Singing Bridges © Jodi Rose
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Singing Bridges © Jodi Rose. All Rights Reserved, except where otherwise noted. CONTENTS Foreword x Credits xii PART I. WHO AM I TO CALL MYSELF AN ARTIST? 1. Making it up as you go... 2 2. Art of Travel 12 3. Berlin KlangKunst 22 4. Artists in Transit 33 PART II. SURVIVING THE CULTURAL UNDERGROUND 5. Amsterdam Bossa Nova 45 6. Helsinki Madness 56 7. Love & Travel 66 8. Barcelona Summer of Love 75 9. Ljubljana sLOVEnia 86 10. Summer in Berlin 93 11. Staubgold - Music out of Place 102 PART III. ARTIST IN PARIS 12. Artist in Paris 112 13. Feed me, Paris 122 14. Paris Canal Cruise 129 15. Paris Rocks Art & Music 136 PART IV. SURVIVAL ON THE DANUBE 16. Bridge Guard 143 17. Bratislava UFO 152 18. Art barge on the Danube 160 19. Vienna by boat 173 20. Linz Ars Electronica 181 21. Cruising the Danube and Rhine 188 PART V. SURVIVING SINGAPORE 22. 3 days in Singapore 198 23. Singapore Food Heaven 209 24. My Punk Singapore 219 PART VI. EXILE IN CROATIA 25. Exile in Croatia 232 26. Zagreb 241 PART VII. CITY SONIC SURVIVAL KIT 27. Maastricht? Yes! 248 28. Brussels Curves 258 29. Europe in Miniature 265 30. Micro Travels: Wallonia, 272 Belgium 31. Bridges of Besancon 281 PART VIII. ARTIST LIFE ON THE ROAD 32. Lost Art of Mass Transit 291 33. Budget Travels 301 34. Micro Travels: Brittany and 309 Beauvais 35. Travels in Public Art 316 36. Perfume Tour 324 37. New York Underground 336 38. Berlin Underworld 345 PART IX. GLASGOW GOES INTERNATIONAL 39. Gritty & Arty Glasgow 354 40. Glasgow International 364 41. On to Manchester 374 42. Urban Loves 383 PART X. SURVIVING THE CULTURAL APOCALYPSE 43. Future is Now! 391 44. Supermarkt Berlin & Cultural 398 Value 45. Women and Media Art 421 46. Lost in Berlin 441 47. RVK 9 (Reykjavík Nine) NOT 452 GUILTY! 48. Earzoom Festival, Ljubljana 463 49. Off-Beat Vilnius 471 50. Error Master Suite 481 51. SADO OPERA! 494 PART XI. TRACES OF SURVIVAL 52. T.R.A.C.E.S. Transcultural 521 Research 53. Inter-Format Symposium 539 54. Carte de Artist 545 55. Greener Grass 550 56. Justin Tyler Tate 559 57. Open Zone, Slow Culture 570 58. Traces Tea & Radio Lounge 576 59. Content vs Conversation 583 60. a beginners guide to BIFO 589 61. The Devil's Bridge 605 PART XII. IMAGINARY LANDS 62. New Dimensions in Travel 609 63. Travels in Books, Music & Film 615 64. Beach Holidays 628 65. Dream Holidays 637 66. Winter Escapes 647 67. Berlin Berg 657 68. Imaginary Creatures 662 69. Spiritual Travels 674 Appendix 684 Author Info 685 Back Cover 687 FOREWORD HOW DO I SURVIVE? THAT IS THE QUESTION. This book is dedicated to creative dreamers and artists of every kind. It is intended as a ‘rough guide’, or an unguide perhaps. A how-not-to die on the side of the road. A “Nomadic Survival Kit” from a subjective perspective, and without any sure-fire guarantee of success. In 2007 I followed my dream and moved to Berlin to live as an artist. My creative work, recording the sound of bridges around the world involved nearly constant travel and constant financial x uncertainty. One way I survived was finding that it’s possible to bounce nearly continually from artist residency to artist in residence, staying on couches and subletting from friends in between. Not having a stable home or a permanent address or in fact any kind of base to return to was both what saved me and nearly killed me. Thanks to Viator Editor, Scott McNeely, I was able to supplement my artistic travels with much-needed income by writing about electronic art & experimental music festivals, cultural adventures – and some tours – for the award winning Viator Travel Blog. These articles offer a glimpse into the life of a creative nomad, surviving on the edge of the cultural underground across Europe. Thank you Scott, the team at Viator, my friends, family, colleagues and everyone who offered their support along the way. Without you, I would have given up long ago. Jodi Rose xi CREDITS Acknowledgements Editor: James Conway All material Copyright (c) 2016 Jodi Rose Writing in this publication originally appeared on Viator Travel Blog and Culture Transmit +ART Viator Travel Blog: Copyright (c) 2007 – 2015 by Viator Viator Editor: Scott McNeely Used by permission (www.viator.com) xii PART I. WHO AM I TO CALL MYSELF AN ARTIST? HOW DO YOU LIVE AS AN ARTIST? CHAPTER 1. MAKING IT UP AS YOU GO... The story behind Singing Bridges… It’s been ten years now that I have travelled the world in search of the secret voice of bridges. Every rumbling truck and gust of wind generates a vibration in the