this is Tel Aviv in the summer (at least one day of it..) - a slide show video or some of the buildings, the grafitti, beach, Mediterranean Sea, crowds on the beach, the cafe/bars on the beach. the music is Balkan Beat Box "Hermetico". the music store owner where I bought this cd said this band is really popular with the Israeli kids these days. the video is a bit long - I probably should have cut out half the photos or split it into sections but it was a nice day so I remember it more when I see the photos.
I can't pronounce the name of the street properly yet - the security guy at work had a little smirk when I said the name as he was calling me a taxi, but here's a quick look at my new apartment. I'm used to living in hotel rooms so this place is HUGE in comparison! I thought the last one felt big. I moved in this morning which took all of 5 minutes. luckily I recognised it this evening when I came home - many of the buildings look similar in Jerusalem and definitely on this street! it's near the Jerusalem Theatre and not far from Aza (Gaza) St where there's cafes etc. so more places to explore! plus now I have my OWN internet connection - I'm no longer sharing with the neighbours who like to connect internet phone boxes which cause the wireless to drop out :(
the only bad thing is that yesterday I dropped my camera on the floor - the stones are really hard here. it landed on the lcd viewfinder which smashed internally. there's no mini eye viewfinder - just the lcd screen, so I'm now shooting blind. true point and shoot ;) luckily it's still taking photos and videos or I'd really be crying!
the This Is Not Art festival is one of my favourite arts / music festivals - I try to make it along each year if I'm in Australia. it happens each year in Newcastle, north of Sydney in Australia. It comprises multiple festivals - TINA, Electrofringe, National Young Writers Festival, National Student Media Festival, Radioactive (community & student radio), and others (changes each year). At the end of the festival there's a market / zine fair. by this stage everyone is worn out from attending all the workshops, performances and nightly gigs. and the creative juices have been flowing for the past week. I didn't make it back home for this year's TINA, but this video is a quick snapshot of the 2006 zine fair - become the whale! indeed!
I don't know what it is about these mud pools but I could watch them all day. I'm mesmerised by them - the sounds, trying to guess which one will explode the highest or next. it's a mathematical problem just waiting to be solved!!
video taken @ Rotorua, New Zealand - April 14th 2007
I've been doing an online course called "The Crazy Wisdom of Philip K Dick" at Maybe Logic Academy for the past 8 weeks. the teacher is Erik Davis, a PKD scholar (amongst other topics). it's been great. each week we read parts of a book (The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch & VALIS) or watch a film (Bladerunner & A Scanner Darkly), then answer questions posted on the MLA course forums. the discussions have been great - I've learnt so much from it and have many things to keep researching. lots of different topics - religion, technology, parallel worlds, different meanings of time, gnosticism, philosophy, modern culture, and many more.. I'm sad it's over really.
I'm also doing the Technologies of Persuasion course with Douglas Rushkoff teaching - though I've fallen behind in this one. Also I've just enrolled in a self-study class of Robert Anton Wilson's (RAW) called Tales of the Tribe - so far it's about studying ideas in different literature works.
so if you're looking for a short course to do that will make you think - I highly recommend these!!
the bboys were back in Ben Yehunda mall as I was coming home from work tonight. usually I've seen them there Thursday nights (equivalent to Friday back home as the weekend is Fri-Sat here not Sat-Sun as it is back home). they were just warming up I think. trying a bit of popping & locking this time.
this is about 3 and a half minutes of my drive to work in Jerusalem - taken this morning. most days the taxi driver takes me through the religious area. sometimes along the freeway 'begin north'. I like going through the suburbs as it's more interesting to see people on their way to work or doing their daily tasks in the morning. at night it's late and dark so it's harder to take video. I sometimes worry about filming people, but the compression and reduction in size has made the people unrecognizable, and yet enough to trigger my memory. I love the Jerusalem stone buildings (limestone I think) - there's a rule that says all the buildings in Jerusalem have to be made of Jerusalem stone. I think it helps keep it's character. the old buildings are large blocks of stones, the newer ones are just 1inch veneer and some are starting to incorporate plates of glass.
the song is "My Life" by Echotek, an Israeli artist - from the album "Life Is... Dimensions" on Israeli label BNE records. I bought a few of their releases during my last visit - great sounds!
