Ars Electronica

There always seems much to discover at the Ars Elcetronica Festival in Linz, Austria. Informative seminars, cool interactive artworks, and surprisingly very hot sunny weather – a complete contrast to last year, and also to the UK summer of late. I’m at the festival with colleague Anna from Arts Council England in advance of a delegation of arts centre directors arriving from the UK on Friday. The aim is to educate, inform, provide new thinking on programming, methods of public engagement, and at the same time providing a tool for networking.

I’ve so far delighted in the great Austrian cuisine – yes it really is good! and have had the pleasure of meeting up with a few people I’ve befriended from my time in Madrid. I have a packed programme of things to do – more siminars on the theme of interactivity and copyright, exhibition launches, and tonights major launch of the festival.

It should be a rewarding few days of which I hope I find the time to report on.

Here’s some images:

Me cycling by the Danube.

THe building of the new Ars Electronica Centre across the Danube

Anna enjoying a glass of wine with her meal.

Some of the presenters of the Seminar on Thursday morning

Recipes for Curry

A great title for a great project. Curry, one of my favourite foods, and the spicier the better. Metaphorically taking the idea of making a curry for the development of a dance production, Canadian based Indance, in a co-commission with Birmingham UK based Sampad have mixed up just the right quantity of ingredients to produce a series of contemporary performances rooted in South Asian traditions of Bharatanatyam. The question the crew asked of themselves at the outset was “what makes a good curry?”. From this they developed a number of themes that they explored through movement such as identity and crisis of identity, longing for the homeland, as well as a range of other themes and words to illustrate what curry meant for them. These ideas were then illustrated through a number of workshops over a three week period to look at the individual elements of the production.

The production was made up of dancers from across the globe, each bringing their own contexts and opinions on the theme, and making connections with the notion of identity. Participating artists came from Japan, China, Canada, the UK and other parts of Europe, and as one artist perfectly articulated, “it is about how we are made as a whole and how we come together as one.”

The fusion of contemporary and traditional forms is often much debated and at times difficult to achieve with dance forms being stronger in either one or the other styles. In this case however, from viewing a film of the project at a recent presentation, I’m convinced that the mix of forms worked well. There were some really creative contemporary elements to the work that were performed seemingly effortlessly but with obvious influences, or spices, of South Asian styles.

It was premiered at Canada’s premiere theatre at the Harbourfront Centre on the banks of Lake Ontario in 2007. They are now planning to undertake a small UK tour at some point in the near future.

Indance choreographer: Hari Krishnan

http://www.indance.ca/home_new.html (video available)

http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/

http://www.sampad.org.uk/

Commences

See new page for more information, or follow this link:

http://danhauser.es/wikiM/index.php?title=%28english_version%29

The El País article

Some time ago I said that I would scan the article about Interactivos? and post it on my blog. Here it is. I know that you only see the back of me, but it really is me on the swing! It’s a piece of work by U.S artist Nova Jiang called stage fright – a work that gives the sensation of flight.

The second part of the article is M.A.S.K by Spanish artist Jordi Puig. It is a mirror that creates a glowing mask in the viewer’s reflection. In this photo it is being demonstrated by colleague Patricia Larrondo.  Also featured is Expanded Eye by Anaísa Franco, a piece of work that captures the image of the viewer’s eye and multiplies it to something similar to the eye of a fly.

Interactivos? on Telemadrid

Here’s a TV news item about the the Interactivos? project.  It was filmed after the workshops when the exhibition was up and running.  Colleague Marcos Garcia is being interviewed whilst the work is being demonstrated.  Let me know if you can see me!

You should be able to access the clip either here on the Telemadrid site: http://www.telemadrid.com/madriddirecto/informados.pag?fecha=2008-06-26

Or here from Youtube:

Buen cantante Dani!

This is what the streets of Madrid sound like at around 4a.m…

Back home

It’s good to be back home despite it being far cooler, without sun and wet. My last night in Madrid on Saturday was really enjoyable as I got to say hasta luego to some really good friends that I’ve made who I know I will miss very much. I hope to see everyone again at some point in the future as now Madrid, (and particularly the neighborhood of Lavapiés) has become part of my soul. Here’s a photo before our final goodbyes with Dani, his partner Inés, Juan (you are the Juan), and me.

Here’s a piccie of one of the gifts bought for me by the Medialab team. A nice yet kitsch flamenco doll – it had to go on top of the TV!

I’m now in the process of rehabilitation as the suburbs of Selly Oak are a world away from the bustling streets of Madrid. Ali and I will be visiting Alicante soon though, and this should help loads.

Feasts and fiestas!

Another leaving do approaches. Tonight, joint with a Medialab colleague (who is leaving to go and work at Ars Electronica in Linz), we have a bar booked, 10 euro entry, and drink as much as you like – nice!

I know I’ll miss my Medialab colleagues. They’ve all been really helpful and patient with my dodgy Spanish. I’ll also miss the long hot summer nights and meandering through the bar filled narrow streets of Madrid.

Yesterday a colleague and I went for a lunch meeting where I ate a massive amount of Cocido Madrileño, a kind of hot pot with all sorts of stuff in it, and loads of chick peas. Here’s an example from the internet:

and here’s us eating it:

In the evening, although I was still stuffed from lunchtime, I was with friends who bought an entire leg of ham that we devoured and we made a start on the licor de cafe

I’ll be packing up my things tomorrow before one final Saturday night out in the city. I’ll need to take things a little easier though as I have to be at the airport by 11a.m.

Oh, for anyone that’s interested, here is the evaluation report that I’ve been working on during much of my time here:

evaluation-interactivos-08

It’s nearly over

Finally in the process of writing up the evaluation. I think I’ll complete it before I leave on Friday. Tonight (Thursday), is the start of saying my goodbyes. I have a giant sized bottle of Galician Licor de Cafe (strong stuff) and apparantly someone’s going to buy a leg of Serrano ham. There’s more celebrations on Friday – a joint leaving party with someone from Medialab that’s going on to work in Linz, Austria on the Ars Electronica festival. It doesn’t stop there though, as Saturday, my final day, will be when I say my last goodbye until I return sometime in the future.

Heat, campeones, sleep and a bit of work

La vida nocturnal, scorching heat, and national pride have contributed to a lack of a good night’s kip over the past few days. It’s well into the high 30s here, and although I love the hot sunny days, I wish the heat would dissipate at night time. I’m trying a new tack-tick of daily exercise, no siesta and cervezas during the evening. I hope then to be completely knackered out and able to get some zzzs. Certainly on the night of the Eurocup win I got very little sleep. There were thousands of people packing the city streets celebrating the win. It was quite an experience. The cheering, chanting, and car horn hooting went on until very very late. I took some photos of the crowds on my way home after (another) night out in the city.

I’ve also been doing some work too believe it or not! I led an evaluation session today with the Medialab team and carried out a SWOT analysis of the Interactivos project (DAFO in Spanish). This seemed to go down well with some new thinking about how they could develop the project for forthcoming years and the types of partnerships they could make as a result. I now need to write up the evaluation report by Friday before more celebrations – this time for my last day at work.