WanDerINg ROcKs, ReVoLVing DoORs

2004-07-28T19:34:00.000-07:00

although this may seem pretty obvious, WrRd has pulled the proverbial plug on the blog.

the archival version of the WrRd project website can be viewed by going to:

www.WrRd.org

hope you enjoyed the ride.

2004-06-03T08:31:00.000-07:00

The ReJoyce Festival has just set up a Bloomsday Information Booth on lower Grafton Street. Keep your eyes peeled for WrRd brochures, flyers, and stickers for the individual projects.

It's about to get CRAZY!!

2004-05-27T05:55:00.000-07:00

Bloomsday events take top page! Seanad, the National Irish Government, is meeting today with emergency legislation to amend copyright laws so that the National Library display of Joyce manuscripts can go forward. Check the front page Irish Times article out here. Comforting to know that we aren't the only ones facing the copyright hassle! Kind of...

2004-05-24T10:11:00.000-07:00

Mark these dates!

June 12th 6:30-8:30pm WrRd Launch Party - Temple Bar Gallery & Studio

June 14th 2pm-4pm "Ulysses: The Great Globaliser?" Round Table Discussion -
Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery

2004-05-21T01:53:00.000-07:00

News from Kathleen Quillian:

"By the way, I found a great website yesterday with a gazillion high-quality pictures of Dublin (some of them 180 degree composites) that we're (ITCP) using in conjunction with the map to figure out definite-maybe locations for projections. It's a huge help and you might think about letting the group know about it if they're not familiar with the city: http://www.fantasyjackpalance.com/fjp/photos/city/index.html."

News from Susan:

WrRd newsletter #2 is currently infiltrating your mailbox. Check it out and send it along to your friends.

2004-05-20T03:41:00.000-07:00

It's NEW, it's EASY TO REMEMBER!

www.WrRd.org

VISIT NOW AND VISIT OFTEN!!!

p.s. newsletter #2 will be in yr mailbox shortly. if you've been slow getting to the dinner table, you can still sign up for the
WrRd mailing list by sending an email to: wrrdup@newgroundcenter.org

2004-05-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

news flash - WrRd just got word that we have been awarded funding from Fractured Atlas to be directed towards the creation of the CD-Rom catalogue. a weekend hurrah is heard throughout Dublin. rahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...susan

2004-04-26T05:06:00.000-07:00

apologies to ed and sarah of chateau deluxe - their website is actually www.chateaudeluxe.com. yes, my french really is that bad...

one application deadline down and one more to go.

- susan -

2004-04-17T16:34:00.000-07:00

Apologies for letting a few (!) days pass since last writing. Tonight I will be brief (if you can imagine that) and just direct your attention to a brief write up about my presentation this past Wednesday at DATA:18. If you scroll down you can finally complete your mental picture of this one. The presentation seemed very well received - there were about 40 people in attendance and no one threw rotten fruit. I essentially gave an overview of the event and then honed in on a handful of projects which I thought would most interest a techno-oriented crowd. A small handful of people, including the DATA organizers, approached me afterwards to express interest in helping out. Which is good news!

This upcoming week will be hectic as two grants need to go out by Friday. One is for a publications assistance award for the CD-ROM catalogue. If any one is interested in getting involved in this project, as an editor or writer, send word. I met today with the duo behind chateauxdeluxe.com who will be designing the interactive components and making the whole thing look pretty. Sarah and Ed - welcome aboard!

The Hugh Lane Gallery round table is a go! We have invited a handful of Dublin-based artists and curators to participate in the round table as well so it promises to be an invigorating debate on carrying Joyce into a contemporary context. Anyone who would like to participate is welcome to pose questions, directions for the discussion.

Ah, I have mentioned this to some of you but Temple Bar Properties has declined our proposal to use a number of their spaces, due to their own budget and timing restrictions. While this is disappointing, it is by no means insurmountable and may actually play to our favor as it will bring our projects into spaces atypical to public art.
More on that later...I promised to keep this brief.

Cheers,

La Susan

2004-04-05T05:47:00.000-07:00

Soooo...all moved in at Sculptor's Society. A bit of the odd duck sydrome - "Who is this girl??" - but nice to have a warm connected place to operate out of for the next time being. Indeed.

ACCOMODATION UPDATE

Some updates to the webpage. Most important to note is what I am calling the Artist B&B, essentially a new donation scheme where people can choose to sponsor one night's stay for an individual artist for only $30 or 25 EUROS a night. Part of the deal is that in commemoration of their donation, we will be sending digital photographs of the artists in their sponsored bed, dreaming their sponsored dreams. Here is an example:

If you have serious issues with this scheme, let me know. If you like it and would like to participate, it could be fun to put up pictures of each of you in your nightcaps with a little blurb on your sleeping preferences (ie lights on, with your favorite stuffed penguin, etc). I visited UCD accomodations on Friday and was told that the best deal they could cut us is 25 Euro a night per person. The apartments are 4 bedroom and include kitchen space and a communal living area. The campus is a 25 minute direct bus ride into the city centre. I will need to book the rooms (I am thinking 3 apartments total) by early May so do let me know if you are trying to arrange other accomodations.

Cheers,

Susan

2004-04-04T07:01:00.000-07:00

Sunday afternoon here in Dublin and the rain has just stopped (for the moment) so I hope to get out shortly for a bike ride before the clouds return. A few brief comments:

I really like Rachel’s comments on potential topics for the round table discussion. I am in the process of making a formal proposal to the Hugh Lane Gallery outlining the scope and flavour of the topics we would like to cover. Obviously this conversation about who is the public when we talk about this kind of public art event is essential. Incorporated into that conversation might be talk on how effective the different mediums are at reaching that public (once defined). There will also be an opportunity for those participating to describe their project with a bit more detail and will be a good P.R. opportunity to stimulate interest in your piece which will still be ongoing. The date I am proposing for the talk is June 14th between 5 and 6:30. Anyone who is interested in participating should let me know asap as well as contributing further topics.

As of tomorrow I will be packing up operations (well this consists essentially of my laptop, cell phone, and note books) and heading over to the offices of the Sculptor’s Society of Ireland in the City Centre. They have offered to let me run this WrRd show out of their offices for free which is a great treat. For those of you who don't know SSI is an information source for all things visual in and around Ireland. It is quite a boon to have their support - not to mention a stable working space.

Sophia Lycouris paid a surprise renegade visit from England this past Thursday and Friday to check out bridge sites along the River Liffey. We decided this is not cheating. It was nice to meet another member of this mad crew - adding a bit of tangibility to the whole scheme.

More to come but for now, bike rides...

Best Susan

2004-03-31T08:25:00.000-08:00

Hello all. Long overdue updates on the wonderful wild world of Dublin. I do hope you all are well in life and work – keeping your heads on tight and getting excited about the growing nearness of June. I’ll give you the quick run down (hoping to do this more often so do check in frequently – and please, respond!)

• Most of you should have heard from me over the last week about the site selection process. If you have, please do let me know what you think of my suggestions and send me any more specifics that you have available at this time (equipment needs, personnel needs, etc.) The better armed I am going into meetings with Dublin City Council, and Temple Bar Properties the more effective I can be in arguing our case.

• If I haven’t contacted you yet, it doesn’t mean I am not thinking of you! Look to hear from me again shortly. Today I posted an announcement in the Sculptors Society of Ireland for volunteers who will take up the task of securing spaces for those projects which tend to be more wandering in nature. If you have friends in Dublin, tell them we are looking for volunteers as well. Friends have friends have friends!

• In meeting with Temple Bar Properties about the various projection projects, it became apparent that, while they are interested in offering us various spaces, any video projection will have costs associated with it including hire fees for technicians and rental fees. Apparently their days as a free service are no longer. Sad – so if you are one of the people planning video projection, please take this into consideration. I am making contact with a number of multimedia groups here in Dublin to seek sponsorship but nothing has materialized yet.

• Today I met with Mia Lerm Hayes who is curating a 65 artist exhibition of Joyce inspired art work at the Royal Hibernian Gallery. She is incredibly excited about our project and even added a short blurb about our work in the book/catalogue they are producing as part of the show. The opening for that event is June 9th and several of the contemporary artists will be there, which is a great opportunity for any of you to meet these other crazy Joyce fanatics. You can get a partial list of the artists on the ReJoyce website www.rejoyce2004dublin.com

• As some of you know, last week I got the nasty surprise of copyright issues that the Joyce estate is pursuing with regards to all projects involved in the ReJoyce Festival. I am still sussing out the details but it does seem as though we have to be extremely careful not to include any direct quotes from the text. So PLEASE take a look at your projects and if you have any questions about potential problems, let’s address them now. Sorry to have sprung this on you all last minute – it was a big surprise to me as well.

• If anyone has any interest in helping design the brochure that will be used as a guide to the event, please let me know. I am hoping to include a simplified map of the city with the included site locations. The brochure really needs to happen asap so that we can get it to the printers before May 16th I would think. If you are interested, let me know and we can discuss design strategies, etc. Also if anyone is aware of any printers that would cut us a deal, that would be sweet.

• In sad news, Catriona Hardie had to remove herself from the role of contributing artist due to commission deadlines here in Dublin. But on the upbeat, she has agreed to continue on in an organizational role. This means we have one additional slot to fill all last minute. Worst case scenario I step up to bat but I am also checking out possibilities of bringing in artists through the 10 EU accession country embassies here in Dublin. So there may be new folks on board soon.

Okay that’s all. Quite a bit to report. Please check base either via the blog or drop me an email. I’d like to know where each of you is at with your project so I can plot next actions. Off to chase down that rainbow.

Best Susan

MORE TO COME SOON...LIKE AS IN SATURDAY...SO CHECK BACK IN NEXT WEEK!

