March 2008 – Monocultured

Exhibition. Escort. Emotions. Almost fighting.

I was invited to show at the My Computer exhibition that Olle Esvik and Erik Boström curated at Gallery 300m3. Olle had comissioned two copies of the old virtual photography stuff that I’d done, and along with 23 others the space was well used. It’s a good show, and if you’re in town I’d recommend a visit.

Most of the evening was spent running interference though; old issues are new again, and since I suck at any form of conflict management (basically I black out and ramble) I start off by being rather rude to a friend and then stumble through a short presentation of my work.

The last couple of weeks that I’ve been working in Stockholm, my evening routine consists mostly of watching Scrubs late at night, and it’s amazing how well they manage to resolve conflicts. Yes, well, it’s a TV-show and their conflict resolution comes with sound effects, but still. Amazing.

I drink a bit too much of the champagne that Anna and Pär have brought as a gift, and I swollow an upper that Andreas presents me with. It’s guarana or somesuch, and I can’t tell if it has any particular effect. After hopping a bit we end up at Uppåt Framåt, and although the music is nice I become morose and have a hard time ignoring the more aggressive assholes in the place and become an aggressive asshole myself.

Stress + alcohol + impolite people = doom

The last hour I spend sulking and imagining how I will get beaten up horribly; it didn’t seem like such a bad idea, except I would prove the inevitability of violence as conflict resolution, and that would be depressing. Whenever I feel awkward or stressed, I often imagine myself getting beaten up; I’ve had this for as long as I remember, and even though it’s such an obvious example of projecting an external conflict where there is an internal one, it’s hard to make away with.

I dream that I’m sixteen, in a public bathroom, asking a girl that I have a crush on if we should kiss. She puts her hand to her mouth and vomits blood and a big lump of pink. On closer examination it proves to be her heart. I wake up and Saturday passes in gloomy existential meandering. Bah.

I just finished Farnhams freehold, a Heinlein book about freedom, racism and with an autocratic patriark as protagonist. Interesting, but bizarre. Get it from The Pirate Bay or a used-books store.

Notes. Pictures

Some pictures from the art fair at Sollentuna (goddamn what a sad but interesting affair) and random stuff from friday nights drinking and a couple of sticks that a neighbours kid arranged just so outside my door.

Interspersed, all the notes that I’ve jotted down on my phone over the past three years, often while drunk and (apparently) pretentious.

* Optimal strategy is not playing by the rules, but rather to break them just enough.

* Yet another motherfucker who wants to “fly to the sun” and go “to where the grass is green”.

* I spy with my… C… Customer? Hahaha. No.

* Lps angående jobb. Montering.

* Ergo proxy, unknown armies.

* Ranciere.

* En andra natur. Michael Polland

* Terrorist initiative.

* We’re all getting older. We’re never getting younger.

* What would the terrorists do?

* Bpworld.com

* Farväl Falkenberg

* Eve Eastwood

* Remember the vampire girl. Living off of the attention of others.

* Tout va bien. Godard.

* Föreställningar är ju oftast hemska, och de få gånger de lyckas är det för att taffligheten är träffande, den visar på bristen, det som inte fungerar. Och hur sällan fungerar det?

* IdÃ© för en ljud: gör något episkt. Skapa en berättelse som punkt för p berättas.

* Osynliga männen. Kan gå igenom väggar.

* Diskursfestivale.de

* I told someone that they could start the new frankfurt wave, and he got really upset, started screaming about raushenberg and walked away. I love the artworld…

* Skottsk gambit.

* Uffie musik. 30 rock.

* Tjolöholm. Ang centraldammsugare.

* Weekendavisen ang bokrecension.

* Morris. Engelsk socialistisk konstnär.

* Bokhora.se

* Kalufsen – folkungagatan.

ARG! The value of reviews.

I’ve made four attempts at learning Esperanto, but lacking any good reason to do so I’ve always given it up after a few days. The Lost Ring might be the motivation that I need to pick it up again. The Lost Ring is an Alternative Reality Game just unveiled, and it’s the task of all players to uncover the lost event of the Olympic Games.

Lost Ring is a worldwide ARG, and it looks to be really interesting. There are a bunch of blogs and wikis set up already, with translators standing at the ready to assist the playing community – go check it out: thelostring.com.

ARGs have a tremendous potential; they can be used to solve actual problems, be purely entertaining or used as promotional tools for companies (these are the most common, since it takes a lot of money and resources to pull this crap together) and the more we blend everyday reality with a fable or mystery, the better. Warping your mind can be a good thing, although those with paranoid tendencies might want to take a pill before engaging – pretty soon you’ll suspect everyone of being part of the game and wear tinfoil clothing.

