Walker Art Center

Big [B]Other HOW LATITUDES BECOME FORMS

big [b]Other is a text-based reality show and community / blog in Spanish and English organized by media activist Fran Ilich with 13 other participants. It will run from February 1 to March 1, 2003.


February 28, 2003

Denial?

I lit a candle, drank some tea to write what is officially my last entry for B(b)O with some music from Amon Tobin, Red Snapper, DJ Krush, Vienna scientist, etc. (Stopped smoking several months ago and decided I might as well give up drinking. So, no wine, whiskey or cigars, sorry. But me guest to use any substance to your liking, I don’t disapprove of any of them, as long as you don’t shoot. Hey, this is Holland.)

Today, I ordered some stuff to be delivered to my house. At first, I asked if it was okay to deliver it Saturday. Then I asked if it might be possible to do it on Friday. He just looked me in the eye and said “No, sorry, it’s too late for that”. The customer is always right, right? It was about 7 pm (19:00), the shop was about to close. I really thought today was Thursday. Am I in Denial?

What happens if I just squat this place? (Got some experience with that.)

I send the stuff I wrote about Spaghetti to several people and I am awaiting reactions (give them to me please!!!!). If all the Spaghetti dust settles down again, I will start to work on the things I really want to do with the program. My communist granddad left me a big stamp collection, which I sold for a great deal of money (he was a member of the commintern, so he probably used his conections to get the best stamps possible). I scanned them all. If anyone wants to do a 19th- early 20th century novel using letters written by someone from Spain and someone from Russia (with a revolutionary context) I can provide pictures for all the stamps necessary.

Anyway, the collection contained one very nice stamp of a building. I think I will use that as a model for the scenery used in my Spaghetti adventure about a squatter who returns to his old home. Here it is. Well, it is big, maybe too big, but I will try. The place should be in ruins, so it will then no longer be that big, would it? Or is this too corney? (Thought about the Heiner Mueller Hamlet Maschiene scene where people live in the nostrils and eye sockets of destroyed statues of their leaders)

Goodbye for now.

Posted by Jeroen Goulooze at 04:34 PM | Comments (2)

Justicia poetica

Mi maestra de ingles durante la secundaria no me caía nada bien... una mujer con obesidad morbida y que se creía la neta del planeta... se juraba muy cool, y era muy sangrona, vaya, que se la pasaba jodiendo a medio mundo y dejando tareas inútiles y sus clases eran de lo peor... en fín...sigue siendo una sangrona... desde la semana pasada la tengo hospitalizada sangrando por el trasero... la hemos pasado algunos paquetes de sangre...tiene unos mugres divertículos...estuvo a punto de ser operada pero el flojo del anestesiologo la suspendió con uno de los mas simples pretextos...

en fín, que la sangrona sangra por la cola... justicia poetica, oh sí...

Posted by Luis Humberto Rosales at 06:58 PM | Comments (0)

Vodka tonic, por favor

Hola a tod@s. Pues yo tenía entendido que el último día es el 1 de marzo. De cualquier manera, mi ánimo es festivo hoy.

Aquí cabe aclarar que yo me he distinguido por mi reticencia hacia los blogs, vamos, no los veo como algo para mí. Participé en BB porque era otro tipo de experiencia y de propuesta. Al final, ha sido una vivencia enriquecedora y disfrutable en la que pude conocer más a personas con las que ya tenía algún acercamiento, así como a gente nueva.

Me ha servido este espacio para la reflexión de temas que me importan y he tenido que abrirme a compartirlos.... no, no es lo mismo abrir la ventana a ciertas habitaciones de mi vida personal con las chicas de ciberfeminista o escribir un texto para ser publicado que abrir mi puerta para que pasen ustedes a mi mente (que implica pensamientos y sentimientos)...

Por otro lado, BB ha sido una ventana a las vidas de tod@s las que estuvimos encerrad@s aquí. He “viajado” mucho en este mes... He ido a Sevilla, Canarias, Madrid, Buenos Aires, Berlín, Suiza, Holanda, San Francisco, Tijuana, Guadalajara, Veracruz y hasta por la ciudad de México, pero con otros ojos... y se me han de pasar algunos lugares... He disfrutado de varios eventos y de muchos ratos de ensimismamiento y “monólogos en voz alta” desde tales latitudes...

Este juego termina, otros continúan, nosotr@s continuamos... Hasta luego, hasta pronto, hasta la vista...

Besos.

Posted by Cindy Gabriela Flores at 07:39 PM | Comments (1)

Unplugged

Dentro de unos segundos van a desconectar a la señora de la cama cuatro de la unidad de cuidados intensivos...bye bye...

