11/27/2010

     Today was a go out and look at stuff day. Jennida and I left fairly late in the afternoon, around 3pmish armed only with our iphones as possible image capture devices. I wanted to move around unencumbered and just have a chance to look around before looking full time down the long barrel of a camera lens. It was also my first real walk about in two and a half weeks so…. did I mention it snowed? So we headed up and out around the outskirts of town toward the castle gardens…, which were closed! :(   We continued on admiring the view back into town along the way. There are so many interesting vantage points and details to look at. It is quite unique. Along the way I just kept snapping away with my phone, sort of as test shots or “notes” for later. I cannot imagine what this place must be like in the summer.
     It is 4 degrees Celsius and there are loads of people out posing for photos in front of statues and doors and bushes and walk ways. I heard one woman say to another, “do you want me to take your picture in front of that? It would be a shame to come all the way here and not get your picture in front of it.” Now I’m not sure what “it” was because their whole family was standing in front of “it” making sure that every one got a turn before anyone else could get at “it.” So I moved on. After walking for a couple of hours we stopped back at the Centrum to inquire about the Advent proceedings, and found out there was a lighting ceremony the next day. After that we went and had a cup of coffee in one of the local shops. Our first coffee shop coffee. And with that we adjourned back to the spot until we left to meet up with Michael and Zdenka for another wonderful evening of conversation and Pivo.

11/26/2010

     Today we hauled ourselves out of bed some six hours after our faux holiday and began to search for the ancillary tools of our trade: printers for competition entry forms, and the post office! There is no printer here on premises so we found ourselves in the “info Centrum” as they have a printer for documents downloaded from the web. You can handle this by either going directly from the website in question or you can email yourself a copy of whatever document you need. The information center was a pretty nice looking place. It never occurred to me that one way of promoting your info center was through corporate sponsorship?! There was this gigantic new Samsung 3D LCD TV on demo there with electronic 3D glasses, and next to it there were an arrangement of Samsung gadgets, cameras, etc. And there also was an array of cell phones on the wall as well. I guess that one to pay for the almost fully stylized desktop arrangement of computers with the flat screen monitor recessed into the brass plate wall, and the brushed metal keyboard with the complimentary themed metal track ball both installed into the counters.
     After that we made it to the post office where we both mailed our submissions to the Emerging Creations Video Cinemas. The transactions went off without a hitch. I have to say that even when there is a language barrier, so far things have gone pretty well. After the post office we took a long stroll back through the city center where things are being set up for Advent. There is a very tall pine tree in the center and a little market has sprung up around it selling, knick knacks, grilled meats, mulled wine and other fine foods, including freshly fried kettle chips!
     Later at home it’s back to more editing. Jennida has been filtering over her footage that we shot yesterday and I am trying to put together footage from our train ride to Cesky Krumlov. Its longish footage and I think that I want to keep it long, even if no one watches all of it. I find the textures in the landscape very interesting and I think that keeping it long will convey and promote the contemplative nature of the duration and also the acknowledgement of a different landscape. I know I haven’t actually posted the text on the site yet but… Whatever. I’m just trying to catch up and I’m being anal.
     Other thoughts from the day are the idea that often times we hold a disdain for “tourist” in the wide-eyed stumbling around and self-absorbed nature they often exhibit at the expense of all that is around them. We also have a habit of looking down on tourist, as they only ever want to be entertained, go to the more amazing locals and be catered to. I was musing on how we are actually trained to repeat this behavior at an early age. Parents often take their children to the most brightly colored, over stimulating and exciting places even in their own towns. We are taught to seek out the festivals, the museums, the tours and concerts that will entertain all of our senses. The only difference is that as a child you grow older and become slightly jaded with our own surroundings and find it annoying when new comers invade or turf in search of all that is “interesting.” But then there are those people who take pride in showing new arrivals the lay of the land and tell the tales that go hand in hand with the history and culture of the place. And like wise there are those tourist that strive great lengths to get the real flavor, the real deal as it were on. These are some thoughts on location and travel and the interactions between people negotiating common spaces.

