updates are going to be more infrequent as the trip progresses i have realised, mainly because i am flat out busy all the time it seems!!
when i last wrote i was preparing for the performance at alianza francesa in buenos aires with my good friends alan (anla) courtis, juan jose calarco and alma laprida. however i completely missed out the presentation i gave on wednesday 25th at the cia, where we had a room full to bursting of people who listened attentatively to my history, thoughts and work... thanks to florencia and julia at cia, alan and fabiana for making it happen. i had to leave very quickly afterwards with jj and alma to play for a radio station based in buenos aires, which was kind of fun although i couldn't hear a thing through the guitar amp monitor.
the following night i ran a listening workshop from my buddy fernando perales's house - i had 3 participants, which was actually the perfect number for the exercises we did. we spent some time listening to the street from different positions on the roof of the building, then visited a nearby square where the locals were playing what looked like skittles, then tried to record some small detailed sound in the streets of buenos aires, which at 8pm in the evening is a very difficult thing to do! thanks to fernando for setting it up, and he and his partner rosa for feeding me that evening!
the friday alan and i arrived early in the afternoon to set up for the concert, then he had to go to work for a couple of hours, and alma and juan jose then set up and sound checked. and it turned out we had a 'green room' where we had snacks, juice, water, and most importantly 2 bottles of wine! thanks to leandro of mamba for that - much appreciated! we had a good sized crowd, and played in a new configuration of the 'active crossover' method of working, so we all played solo sets of around 15 minutes, but overlapped - so juanjo played first, followed by alma, then me, with alan closing - with an excellent bit of screaming into a netbook! after this we hit a pizza place and i had my first proper argentinian pizza - delicious, but so think with cheese i thought i was going to have a heart attack while eating it!!!
saturday i was invited to fernando's once again, this time to try asado - which consisted of chorizo and blood sausage as an entree, and then a huge piece of pork and an even bigger piece of beef, with ribs, and roasted potatoes - absolutely amazing, and i could hardly move afterwards!!
and then alan turned up to take me to retiro (the main bus and train station in buenos aires) to meet jj and alma, and then we headed to la plata, a nearby city, to play in the back room of the great store 'mal de muchas'. jose de diego and cristian carracedo kicked off with sub-bass and scraping metal object on turntable action - a very nice 15 miniute set that entranced the audience, then the four of us once again played a solo set with overlaps session, with alma starting with great performative gestures, then alan blasting everyone's eardrums with white noise, then me and juan jose finishing up in his elegant understated way. i felt the energy was much better than the previous night, even though everyone else felt their set was worse...
and then the dreaded day arrived - i had not only to leave argentina, but also had a 50+ hour journey ahead of me... taxi to the shuttle bus, then to the airport in buenos aires, a flight to santiago, chile; a flight to toronto, canada; an 8 hour wait in toronto airport; a flight to vancouver; a 6 hour wait in vancouver; a flight to sydney, australia; a 4 hour wait in sydney airport; a flight to melbourne; a 2 hour wait in melbourne airport; a bus trip of around an hour and a half to castlemaine... then met by jude and krista of punctum, who showed me to where i am staying while here, and then the space i will be working in (icu).
the lost day in the title refers to me crossing the international date line so i actually arrived in australia a day later than i thought i would!
so far here i have explored the route to and from the house to the icu; been visited by eamon sprod (aka tarab); met another collaborator - jacques soddell - who will kindly be supplying the speaker system for the installation also; visited melbourne with eamon, where i met his lovely family, partner emily and daughter helki; played a show at tape projects alongside tarab himself, jesse scott & alice hui-sheng chang and tim catlin - a fantastic sunday afternoon - evening event that was a pleasure to be part of.
thanks eamon for everything!
and also got to catch up briefly with teresa lane, whom i met in tallin, estonia in 2009 when i was artist-in-residence at the polymer factory.
yesterday (7th may) eamon and i headed back to castlemaine - after some delicious indonesian food for lunch/brunch - to record more material in the icu for our performance and installation pieces. the highlight was a point where i was bowing a metal dustpan with a violin bow and eamon was doing the same with the large round base of a metal post, with a thin rod of metal, creating some incredible tones that bounced around and filled the space - thankfully we have both recorded it so will have to hear the results and maybe combine them!
today lizzie pogson, the fourth collaborator for 'active crossover: seedpod', came to castlemaine from trentham and took us to the dredger near maldon: http://www.maldon.org.au/attractions/DD.html which we had to clamber along rusty cables to get to, but was a playground for the three of us for a good couple of hours!! thanks lizzie!
on returning i managed to get my laundry done - i was completely out of underwear!! - and purchase the next travel book - 'the diceman', which looks pretty dark, but will be a good follow on from 'the adventures of sherlock holmes' which i have enjoyed over the last month of plane flights - although towards the end i couldn't help thinking 'surely you can see where this is going, watson.... even i can!'... still, i love the way conan doyle describes both holmes and 19th century london...
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