2004-03-19T06:41:00.000-08:00

nuts to daffodils

we're in our third full/on day of snow, 2 qualifying snow "events," in the space of 4 days - you caught the first musterings-about of this on your way out susan and you're lucky to have gotten out of the curs/ed northeast US when you did

ANd i saw pictures of dublin on the web, on st pat's day, bluesst skiess evere, nnuttss!

that musta been nice

re: ROUNDTABLE - i'm interested in participating, but i think that as this is, by nature, collaborative, i would like to get a sense for whom else wants to participate and WHAT they wanna be rounding about the table -

I have been particularly intrigued by the Miwon Kwon book mentioned so long ago - read it this past month and am really interested in the possibility of touching on (in roundtable fashion) intersections between social activism and "events" which have previously been known as artist installations or happenings - i mean, this stuff isn't new, right, at least in the US with Jenny Holzer and Guerilla Girls (despite their recent galleried, book-dealed fame) and other artists interested in "interventions" that are less interested in presenting examples of Yeats' ole doddery "terrible beauty" and more about dealing with a material reality of a situation or context

and given the WrRd project's ongoing saga of funding hunts and strategy sessions (for me, obviously the most notable being the one Susan and I had with Fractured Atlas, the "consultants" there being so, well, kind of glib about the "packaging" and presentation - the ADMINISTRATION - of a public art event, and even the hunt for volunteer help ("just slap a button on em and they'll do whatever you want") - not to be so glib myself, but this particular angle of the project, from the point of view of the NECESSITY of SUPPORT, and thus having to do things in new york minutes (pardon the expression) and with smiles and good cheer....

IN CONTRAST to the content of the project itself...or at least components of the content - dealing with the delicacy and ephemerality of social situations (the festival, tho rather protracted at 8 months, will still fade in the ether like the head on a pint o the grog

love and snowy noses,
rachel d

2004-03-19T06:14:00.000-08:00

today is daffodil day in dublin and skies are clear.

getting my feet wet and head set straight in this most important location. it is wild to be here after so much time of just imaging. truth is stranger than fiction and so i am fluctuating between a head first dive into the city and a more calm approach. tons of ideas floating around up in the head and meetings have begun. once i get me an adaptor i will recharge my camera batteries and hit the streets for some photo taking of potential sites for you all. if there is anything in particular you are looking for, be sure to remind me. also, for convenience sake, until i get myself a home and a regular computer access it would be best if you communicated with me at my wesleyan.edu address.

a brief recap of my days so far in wrrd land:

before leaving the new york in its snowstorm glory, i visited fractured atlas with rachel daley to discuss their fiscal sponsorship of wrrd. any of the artists seeking donations from individuals and or groups in the u.s. can offer potential donors the option of making their donation tax-deductible by writing the check to Fractured Atlas and putting Wandering Rocks, Revolving Doors in the memo. Once I am settled, I'll get the website set up so people can also make donations directly online. let me know if you want more details. rachel - by the way - is fantastic, full of good ideas like the one below and much energy. glad to have her on board.

after a mindblowing introduction to dublin, st. patricks style, i managed to meet up with the dutch embassy and will make another presentation to the counsellor about getting sponsorship for Franco and Dorine. hopefully we can work out a working relationship with them along the lines of the French and Belgian Embassies.

today i spoke with the educational programme director at the Hugh Lane Gallery about the potential for a round table talk as part of their lunch time talk programme. if you are interested in participating in this event, please let me know as i need to make them a proposal soon. but it looks good on that front as well.

okay, time to look at potential homes and other fun adventures. be well all of you and trust that there will be more to come. cheers and that. susan

2004-03-17T08:36:00.000-08:00

whoa - please excuse the typos in the post i just posted
- r daley

2004-03-17T08:34:00.000-08:00

hello all! after a considerable hiatus, i found my password!

i would like to take some blogspace to describe my own personal fundraising i've been conducting for a coupla weeks now....i call it my FUNDAHONEYBEECANDYPLEDGEOMATIC-athon - AND it wurks like so:

in cahoots with my training for the Brooklyn 1/2 marathon to take place on April 24, I am running 150 miles between march 11 and april 16 (at which point i will be tapering and cutting out lots of mileage), and have (generously, maybe) place the cost of each of those miles, miles being run to earn me way to Dublin, at $14.03 - i am asking donors to contribute to that $14.03 - actually, most people just have given me lump sums, and that's FINE!

so far, i've raised over $500! - yea! - everyone has been terribly supportive and some of them even have read my overly lengthy emails describing my fundariser, my project, WrRd, etc -

[again, in sum, my project's culminate in giving out candies (made out of honey from the orgainc farm i work on, which is home to organic beehives) that are tagged with information about each candy's costs in terms of bee-labor hours, people-labor hours, gallons of fuel to transport, and costs in US dollars - the candies will also give each consumer one activity to enact, taken from the events of the Wandering Rocks episode of the novel, thus making them mimic the bee-hood they are consuming! hah!]

Happy Green Beer Day,

Rachel Daley

2004-03-01T02:33:00.000-08:00

well,

i'm in final prep. susan i need to know a couple of important things. 1. what is the rating on power in dublin? my piece needs electricity so i'm trying to send it with the correct power adaptor/transformer. and 2. is there an address we can send things to? it turns out i'm in japan most of april... so may need to send stuff before april 2nd. is there any chance there'll be an address by then?

i haven't heard back from the nz embassy in dublin btw.

otherwise, fairly on track. currently thinking of doing 800 stickers. is that too many, or not enough?

best to all

ian

2004-02-17T10:28:00.000-08:00

sponsorship and fundraising updates!

hi, all. thought to add something to the neglected files of WrRd blogging.

first off, a congratulations to chris bruno who recently got word that the french embassy will be covering his travel and accomodation costs for his time in dublin. my motto is, where one embassy lends support, the rest will follow.

chris has sent me a logo from the french embassy to add to the pages where we acknowledge our sponsors. if everyone who has gotten sponsorship (in what ever form, fiscal, in kind donations, university stipend, etc) please send me their name, contact information, and any logos/company/university ensignia so we can appropriately thank them.

second matter of business - peple can now donate to the project on-line by going to our funding page and clicking on the "make a donation" button. tell your friends, tell your family, tell anyone who you think might be open to giving. within the month i hope to be able to collect tax-deductable donations for the project as well, but at least this is a start. let me know if you have questions about the process, etc.

hope all is well in your neck of things.

best,

susan

2004-02-05T13:40:00.000-08:00

susan and collaborators,

it's a long weekend here and horrors - no email as there is a network upgrade happening. my project has been further updated. a digital drawing is at

http://ianclothier.orcon.net.nz/pages/hybrid0.htm

For collaborators, here is a general description of the work: It uses the technique of reallage, or four dimensional collage. The piece is an intersection of diversity and is interactive - one of the images on the wall is a light box, but the behaviour of the lights changes dependent on the proximity of the audience to the work. The incorporation of a curtain and chair is aimed to intimate a confessional.

The idea of the confessional thing was a result of feedback via susan. although a chesterfield type armchair is shown, actually it is a conglomerate and several types of chair are suitable. The idea is that exhibiting organisations arrange an armchair from the local community: the piece therefore changes in each location (I'm trying to get it shown in Boston after Dublin, - anyone else know of galleries in the UK/US/Japan/Australia interested in interactive art works?).

susan i changed what the agenbite looks like and the title of the piece - it's now called an 'an agenbite of inwit.' if you are able, please use the new image for the WrRd site. also i'll need to update the description. perhaps use the above description for the meantime?

best

ian

2004-02-03T14:35:00.000-08:00

reflections on the state:

apparently since september 11th, aerlingus has discontinued corporate sponsorship except in the rare and worthy cases of major events like special olympics. on the upside, the woman i spoke with said she would pass around the WrRd press release internally within the office. so don't be surprised if there are men in wings showing up at the launch party.

i also thought to let you all know about the upcoming application process for creative capital grants. They are a great NY-based organization that works fanatically to promote their grantees.

also i am contacting american airlines and continental as well about flight sponsorship. up up and away!

2004-02-02T05:34:00.000-08:00

revolving head

a random quote of joyce's walking habits:

"He always stared straight before him as if he were on parade and, when
he wished to gaze after someone in the street, it was necessary for him
to move his body from the hips."

i have yet to try this out myself, seems nun too subtle.

susan

2004-01-25T21:02:00.000-08:00

rachel, your image is now incorporated into the logo. cheers for that. literally.

http://ianclothier.orcon.net.nz/pages/hybrid03.htm

susan, the updated fla is, as they say, in the mail.

2004-01-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

monday bloody monday.

i say that with great cheer and only a wee bit of post weekend sleep deprivation.

cheers to ian for all his supercharged efforts with the logo and fundraising tactics. i wonder if he sleeps but if not, all the better for us.

this past week has proven quite instrumental in giving weight and heft behind WrRd. feedback is starting to pour in from various locations on your proposals and strategies on how to optimize the impact of these projects. this feedback has been over all enthusiastic; the criticisms are, in my mind, right on point and will in the end push WrRd into better territory. one of the most pertinent comments came from u.s. independent curator mary jane jacob who says:

"while many “claim” to broadcast, comment, provoke, and otherwise engage the public, I wonder how many [projects] will go unnoticed. This is not to be said in the vein of a consumerist, marketing analysis of ‘how much return for investment,’ ‘how many buyers,’ but rather efficacy and value of effort..."

this week i will be sending out individual comments on your projects, and asking for everyone to put in time reevaluating their proposals to make sure that they are articulate and realizable. it would also be great if people can read over the other projects to provide more feedback and also to see how your individual project coincide/conflicts/enhances others.

with that, i am off for more personal communications,

besitos, la susan

2004-01-18T23:45:00.000-08:00

the logo is now updated - eric your image is included. the logo is now wide screen with a white background. i hope to have integrated things a little more. check it at http://ianclothier.orcon.net.nz/pages/hybrid03.htm

the clock appears at the start by request from susan. i'm imaging more will be added, both images and info. susan i'll check out adding a button linked to the site.

re fund raising, i got my first $1000 just before the new year. so i've started harassing the av supplier to get on with the control side of things. i'll going to mock things up here, hopefully within four weeks.

also, i edit a website called www.art-themagazine.com - 1.1 million hits in 2003 according to AWstats. if anyone feels their funding proposal would be enhanced by sponsor exposure on art-themagazine.com, I'm happy to listen to proposals. could be part of a package.

my email address for sending images: i.clothier@witt.ac.nz

cheers

ian

2004-01-16T09:39:00.000-08:00

Bueno, bueno.

Am back at blog world. Hurrah!

All is going well here, am pursuing funding like a bloodhound. Pretty soon, once I get some details sorted out, we will be able to solicit donations straight on the website. The fundraising campaign will be both via formal (ie fundraising letters with packets) and email (for all the friends and family and colleagues) so start your list...

