creativity

i have spent days between time zones and no, i haven't been travelling. i've been working out the schedule for the 080808 UpStage Festival. this online festival runs for 18 hours over the 8th & 9th of august (depending where you are in the world) and there are 14 different performances, each playing twice (some three times) with performers in 14 different time zones (possibly 15 - i'm not sure where in canada some of the performers are).

i suppose it is autumn here in indooroopilly - i've put the feather duvet on my bed even tho it's not quite cold enough. we're wearing more clothes and saying things like "isn't it cold" but in truth it's pretty mild. the wildlife has been very unobtrusive - apart from a dragonfly that read the weekend paper with me and a spider who makes a daily journey across the floor, there's not much activity. i am quietly buried in words, doing a fairly convincing impression of someone immersed in their thesis.

I was recently at an unworkshop at the Institute Of Creative Technology, DeMontfort Uni (I'm also dong my phd there, part time). Amongst the attendees were Martin Reiser, Jess Laccetti and others, including Prof Sue Thomas, mine and Jess's supervisor. We were trying to tackle the subject of transliteracy (the ability to think and work across multiple platforms, from orality to new media objects).

To follow...a collection of unordered ideas, tools and resources for our new collaboration. First, some abstract images taken from my mobile phone from a traffic jam south of the Blackwall tunnel on Thursday 13th December. The car was static so all the movement is in my wrist. The phone is a sony ericsson with a 20 megapixels camera. http://furtherfield.org/experimnet/

This morning I finished translating the last text for a catalogue for an exhibition in Berlin. A group exhibition. A special group exhibition: a "family" exhibition. Working on the catalogue texts, I was amused and intrigued by the different ways in which the authors attempted to come to terms with the idea of "family" and an entire five-person family of artists exhibiting their work together. As more and more personal memories began floating to the surface of my mind, though, I began to wonder if it really does justice to this group to consider them as a more or less isolated phenomenon, a kind of anomaly, without the context in which they live and work. Because the reason why I translated these texts is that I share that same context, and working on these texts made me more aware of how important this context is.

My 16 year-old sister got her exam results this week. She did brilliantly well, and the whole family were celebrating with her this weekend. Everyone was jubilant, especially as she had often been told by her teachers that she wasn't trying hard enough, that she was going to fail (particularly in sciences) - which she eventually aced. Someone brought out the newspaper and triumphantly pointed out her school, which came number 4 in the league tables of state schools for GCSE results. I then heard her speaking about the other students in her class. She knew what each of them had got, and rattled them off: 'Alistair got 5 A's, 3 B's and a C, the same as Corrie and James, Ellie got 7 A*'s and two A's, the bitch...' then finally this degenerated into 'She got 2 more A*'s than me, but she's got a huge arse, and I know I did well and everything, but all my friends did too and they're thin!'. I should point out that my sister is a beautiful size, perfectly normal and healthy for her age.

i've been waiting for this blog to get its style formatting back before i post but i realise it's a bit silly to wait. the default blue links, times font and uncomplicated white background are refreshing and slightly nostalgic. remember back in the old days when just about all links where blue and underlined? the content is still the same, without the packaging : ) i'm back in brisbane and have been blissfully horizontal for large amounts of the last week: long sleep-ins, lying on the grass reading, lying on the grass examining the clouds, lying underneath piles of small boys, lying in the spa and sauna at the korean baths ... mmmm. alas, it can't last. before i've had time to get bored, i've got to get vertical again. that's right, i'm enrolled in full-time studies! i remember vaguely, something about cyberformance?

UpStage V2 has been launched & so far it's all good, i am feeling pretty tired but satisfied : ) the exhibition looks great & the festival promises to be an amazing day. You can pop in on the exhibition any time by going to http://upstage.org.nz:8084/stages/babayaga - this stage is live in the gallery during opening hours (NZ time, 9-5 monday to thursday, 9-7 on fridays & 4-7 on saturdays) for the next two weeks.

winter in nz is a time for lots of layers; we don't do central heating here. it's fingerless gloves at the keyboard, hot water bottles in the flannellette sheets, & people popping round for coffee never take their coat off.

Reblogged from the Enter Unknown Territories

• Charlotte Frost's blog
• 1 comment
• Read more
• 567 reads