Node.London

On my usual Sunday bike ride crossing London from east to west, this Sunday I passed police cars and fire brigade trucks, persons walking around in toxic safety uniforms, shut down streets, was it just a training simulation or did something go on for real? You don’t wane know do you? Here the chain of coincidences started off, Borat the movie has been already for some time on sale with the Chinese ex cockle pickers now selling DVD’s in front of my Sainsbury, Casino Royal the new 007 was just about getting the blessing of the Queen on the 14.November, Daniel Craig was descending on his knees at red carpet in Leicester Square when MA’am shacked his hand.

Not so long ago, I have been invited to a dinner hosted by a junior Austrian IP tycoon where a friend of my girlfriend temporarily was staying from New York, which is in a precious liaison to a lady from Uzbekistan (or was it Azerbejdzan or Tadschikistan?), means bouncing between sexy helicopterised Gucci business pyjamas and aero beds. He visited Moscow and the state with ending stan/dzan what so ever, some weeks ago and told at the dinner, that basically he needed to bribe his way through the country, even that the bureaucrats who issued the so called permits have been already bribed from his lady’s parents.

Calling all media artists, producers, curators, organizations and individuals working with electronic or digital technologies...

After the jam-packed Season of Media Arts NODE.London is moving quickly forward to its next stage. Building on its success at raising the visibility for media arts and its networks, this visioning and networking event asks, what will the future of NODE.London look like?

The three days festival was a "melting pot" for people with all sorts of expertise.
From people that know nothing about this exciting field of new media. To students that are keen on taking part in this "revolution". To artists and experts that made Open Source their way of living.
Which made it the ideal place for me to exhibit my work, and do some research for my project.
dpi - Digital Palestine Israel, is a work in progress, and the festival gave me an opportunity to receive some very helpful and constructive criticism.

(from left to right:) Jim Wood's Max Objects workshop and Adam Burt's Podcasting workshop from TakeAway Day2 (Thurs 30 March).

I actually attended Adam's workshop mainly because I have already had a number of Max msp lesson's with Jim.

I learnt a number of things during Adam's session, not only about how to Podcast but also it was interesting to learn about people's perceptions about the general podcasting 'hype'.

So its the last day of Takeaway today, with the final lectures wrapping things up very soon...and I'm actually quite glad! 3 days of this has been pretty intensive, and I'm starting to get a little tired and bored of being told off every 5 minutes. There's far too many rules and regulations in this place. If its not that we're blocking fire exits, its that we have "fatal trailing cables in public through ways". Seeing that artists tend to be of the non-conformist type, this may prove problematic for the relatively new centre.

Bad luck if you missed out on the sound performance on day 2 of Takeaway festival. Julean Simon's "midi wind controller concert" and Jon Cambeul's "Wacom Guitar" went down very nicely after 2 and a half hours of lectures.