Of course, I couldn't sleep. I "conference slept" that is, my body was in bed and trying to relax for 6 hours, whilst my mind travelled hundreds of miles at unimaginable speeds, engaging one concept after the other like ghost citizens whirling about in macabre dances, skeletons of concepts like sound situated meaning and navagability and n-grammatic constructions bowing to me and whisking me away in fast paced waltzes that went ...well I would say nowhere, but I think they did go somewhere...it will just take time to settle these wild thoughts and give them flesh and being. Of course, I will have to chose which poor wraiths to embody, and some will be left in limbo or even purgatory for the foreseeable future.
Anyway, I "awoke" tired and exhausted from my night of whirling ideas. This is the point in most conferences where I reach for coffee (which I am not supposed to have and which can land me in the hospital pretty quickly), beatifically smile at the artificial energy imparted, and go on thinking. This is where I lose my health and well being for the sake of ideas...
However, Adrian brilliantly designed this conference to include a day out between sessions, a daytime to let these ideas simmer and surge. So I went forth...
We met up on the buses, and Rob Swigart, Robert Kendall, Jim Bizzochi (Check) and I huddled in the back of one bus, discussing everything from a passing store front (Hungry Hearts--which they thought was a sex shop--I called on my Aussie cell phone and it is a Meals on Wheels, served to homebound citizens. They didn't believe me and accused me of sounding like a cop to give the shop a cover story. I say beliefs are stronger than reality. We go on arguing...and laughing. The puns this morning were excruciable--I think I was really past the tired part where puns are funny.
We arrived at Healesville Sanctuary, an hour and a half out of town, and embarked. While we walked slowly past beautiful cranes, Catherine and Susan (check??) and I talked about the state of the arts in New Zealand and plotted possible artist in residencies (I want to go there to do one during a summer or so)..
While we stared and videotaped kangaroos kick boxing and scratching, we talked of art practices and the overlap between film studies, hypertext, media, and academies.
I caught up with Espen and described The Princess Murderers (geniwate's and my work coming out in Iowa Review in June) and while we wandered through wallabies and bandicoot territory, Espen and I agreed that there are objects that can incorporate game elements and narrative elements--a blanaced dinner plate containing both meat and potatoes. Chris didn't like this definition and wanted to go with a more integrated analogy. I agreed, but we couldn't think of one there and then. I explained geniwate's term of narragames, and this seemed to go over well. There are papers to be written, thoughts to think, along the merging borders of story and game...
While photographing and cooing over koalas that clambered trees and lay back and ate eucalyptus leaves like leisurely gourmands, Susana, Julianne, and I discussed the difficulties and horrors of editing the latest JODI hypertext (Jill Walker and Susana Tosca did a terrific job at pulling together nodes and reviews. Julianne Chatelain, Adrian Miles,geniwaite, RIchard Higgason and I contributed to this piece...). We agreed that the hypertextual and interconnected aspects made this worthwhile, but that next time it would be best to review individual hypertext contributions as a whole rather than node by node. This is particularly important when people use nodes to complement ideas--where one node may not be complete without the others.
We stopped talking to gawk at the huge and graceful raptors at the feeding session, to soar with the wingspans and gape at the heights and agility of these magnificent birds.
Then Rob Swigart, Jim Bizzochi and I had a photography session with the emu and kangaroo statues at the front, and off onto the buses to lunch.
We lunched at a lovely winery, situated on hills that still had green grass shining in the sun, under hills and rows of yellowing, gnarled branches of grapes. Leon Cmiesky (check) described his Dream Kitchen --which Jill had gone through the day before--and the ideas behind it. Over antipasto, Nick Monfort, Leon, and Keith (from QUT) and I discussed archiving and the New Media Reader. Over barramundi, Susana Tosca and Nick and I discussed Ramon Lull, a 13th century philosopher who showed all the propositions about the properties of God through a wheel---a paper hypertext I had not heard of and need to get more information on.
We toured the winery, but I was more interested in getting texture and experimental shots of barrels and bottles and tuns and paths than the lecture on wine. (I am sure that the guide thought we were industrial spies for taking so many odd shots...but we explained we were artists and the guide shrugged her shoulders and said, oh well that explains everything...)
On the way back, I spoke at length with Tiffany, finding out how her students create breakout games and how the Unikversity of Chicago operates--a rare glimpse into academia for me...
Others were going on to dinner and movies, but I bid all a good night and went to the hotel for a real sleep. So now I am awake for the conference. WONDERFUL idea, Adrian.. Kudos.
Posted by at May 22, 2003 08:42 AM