This site just came to my attention - a great resource perhaps for all of you who are located in Europe. Take a visit and see if any of these groups jump out at you. I have a letter of solicitation that we can adapt to our needs, but first I need to know which groups should be targeted.

http://www.europeanirish.com/Social/main.htm

Other good news is that we have begun to attract the attention of a handful of independent curators. This promises good things for all, but also reinforces the need for a lot of cooperation and commitment from each of us. It would be great if people could be writing in with updates on the status of their projects, so that we can locate the problem areas before hand.

I am working pretty much full time at this now, and am happy to be in close communication. So pass on word and I'll be here to catch it.

Be well,

Susan

2004-01-13T00:12:00.000-08:00

Hi,

sophia i added your image to the logo. take a look at http://ianclothier.orcon.net.nz/pages/hybrid03.htm

more images from other collaborators appreciated, any time

ian

2004-01-09T13:13:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
This is my first contribution to this blog, I am unfortunately terrible at this, but quite happy anyway. I am Johanna Rylander, living in currently cold and dark Sweden.

My sudden wish to contribute is to find someone who is locally known in Dublin, in order to find a place to put the images I want to make. I am looking for a pedestrian street or area with at least 8 advertising boards, eurosize ie. portrait format, you usually find them on pedestrian streets or busstops, at least in europe, but the size is possibly connected to the name... Never having been in dublin makes my guesses kind of stupid.

Anyway, the reason for this early search is to find the company that puts them up. They might want to sponsor us... Earlier I have been sponsored by Clear Channel, both in Sweden and Norway, but I also know that the company JC Decaux do the same size, and I also know of councils (or council, that would be Malmö) who rent spots to advertise council owned theatres and art-galleries and who have lent their spots for free for a couple of weeks for an art project. But maybe that just exists is Sweden?

I'm going away for the rest of january, to Lithuania, so my contributions won't flood in right now, but if you have good contacts in Dublin you can either send them here or mail me: johannarylander@yahoo.se

Dark, cold and swedish greetings Johanna

2004-01-08T17:08:00.000-08:00

susan,

please contact the new zealand embassy or consulate in dublin to intro the project to them. cheers, ian.

2004-01-07T10:01:00.000-08:00

franco has made the astute request that i, as newly declared full time organizer of this event, make first contact with the various embassies in dublin to look into possibilities of financial or logistical support. this seems like a good plan - i have already made email contact with the u.s. embassy and will send similar letters of introduction to the embassies of belgium, the netherlands, canada, and france. if you have already made previous contact with your embassy or would like me to contact consulates, cultural organizations, etc. either send me an email or add a comment to this post.

best, susan

2003-12-28T21:20:00.000-08:00

ah, greetings from the midwest bible belt- home of the extended family and date nut balls. i apologize for being the negligent organizer these past couple of weeks but there are just so many card games to play, and barren hills to cross. i hope all are well and engaged in merriment. everyone in my family whom i've talked to about the project either a) offers their slightly bewildered support b) asks if i've found irish actors or c) says "i've heard ireland is a beautiful country". hmmm...family is family.

wanted to let everyone know that we did not get the Arts Council of Ireland revenue grant. however, i've got my fingers in several different pots, so we can still hold our heads high. yes, that's right, higher...i'll give you a preview once i am back in p.c. land.

enjoy the newness of the new year. slash your face with it. roll over onto it. cover it with date nut balls and serve it with coffee.

you can now email me at WrRd@newgroundcenter.org if you want to relieve some of the KB pressure from my other email account. best, susan

2003-12-19T23:53:00.000-08:00

dear edna,

i so like those words about dublin and tram lines i thought i might use some of them in the logo. is that ok with you? it's the descriptive bits:

"Artane….. Mountjoy square….. the corner of Dignam's court….. Great Charles street….. along the North Circular road…..past Tangier lane….. between Monypeny's corner….. Richmond street…. Saint Joseph's church, Portland row…. under Merchants' arch….. the tiny square of Crampton court…. the path of Sycamore street beside the Empire musichall…. along the North Strand road…. under the trees of Charleville Mall….. "

about my heritage, i'm descendant from a long line of matriarchs. to me, it's just not right having no direct actual women energy in our logo, even if it is only just begun. so this is one way to get some in, right now.

once i helped build a tram line, we built a double curved line by hand using equipment from the turn of the 19th century. it was a student summer employment scheme in an historic park. around the same time, i drove a tram. nice. your words above sort of go clickety clack, clickety clack, like the rock and rolling, swaying ride of a tram, then the brake cylinder pumping up at the stop...

regards

ian

2003-12-16T00:16:00.000-08:00

wataweih yorle,

v3 of the logo is up. robert thanks for putting your best foot forward. the logo is developing some fluidity but still aint right, and needs more images. following edna's suggestion, responses to 2:55 please. any size accepted, so long as you're happy to have me fit it into the format. my email address is i.clothier@witt.ac.nz

the logo is at http://ianclothier.orcon.net.nz/pages/hybrid03.htm please do let it run through the first time. i'm considering making it smaller either in actual size or through optimization. it is also fine to use white rather than black for background in case the black is disturbing anyone. you can always send in revisions of an image previously sent in, or exchange it for another at a later date.

wataweih yorle is pitcairn-norfolk for how's it going? and is used as a standard greeting. the usual response is cooshoo, fine. i have no idea why i'm posting this here, but there you go.

2003-12-14T09:01:00.000-08:00

hi gilbert and kathleen

i know about financial struggles and wanted to suggest something in case it works for you! i have been to NYC a couple of times to present work in the New York Fringe Festival. This festival happens in August when (of course!) the flight tickets are very expensive! i had this idea to approach a couple of airlines and ask them if they could sponsor tickets for my company (only 3 people). It didn't work for me because i was flying from London to New York (or this was their excuse but it's worth checking it!). So i approach Virgin and American Airlines and perhaps one more company but can't remember the name. Virgin refused, they said they only sponsor ill people who have to travel for medical reasons (which sounds fair enough) but American Airlines said to me that i was on the wrong side of the Atlantic! and if i was flying from US to Europe and the festival i was going to was in Europe, they would be interested to support me because it would make sense for them to be publicised in a European festival... as i said earlier, perhaps this was a convenient excuse to get rid of me, but perhaps you can check it, if you haven't done this already... and unless, of course, you have a problem with corporate logos...

good luck with the struggle and stay optimistic!!!

sophia

2003-12-12T10:03:00.000-08:00

It's raining! San Francisco is known for being a foggy city pretty much year round, but we're not used to having any kind of real weather. We just don't own heavy jackets or waterproof shoes.

This is my first entry on the WrRd blog. I thought I'd be contributing more often, but all my late nights have been dedicated to formulating our project, gathering material, and fundraising. I'm one-half of a creative duo contributing to this Cause, Kathleen Quillian is the other.

I thought I'd share some of the work we're doing in fundraising, since this topic may be on many of your minds as the festival approaches with the coming new year, and not to mention while you're kissing your money goodbye with holiday travel, gift giving and generous feasts. In the past, we've managed to work with borrowed equipment and cheap supplies. Staying local has also helped. It's easy to be comfortable with your success in San Francisco. We have a very active alternative arts community who's always an enthusiastic audience. They're all always so positive! This project on the other hand is international, high profile and intellectually mature. We're looking forward to meeting the challenge --but we're not likely to get very far without any MONEY!

Mostly through research done on the web, we've tracked down a number of foundations in the US which support artists like us. On our schedule, we're sending about a letter a week. But these letters are only a step toward getting enough interest to be asked to write a proposal. We know we need to bump this up to a letter a day, so we've drafted a form letter to send to all types of organizations asking for any kind of donations, including monetary, services, and even food and drinks.

Any non-monetary donations will most likely be used in raffles at a benefit show/party we're planning. Donations of food and drink will feed our hungry and thirsty patrons, making it easier to ask them for money. Directly asking for money in person at a benefit party like this seems to be the best way to raise quick cash. It won't cover everything, but it'll pay for some travel and possibly food while we're working outside of the US. The hardest thing about raising the real money is that grants seem to take forever. We'll be done with eveything, in debt and starving before most of the proposal deadlines.

Finally, we've made it easy for people to donate online. There's a button on our project's page which uses PayPal to handle secure transactions. We've also created a generic donation page to include in all of our letters. Even if we're not getting a grant from someone, we're still asking them to give whatever they can just to show their support. This is maybe the easiest piece of work we've done for fundraising so far. We can sit back and watch the money roll in... Now we just need people to find our website.

In short, we're working hard to fund this project. It's taking up nearly all of the time we've dedicated recently. And haven't raised a single penny yet! But we're totally optomistic and we don't mind sleeping on friends couches.

Best of luck... to us all!

2003-12-10T10:51:00.000-08:00

2003-12-10T10:25:00.000-08:00

2003-12-10T01:40:00.000-08:00

well, version 2 of the logo is up at http://ianclothier.orcon.net.nz/pages/hybrid03.htm

jason, your yes is there and robert when i finally came to work on things today, my email wasn't available from home, so i'll add it in the next few days.

the logo is a work in progress. everything's pretty static but much can change as more is added.

susan, sounds good to hear you might be able to devote yet more energy to this project.

for some reason, i've always felt this project was a good one.

2003-12-08T16:47:00.000-08:00

One Monday later and yet...

Chchchchanges: I just found out today that my job here in Panama may be ending quite a bit sooner than I had thought (ie next weekwhich has led me to reconsider timing. Basically it could be possible for me to head to Ireland as soon as February, rather than April as originally planned. There are both good and bad aspects to this plan; the earlier I am in Ireland the more I can accomplish in terms of setting up relationships with the Festival and various arts organizations, logistical problemsolving, etc. The downside mostly has to do with the financial burden of living in Dublin (is it really the 2nd most expensive city in the world?) for 5 months instead of 3. This may not be a problem if funding comes through, but if not I'll be eating lots of potatoes and greasy chinese. The other option would be to return to the US and work for 3 months and head to Ireland in April as planned.

This is obviously a problem I need to solve myself - and in some ways this recent turn of events may play in our favor. Freed up until February, I could devote full time energy to WrRd, in particular pursuing new funding possibilities. Franco, in honest form, recently expressed his concern that enough funding be procured to at the minimum cover travel costs for anyone who must be in Dublin during June, or shipping costs. Of course I am looking to pull in more support than just that, but while I think I stated very clearly from the get that financial support was both a group and individual responsibility, I agree that the time has come to get more aggressive (and sly) in the WrRd funding game.

