"life on ze road ..."
0 OK, 0:1 @ media art friesland festival

september 25, 2005.

Last week, on our way by car from Amsterdam to Leeuwarden, we followed in the footsteps of Rosemary and Mickey.

As they did, when embarking on their great Dutch adventure in april 2002, we passed over the 18 mile Barrier Dam (Afsluitdijk) connecting the province of Friesland with that of Noord Holland. And like Rosemary and Mickey, we too stayed in the curious little 'gay owned' bed & breakfast, called Bordine.

Situated on the Bordineweg, in a typically Dutch neat residential area in the south-east part of the city, it distinguishes itself from the many similar small rijtjeshuizen ('row houses') in that street mainly by the large flagpole proudly planted in its front lawn. With what looked like an exemplary feat of home craft, the owner transformed the two small bedrooms on the first floor into two pretty much self contained two-bed mini studios. With a PC, fax, telephone, wireless and cable internet connection, satellite tv, dvd, vhs, stereo, kitchenette crammed into the shower, toilet, blinds ... everything.
Add to this the gigantic ventilator, covering most of the ceiling, the two fire extinguishers on the minuscule landing next to the big, shiny & powerful espresso machine for all your free coffees, and there you go: Bordine B & B !

Could any place have suited better our 0 OK, 0:1 soundvision action, part of the ninth Media Art Friesland Festival (MAFF), both as a home base and a metaphor ?
For God knows, here there was a vision, and God knows there, there were sounds ...
The espresso machine, for one, accompanied its 'small cup/large cup' brewing by impressively loud grinding, gurgling and steaming sounds. And all during our first (friday) night, until early into the saturday morning, outside there was this somehow mysterious sounding power drilling and hammering going on. Which then during the second (saturday) night made place for some of the finest close up fast passing freight trains sounds that I heard in my life. Suggesting that the drilling and hammering of the night before were somehow related to repair works on the rail road tracks ...

But all of this, of course, is merely circumstantial.

The Media Art Friesland Festival, organized by Wim and Nadine Bors, is a courageous and ambitious event, showcasing for a period of two weeks, at locations in Leeuwarden, Drachten, Groningen, Harlingen and Beetsterzwaag, a large selection of recent 'media art works', both from artists working and/or living in the Netherlands and abroad. The MAFF opened at friday night, at its main location, in the Kanaalstraat in Leeuwarden. It is where you'll find, besides a 'Computer Gallery' with 12 projects from 8 different countries, the national 'Young Talents' exhibit, with works by recent graduates of Dutch Academies of Art.

I saw again there some of the works that I had remarked earlier this year during my 'flash' visit to the Gerrit Rietveld Academy's graduate show in Amsterdam. One of these Rietveld 2005 graduates, Michael Ebert, joined us as our 'special guest' in the 3 hour long 0 OK, 0:1 live webcast that we did in the Kanaalstraat, on sunday afternoon september 18th.

For our webcast, we set up our 'usual suspects' on two large tables in the organizers' office, behind two large sliding windows to the entrance corridor of the Kanaalstraat building. We started the setting up and testing around eleven in the morning, and when all was working properly, at about 13h00 - as has become our habit - gradually the testing shifted over into performing. "No beginning ..."
At some points Michael Ebert joined in, and took over for a while, and towards the end, around 16h15, for some twenty minutes we were joined by Jan Verroest, live skyping to Leeuwarden from Amsterdam.
0 OK, 0:1 worked large parts of their contribution around recordings made on friday and saturday. At the opening party on friday evening, on saturday in the streets of Leeuwarden, and of the sounds 'made' by the works on show in the Kanaalstraat (most notably those of Hendrik van Ketwich Verschuurs "Clockwork", and Ivo Koolens "Crab (from outer space)" - see the exhibition pictures above).

You can listen to short extracts from sunday's webcast, and get an impression of what the frisian language sounds like, in our 15th Raudio Podcast ... The Media Art Friesland Festival continues until october 2nd.

[ Buy the 0 OK, 0:1 Muziektafel/Tafelmuziek (2004) CD ! ]

[ To subscribe to the Raudio Podcasts, get the feed's URI by clicking the green podcast button in the sidebar. Alternatively, you may preview the podcast feed, or simply download the mp3-file. To subscribe to the Raudio Podcasts, get the feed's URI by clicking the green podcast button in the sidebar. Alternatively, you may preview the podcast feed, or simply download the mp3-file.]

[ Earlier related SB entries: tafelmuziek: paradiso placard ]

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