A bad day is a good day for something new.

We got a new camera. We got it for Yule. It arrived yesterday. Yesterday was not Yule. Yesterday was Monday.

I had a New Year Project planned, a 365 day (well 366) photo blog, but it has transformed into a 17th January project which is even better. The 17th January is known as Blue Monday* - well at least it was last year, this year Blue Monday is on the 23rd, but I can't wait that long so I will go with last years date even though it is Tuesday today - anyway, it is said to be the most depressing day of the year (I guess among countries in the Northern Hemisphere that celebrate Christmas) which to me makes it a good day for something new**.

So, I shall start. Introductions are a good start.

This Ernest who doesn't like to have his picture taken.

This is Lily who does.

This is Gábor who tolerates my photographing of him - at least for now (this is only day 1 after all).

These people will likely feature often.

It seems only fair that there should be a picture of me included here in this introduction round so...

This is me.

It's not a big picture because it wasn't taken by me or with my pretty new camera (rather it is of me with my new camera). It is also small because I don't like photos of me, I definetly have a prefered side of the camera. My face will not feature here often.

What a treat you*** have had with this first post. You got 3 (+1) photos today. From now on there will be but one photo each day (unless I change my mind).

Done.

*Blue Monday is not real, I mean it isn't really the most depressing day of the year. It was created by Sky Travel in order to sell holidats to people who believe it when someone tells them their life is crap and that you can make it better with a trip to the Canary Islands.

**Yes, I just completely made up some "just because" justification for starting today when really the reason is just that my camera arrived yesterday.

***I say you as though I am actually a bit full of myself and writing to an audience but this project is more for me but you can view/read along too if you like. You are welcome.

Achievements

I managed to turn the heel of a sock successfully in the first attempt - Finnish Integration, Stage 2: COMPLETE

Other achievements of the evening include:

• Finally managing to listen to the end of The Unbearable Lightness of Being without falling asleep.
• Learning the lesson that audio books are doing the dishes "reading" or knitting "reading",  NOT lying in bed "reading".
• Picking out a movie worth watching for the second time in a row after along run of movies that make you wish you had just spent that time studying. (the movie was Rare Exports (a Finnish movie about Santa (not to be watched with children)) and the previous one was Apa (Father)(a Hungarian movie directed by Istvan Szabo).

Small gains, perhaps, but combined with the frosty morning this morning, I fell good and very alive.

Yes dear

I think Gábor may be kicking himself that we didn't go to Occupy LSX last week after seeing this:

Zombie Bank Run vs Government of the Dead from Jon Cheetham on Vimeo.

He has a thing for zombies at the moment. He laughs when other people don't get it (particularly the smartypants folks around uni), I smile at him supportively  but quite frankly, I don't get it either.

To Occupy or not to Occupy...

A couple of weeks ago I said (only a little seriously) to Gábor that I would like to use all the student loan money to buy tickets to New York to join Occupy Wall Street (or somewhere a little closer like London). Gábor wasn't happy. I think I caught him in a particularly bad mood. We got into an argument. 

Gábor felt (feels actually since I don't think his possition has really changed) that if we are going to do something we should do it here, here in Finland, here in Oulu. He argured that it would be more than a hint of irony (hypocrasy) in using money borrowed from the bank to join a protest againd corporate greed (I can't really arque with that, he has a point). He was also against flying to be part of the protests (we are generally trying to reduce the amount that we fly) arguing that it was somewhat contradictory to the aims of the movement (again, he has a valid point). However, there is very little happening in Finland, let alone in Oulu, and I am not prepared to be a leader (I'm chronicly shy and I'm too polite handle direct confrontation) but the Occupy movement ins something that relly could be something big in our time and I want to be part of it. 

Gábor may not be entirely convinced by his own arguments, a day or two afrter our argument I caught him checking flight prices to London.

Somehow he managed to push the issue asside again, this time the argumet was to with keeping the kids entertained. I don't think he even heard me when I said our (extremely) social kids would be in their element amongst such a group of friendly and energetic people (I doubt we would see them for most of the days since they would be too bust making new friends). I almost had him last week. It was a holiday week here for both my Uni and Lily's school, we could go on Wednesday and be back on Sunday but then I started arguing against myself. How offended would my family be if we managed to scrape together money to go to London for a protest when we have't been to visit them in Scotland in a year and a half? No, I couldn't make myself do it. We agreed that we wouldn't go (and siletly agreed not to talk about it again until after the holiday).

The temptation came again today after watching this BBC report:

 but again I talked myself out of it. I think I was shocked to realise that when it comes down to it I 1) am reluctant to give up my own comfort and 2) am concerned with what people will think. I think my parents sometimes think of me as a (slightly brainwashed) hippy (that they love dearly of course) but I guess I am, after all, just like everybody else.

Representing Reality

I just came back from one of the most hectic excursions I have ever been on; 4 days, 5 cities, 2 countries, 9 galleries, 2 castles, 3 churches, an artists community and a medeival settlement. I saw well over 3000 images in theses galleries, some were huge whole wall instalations. I saw Monets' , Miros', Munchs' and Picasos'. Yet of all of these, the one that stood out for me was this note (not even a photograph) by Duane Michals; no larger than a postcard.