Google not to good translation :

Within seconds they are going to disconnect to the lady of bed four of the unit of intensive cares... bye bye...

Posted by Luis Humberto Rosales at 08:28 PM | Comments (0)

Day 1

Again. The cards casualy forming daily revelations. The stars and the chariots.
Been f. busy to notice time passing by
Freezed I am at this
Smile
City
Collective tazian mode

LOVE ALL
DESIRE THE IMPOSSIBLE keep coming

Synstesis » le soleil

Posted by Tatiana Wells at 10:00 PM | Comments (0)

Adios

Esta ha sido una experiencia extraña pero interesante. Aprender a conocer personas que no tengo cercanas por un weblog grupal es algo nuevo aún cuando he escrito en otro weblog durante 3 años y más.

Espero que de alguna manera quede esto archivado y no se pierda con el tiempo. Las cosas que todos han dicho son de considerar. Agradezco a cada uno que se haya tomado la molestia de leer mis líneas.

Saludos múltiples.

Posted by Eduardo Arcos at 11:47 PM | Comments (1)

March 01, 2003

Aprovechándome del GMT

Creo recordar que escribí cuando aún era Enero y ahora escribo cuando es Marzo. La verdad es que ayer me quedé dormido viendo Código Desconocido de Michael Haneke y la verdad, también, es que estoy enfermo. Mierda. No mucho, por ahora, pero tengo que cuidarme porque no es un buen momento para enfermar. O sí. Supongo.
Hay que decir adiós. Pues adiós. Encantado de haber disfrutado con ustedes en estas paredes.

Posted by Pedro Jimenez at 02:40 AM | Comments (0)

Squat

... and what happens if I just squat the place?

Posted by Jeroen Goulooze at 03:07 AM | Comments (4)

Lástima que sea la despedida

Oye, esto del Bigbother hace mucha compañía...
Gran(er)manit@s , os voy a echar de menos.
Coincido con Cindy en que este mes me he sentido saltando de ciudad en ciudad, de lo ciber a las letras, de las fotos a la música ... Es una forma agradable y juguetona de tener noticias de otros micromundos, de comentarlas y dialogar con una cierta continuidad. Me pregunto cómo serían nuestras contribuciones, si cada uno hubiera posteado una vez a la semana y el resto fueran comentarios. Un cambio de ritmo, con más tiempo para pensar o para introducir fotos, y para establecer el diálogo a través de los comentarios con más personas. Retomo una idea que ya apuntó Jeroen.
El martes me voy a Madrid y me desconecto por unas semanas. Me llevo toda una lista de sugerencias de mis bigb(O)thers y me parece que voy a volver con bastante música. Falta que me hacía.
Pues... Un aplauso para Fran que enredó todo esto y gracias a los bigb(O)thers & bigs(I)sters por los buenos ratos que me han hecho pasar.
Ya nos encontraremos por la red, no?
Besos virtuales,
Teresa D.


Posted by Teresa Delgado at 10:37 AM | Comments (1)

last entry

TO: Cindy, Eduardo, Fran, Germán, Jeroen, Luis, Osfa, Pacho, Pedro, DJ Pod, Tatiana, Teresa Ay and Teresa Dee

thanks for a fun month and including me in this project.

best of luck in all your endeavors and may our paths cross in the future.

love,

Tony

Posted by Tony DuShane at 11:27 AM | Comments (2)

Read ya later!

I feel sad...and it's kinda wierd... isn't it?... i tried last night to post some stuff but some how i couldn't log in to the site... anyway, today it was posible, so i have a chance to say good bye to the Big [B]other girls and guys... it was a really nice experience, and some how i feel like i'm loosing something... but then again got a lot from it...

thanxs a lot for this chance to get inside your minds... hope to read you again... i'll go back to my personal weblog and keep working at the hospital, trying not to make my daughter mad and trying not to get frustrated trying to make people believe in other projects that can help make a difference... anyway...

Un saludo desde Tijuana... me tomaré un martini doble a su salud por la seductora avenida revolución...

Posted by Luis Humberto Rosales at 02:51 PM | Comments (0)

empty house

...being slowly but surely left by everyone... moving on... towards new adventures...

Posted by osfavelados at 05:17 PM | Comments (0)

Nostalgia prematura

Hey, yo creí que esto terminaba mañana. ¡El sábado no es un día para concluir nada! Pero ya se ve que mis nociones de tiempo no son confiables porque vivo a deshoras (hoy llegué a casa a las 8 am, después de transmutarme solitario por la ciudad entera, como siempre).