cables, and these sounds create a unique music, which is always present yet only heard once amplified through contact microphones. The idea originally came while studying sculpture at art school in Sydney in the mid-1990s. One of the lecturers for a course in public art had given us the exercise to come up with an idea for an artwork in public space which had absolutely no constraints, wasn’t 2 limited by feasibility, practicality or any other real-world concern. The first recording I made while the Anzac Bridge was still under construction, taking a team of radio producers and sound engineers from the ABC National Radio with me to best capture the industrial yet ethereal voice of the cables. Looking up at the new Glebe Island (Anzac) Bridge as it was being built over Blackwattle Bay on my way to art school everyday, the particular mix of public sculpture, sound art, and deconstructive theory swirling in my sleepy brain led me to wonder, in an idle moment of curiosity; how would that big harp-like structure of cables and concrete sound? Could I link together bridge cables around the world as instruments in a global symphony? Freedom of imagination is a gift not to be taken lightly. It is open to everyone equally, and in the end, your life is expanded and limited in accord with your capacity for imagination and corresponding courage. The cables of suspension and stay-cabled bridges vibrate with unexpected sounds. I am 3 always thrilled to hear a new bridge, as each one has a unique texture, rhythm and sonic signature. Tuning in to the sound in the cables gives voice to the spirit of each bridge, in which we hear the moans, sighs and singing of the bridge. Every structure is a new sonic adventure. On the bridge you are suspended in space, neither here nor there, lifted above the everyday world in a moment of pure presence, and the possibility of transformation. No wonder seeking bridge music has become a lifelong quest. Worldwide Bridge Tour 2002 Despite the best efforts of my friends and family to convince me that a stable job and small apartment would be a more logical path, I decided to follow my dream of creating a symphony of bridges, and set out to capture and record the sounds of these urban instruments wherever I could. The first leg of the journey took me to Vietnam, where I jumped out of a tour van to walk across the My Thuan Bridge over the steamy Mekong Delta. One of the guides 4 came with me, and helped by banging on the steel casing of the cable when I found to my dismay that the contact microphones didn’t pick up any sound from their vibration. Having come this far, I wasn’t going to walk away, so while cursing myself for not having tested the equipment on a bridge at home before leaving, we managed to create some interesting sounds in the otherwise silent cables. This is the only bridge where I have been offered mango by the street vendors, and taken a wild ride on the back of a motorcycle, dodging trucks through crazy traffic. Next stop Rotterdam, where the Erasmus Bridge gave us a wonderful cacophony of sound through the railings and pylons… still not much vibration in those cables. The bridge opened for a ship to pass by, and I captured the grinding mechanism inside, followed by wonderful trams rattling and bicycles squeaking past as the traffic started up. It wasn’t until my third bridge, the Maatinkaari Bridge in Helsinki, that I actually 5 heard anything like the sound I was hoping for in the cables, a low laser popping, similar to the sounds that first captured me on my recordings of the Anzac Bridge. This one is far smaller than the previous two, and was built to resonate at a frequency of 1.3 Hz, to ensure a pleasant journey for pedestrians. The Finnish engineers did a great job, a drummer friend who climbed up into the cables and tapped out some rhythms set off the low pows and tremulous resonance. I started to hear a subtle range of sounds when the bridge responded to bicycles and people walking across. The Glienicke (Spy) Bridge in Potsdam, just outside Berlin, is where intelligence agents were exchanged between the US and Russian forces, and contains a surprisingly code-like series of clicks, squeaks and scratches through the structure. Exploring further East, I chose to record the Novy Most Bridge in Bratislava, Slovakia, based on the fantastical shape, as though a UFO had landed on top of the pylon. The cables were sadly mute, not actually being high-tensile steel which carries vibrations, but the mechanical shudder of the 6 lift in the pylon gave the bridge a gritty industrial voice.