There are a couple of tricks up the sleeve - but in order for them to work we need to be rather clever in our methods to draw attention to the WrRd cause (oh so we are a cause now are we?). I'll go into this more at a later date but essentially it involves approaching individuals and companies whose products we will be using for our projects (ie Apple, Sony, Maxell, ...) in a manner that grabs them by the throat and forcefeeds them our greatness. Ha. This is the kind of game where a formal letter just won't do. I think that the new media edge tactics that many of you work in would lend themselves well to this kind of approach - how can we weasle our way digitally, sonically, virtually into the offices of these sheltered but potentially generous individuals?

I'll post more info in a few days, but for now, I hope that the proposals you are filling out for the 15th include very detailed budgets. This will allow us to know exactly what we are asking for and help define the routes we need to take to get it.

Okay, that is enough aggro-talk for now. I am also working on a new website design that is much more pretty and utilitarian - now everyone of you will have your own page with bios and links and proposals and images. Make sure to get me any and everything by next Monday.

Until then,

La Caballera del Frio
(the cold cowgirl)

2003-12-01T08:37:00.000-08:00

Hello there one and all.

A request: I am going to be taking the bio statements and images that are due today and forming them into a document for sending to various foundations and Dublin contacts. Does anyone have an issue with me editing some of the longer bio statements into a more workable format, as well as making grammatical changes as necessary?

If this is a problem, or if you want to read the edited bios before I send out the materials, let me know.

Thanks. La Susan

2003-11-30T09:05:00.000-08:00

Dear colleagues,

I am thinking a lot on the project, but I am living very troubled days because I have a big exhibition next week. Like a first contact here you have a resume of my journey.
Best regards,
José Rufino

José Rufino's entrance to the field of Fine Arts happened in the mid 1980's, through a gradual change in his initial interest in Poetry, to Visual Poetry and later to Postal Art. In this early phase, he tool part in several exhibitions of Postal Art in Mexico, Argentina, Portugal and Rumania. At the end of the 80's, he was already producing drawings and paintings of big dimensions and on a number of supports, exhibited in 1989 in the Nucleus of Contemporary Art in Paraíba State, Northeast Brazil. Some of the paintings from this period were made from drawings made in 1970, which triggered a growing interest in investigations of an autobiographical nature and of family background. Little by little he used elements that were more connected to his own background, such as envelopes, family letters and documents, typewriters, stamps and furniture. In 1990, he moved to São Paulo, taking a large number of family letters and documents, and beginning to dedicate a great deal of his time reading the letters of various generations of ancestors, that had been kept at his paternal grandfather's sugar mill, received as part of an inheritance. This was the beginning of a series of drawings on envelopes, entitled “Cartas de Areia” (“Letters from Areia" sand in portuguese), still being developed. From there he started to devote himself simultaneously to the drawings and the instalations, that began to receive titles taken from the Latin: to breath, to shout, to cry, to sweat, to obliterate and to dilacerate. First came Respiratio, 1994-98, composed of drawers removed from old pieces of furniture and filled with white cement and plaster. Vociferatio, 1996, followed, an installation of old writing desks, with their feet attached to the walls and their drawers wide open. In Lacrymatio, he brought together letters, painted since 1990, wires and a chair, forming a kind of genealogical tree, exhibited in the 6th Biennale in Havana. Later came Sudoratio, in 1997, a group of closed suitcases where organic forms moulded in plaster stand. For the II Mercosul Biennale, he produced an installation, Laceratio, with dozens of drawings on papers from the Port authorities in Porto Alegre, produced in a similar way to Hermann Rorschach's psychoanalytical blots, united by wires stretched among hundreds of stamps. In 1998, a significant change in his working process occurred, caused by the beginning of the production of texts on places, written from memory and designated Topologias Aleatórias (Random Topologies). He thus opened a new stratum of investigation, freer than the use of props related to family history and more linked to the mechanisms inherent to his own memory and forgetting and whose results are drawings grouped under the title Obliteratio. Recently, the production of texts and drawings in the series Obliteratio was undertaken through the Vitae Grant for Visual Arts, which resulted in the final grouping of 200 monoprints and twenty texts. In his latest works, Rufino has replaced alien memories with the preparation of installations specifically produced for the exhibition centres, such as in Murmuratio, a collection of monoprints on railway documents, inserted in railway furniture from the State of Espírito Santo, exhibited in the Railway Museum of Vila Velha. For the XXV São Paulo Biennale he produced monoprints on documents related to the 'missing' Brazilian political activists, that stand out from the furniture and boxes in a large installation called Plasmatio. Lately Rufino dedicates himself to a large retrospective collection of his work, that will make its way around Brazil, and has acted as Director of Art for the cinema, giving life to his installations for film sets.

2003-11-27T18:21:00.000-08:00

ok so here's my email address for those who would like an image in the logo: i.clothier@witt.ac.nz

admittedly i've just jumped in here, but it seems like dec 1 is so close there wasn't much time for prior discussion and evaluation. i was going to hold back and wait for feedback on drafts but suddenly a look in the calendar made me feel like it was just time to get on with it and do it [the idea of doing the logo was cleared by susan]. besides i'm hoping that my effort leads to a piece we are all a part of.

jason i snaffled the flag image from the site pages.

more images from everyone else appreciated.

cheers

ian

2003-11-27T13:47:00.000-08:00

Ian,

Go ahead with any images I have posted under 'collaborators' section of site -these are as good as any I will be able to send right now. As to "flags" none of them are mine except for the road sign. The link in my previous message was to a nautical code website.

here it is again:
http://www.anbg.gov.au/images/flags/signal/c.gif

Caution: Turquoise background is not part of the flag.

j.

2003-11-27T08:18:00.000-08:00

3pm June 16, 1904……
one hundred years later.

Where do I start?

Artane….. Mountjoy square….. the corner of Dignam's court….. Great Charles street….. along the North Circular road…..past Tangier lane….. between Monypeny's corner….. Richmond street…. Saint Joseph's church, Portland row….
under Merchants' arch….. the tiny square of Crampton court…. the path of Sycamore street beside the Empire musichall…. along the North Strand road…. under the trees of Charleville Mall…..

“It was a wonder that there was no tramline in such an important thoroughfare. Surely, there ought to be.”

I live in a city which has half a tram system, only in the former East Berlin area. Sometime in the 1950’s or 60’s the tram service between East and West Berlin was discontinued and very soon afterwards the tram network in West Berlin started closing down and the tram lines were removed. I have read that the factory making and repairing trams back then was in East Berlin and this was apparently one of the reasons for the west to give up on trams. But in fact around this time many cities throughout Western Europe and the US were giving up on trams in favour of buses.

It was around the same time that the trams stopped running in Dublin. As far as I recall I think my mother remembers them from when she lived and worked in Dublin. Yes, I think I even remember her speaking very fondly of them and saying that it was a mistake to get rid of them, I must ask her about it again. Maybe trams were seen as backward and modern cities wanted to do the progressive thing and give up on trams.

In Berlin it serves as one of the easiest ways to tell which side of the city you are in; if there are trams it is the east. Some places you can find unused rails still in the street, which stop just before the area where the wall once stood. The Berlin trams have become one of my favourite features of the city, I should add that although it doesn’t serve the entire city it still offers a very good service and as I live in the former east I use it daily.

Just now in Dublin they are building a new tram service, called the Luas, apparently it will be ready in 2004. The design of the trams looks quite like the current Berlin ones, though I am fairly sure that it is not the same company responsible for them. From what I have heard there are some ongoing problems with the Luas and not everyone is happy with the way it is being done.

On a side note, I remember getting a taxi years ago in Dublin and was lucky enough to get a very talkative taxi driver, who not only had the entire history of Dublin stored between his ears but also had the solutions to most, if not all, of the city’s problems. He informed me that the traffic problems could easily be solved by putting in an underground system and he said that this would be easier that you might think because O’Connell St. was build in such a way to allow for the possibility of a future underground. I don’t know if that is true.

“On Newcomen bridge the very reverend John Conmee S.J. of saint Francis Xavier's church, upper Gardiner street, stepped onto an outward bound tram.
Off an inward bound tram stepped the reverend Nicholas Dudley C.C. of saint Agatha's church, north William street, onto Newcomen bridge.”
I hope you will please excuse my ramblings.
By way of introduction: I am an Irish artist, originally from a tiny village in Co. Clare very near the city of Limerick. I have been living in Berlin just over one year- still getting used to it, still getting to know it and still trying to figure it out. My artwork varies from painting to video, photography to sound, and multimedia to books. At present I haven’t yet settled on any definite proposal for the Wandering Rocks project. I am still playing around with some ideas and possibilities. Some of the main things that currently grab me about the Wandering Rocks episode are the place names, the idea of routes (and intertwining paths/maps) and the way people get around (I include in this the use of trams).

2003-11-27T02:55:00.000-08:00

Oh well i looked into the logo thing and found that it's crazy to think of one, a singular, visual element that could do for us all. so it became a logo that changes with time. the start can be seen at http://ianclothier.orcon.net.nz/pages/hybrid03.htm and this is where you collaborators come in.

i need an image from each of you. jason i checked out your flags - one would go well. can you email one? i could have just nicked it on the spot i suppose, but thought i'd do the right thing.

ideally this image is 189 pixels square, but i don't mind resizing. sorting out discrepancies in proportion will have to be done on a case by case basis. a square image helps speed.

so please everyone do email an image and i'll add it to the animated logo.

susan the logo letters changed from the file sent to you.

2003-11-25T12:04:00.000-08:00

Hi,

Here's what I'm working with so far:

I have been using the blue-white-red-white-blue stripe motif for some time now and this project is the perfect chance to realize it in an effective way (See under Jason Hallows on our site). The stripes are, among other things, the nautical signal flag for "yes". Most of us should, by now, be familiar with Molly Bloom's Yeses... I'd like to coordinate the flying of as many "yes" flags as possible on and along the Liffey-boats and riverside buildings. (Did anyone see the "PACE" flags in Venice?) The feedback I need from the group is if the colours, especially on a flag, read as English and if that might be taken badly in Ireland. So far the word I get from friends is "no it won't, go ahead".

The flag can be seen here:

http://www.anbg.gov.au/images/flags/signal/c.gif

Eric, I love the HELYS idea...I myself noticed the many possibilities with that image of the sandwich boards. I'm exited about how this will all turn out.
Thanks,
jason.