Llevo un mes viviendo con la idea de tener que contar lo que vivo, al grado de que he terminado viviendo narrativamente, desdoblado, escribiendo mentalmente notas sobre cada instante, convertido en el otro yo, el que vive para ser relatado por sí mismo. ¿No era esto de lo que se trataba con este Big OTHERNESS, permearnos de los otros desde distintas latitudes, a la vez que convertirnos en la otredad de los demás…y de uno mismo?

No nos queda más que volver a la univocidad de nuestra propias miradas.

¿Abriré mi propio Blog para seguir con el vicio? Puede ser, pero aquí lo importante es que el lector, el inevitable destinatario imaginario (ese “otro” para el que se escribe), fue cobrando cada vez un perfil más tangible, íntimo, real, con trece nombres y domicilios, recónditos pero accesibles: Arcos, Cindy, Fran, German, Teresa D, Osfa, Luis, Jeroen, Pedro, Pod, Teresa A, Tatiana y Tony.

Cómo me ha conmovido leer todas estas despedidas y descubrir que comparto la tristeza. Es curioso ver que me acostumbre a vivir con la compañía de trece personas, la gran mayoría absolutamente extrañas hasta hace 28 días.

Lo mejor es que todo esto fue posible por lo que ahora me parece un simple juego. Fran puso las reglas, pero me ha fascinado ver que todos los involucrados aun sabemos jugar como los niños. La trsiteza proviene de esa capacidad de creer lo que figuramos, como los locos. Como los niños.

Despedirnos en sábado es, para mí como tener dos domingos consecutivos.

Besos a todos
P

PD:
Para aquellos que me lo preguntaron, la dirección del programa de radio en REFORMA.COM (el miércoles 12 de marzo a las 13:00 horas, tiempo local de la Ciudad de México) es www.reforma.com

Posted by Pacho at 07:51 PM | Comments (0)

Seguimos en línea

Ahora sí, hora del hasta pronto definitivo de Big B[o]ther. Leo las despedidas de tod@s y me da una especie de tristeza que yo no sentía originalmente al término de este “encierro”.

Por lo general, yo no me pongo triste en las despedidas, vamos, siempre tengo la sensación (ilusión) de que volveré a ver a las personas que se van o de las que me alejo. Aquí no es la excepción Definitivamente yo seguiré por la red un buen rato más y sé (o creo) que vari@s más de mis compañer@s de BB estarán en línea, algunos en espacios también compartidos por mí, otros en sus propios espacios, pero accesibles al clic.

Me voy de BB con buenas sensaciones que guardar, con nuevas perspectivas que observar y con varias existencias más en mi camino.

También es este el momento para agradecer a cada mente que asomó a mi ventana y, cómo olvidarlo,, al buen lector que estuvo cerca durante todo este “encierro” colectivo.

Mando un abrazo para mis compañer@s de BB, le doy las gracias a Fran por invitarme a este experimento y quedo en línea.

Besos.

Posted by Cindy Gabriela Flores at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)

the end always come at last.

I come back after being lost for a couple of days. Lost in the middle of elsewhere, and still sitting somewhere in the html code of Big [B]0ther, knowing that the time was passing by.... getting ready to put an end to all this.

The last couple of days i been working on this non-linear documentary about this software which automatically generates texts, the idea is to interview some mexican writers about what they think of this sofware, and the way in which a computer could replicate human inspiration and creativity thru imitating the live natural databases from where a writer gets it's stimuli and more or less the same way in which he process the information and then weaves it into a story/novel, etc.. of course in a way it's fiction (let's say a reflection of a possible world). cindy and my sister sol will play spys who are kind of trying to destroy this software and those mantain natural inspiration and writers alive.... basically it's about problematizing creative writing process and the posibility of a computer acquiring this talent.

I just checked my email, and there it was, the bussiness propposal to do bussiness in Nigeria (sitting right next to an invitation to attend a film programm during Cannes Film Festival in may)... just the opportunity i was waiting for, the spam-mail which i knew existed but somehow didn't fit into the Angola-Congo-Sierra Leona Connection. But there it is, waiting in my Inbox for a reply which will make me millionaire once and for all, so i can invite all of you to a retreat in the Caribbean so that we can network the Big [B]0ther of our dreams, while we endlessly work on our own secret projects...

