Detroit techno

betsy needs a new love

a flirting lexicon for whomever might be interested in taking care of betsy

bioethics
agent pink, green, purple, blue, white, orange
mae west
forced draft urbanization
WHO consultation on tolerable daily intake of dioxins
, may 25-29 1998 geneva, switzerland
arthur galston
operation ranch hand
'i prefer a stick on my hand than a tiger on a leash'
the buffalos are better off at ny
incinerators as an (un)conscious agent of gentrification
'i prefer a F340 2v to a C123'
greater resource recovery facility as the gang rape of american english
newnewnew : snuff architecture, gets you a high harder than ruin porn, doublebarreledsawedoffshotgun style
damn im pissed
storms make great coolers
suburbian turkish baths flat-tar-pit water fountains
black ops, and the amazing houdini within the theater of war
linda baptized me jay, jay jenkins, my pleasure, your potato salad is the best
viktor yushenko got it
2,3,7,8 - Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin you gotta love it!
gorilla, gorilla, gooooooori-laaaaaa
great liars are also great magicians
deceptionists at war
romanticizing irony as a survival strategy towards the vertigo of bitterness
aestheticization of disappointment
adolfo luxúria canibal, lúxuria da parte da mãe, canibal da parte do pai
the dukes of hazzard, yes, thats them, us maybe one day
wastecap are cool dudes, i hope to grow one day to be like them
Jack Bauer on the phone: 'Chloe, im going dark, off the grid!'


PS: treat her gently, and wild

horoscope

Kt read my horoscope on line today.
leo: 8th July 2010
"I'm not necessarily saying that you have superhuman levels of courage these days, Leo, but you do have more than usual. What's even more important for the task at hand is the fact that you have an exceptional capacity for identifying the fantasies that frighten you and finding fresh and practical ways to deal with them. That's why I say that you now have an excellent opportunity to achieve a major victory over your fears . . . to outwit them, outflank them, and even dissolve them. To get started on this glorious quest, chant the following ten times: "I am a crafty, compassionate warrior who finds amusement in every challenge."

change of plans

We were planning to visit the farm together with KT and run to The Hub to fix bikes for us.

The sudden summer wash changed our plans. We rushed out, walked up to the corner of Fransworth and Elmwood street and laid on the fresh steamy asphalt.

We stood there laying for a couple of minutes as if it's something totally common.

cutting down, pulling down

Paul bails the land in the corner of Ellery and Canfield E. street twice every summer. First in May and and second around the beginning of July. Last year he collected 800 stacks of hay.
This year, for some reason, the city decided to bail the land, cutting the hay so thin that couldn’t be collected.

We visited the field to give a helping hand in the bailing process, stacking the hay cubes in a truck and transport them to the barn.
Paul treated us with a cold bottle of beer on our return and we got ourselves talking about the tearing down of the old Ferry Pulbic School.

Built back in 1922, locals claim that the building has been closed for about 12 years but had its roof recently renovated.

It seems insane to pull down a building with such a history to the community, swallowing within every material and equipment locked in the walls of the school.

Though highly risky and illegal, you cannot help but thinking about engaging yourself to the act of rushing in, in the middle of the night and “grab” anything of “value”. And I am not only referring to that side of the romantics trying to withdraw objects as a maintenance of a future historic reference, but more thinking about practicalities, and the amount of resources going to waste during that act.

5.30 this morning Joao visited the location to documentate the workers arriving on spot to continue with the pulling down.
I joined at one and a half hour later to find him recording the interactions on a tool shop around the corner, having as a backdrop sound the roaring of the bulldozers crashing down the metal construction.

To him the whole act was nothing more than a visually portrait on the contradictive co-existence of maintenance and demolition, of hope and despair, of death and resurrection.

Trust the Detroit situation...

Back in Utrecht we fully trust Nikos and Joao getting involved in Detroit, involving themself, eachother understanding the Detroit situation

Back at the office...


Yesterday Bart and me went back home after a 10 day stay at Detroit. Still a bit jet-lagged, we're back at the office again, evaluating and imagining the rest of Joao's and Nikos' stay. We're happy with the way this pilot-project kicked off. The experiences and insights of the past ten days raised questions on exchanging knowledge and experiences, and the ethics that are involved, yet still need to be explored for a big part too.
The upcoming two months will tell us more. in the mean while...... break it!!

on redefining critical discourse and the proliferation of small miracles

this coming July 12th - 30th 2010 there will be a 3-week intensive class on 'Abandoned Practices – something out of the ordinary' at the School of Art Institute of Chicago.

its hosted by members of a company named Goat Island, which i spent some time with, back in 2006 in Cork, Ireland.

bellow is a quote of their working philosophy, which i find pretty amazing:

"We want to keep the creative mind engaged as we engage the critical mind. Critical does not mean negative. It means discerning, or able to separate into parts. Whatever we look at, the spot upon which we focus our energy seems to proliferate.

