ask pretty much anything and get an honest answer. I was always frustrated having to edit these long conversations into false brevity, keeping only two or three sentences and cutting the rest.

So now I've decided to take control, I'm not editing anything in or out; they can be heard in all their rambling, messy, meandering, incoherent glory of a freeform verbal dance - no time limit or structure, it was going to be fifteen minutes but I decided against imposing an artificial structure or limit. Although maybe I will. Maybe fifteen minutes of fame is the right amount. Or see what happens naturally.

Conversations with three friends simulataneously adrift in the world, one in london (then melbourne via st petersberg and berlin); another in Delhi (choosing between helsinki, sydney and delhi for the next few years), and another one trying to leave helsinki but not sure where he's going next. Apparently you need at least three conversations a day to avoid isolation and insanity. The conversations I crave take place over time zones and electronic pulses.

Philosopher Michael Oakshot describes good conversation as "an unrehearsed intellectual adventure," and "a boundless sea with no destination."

I'm looking forward to exploring the way different places have different conversational styles.
Berlin, New York, Helsinki, Glasgow, Sydney - as Lou Reed said, just a New York conversation.

TRANSIT LOUNGE RADIO

Transit Lounge Radio

Every Conversation is an Invitation

I spend my life in transit. Writing festival proposals in internet cafes from Paris to Christchurch, keeping art projects and life administration under control using wireless access in airports, cafes and libraries, and working creatively on the run wherever and whenever I find a moment to focus. Amidst the constant travel and participation in cultural activities, engaging with new people and developing projects; having the time and place to ground yourself in a daily practice, be part of a community and undertake rituals in everyday life is very attractive. In response to this moment of transit overload, I am interested in exploring the possibility of being ‘at home’ somewhere in the world. Setting up a comfortable lounge space in the Transit Lounge studio, creating a warm inviting corner to share with friends and visitors with the conversational ‘Transit Lounge Radio’ show recorded in the space for exhibition, installation and podcast.

The Transit Lounge Radio offers a transparent process of socially engaged and networked community interaction with an experimental form of hybrid radio. The project has grown out of my freelance cultural feature programs for ABC Radio, and aims to create an alternative space for highly specialised explorations of ideas, culture and philosophy which does not have to fit into any prescribed format or listener demographic.

There is a particular quality to Berlin conversations which I am eager to explore, and will provide a contrast to ongoing development of the project in Helsinki, Australia and beyond.

In a physically embodied iteration of social networking and peer-to-peer interaction, I will invite artists and audiences into the Transit Lounge Studio to talk with me about life in general, transition, participation, networks, experimental interactions, art and technology. Each conversation is recorded, uploaded to the website and podcast, with a photo and text about that person. This forms an online archive, documenting the ephemeral transactions of communication with a variety of artists, musicians, writers and local businesses, passersby and residents.

The result is a hyper-local community radio broadcast, transmitting conversations with people who pass through the Transit Radio Lounge. It offers a respite from transit, in a fast-paced world. Collecting conversations instead of frequent flier points. As people pass through the studio and my life, they leave something of themselves and share my ‘home’ space with a focused interaction that can be traced online.

http://transitradio.wordpress.com/transit-lounge-radio/

BIOGRAPHY: JODI ROSE

Jodi Rose is a nomadic sound artist, writer and freelance cultural commentator originally from Australia, who works producing audiovisual performance, sound installations, experimental music, radio programs and sonic art events around the world. Jodi trained in Sculpture, Performance and Installation at Sydney College of the Arts, and was the fourth Bridge Guard at the Art and Science Bridge Guard residential centre in Sturovo, Slovakia 2005-2006; and Australia Council New Media Arts - ABC Radio: Radiophonic Artist in Residence at ABC Radio National, Sydney in 2004.

Jodi's major work and reason for traversing the globe so thoroughly in recent years is Singing Bridges, a worldwide networked performance and series of compositions based on the sound of vibrations in bridge cables. Jodi released Singing Bridges: Vibrations and Variations, a CD of bridge compositions with remixes by widely renowned international and local artists working in experimental sound and electronic music; and won ‘Best Australian Blog’ for Singing Bridges Travel Diary in 2005. Her work featured in Pixelache Electronic Arts Festival in 2004 & 2005; Overgaden Sound Art Festival - Copenhagen; Sound States Uncertain Destinations, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art; and Sound in Space Audiotheque, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

Jodi’s radio projects include Radiophonic Features: Bridge Songs and Stories, a Trip Across Australia broadcast on ABC Radio National Radio Eye in 2004; Archipelago, a 90 minute sonic seascape about ISEA International Symposium of Electronic Arts; and Bridge Guard Radio Diary from her experience in Slovakia, broadcast on ABC Radio National The Night Air; a series on Musique Concrete for Classic FM, and recently hosting a nightly program on TiN Radio for the National Young Writers Festival, she developed the idea for an ongoing series of conversations starting in the Transit Lounge.