2003-11-25T00:55:00.000-08:00

I take it Susan that you mean each point is collapsable into other points on smaller scales connected to other points, and so on...

My piece has evolved somewhat, the agenbite of inwit has become a part of one multiplicity. So I'm simply doing a wandering rock. The sixteen prints in the form of a figure is still there, and the same images are also printed on stickers and delivered to wherever they might stick (still and moving places), and hopefully widely.

Actually it's 15 prints as one image is the agenbite, which has a belt of emotions and a light response to viewer distance from the work. I don't know about everyone else, but on rereading, I found the chapter to be very blokey in flavour, and a little bit dandy with it (grunge of course was present, part of the setting).

Anyway, the images are taken from the chapter except parts of chapter episodes have my own culture interspersed. As if a bizarre substitution of reality had taken place. The same but different. Reverend Conmee's watch has a lei border. But it's still five to three.

At least this is the current plan. Really good to meet a bunch of people who understand all this...

2003-11-23T03:15:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody

just a few words to introduce myself: i'm a net artist and started my net art activity with a piece inspired by Joyce's epiphanies : http://www.iterature.com/epiphanies (and the chat version of it : gogolchat).

You can also have a look at a global "poetry" happening I did on Google : The Google Adwords Happening.

And my very last piece : WiFi-SM

Otherwise I had a look at the PML or psychogeographical mark-up language Susan mentionned. It looks extremely interesting to me. But I understood they will have a first version end of 2004 which is very late. Do you have any other information about that ?

I'll write more soon..
Chris
http://www.unbehagen.com
http://www.iterature.com

2003-11-22T11:19:00.000-08:00

I am reading Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities – with this book he has hitched himself one more notch higher in my list of favorite writers. My thought was that this book might shed light on the Wandering Rocks, Revolving Door challenge – and Mr. Calvino did not fail to follow through on this assumption. Read on:

“Marco Polo imagined answering (or Kublai Khan imagined his answer) that the more one was lost in unfamiliar quarters of distant cities, the more one understood the other cities he had crossed to arrive there; and he retraced the stages of his journeys, and he came to know the port from which he had set said, and the familiar places of his youth, and the surroundings of home, and a little square of Venice where he gamboled as a child.”

“Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: a foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.”

“Cities also believe they are the work of the mind or of chance, but neither the one nor the other suffices to hold up their walls. You take delight not in a city’s seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours.”

These quotes get to the meat of what drew me to propose WrRd as such – using one’s own past experiences (historical, geographical, interpersonal) to understand new unknown environments, and celebrating this foreignness that is really not so foreign.

I did post a link on the Wandering Rocks, Revolving Door links page to another excerpt from Invisible Cities for those who want to chew a little more, though the real delight is a book in hand. With ketchup on top.

2003-11-19T15:09:00.000-08:00

Hello all - processing processing processing - urbanities suburbanities echolalia microcomically - subterranoscopically, of course - gliding along into ergocomically unfeasible and usable conditions - oh would that someone would deliver a cup o sack to me bluish tinted paws! br.

i've been boning up a bit on psychomogeography - i'd like to spin a bit on my reactions, and i would really appreciate otherses, and, Susan, could you be more specific about how you have utilized the figure of PMLs (or PMLs themselves) to getcha goin on your project?

i am intimately and boundlessly gawking at the language of this thing, and by and to it i am bound and intimate - PML "captures" (where? for whose benefit? where will this data be contained/caged?) , is "unified" (oh no), a "system" (well, would be less icky if it weren't "unified") and "lurks" (why doesn't it join the party already? what's it scared of? can we have a show of hands, would anyone turn it out if it came out from behind door number 3?)- is "an objective tool" to "take the fingerprint of a city" (there's only one?!)

i'm uneasy about this markup language - aside from the above-noted linguistic tics that wig me out a bit (this is PML version 0.2.2, maybe there's an upgrade i'm missing) , i wonder about the "nodes" - "for whom" and "in relation to what" are the questions i most amend to the end of each "node" - (for ex, "crowded"?according to what "objective tool"? - my crowded, in bouake in the ivory coast, is a burkinabe bus driver's slow-asmolasses)

so, enough already of this griping - sorry - i'm really just curious about if/how this kind of "tool" will be applied by the project's participants to their projects - and i am terribly curious about any parameters that ReJoyce is taking for granted about our use of the city- bounds and contingencies bounds and contingencies...where are you? no, really folks, as my plan is to circulate physically with edible rocks with poems and instructions and other circulateables, i've been taking for granted the matter through which i'll circulate (ie, people)

everyone's projects sound wonderfully rich thus far - i'm excited to learn more

ta ta - rachel daley

2003-11-19T08:00:00.000-08:00

The days are moving.

I am in the process of writing official letters of invitation to all of you - please let me know if you would like me to include any specific information, ie your address (do I have it? if not send it to me and I will add it in), dates, official ReJoyce Festival stamp (okay that might take a bit of work). I will most likely email these letters as Word attachements with my signature scanned in. If anyone prefers a posted letter, let me know and again make sure I have your address.

Remember December 1st approaches...

Cheers - Susan

2003-11-17T23:42:00.000-08:00

Hello,

I am a french artist who has been living in Belgium for a few years now. I am working with serveral media (installations, photography, infography, video, …) on different concepts (instability, fragility, destructuration, conditioning, …). It is through the Net that I’ve heard of the Wandering Rocks project, wich appealed to me directly. Actually, back in 1998, I started developping a project around James Joyce and « Ulysses », of which this is a summary :
Installation of a naval beacon in the bay of Dublin. This buoy, supplied with electricity by solar sensors, is equipped with a red headlight which gives out luminous ceded signals in Morse without interruption. The text continually given out in Morse, is the novel of James Joyce, Ulysses. The beacon and especially its luminous signal must be visible from the coast. Some privileged sites will be thus provided with an orientation table, allowing to recognise the site of the beacon compared to Dublin and its! coast, the nature of the transmitted text as well as all the information concerning the monument . Besides, the geographical situation of the beacon as well as its artistic characteristic will be listed on the naval international maps. Finally a web site will be created in order to give all the necessary information ; the positioning of the beacon and its signal in real time etc...

Meanwhile, in order to illustrate and spread around the project, I have created a piece called « The Cardinal One », which is a diptich, infography drawing of a beacon with a short text from « Ulysses » in morse (see in Cardinal Project <http://home.tiscali.be/delayen/) I am perfectly aware that this ambitious project could never be made with my own fundings, neither for june 16 ! But I would like to show it in Dublin and, in order to be part of your adventure, I am currently working on different means to adapt it to the event. For instance, and even though it has not been decided yet, I would like to work on one of the specific features of the chapter, wandering letters taking a walk, men carrying « H.E.L.Y’S » (with the H that does not catch up) ; rocks are words wandering around the city, so I’ll use the 3538 words used to write that chapter, put them on pin’s (badges) to be worn, given away all day long to the people in the street, in order to spread them around, let them wander in the city…

Maybe another idea would be to « throw away » the text coded in sounding morse on a radio frequency used for the ships, so that it would wander that day in the city, but also beyond.
In any case, these projects are subject to changes and evolutions, and I will keep you informed of these changes on this blog.

Looking forward to take part to the project and to meet you all,

yours,

Éric Delayen.

2003-11-17T15:44:00.000-08:00

ooops, apologies... i think i'm getting rather confused... the person i need to meet in london is maryruth and not rachel.... sorry both, this is not because i'm totally slack... but i have been ill and inactive for months, i just came back to the real working world a month ago... and sometimes i still can't cope with too much information... but i'm getting better and will be as fast as i was before VERY soon!

sophia

2003-11-17T15:28:00.000-08:00

hi everyone and i'm sorry you haven't heard a single word from me yet! i'm sophia, a greek woman who lives in london and works half of the week in nottingham but has never been to ireland!!! i finally managed to find time and read through all the conversations, check the psychogeography website and start looking at the different available sources around this text! the actual text itself and then the version with the correct chronological order, and to place this chapter in the context of the whole book, oh! man, it's a hell of work, if i really want to study all the maps, and the VR sections... but it's fascinating... so i'm still not in a position to suggest anything concrete, but i'm hearing what everyone says... and i picked up the rhizome concept with which i am vaguely familiar, i'm very much in favour of the 'dynamic', as my own current work is best described as 'dynamic environments for the viewer'... this comes from my choreographic background, except that i understand choreography as a series of techniques to work with energy ('dynamics') in space and time, that doesn't necessarily have something to do with human bodies, and it's definitely trying to GET OUT of the theatre, into the everyday spaces. However, i'd like to discuss at some point, what will be the precise way of establishing connections between the different pieces... i'm very interested in what constitutes a connection. Also i was very intrigued with the notion of the anti-site specific, (and this particular situation in which we will be creating work for a place which is not familiar to most of us or in relation to a text which describes a geography that doesn't exist anymore)... i was lucky to find a copy of Miwon Kwon in Amazon, which i have ordered. I did have a quick conversation with Susan in an early email about the idea of cities existing in layers on the top of each other, older cities which disappeared under the soil, and younger ones that were built on top of them... this is actually something that is actual fact in my native country greece, the deeper they dig, the more layers they find! i really don't know yet where this idea might lead me... but i wasn't really thinking of an actual physical digging process... we'll see... i also have something in relation to networks... streets and pathways as networks... also there is all this thing about the action of walking.... and i want to spend a bit more time with the psychogeography stuff, it looks fascinating...

ok! i think i'll stop for now, and i hope i'll press the right button, so that my post goes to the right place...

one little thing... i was a bit confused with the difference between general postings and personal emails... which all came as emails... so i'm not sure if a message that i thought was sent directly to me by Rachel, was actually sent to me or not...

Rachel, i'm sorry i haven't replied... Susan had this idea that perhaps we could meet since we both live in london... so i'll get my head a bit better together and will contact you...

Also Susan,
in terms of the funding situation... my contract with Nottingham Trent University is half teaching and half research, this means that i am being paid by the university to work on my projects, which count as research for them. So my personal work for this project will be theoretically paid from my salary... this can appear as matching funding on this project... in addition i might be able to get travel and accomodation expenses, but i'm not sure yet about this...

if anybody wants to get a vague idea of what i do, you can visit www.kunstwerk-blend.co.uk , it is a very badly designed website (because i did it myself 4 years ago after a 2 hour session a friend offered me on how to use basic Dreamweaver...) but it still has some information about my work...

ok! bye for now

sophia

2003-11-17T14:22:00.000-08:00

Howdy,

First thanks Rachel for pointing out we are, after all, already in the space of a rhizome.