Sparta review

I saw a trailer for the movie Meet the Spartans, a pastiche of 300, and started downloading a screener of it. I’ve seen a few awful movies lately (I would advise you to stay away from the latest Rambo) and thought I’d hit www.rottentomatoes.com for some info. The movie had a rating of 3%. No-one had anything good to say about it, and I subsequently canceled the download. The comments are a hoot to read though: Rotten Tomatoe review.

Inner city life

Jonas is out of town for a few days and has been gracious enough to lend me his apartment. Which means that I should be living the high life of a city dweller; Eating at the local restaurant, tipping my hat to ladies while strolling in the park, complaining about high rent and smog.

Instead I’ve caught a nasty cold that’s left me quite miserable and coughing up stuff that looks awfully like something living and very wrong – it’s a man-cold is what it is. I’m getting better, so hey, don’t go out of your way to buy me flowers or coffee or anything (oh do, please do).

Apart from a short lunch with by birthdaying brother, and a beer with friend, I’ve kept busy importing all the video we’ve shot for the museum and finished off the last eleven episodes of Battlestar Galactica; I’m now officially pissed off because I’ll have to wait until the end of 2009 to see the end of it all. Bloody hell.

Occasionaly, I gently hint my friends about stuff they might enjoy. Of course, those ingrates refer to it as constant badgering, so it’s pearls for swine more often than not. So if you happen to be fortunate enough to share my taste in space opera, you might want to scuttle over to a site where you can watch all of Battlestar Galactica.
Like so: Surfthechannel.com

Once the season ended I was left leaching off of Jonas’ neighbours’ wifi, downloading movies or whatnots. If you happen to lapse in judgment, as I in my weakened state did, remind yourself not to watch Beowulf. The technology of motion capture is interesting, but the movie is not worth your harddrive space. I don’t know what it is about Neil Gainman, but no matter how great his books and graphic novels are, I’ve yet to see a movie where he’s been involved that doesn’t suck murky ass. He often deals with myths and legends, and his characters are larger than life, so maybe the visualisation is best left to a readers imagination rather than that of a studio engineer?

Then again, the Golden Compass looks rather nice, so it’s actually possible to make pretty fairy tales. (Is that James Bond doing the voice of a polar bear?) I wish that they didn’t need to cutify it as much as they have though.

And I finally finished Quixko, (Quaxo?) and erased the cursed timewaster from my cellphone. This leaves me lacking in a timewaster (can’t get enough of those) so I am open suggestions if you have any; puzzles are prefered.

Fans, fever, frolicking

I’m at home with a slight fever which I aquired last weekend (totally worth it though) and am drinking paracetamol and snake oil. I’ll head to work within the next hour, but thought I’d do my bi-weekly post instead of watching Battlestar Galactica(there are only so many episodes left that I haven’t seen, and I need to pace myself).

The message of the day: Backup your data, kids!

Lars, the architect I’m working with at the museum, hadn’t done it for a while, and his internal drive packed in. The data recovery people said that the driver head had scratched the platterns beyond salvation. A couple of weeks worth of work moved into the great wide yonder.
I immediately bought SuperDuper! and now have schedules backups of everything. I’ve also ordered a new drive to mirror my internal one.

While at it, I also bought Defcon, a tactical nuclear war simulator based on the movie WarGames. Between the sparse graphics and the eerie ambient sounds, it’s an utterly engrossing game that I’m looking forward to spending a couple of hours with. One of the more interesting aspects of the game is that you can ally yourself with anyone else, but are also at liberty to end these alliances at a whim. This makes paranoia and psychological warfare just as important as any military assets you might have, and might give a better understanding of the Mutual Assured Detruction doctrine. It’s like playing chicken with nukes.

Most of my friends and collegues don’t play games more complicated than Tetris, so I need new gaming friends. Get in touch please.

In between days when I don’t do anything but work, the thought has occoured to me that come May I’ll need to make money. Nothing that I nor the Gothenburg crew does lends itself to making money directly from a paying audience, but relies on either getting grants or selling art to collectors or investors. And there’s not a whole lot of that going on.

On that note, it’s impressive how independent writers, musicians and game programmers manage to eek out a living using mainly online self-publishing. It’s not for everyone, and requires a total dedication not only to your craft but also to your audience. If you look at the tremendous work that writers Scott Sigler or Mur Lafferty put in maintaining an active fan base, it soon becomes apparent that their “job description” is similar to that of a herder of cats, or perhaps the Pied Piper.

I’m not sure how well writing compares to the work that I and my friends are doing, which usually involves galleries and curated shows, but as far as making money is concerned, I feel that there are great things to be made and gained from taking a step back from the dead-end-job/show/grant/show/dead-end-job cykle that so many of us are stuck in.

Boingboing.net linked to an artikle by Kevin Kelly that seems right up the ally of so many people who are stuck in the mindset that making a living is an “either/or” proposition (including me): 1000 true fans.

It’s a more personal approach of the whole ‘long tail’ discussion from last year, and if what you do involves an audience, you’ll appreciate the article. Go read.