London is sleet white today. It is an unusual combination of weather: blue skies combined with a light so clear one can imagine seeing the birds' hearts beat. I notice them from morning: first the song (a blackbird's easy listening melody) then two robins perched on the bush wearing their winter clothing, plump as puddings, bright decked and unmoving. Tonight I skype with other members of the team working on transmediale: the Deep North theme fits today's weather, the bleak and laser-cutting end of a year. This morning, I was however forced to consider that in Brasil, where my friend Ricardo was writing from Salvador, it is the opposite, swelteringly hot and foggy - he sent me some great youtube links to influence my day.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YSXEdTmpEmU
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=De2XmncutzA
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TdTacizYdA
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TgPWrnkO7I&feature=related
In return, I send him a late draft of the mapping report I have been doing with Felipe Fonseca of digital culture in Brasil, five months of work now condensed into 45 pages,which has gone into SICA and which is due to be presented to the Dutch Culture Minister in a few weeks time. It's been a difficult and challenging exercise and like all such time-consuming things I miss it now its almost finished and am feeling a bit bereft. Ricardo sends some fine grained suggested edits in the flash of an eye and we think of another mapping exercise, this one to follow lay(mert)lines and to perceive the hidden cosmologies. Now that would be fun! We're planning an event for Berlin on 1st February - where some of the DesCentro network from Brasil will be making a House of Happiness within the House of World Cultures. It will be the final event of transmediale 09.
Roll on another year....