11/25/2010

     Today is Thanksgiving, but not here. Time, space and culture seem very slippery. I do not believe in the “official story” of Thanksgiving, but at the same time I believe I understand the sentiment of thanksgiving. The interesting thing is how traditions sometimes part from their “root” and perhaps remain true and perhaps not. For instance Jennida and I went to the butcher to get some turkey. We purchased two large turkey legs; because of course these are the best parts. and cooked them with mashed potatoes. Now in normal day-to-day culinary travels we never cook turkey. We might get some deli meat for sandwiches, but somehow the idea of turkey is too strong a lure on a day such as to day. One part comfort in the past and one part, at the very least acknowledge a holiday tradition in our families. Do these traditions align themselves with the pilgrim’s pride or is the story of the Pilgrim’s feast a story to “support” the idea of thanksgiving? Can one totally divorce a holiday, when taken into proper perspective depart from the horrors of the past and still embrace the notion of the end of the season harvest in which people gathered around and as a unit expressed to one another the gratitude for all that one has, especially when what you have may not be much or at the mercy of the elements? Sure, a lot of people in America don’t seem to have to worry about shelter, food, clothing and infant mortality… as much, however there are plenty of people out there in the United States alone that this still is a very real concern. So maybe it is a good time, as good a time as any, not to over eat, to appreciate what you have, who you are with and who could not make the journey, those who have gone before and perhaps relax and enjoy the moment, under the banner of “whatever you choose to call it.”
     Today I think was called “go buy some turkey, shoot video footage for Jennida’s nine frame noir, talk to the parents over the internet, do more work, eat said Turkey and do more work until 5am.” Solid.

11/24/2010

Outside my window.

            I am beginning to feel better, and not so tired.  I took a walk briefly yesterday to help Jennida get some things from the store.  The whole process probably lasted an hour but it was nice to get out.  It was dark by the time we got back.  I took some photos with my new instagram app on my iphone.  I like the aesthetic, and the social networking premise is very interesting.  There are some things that could be better but then again I notice the cracks in social/locative media a bit more precisely as a traveler outside my own country.  The so-called convergence of media and intercoNETivity really begins to breakdown when one can only rely on Wi-Fi.  The allure of Instagram is the ability to take a photo, instantly manipulate, geo-tag, describe, and upload your photo to a host of services like Face Book, Tumblr, and Four Square.  However, if you do not have a data connection, Wi-Fi or otherwise that chain breaks and one must then regress to the standby operation of returning to the hub (usually home) processing the image through its progressions to its final destinations.           

            I don’t point this out to simply whine about not being able to adjust to the break in intercoNETivity, rather to point out the gaps and cracks in the waking dream a lot of us are living in since entering the cloud.  Since coming across the ocean I have been tripped up by the fact that I cannot watch programs on Hulu.com or cartoons on WB.com because of copyright restrictions.  While watching videos on Youtube.com I was informed that one of the videos from the channel I was viewing would not be shown due to Comcast Entertainment’s restriction on copyright.  Let me take an aside to point out that the channel was hosted by one person (meaning that all the videos had been uploaded by that person) and that the content contained in each video were apart of an ongoing dialog about the waitron experience and was disseminated though Xtranormal.com, the new text-to-movie website.  In a related an incident I was informed by GoogleVoice that I could not sign up for their service because it is not offered outside of the United States.  Now I challenge that in a post geographic world that if I were in the United States right now, I could sign up for GV and then leave the United States and still use it.  After all the service does not function in a location-based environment, in fact it operates in a locationless environment and thus is its main aim and purpose.  I access my Gmail everyday, participate in cloud computing with Google Docs, and oh lemmie check real quick….opening Google Chrome because it uses Google Translate, because despite not being ale to read Cesky Google knows that I am not in the United States and therefore refuses to render text in English unless I use “Translate” in Chrome so that I can navigate my way to using Google Latitude where It can pinpoint and track my location via GPS and share it between my friends, one of which apparently seems to be still in Short Pump as of 99 days ago.  We are on our way, but we are not yet post geographic.  Not as long as companies like Comcast uses the dissemination of the stream as grounds for controlling copyright. So in going forward the seamless digital freedoms that we all enjoy and pursue breaks down at the borders.  Oh wait, I dropped some money!  It is interesting to think that the average person might in the future understand the feud between the FCC and the multimedia conglomerates over net neutrality by simply crossing the pond as it were and not paying for the digital upgrade packages that are simple permissions for data and cell roaming charges to be incurred at an inflated rate.