If we focus on a problem, we start to see problems everywhere. We become one who is defined by the perception of the proliferation of problems. Because of this approach, the creative mind often seems to shut down when critical discourse starts.

If we focus on a miraculous moment instead, we start to see miraculous moments everywhere. We become one who is defined by the perception of the proliferation of miracles.

Try the second of these approaches. Think of a creative response as your own work that would not have existed without the work you are responding to. Start with the most obvious miraculous moment that you see in the work. What is obvious to you may not be obvious to anybody else.

You may have an association with that moment. You may want to echo it, multiply it, or work from it in some other way. Work out from that moment. The moment may have been intentional or accidental. Instead of a moment, your starting point might be a structural element, a visual element, a spatial element – anything.

We want to destabilize the boundaries between critical modes and the creative modes in order to enrich them both."

quote from http://www.goatislandperformance.org/creativeResponse.htm

http://www.abandonedpractices.org/course.html

fom A to B

the dutches are gone

The Dutches are one their way back to the Netherlands.

Bart and Luc acted as a catalyst in our introduction to a broad network of artists and organizations here in Detroit.
Their previous visits (May 2009, January 2010) have proven extremely beneficial.

We now proceed practice within a network that is constituted on the basis of common interests and intentions.

Left now to our own devices we are sitting in the living room of KT's house "choreographic" our future plans.

burning house

i like cristal lake, illinois, they celebrate the 5th of july or how to do something out of nothing

do it yourself firecracker am-lis-troit 9000 for the 5th of july 2011
detailed instructions on assembly and usage will follow on printed manual soon available in a local shop close to you



when i grew up in the suburbs of lisbon, we used to make our own fireworks with used car spark plugs. we would run off to the car repair mechanic shop and ask one of the workers for their used spark plugs and car bolts. they would pass us a box full of them, covered in car oil, with a look on their faces like 'why the hell these kids want used spark plugs, and why are they so happy about getting them?'

we would look for the heaviest, and biggest spark plug that could carry the most fire match heads as possible, and a bolt that would fit into the hole of the spark plug. those would be hard to find, and that actually was what would take longer to find, sometimes even making us visit one other car repair shop.

being in detroit during the independence day of 4th of july, which is celebrated with fireworks and surrounded by cars and auto service shops, made me remember those days and see if it could be possible to do that firecracker here as well.

it turned out that car repair mechanic shops are the same everywhere, and they didnt change much from back in the days (though my dad, back in Lisbon, Portugal, nowadays drives a citrôen C5 with an engine made of plastic and ceramic operated by a central computer chip which you cant really fix on your own when it breaks down).

motor city bar & grill

Netherlands won over Uruguay and they are heading to the final.

Jane suggested we head over to Hamtramck to watch the football game.

Motor City Bar & Grill is one of her favorite spots. They were voted the best burger in town!

On arrival, the locals thought we were a band touring around the US. Jane had the same impression seeing us all entering, one behind the other.

4th of July fireworks and fires

We climbed up the roof of THE YES FARM to watch the fireworks.
Jane, Joao and KT were laying on the roof while me, Bart and Luc we kept on standing.
An old residency at Chene Street got on fire. We took the car and reached there almost the same time as the fire trucks arrived. It took approximately 40 min for the whole house the burn down.
Firemen where just controlling the fire so it couldn't spread around. It was the last residency on the block.

501, and maybe C3

thats about it... 501 as a project with a bit... well, with loads of C3

while flies slide my screen, i post some usefull and no-usefull links

hi there, bellow are excerpts of my email correspondence with a guy called Theun.
he's a pretty decent fellow, you should meet him one day. you can have some pretty laughs while travelling on a train, or working on a film set.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////
While you're there you might want to take a look at this initiative:

http://tinyurl.com/32wc9yy

It's a new view of culture and economy based on a different way of looking at work.
The way labour is structured, with the level of wages and keeping as few people in in the production end of things as possible, is reaching its limits. New technologies like digital fabrication, make it possible for small groups of people to do what until recently could only be done by large companies. This initiative looks at the chances these new technologies offer to small communities.
The guy at the root of it is called Fridjof Bergmann. I think the first community is starting up here, but I'm not sure if there is anything happening yet at the location:

http://tinyurl.com/2ds78gz


We spoke on the train a while back about alternative economics.
And this week the Bijlmer Euro is launched.

http://www.bijlmereuro.net/?lang=en

Also interesting maybe my friend Dougald's initiative:

http://collapsonomics.org/


-t

shubhabah II

Shubhabah broke down as soon as we brought it back to Fransworth.

From what i came to understand the fan was hanging loose, fell off and caused a hole in the radiator.

Eric, John and Bart got a new radiator and worked on her for a whole day.



In contradiction to contemporary -all wired up and chipped European cars, Shubhabah is in need of a "personal touch". A "sensual healing" process with highly surgical parametres.

She is up on the road again.