Image courtesy of:  http://www.reframingphotography.com/content/duane-michals
(this is not the exact one that I saw but almost)

Text reads:

A FAILED ATTEMPT TO PHOTOGRAPH REALITY


How foolish of me to have believed that it would be that easy. I had confused the appearences of trees and automobiles, and people with reality itself and believed that a photograph of these appearences to be a photograph of it. It is a melancholy truth that I will never be able to photograph reality and can only fail. I am a reflection, photographing other reflections, withing a reflection. To photograph reality is to photograph nothing.

When it comes to are as research, it is true that such reserch will not depict reality; rather a reflection of a reflection. But is that realy any different from other research?

Duane Michals lecture on Photography and Reality for the International Centre of Photography

Find Numbers (to me)

I have been missing Gábor blogging; his blogs are some of the most entertaining blogs I have come across. Maybe I think so because of my personal connection to the writer and the content or perhaps it is that my husband's writing is a wonderful balance of whit, the mundane and thought provoking intellect (maybe you could offer a more objective opinion). Either way there is a new blog for me (and you) to enjoy; Numbers.


In his first post, one, I am given I am given credit for passing the idea the idea to him (more like he stole it but since ownership of ideas is a complex issue that I am still debating with myself over I will let it slide this time). The concept is simply to photograph numbers sequentially...simple. Gábor found his number one on the spine of a collection of Foucault's works on ethics. Gábor also suggested that I "must have read about it" which isn't entirely true. The idea came to me after I encoutered this poster (which was part of an exhibition in Szeged):

Poster by Ferenc Kiss

For weeks (maybe even months) after I payed attention to every doorknob in the city, which in turn opened me to other small details; the door numbers for example which then spread to numbers in general. I love how this simple poster utterly transformed how I experienced the city I lived in, challenging me to fully be in the moment, to notice where I am in all it's rich detail. And so I am glad in fact that he stole my idea and would be glad if you did too and I am pretty sure that Ferenc Kiss wouldn't mind is you stole his too.

Art for Nowhere

This semester at uni I am taking :

• Global Education
• Educational Policy Planning and Leadership
• Art Minor (painting, drawing sculpture, photography, art history evironmental art...etc)
• and continuing work on my thesis (topic: Art As Research in Education - focus on A/r/tography)

 
 

...This article by John Tusa (reposted from nowhereisland.org) manages to bring together everything I am studying at the moment (and also made me smile and LOL)

Week 5: 8 October 2011

Sir John Tusa

British arts broadcaster and journalist

An arts policy for Nowhereisland

No child will be denied a full education in the arts at their widest.
 
Every child will be read to each night.
 
Every school will start its day by singing songs together.
 
Every child and young person will be able to learn a musical instrument to the stage where they can – if they wish – play in public or with others.
 
Every education establishment  will base its teaching on the knowledge and belief that the arts benefit learning of every kind.
 
No child or young person will be told that “the arts are not for you”. The arts belong to everyone.
 
Every child will have the opportunity to look, learn, listen and make.
 
Every pupil will learn about the traditions on which contemporary arts practice is based.
 
Every teacher will be qualified to communicate enthusiasm for and knowledge of more than one art form.
 
No school or educational establishment will divide its teaching into either the sciences or the humanities. There is only One Culture and each reinforces the other.
 
Every child will have time in its curriculum to do nothing and learn how to be bored.
 
All higher education and all arts venues will integrate their learning and performance activities.
 
All government policy will be based on the assumption that healthy and vibrant communities are centred around the arts.
 
All government policy will address education and the arts in the same department.
 
No government will regard the arts and education as the workhorses of business and commerce.
 
No government will tell education and the arts that they should be “like businesses” or “more business-like”. All governments will acknowledge that the arts and education run themselves in ways that are relevant for their disciplines.
 
All arts organisations will accept full responsibility for running themselves efficiently and effectively.
 
Every arts organisation will have one or more representative from business on their governing board. Every company will have one or more representatives from the arts and education on their governing board.
 
Government will set a strict cap on how much money arts organisations can spend on management consultants.
 
No arts organisation will set out its aims and priorities in “powerpoint” presentations which consist of bullet points only and contain no verbs or complete sentences.
 
No arts organisation will use in its Vision or Mission Statement words such as “excellent”, “passionate”, “leading”, “world class” or any other word, phrase or notion derived from management speak.
 
No arts or education establishment will regard, treat, deal with or otherwise think of its audiences or students as “customers”.
 
Every arts and education body will officially proclaim and announce that its activities are fundamentally and intentionally useless. They will ignore and disregard any request or demand to demonstrate that they are useful before they are valuable.
 
No arts body will be funded if they declare their aim to be primarily instrumental.
 
Arts and education bodies will not be asked to demonstrate the ”relevance” of what they do as a condition of funding.
 
Every elected representative will spend at least one night per week at an arts event or performance of some kind.
 
No prime minister will avoid attendance at arts events on the grounds that they court unpopularity by doing so. On the contrary they will earn it.
 
No prime minister will attempt to court voter popularity by claiming to like current pop groups when in truth they do not listen to them.
 
Every government will ensure that those who give money to the arts in their lifetime receive the benefit of tax concessions in their lifetime.
 
No minister will refer to the arts as “elitist”, “irrelevant”, or merely “nice to have”.
 
No Secretary of State for the Arts shall be precluded from becoming Prime Minister.