12/11/2007
(it's just cut edited in QT pro with the raw clips and was a bumpy ride - I must go to a lot of places with potholes..)
this is a video of my friend Tim's band - Personal Space Invaders aka PSI. it was taken a couple of weekends ago at Hope and Anchor in Islington, London where they performed live. the crowd loved them!
I was standing to the side so the audio for vocals was lost a bit by my camera. :(
this was taken yesterday. it shows the street where I'm living and a couple of the surrounding streets here in Jerusalem. and a little adventure I had whilst standing still too long in the mall yesterday ...
10/11/2007
made with Isadora - patch with controller attached
I made a simple controller / gui. this screenshot is showing controller on left and the patch on right. you can run with just the controller and hide the patch
this is Mum explaining how to make her Mum's lemon butter - whilst she's making some. this was taken during my last visit - she made some for me to take back to my sister. it tasted great!
I think she looks cute - I think the camera threw her a bit as she had to think of the recipe, although she knows it off by heart having made it regularly over the years.
I drove to the Dead Sea a couple of times. the first time I saw a beautiful golden sunset behind the large rocky desert hills.
this video has a video clip of the sunset playing in the background. over the top is a series of photos with their edges extracted and background removed. the two are overlayed together. the original / live version looks ok, but when I saved it I lost most of the video quality of the background & uploaded version lost even more, so I'm not completely happy with this, but here it is.
I used Isadora to create / compile the video (patches attached)
this is a video showing the Roman Glass jewellery shop and some of the ruins at Ceasarea, north of Tel Aviv in Israel.
Roman Glass is 2000 year old glass from the Roman Empire period, which has been found in the ruins. the Israeli government has allocated a small proportion of it to local artists & jewellery makers for them to make some unique pieces. (this is what the store owner told me - if it's not true, it's a nice story anyway!) I bought a small necklace to remember Israel by.
here's some photos of the Roman Glass on display in the old city of Jerusalem - at the gallery of Station IV of the Cross along the Via Dolorosa. I bought a couple of the necklaces for my Mum and sister - this time the blue, green, sparkly leaf style.
The Met Museum has some articles on Roman Glass, as does RomanGlass.net, the website of the book : "ROMAN GLASS: REFLECTIONS ON CULTURAL CHANGE" by Stuart Fleming.
an extract from the site / book :
"Along with pottery, glass was the material of the middle class and the poorer sectors of Roman society, including its slaves; it was what they could afford. Conservatively, I would estimate that some 13 billion items of glassware were produced during the seven centuries that Rome held sway over the Mediterranean World, ranging from sturdy storage jars and dinner platters to oil lamps and delicate perfume bottles."
...
"The wealthy would eat off only gold and silver, but glass was popular with everyone else for the entire range of tableware, from serving platters to wine beakers. And because the Romans ate with their fingers, there were always several glass bowls and pitchers around the dining area, so that household slaves could wash everyone's hands between each course."
"From about A.D 200 the diferent styles of glass came together and all partsof the Roman Empire began to make glass of the same kind. Glass was used more generally than it was ever again until the 19th century. Thousands of bottles were made to hold oil, wine, and other liquids and they were often square in shape so that could be packed together conveniently without wasting space. In the villas of the rich people the windows had glass. Glass for ordinary use often had a pleasant blue, green or brown tinge, for although the glass-makers could make clear glass it was very expensive."
"The Roman crafts-men decorated their glass by almost every method known today and even some that are no longer used. For instance they produced gold-leaf (gold beaten out to a very thin sheet), sandwiched between layers of protctive glass. They were particularly skilled in cutting glass, and they made vessels from two layers of glass, usualy dark blue and white. The pattern was produced by cutting through the white layer to reveal the dark ground underneath. The most famous of these glasses is the Portland Vase, now in the British Museum in London. The Romans also made cut glass cups with such skill that the decoration stood away from the cup, only joined to it by one or two small struts."