Tomorrow there's a big event happening in Mexico (the show/spectacle must go on): the season of Big Brother 2 starts on tv. The city will be paralized, the country will be glued to their tv sets (fernseh-apparats) as we officialy declare ourselves free from our stay at the Walker Art Center webserver. Thanks Steve, again. And thanks to all of the participants for staying around for a whole month, and to all the user/voyeurs who stepped into our space/lifes and took a moment to read what we had to say/live during this long/short month.

This week Cindy and i started a new activity, which is boxing. We've been already 2 times this week at the ring, wearing our heavy red gloves while we sweat and throw punches to our virtual enemy, the character inside the arcade who gives us the chance to sweat our stress at the same time that we exercise what boxers must feel when a full coliseum has payed to see them fight (we always attract a crowd of 7 or 8 passerbys who stand around watching our virtual match against the arcade computer)....

and so, we slowly fade into future adventures and scenarios. i finally finished reading alejandro gándara novel 'ultimas noticias de nuestros días'. the stasi spys at last understand there is no more hope for the world they once knew. what follows is the unknown. and so, their translocal fully functional network slowly fades into being a sort of disfunctional rhizomatic system, as their reality fades into whatever individual lifes they can still have. they lived for the network, and utopian ideas, and a world which suddenly stopped existing in a few seconds. or as that wonderful novelist from the twin cities (st. paul/minneapolis) who wrote wonderful books during the roaring twenties once said: 'the end comes slowly at first, abruplty at the end.' this is what francis scott fitzgerald once said, or in any case he said something very similar. i'm not the best one when it comes to memory.

what i can say, is that after the berlinale talent campus i see the world of film in a completely different way, that i'm a little tired of both hollywood and national sponsored cinemas, that i can only see an alternative in the independent way, and for this i could only think of adapting alexandre astruc 'camera-stylo' theory to the computer world. for this means the 'narrator' doesnt hold compromises to sponsors, governments, publishing houses and so on. and still, it means he's adapting the industrial and technological processes into his own private little world, and still having a relationship to internet changes what could be a problem of distribution. altough of course, distrubution and intellectual property will give us a lot of headaches for the years to come... but to me, what's interesting is the small ways in which the individual voice can work it's own way thru narrative media, as the individual always has a direct link to community and the world. i think we just had enough of the dominant corporative narratives which have been replicating themselves so much for the last decades, that sometimes it doesn't hurt to go offline or into the wonderful world of minor media. as for narrative media, this is only beggining, and i do wonder what will come right after massive online role playing games and systemic world, and even interesting realist virtual realitys, serialized sitcoms, real tv.... and i wouldn't be afraid of suggesting that the next thing would be reaching into our offline worlds, and maybe hacking available media technology to tell and live our own stories in our small private ways. i believe there is the future, away of big brothers and that well know alienation to which media can easily imprison us.

i would only have to thank all my rommmates once more, Cindy, Eduardo, Germán, Jeroen, Luis, osfavelados, Pacho, Pedro, DJ Pod, Tatiana, Teresa A, Teresa D and Tony.

And of course, once again thanks to Steve Dietz and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

I believe this weblog will go touring along 'the how latitudes become forms' exhbition, across several museums in Planet Earth. I wonder how will people read it there, i have to think we must invert the entrys so that whoever reads this starts during the day we arrived (beginning of february, end of january in some parts of the world), and not at the end (beginning of march). we would'nt like to spoil possible readers into starting our month just at the moment of completion. And i do wonder if people will read it sometime, somewhere....

And so, this are the things to come. Don't ever forget: Exist!

ps, i owed you 2 net.films, here are the links:

This are Narcojuniors lthe movie which is responsible for me coming to the Berlinale Talent Campus...

Fast Food! (the movie which is part of Story Streams, the Streaming Cinema 3.0 / Nora Barry project where 3 filmmakers made a movie around the same storyline/idea, and which at the end was mixed/edited into a single fim by a vj/filmmaker live on stage.

y ahora sí, adiós!

will this continue as a project or a collaborative weblog elseweher online? (to be continued...)

...

[you are still invited to listen to 'modem radio' programming in translocal channel, where scrub channel konlum (sevilla), dj pod (san francisco), serhat koksal (istanbul) and others dj's will be performing experimental electronic music sets. as well as talk radio show produced by cindy and me (mexico city) and hopefully osfavelados and the teknoborders (sevilla), and many others. the show is webcasted every wednesday at 9pm (minneapolis/mexico time, gmt -6). the address is: http://channel.walkerart.org/admin/player/playerFrameset.php?nttID=1

it is important to say that there's programming the whole day, and that you can listen to material from many collectives around the whorld, including the sarai media lab (new delhi).]

Posted by fran ilich at 11:59 PM | Comments (2)