            I wonder how long I would need to stay in Europe to properly understand the hoops and hurdles one would need to navigate in order to posses the proper tech to do simple locative media projects?

11/23/2010

  I am trying to keep up with the days.  It’s hard because everyday has blended into another.  I see daylight for only what seems like a few hours each day, and in truth for the parts that I am awake I only do see the light for a few hours.  I am totally nocturnal.  Each night I am awake longer and longer.  Not being able to leave for the outdoors has an affect of me not really caring about what time it is, and I have always been a night owl.  I find that I would care more about goings of the light if I could be amongst it rather than just view it through the window, the same sights, same buildings, they seem so removed.

11/22/2010

Gwen's Memorial from Hassan Pitts on Vimeo.

We watched the movie Secret of the Kells last night, (insert youtube trailer)

An Irish tale expertly and beautifully animated, deeply steeped in Irish decorative and illustrative traditions (I really know nothing about Irish art history, but this is what I assume). It set me thinking about current civil conflicts surrounding culture. Not the story mind you, more so the reaction of western cultures (i.e. white Christian predominantly) to other cultures co-habitating as a result of immigration, naturalization, escape, hijacking, as well as invitation. From the people who brought you such incidents as the “war on Christmas,” “mosques at ground zero,” and “The fence that wasn’t tall enough.” The question of cultural preservation is an interesting quandary for those who seem to be giving it up. The problem ultimately is that the dominant society sees the new foreign threat as one of non-assimilation. The ignoring of the “check your culture at the door” sign. But there is one important thing to question which is, why is your culture so dear to you that you cannot understand the idea of other people wanting to hold on just as dearly to their own culture? But an even more important question is at what point did you realize you had been relinquishing your own appreciation for your culture that it has in many ways been watered down? Is Christmas any less Christmas because someone wants to see other symbols and signs in the airports and supermarkets? Or is Christmas any less Christmas because the underlying motive for celebration has become secondary to consumerism and spectacle? Or is it the spectacle of Christmas wreathes, trees, stockings and Macy’s window dressings what makes it thematically apart of American Culture?

So I look at a movie like Secret of the Kells and I think, “what a wonderful way to uncover and display a bit of Irish history!” This is one of those types of stories and I hate to say it but I think children’s stories are the best at telling old folk tales and maintaining bits of cultural currency. I can remember bits of stories I read as a child that in the right circumstances I might conjure such stories as Anansie the Spider, The Trumpeter of Krakow, and Strega Nona that each retain some bit of cultural knowledge that provide another key to my understanding of everyday life.

Stories seem to be where our culture resides and recycle. Culture is not something static, it moves and evolves and if the whole bringing back the eighties has any worth, culture is continuously remixed.

So isn’t it surprising that after Secret of the Kells we watched Rip: a remix manifesto? I will end this post with the following:

1. Culture always builds on the past.

2. The past always tries to control the future.

3. You can find out the other two points by watching the film. I suggest downloading it illegally! ;)

Good night!

11/21/2010

Another day of self imposed Exile breeds neurosis and nit picking with the memorial video’s sound. I finally put it to rest. You can only polish something so much before you go to far and mess something up REAL bad. Again here we go with exports!