I'm now thinking of two pieces - sticker art to be placed in the streerts of Dublin and distributed at events etc. Motivated by considering flow.

The second piece is an agenbite of inwit (mentioned once in the chapter). This would be composed of sixteen digital prints, where the images are derived from the Wandering Rocks chapter (a dog licking blood on the street and a tophat are two examples). I'm working on a spatial interactive component based on distance from the piece - the space granted to other people walking down the street, and then a closer personal space such as that observed by two Western European people conversing. Right now I'm visualising this piece in a shop window, and clearly it needs power. It needs protection from the weather, and could go in other indoor spaces.

I'm applying for a research grant to put the second piece together and to be honest the interactive technology component requires a grant. Right now I'm planning one application this side of xmas, and at least two others next year (including looking for sponsors). I've had preliminary discussions with a dealer gallery and they are interested in showing what I send to Dublin (there are many details to be negotiated before this can be regarded as certain).

Susan, I need like an official letter saying I'm included in the project, for my applications. Can you email one?

2003-11-16T08:07:00.000-08:00

sundays are fundays.

hello to all. panama city is a sunday morning ghost town, with wide boulevards all to your lonesome. everyone recovering from late night salsa sessions, i suppose.

an update to the deadline schedule:

december 1st please submit to me via email a short bio or artist statement as well as one of two small images of past work to be included in a PR packet to be used for the ReJoyce Festival as well as upcoming grant application.

december 15th confirm your participation in the WrRd collective by submitting a draft of specific project proposal. please include specifics regarding anticipated costs, equipment needs, and whether or not you will need to be present for the installation of your work. the more detailed the better.

also i am curious if anyone has been looking into individual funding resources. if you are in the process of pursuing other grants or funding, please let me know so that i can include this information in my other funding quests. as stated on the website, the project will function best through a combination of support through group and individual channels.

okay. time to head out into the wide open streets. i am helping a friend mount his photo exhibition in the old quarter of the city, and on the way i need to locate more materials for a picnic performance project to be realized at the end of the month.

best, susan

2003-11-13T08:38:00.000-08:00

Greetings from London!
Thanks Susan I'm in at last.

2003-11-11T20:24:00.000-08:00

Wanted to let interested parties know of the existence of something called PML or psychogeographical mark-up language that is under development by the people at
Social Fiction. I may just send them an email and link to our project - there is a certain overlap worth exploring.

Another good link which I mentioned in a comment to Eric Delayen's message is Google's "translate this text" page. Could come in handy and allow us to chatter on in our tongue of comfort.

Thanks to all for spreading your thoughts out on the table.

Best. Susan

2003-11-11T16:35:00.000-08:00

hi everybody

I don't really have time just at the moment to get into much, but I thought I'd let it be known that I'm here, I'm in, and I'm listening -if not yet writing. It all seems to shaping into an interesting project.

Susan -I've been wondering for a while, and now related to your question regarding your role, what exactly do you mean by "collaborators"? By answering this (forgive me if you have somewhere that I missed) I think you may have the answer to the the participant/curator question. I have a group show brewing here in Canada and I'm struggling with the same issue.

later,
jason hallows

2003-11-11T06:15:00.000-08:00

ah that's better- thanks susan for straightening out those ruffians at blogger roughing up my access - i'm sure they didn't mean it

franco mentioned "giving" and "gentle" sabotage at work in his pieces/interferences in public space - it's interesting how "intruding" on public space is understood ("these days"?, i mean, now that, in a subway station in harlem, there are occasionally 18 year old white men in fatigues carrying machine guns...i am old enough to remember that this kind of thing is outrageously unprecedented, young enough to be pissed off about it and ask them straight up, "why are you here?"..."SAFETY" ???) harumph - forgive the age-ism - i'm reading jerry rubin...

i think we are as of late and by way of necessity (do or die kind of necessity - i'm afraid of those boys in fatigues and their guns!) terribly sensitive to the expectation of normalcy for (the range of) activity taking place in public space...which perhaps makes the job of someone messing with the make-up of a public space much easier (i have a friend who ever-so-elegantly leaves post-it directives around her office at hearst publications..."wear your shirt inside out today, and work it!", for example)...i think it's so very important to recognize and with magnified infusions even implosions in the pieces of this project, this circumstance, that everyone's (everyone situated to take part in this project, in the beginning of the third christian millenium, ie. western global bla blahs) very programmed already! to do their specified bit!...i think wandering rocks can't help but possess the rhizomatic play that we've been mentioning...the webby fabric's inherent in the collectivity, no? "we hereby agree to this use of time/space," no? (how bout this blog!) those participating will necessarily be operating by way of that frame, even just the evocation, JOYCE, STREET, ME, NOT ME, and awareness of others doing the same...networked by way of the name, at the very least, WanDerINg ROcKs...and the streets each brings along (me, i bring the streets of abidjan, salt lake city, ouagadougou, iowa city, sanfranciso, bondoukou, engadine, sydney, falmer, severe, bronx...nodes of wandering...)

and on these, of dublin, i would like fundamentally to circulate edible rocks! give gifts with my hands that will be circulated with liquid intimacy and tracings of rejoicing and forced commensurability! with words and imperatives to suck suck suck! everyone must suck together! walking in place in the streets of dublin, together sucking and wandering with sugar gifts only sugarized by each person's particular work at it (spit)! and being in the way of yourself and not yourself walking or not looking by sucking! (one's psychogeography is peculiarly another's fearlessness to spit for a stranger)

i also love beckett

lovies, rachel d

2003-11-10T21:22:00.000-08:00

Returned from the jungle after an impromptu overnight. A good lesson that the thick jungle and fat meandering rivers of the tropics require a different navigational plan than the great north woods and gravity fed mountain streams of Vermont. And do believe I thought of all you and as I peered from beneath the makeshift bug shield over my head at the full moon many miles away from anything that walks on two legs (except maybe the "walk on water" jesus lizards). Thankfully the project goes on...

It was mentioned to me that perhaps people are not comfortable with the nature of this blog site. Does any feel it to be a strained environment? Would group email exchanges work better? I like the blog both for its archival purposes but also because it gives people the chance to communicate with the whole group via a blog post as well as individual communications via the comment box. But if people prefer the email system let me know and this site can continue to evolve out of its current state.

Off for a bed that is not a rock and hopefully bug free.

Susan

2003-11-09T12:48:00.000-08:00

Hi,

susan, first off, on the one hand it's easy to see the wisdom in you being co-ordinator rather than participant but on the other it seems appropriate for you to be in. don't suppose that helps at all....

i've been reading through the posted blogs and would like to put something forward, which picks up from the psychogeography thing. well it's not actually psychogeography but thinking about wandering rocks the chapter and how one art work consisting of multiplicity might be brought together, it is perhaps worthwhile considering the rhizome a la Deleuze and Guattari as a model for the art work. Is anyone else familiar with their work? This kind of orientation would allow us to contribute separately yet as one piece, and perhaps work on the overlaps that arise. Assignifying rupture allows a rhizome to be pulled apart, and for it to be rejoined at another place without loss to the network. Each part is both stand alone and connected. So the piece could become dynamic, with work across vritual and 4D actualities. And exploring the interconnections between media might be interesting?

as for my own contribution, i'm thinking of making hybridisations. i don't know exactly, i'm just exploring. but since i started with this project i've had this gut feeling that there were leis in here somewhere. and i'm contemplating sticker art, as a statement of mobility and impermanence but geographical spread. anyway nothing confirmed but this is where it is going. maybe this in an actual component which has a web part as well.

also, susan is there any potential for projected art works?

are you still looking for a logo?

ian

2003-11-09T07:57:00.000-08:00

Hello guys and in first instance "Hello Susan".............

ok I have been able to eventually get connected to this blog thing and here I am.
Susan seems to be doing her best toi get this all project get to a final great end, and even in these complex work times I am going to try to hel her, you, us, and myself to make it happen.

Oh yes...........I am currently working on the setting up of a series of public friendly sabotages.
Therefore I am considering devicing for the WrRd project, a similar action.
You may read it in short here below.
And for now you all take care and see/read you here soon.

Franco
(Amsterdam-Rome)

The real Ulysses was made temporarely def for a genuine purpose, keeping him from being seduced by the beauty and lyrics of the sweet sirenes...........
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"FCCT-C – Free Concert for a City Trash-Can"

Short description of the project concept:

Sabotage of 100 city-trash-cans. The project consists in “gently sabotaging” 100 public trash-cans (rubbish collectors) by using radio-sound. In practical terms I would attach to the inside of each of these trash-cans a small FM radio transmitter. (Cheap plastic FM radios will be used).The radio would be tuned into a number of local FM Stations which broadcast classical music and talk news reports. (Alternative pirate punk-rock local radios may be considered for tuning and program broad-castings). Conceived and produced as a time-related work (lasting through the duration of the battery-life), this project is part of a series of public interventions called: “Gestures of giving”. Basically these works(interventions) are meant to function as “subtly disorienting injections” into a number of basic people’s daily rituals and activities. In the specific FCCT-C aims at creating an unexpected free sound surprise for the citizens of a specific public area, (and perhaps a pleasant one as well?). I first tested this work on the Eurostar Train connecting Milano to Roma, (Italy) in 2002. The 22 Radio FM transmitters were simply thrown into the trash-cans that are to be found alongside the train corridors.

(Further detailed description may follow).

2003-11-06T20:19:00.000-08:00

caffinated greetings

i have a request. in the hope of putting together a brief statement of the project for the rejoyce festival, i would like for each of you to either write your own blog post or add a comment to this post with a brief statement of how you envision WrRd and your role as artist and collaborator. an added benefit will be that i can see whether or not i am being effective in defining the project to the group as a whole. i have an ongoing tendency towards vagueness but would like to work through that.

while you are at it, if anyone has a project idea already formulating in their head, this would be a good time to begin presenting these ideas to the group. several of you have approached me via email to discuss your ideas, but rather than me spinning them back to the group, it seems more effective if you each introduce your ideas, and thus inject a bit of your personality, into the mix.

as an aside, i am very seriously considering taking myself out of the collaboration as one of the 19 artists so that i can focus, now and in the future, on the organizational and curatorial elements of the project. is this sad? um. not really. probably much smarter in the overall scheme of things. please collect your tears and mail them to my p.o. box in panama. they might just get here before i leave for Dublin. if they do, i promise to drink them a la crybaby.

thanks kindly.
la susan

2003-11-05T01:00:00.000-08:00

Bonjour,

Juste quelques mots afin de saupoudrer votre "Blog" de termes français, ce qui , je crois, n'aurait pas déplu à Mr. Joyce. Au plaisir de vous rencontrer tous et toutes. Remerciements chaleureux et sincères pour Susan Sakash et son précieux dévouement.
Eric Delayen.

2003-11-04T21:15:00.000-08:00

Questions? Comments? Feel free to drop a note in the comment box, or email me. Until then...

Good news! Today I received confirmation from Laura Weldon, the director of the ReJoyce Festival, that the she is happy to include "Wandering Rocks, Revolving Doors" as part of the festival events! Phew - at least that part is settled. She did mention a few important things that I wanted to pass along:

1) The Festival would like to add a short description of the project to its website and other promotional materials. They have also asked for one or two images - would anyone like to volunteer to come up with a project "logo" that would represent the collaborative nature of our endeavor? It will be seen by millions, and make you famous beyond your wildest dreams!

2) Laura confirmed the difficulty behind gaining permission from city officials to use public spaces, although she may be able to "cut some red tape" to make things a little easier. This just means we have to be creative with our notion of site specificity - I would love to start up a discussion about this topic which will no doubt be one of the key forces that gives shape to WrRd.

3) Unfortunately we have missed the deadline for funding through the ReJoyce Festival. Catriona Hardie, our representative collaborator in Dublin, was wonderful enough to sit through what she called a "pie chart" meeting hosted by the Arts Council of Ireland, regarding the Revenue Grant we applied to last month. We should know more about the status of that funding by late December. I have come across a few regional grants that apply to some of you and will be sending more information about those grants shortly - perhaps here on the blog to keep you checking back in (heh heh). There are four or five other foundations that I will apply to on behalf of the entire collaboration, however a few of these will be notifying us either right before or right after June. So I hope you are all actively pursuing funding opportunities applicable to your region, media, etc.

Okay that's all for now. A few of you have contacted me recently to say that you have been unable to log-in to the blog as a member. If anyone else has this problem, please let me know and I will resend the invitation. For those who have been able to log in, please do introduce yourself and your ideas. As they say, "Inquiring minds want to know..."

2003-10-29T20:31:00.000-08:00

Thou art a licentious fat-kidneyed hedge-pig!

I have recently run across two trains of thought that have opened up a series of questions relating to the way in which the WrRd collaboration might develop. The first train of thought comes via a recommendation by an art historian / critic friend of mine to read Miwon Kwon's "One place after another". I would second her recommendation to anyone interested in the historical and conceptual developments of site specific, public art since the 1960s. The second train of thought was spurned on by a field of psychogeography, the existence of which I doubted until this past week. The questions raised by these two sources are by turns curatorial and theoretical - but all invite your comments:

While I continue thinking of this project as public in nature, I have had a hard time locating WrRd within the site-specific discourse, until arriving at the final chapter of "One place after another" in which Kwon proposes an alternative vision of site-specificity that allows a work to "sustain the cultural and historical specificity of a place (and self) that is neither a simulacral pacifier not a willful invention".

WrRd is indeed challenging the notion of site in both spatial and temporal terms. We are each responding to a specific moment in time and place (ie 3pm June 16, 1904) by way of our distinct environments (Berlin, Panama, New York) one hundred years later. This disruption is further complicated by the transference of these responses onto the altered cityscape of a contemporary Dublin.

Given these are the chosen complications set at WrRd's inception, we appear to be taking on this “range of seeming contradictions and our contradictory desires for them together to understand in other words, seeming oppositions as sustaining relations". Rather than imposing an irreconcilable conflict, we have in fact positioned WrRd as a potential movement forward within the current state of site-specific affairs.

But before I go patting us all on the back, it is essential to realize that just because we have postulated an interesting alternative, it is WrRd’s outcome that will determine whether or not we were able to achieve the balance of being “out of place with punctuality and precision”.

There are a few curatorial issues that are now emerging, related to these ends,

1. The majority of interest in this project has been from artists working and living in Western Europe, the U.S.A. and Canada. While this does make logistical sense in terms of who has come in contact with Joyce’s writing (although I am sure there are translations out there, and balk at what a formidable task that would be). Part if me feels committed to petitioning the widest dispersal of urban locales as this will lead to a greater sense of displacement and analysis of self by both the artists and the people who come in contact with these works during the creation and display phases.
2. Given that Joyce wrote Ulysses while living in Trieste, Italy, the way one’s interactions in a foreign place shed light on the place one has left behind has always seemed an appropriate interplay to investigate. As a result I originally issued the call for artists in non-native cities, or transplants. Right now however we are about evenly split between natives and transplants. In part this is because I began to worry that the outsider’s point of view might be misconstrued as patronizing or worse yet colonial in tone, imposing its visions of home upon a different landscape and people. I am curious whether others feel this is a situation that needs to be addressed.
3. I had originally envisioned the project as 19 artists each choosing one of 19 fragments from the Wandering Rocks episode. Lately, however, a few of you have expressed an interest in working with the episode as a whole (ie exploring its language, mapping the routes and patterns of the entire cast of characters). In particular these ideas seem to be coming from artists working in web and digital media. Do people feel it is too limiting to respond to a single fragmented moment? Might it be better to allow for the possibility of interactions between the fragments (which overlap anyway)? In other words, does the project need to strive for more cohesion or are we comfortable with the fact that this chaos may be beautiful?
4.The whole field of psychogeography was quite exciting to stumble across. I am still working my way through the wealth of essays and experiments proposed under the guise of psychogeography, but already see the ways in which WrRd has the potential to work within and around this framework. There are a few links on the main website that can give you more information or feel free to write me directly - I promise to explain myself better than I am able right now with a full belly of food and only 5 hours of sleep under my belt.
Thus is my thought process over the last few days. I wanted to put these challenges out there to see what others think and hopefully resolve them in a way in which everyone is comfortable. I look forward to hearing your responses.

Until then, Susan

2003-10-27T03:40:00.000-08:00

Questions? Comments? Feel free to drop a note in the comment box, or email me. Until then...

2003-10-22T10:52:00.000-07:00

Questions? Comments? Feel free to drop a note in the comment box, or email me. Until then...

2003-10-19T21:40:00.000-07:00

Questions? Comments? Feel free to drop a note in the comment box, or email me. Until then...

Where and how will projects be installed?

*This question is currently up for debate - dialogue is encouraged in order to make this a cooperative decision.*

Each artist will create a project in response to the interplay between the action of Ulysses and the artist's own urban environment. The major creative work will be done prior to the projects transportion to Dublin where, taken out of a certain context and into another, it will be (re)installed along with the others in a number of public spaces throughout the city.

One thought is to have the projects installed where the action of their chosen section takes place. Keep in mind however that in many of the sections the characters are ambulatory and that 100 years later many of the spaces mentioned by Joyce may no longer exist or be transformed by the modern industrial machine.

This uncertainty is one of the intangible challenges of the project. One solution could be sending scouts beforehand to re-map the Dublin of 2004. However, the project holds at its foundations this idea of how does one create a response to an unknown environment, in effect a kind of anti-site specific installation, in that we will all be creating projects for spaces that are not only foreign but quite possibly have disappeared underneath a shopping mall or behind a billboard.

The question then is how flexible are we willing to be in having our assumptions turned upside down and our levels of patience stretched to their maximum? Will people be able to assemble their work not knowing how the public will view its installation.

This leads into the question of "How" will the 19 pieces be mounted, especially if funding limits the ability for individual artists to physically participate in the installation of their pieces. Most likely many artists will feel it absolutely essential to be present in Dublin either because of the technical complexity of the installation or a general desire to have the last say in the final presentation of their piece. These are both entirely justified concerns and with some hard work, any one who wants to come to Dublin with their work in tandem will have the financial assistance to do so.

If the artist does not share these concerns and feels confident in turning over their project to the unknown, there will be a competent Dublin "mounting squad" who will be in continuous contact with the artists throughout the installation process to insure that the artist's vision is maintained throughout.

2003-10-18T15:47:00.000-07:00

OK, well i got the email and i guess this message means i'm in. i wanted to offer a couple of things to the collaborators, which in a way, addresses the first paragraph of susan's email where she says "i hope you didn't think i had forgotten all of you."

a couple of things i've learnt about collaborating via the internet: 1. trust. 2. plan b.

trust is really important because it may appear as if a collaborator has disappeared from internet, or entered a bottomless cup of virtual coffee (would that be heaven or hell). however this is rarely the case. it's just that there are many things that individuals are dealing with. so trust is vital.

having a plan b is just a good idea in case something falls over at the wrong time. once i was collaborating via the net for a couple of months with someone on a project, and when it came time to go live with the project (i.e. it was related to an art event), she was forced into replacing her computer. i wound up trawling through our email discussion to pull out content, because by the time she was up and runing, the spacetime part of the project was over.

gosh i'll have to start writing shorter sentences. also i checked the WrRd site and seems fine to me. humourous descriptions and my cultural affiliation extends further but am happy to run with what's there.

2003-10-17T12:51:00.000-07:00

Questions? Comments? Feel free to drop a note in the comment box, or email me. Until then...

as of today, friday the 17th, this blog has evolved into a "team blog" where the individual WrRd collaborators can each post and edit their own messages. the hope is to create a space where we can dialogue about our individual projects, aesthetic concerns, and foster a more collaborative atmosphere.

also the WrRd website can be temporarily viewed at https://earthtecinc.com/newground/WrRd
until we get it transferred over to

http://www.newgroundcenter.org.

in other news, it is friday and there is a smell of burnt coffee in the air that is wafting over from the cafe duran factory, the one located right next to the big buddhist temple under construction down the street. i was wondering why the building had such a grand staircase - it couldn't have been just to satisfy the construction workers on their lunch break. then again, i didn't realize there were so many buddhists in panama city. wrong again.

i look forward to reading what appears on this site over the next few days.
stay tuned....

2003-09-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

Questions? Comments? Feel free to drop a note in the comment box, or email me. Until then...

a recent announcement in Rhizome.org, an "online platform for the global new media community" has resulted in some interesting leads. the people who belong to the rhizome community apparently know their joyce. thanks enda.

as the deadline for ReJoyce moneies has already passed, i've also begun the funding dance, starting with Arts International, but soon to be extended ever outwards. am of course open to any directional aids in this regard.

speaking of directions, the new plan is to create a website specifically for the WrRd project, leaving this blogsite as more of an open forum for the collaborators and interested parties. i also hope to create a very specific project proposal by this upcoming weekend and translate it into spanish in order to woo the speakers and dreamers of this, my second language.

hasta entonces...

2003-09-27T05:20:00.000-07:00

new mornings. just a quick note to direct your attention to the links on the right hand side of the page. pleased as red punch am i that these artists are among the first to sign on board to the wandering rocks revolving doors project. so far we are all transplants of some sort - roman living in amsterdam, english living in dublin, irish living in berlin, country boy breaking ear drums in the big city, and a gringa down in the sweltering south of panama.

so read on and feel free to contact any of us by posting comments on this page. off to break pinatas.

2003-09-21T15:58:00.000-07:00

the 10th episode

so yes, the project "wandering rocks revolving doors" spawning out of the 10th "chapter" (aka wandering rocks) of james' joyce's ulysses, a snapshot of the streets and people of dublin at 3pm on june 16, 1904. each chapter of the book is associated with a different body organ, art, technique and symbology. that of wandering rocks is as follows:

Organ: blood;
Art: mechanics;
Symbol: citizens;
Technique: labyrinth;

the chapter is divided into 19 sections ¹, some of which follow individuals as they move throughout the streets of the city, while other fragments are more static, human still-lives, if you will. the people of these fragments bump into, evade, actively seek one another, while in general accomplishing very little else.

as such i would like to gather together 19 individuals each working with a chosen fragment of the 19. if an artist has a particular section they are drawn to, so be it, this fragment is theirs. conversely, if an artist has never read joyce and/or is unable to find a copy of the book in an understandable language, then i am willing to work with them in discussing the general narrative structure, characters, and other schemes of action.

ideally these projects will use the fragments as a mental leaping off point towards themes, relationships, geographical and geopolitical issues present within their current urban landscape. all pieces should be created for installation in the extended exhibition space of dublin's city streets. i am not aware if it will be possible to install pieces in the exact physical locations prescribed in the wandering rocks chapter as there will be many events clamoring for that same space. artists do not need to be present for the installation of their pieces unless they deem it necessary. i will be assuming a curatorial role in dublin as of april 2004, with the assistance of two or three irish collaborators, and will provide a dublin address where projects can be sent, no later than early may 2004.

this project is not currently funded by any daddy warbucks or foundation. funding may become possible, once the project is further along, to pay for the costs of shipping pieces to dublin. (unknown at this time whether we will be able to pay for transportation costs of actual artists). however since one of the aims of "wrrd" is to engage artists working in many different media, i hope that many of the projects will be digitally produced and thus easily transportable. all statements included above are subject to modification as this is intended to be a collaborative affair. please do not hesitate to ask questions, demand clarification, posture new possibilities, etc.

¹ Ulysses the book is also divided into 19 chapters - though this does not mean that each chapter finds its equivalent in one these 19 fragments - no, no that would be too simple.

2003-09-18T21:26:00.000-07:00

Spread the call.

Seeing as the Call for Entries in the Sculptor's Society of Ireland e-bulletin was such a smashing success, it seems prudent to post similar announcements in other frisky art publications. Problem is...

"Where to start?"

If you know of any publications that are either tied to a particular urban center or have a global audience, please drop me a note in the old comment box or send me an email.

I suspect with a bit more manure spreading, people will be asking:
"Wy don't you old back that owlin mob?"

Because we like them that way.

2003-09-16T22:04:00.000-07:00

I encourage people who are interested in the project or who have comments on what is being published on this blog to send a comment, conveniently located on this page. I will do my best to respond to such comments in each new post. Thank you.

And now, a bit about...

In backwards fashion, my first exposure to Joyce was a passage from Finnegan's Wake. No, not even an entire passage, but a single word whose etemology encompassed an entire blackboard. The man dissecting the word with chalk and talk was Jon Barlow, a loosely defined professor of music but also a knowledgable source of information on Joyce, physics, baseball, Emily Dickinson, and science fiction. Two years later, I took his Introduction to Music Theory class in which Barlow illustrated the Pythagorean experiment by way of Bloom's "musemathmatics" in the Siren's episode. I approached him after that class to see if he would be willing to offer a second-opinion alternative to the Freudian-laden interpretations being offered by the professor teaching the Ulysses course. He suggested I instead submit a proposal for a one-on-one tutorial and leave the castration complex for the rest of them.

My undergraduate thesis on the Sirens episode evolved out of this two year tutorial. It was a somewhat affair in which I recreated the Ormond Bar (complete with flowing Guinness). In this fictionalized setting, guests were invited to flirt with the Misses Douce and Kennedy (Miss Douce being a thinly disguised man playing a theremin), turn an ear to a chorus of women singing (in Greek and English) a deconstructed siren song, eat colcannan with Bloom and Richie, and listen to Plato's harmony of the spheres (seven sustained pitches and three sliding furies). The event suceeded in evoking all the six senses, while offering an alternative to standard audience/partipant performance.

Since that time I have continued to work (or better put, play) with both Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake, primarily focusing on language and retelling of cannonized stories. However my writing has an unruly knack for jumping off the page and into visual and lo-fi audio spaces. For the past year and a half I have been tossing around various schemes to incorporate my multidisciplinary tendencies into 2004 Bloomsday events. This same period has found me in Central American motion, somewhat cyclically encapsulating Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, and finally winding up in Panama City of all places. I mention these wanderings in part because they have been very instrumental in forumulating the ideas behind the disorientation one feels in foreign cities and landscapes. Perhaps naturally we try to tweak the unknown into the awkward-angled mold of the known. The result is inevitably discomfortable but soon discomfort is replaced by a growing sense of wonderment at the failure (which is sometimes actually a success) of this process.

What I am saying in a tired "I am planning on waking at 6am" sort of way is that my curiosity lies in bringing this sense of mislocation and dismemberment to Dublin, to insert foreign objects (projects) into the cityscape and see if we can create wonderment. This is obviously a thought process that needs to be worked out further but not right now.
Now is the time for night.

2003-09-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

WaNdeRIng ROckS, ReVoLVing DOoRs has gone public.

No longer just a plot I tell my friends over too many cups of coffee, the project has gotten a quick jumpstart via a posting in the Sculptor's Society of Ireland latest e-mail newletter. And better yet, people have been responding in surprising numbers. Which means...its time to present:

The Plan

In abbreviated form, the project will be a global Wandering Rocks and involve
the installation of 19 separate pieces by 19 different artists in public spaces throughout Dublin. Together these pieces will create a portraiture of Dublin through glimpses into other cities. These pieces will be parallel urban vignettes, inspired by the 19 sections of Wandering Rocks, based in the artists' experience in their own resident city, and intended to both update and expand on the perspectives offered by the Dublin denizen on that brave day in June. My hope is to truly represent the diversity of urban experiences in today's random echoing world by reaching outside of the obvious - for me - communities within the U.S., Ireland, to include collaborators from places as dispersed as Mumbai, Tokyo, Johannesburg, and Mexico City. That said, the project is an (r)evolving process and one that will be tweaked and improved by each new collaborator. Like a colony of ants, we will gather whereever the sweet stuff calls us.

If you are finding yourself thinking "Sign me up!" or "Hey, you know, I've got that video artist friend who lives in Istanbul..." then feel free to send me a message through the comment box. Details as to what projects/media you (or your Turkish friend) are involved with, your degree of familiarity with James Joyce or Ulysses, etc. would be most appreciated.

Some Additional Background

Joyce wrote Ulysses from the distance of 20 years and an ocean of separation from the novel's central character, Dublin itself. He is often quoted as saying that if Dublin burnt down it could be rebuilt out of the pages of his book. This claim is somewhat ridiculous since the Dublin of 1904 that Joyce so minutely depicted had already undergone major changes by of the above quote in 1924. Much of his strongest criticism was leveled at the Irish tendency to reside in the past, to ignore the present condition through nationalistic nostalgia.

We are now 100 years present and many of the locations and Dublin institutions Joyce referred to have been torn down, uprooted to make way for a globally-oriented 21st century. Yet we, as admirers or curious observers of Ulysses, persist in trying to recreate, to return to a past time that can no longer be found.

Rather than despair what is no longer, we would do better to celebrate (and criticize) what is here today. We are still a society that holds onto our mythologies in order to deny the new world order. Church is still not separated from state, hypocrisy continues to flourish, but the scope of these problems now influences us all on a much more global scale.

I believe it is in the Joycean way to hold these discrepancies and similarities in one hand. Rather than sanctify Dublin of 1904, why not embrace the Dublin of 2004 (for good, bad, better, worse).

What's Next

In the next few days I will get around to posting a bit about my past involvement with Ulysses and answer any questions that arise out of my correspondence with potential collaborators that might be of interest to others. Until then...

2003-09-09T22:49:00.000-07:00

This environment is meant to be the meeting ground for an internationally dispersed collaborative effort tentatively entitled:

WaNdeRIng ROckS, ReVoLVing DOoRs

Check back frequently for updates in the days ahead.

CALL OUT

In search of artists of all ilks (visual, sound, video, performance, word-based, psychogeographical) for a collaborative project based on the Wandering Rocks episode of James Joyce's Ulysses, to be included as part of the ReJoyce events in June of 2004. Am aiming to gather artists from as many different urban locations as possible. Beforehand knowledge of Ulysses not as important as a willingness to engage creatively with your environs and fellow citizens.

Answers to pertinent questions for the uninitiated:

Who are you and what the hell are you doing in Panama? Valid question. And I am extremely apt to give vague answers. Young migrant of American origins who is drawn to green places. Currently in Panama City, Panama, developing an affection for butter soaked fruit called pifa, and engaging in the local scene of self-motivators. Have carried Ulysses with me for years now with the fervent desire to spend the 100th anniversary of the book's action - June 16th 1904 aka Bloomsday - in Dublin, Ireland. This project is that wild wish fulfillment.

Ulysses? Huh? Here is a quick summary of the book some people claim to be the "Greatest Novel of the 20th Century". We are talking here about the 10th episode, so scroll on down. No justice but an introduction.

What is this ReJoyce festival?
This is the Rejoyce Festival.