Transit Lounge

it's been five days since i left berlin. i was ready to leave; three weeks was satisfactory for my first trip away. it was sydney that i was going back to, my home. i thought that i would welcome the grassy open spaces, and the things here that i was used to. however, my first reaction to some of these things was not as i had anticipated. arriving in sydney i was struck with the over abundance of things here. in a way i was a little disgusted. the streets seem so wide... what for? why do we need houses with so much land? standing in the que at woolworths town hall, i watched as plastic bags were given out repeatedly. why do we not bring our own? used to waiting only a few minutes for the u-bahn, i waited and waited and waited some more until my train came twelve minutes late, and then the next day seventeen.

the thing is, that memories can sometimes get distorted, and sometimes we shape them to what we would like them to be. no city can be perfect and as with sydney, berlin wasn't perfect either. however, chances are, that when things are bad here in sydney and my 501 bus from pyrmont to central breaks down (yesterday) and i have to try and hail a cab home because the other bus that will get me home only comes once every hour (if it decides to show) that i will think of berlin; it's synchronized, transport, ovalmaltinies in the morning, high apartment buildings, colourful balconies, 1.50 pizzas, dogs and bicycles.

i will try hard not to forget you berlin.

hello sydney...

Day 1
Off, off forth and swing into a new day here on a bus, after a run and a tantrum before full dawn. In a rush, much to see and only 48 short hours to keep eager eyes open. Sam is my guide. He’s lived here before and left many a memory behind. But first we must cope with the bus. So rude the drivers and the passengers not much better. Excuse me, do you get car sick?’ one asks another. 'Why?' the lady responds. 'because if you do I don't want you sitting next to Me.’ is abruptly replied. Across land then to sea we leave Rostock with a rhyming glee. The Kronprins Frederik is our vessel and from what I lean across the seas he's used to carrying many a passenger. 7 hours later we arrive, a new foreign land to me full of excitement and adventure. I look to my right and see Sam's eyes, filled with an n anticipating joy I haven't seen for many a day. His old friend Elvis arrives and now I see why. He is what he left behind, a best friend through the best and the worst. Their smiles have overtaken their faces. This is the kind of time you're happy to be a spectator. With Sammy and Elvis at the helm we walk through rain, hail then shine. To cafes then bars, past lakes and over bridges. All in the space of 10 minutes. A night of food and wine and conversation ensues. We could be anywhere but the basement Spanish restaurant is the perfect frame for this rapidly moving picture. If the city is as good as its people then this is the place to be. They’re even happy to pay $23 for 2 bits of bread with hummus.

Day 2
Hell it's cold. Today at least I'll know how to dodge the storms. The day is a bullet point of places to go and people to see. Clichéd and the all too real. Palaces and the little mermaid to Opera houses my Sammy helped make and a metro system with no drivers. A waste land where once a wasted land lived in Christiania. Frøsnapper and pølser are consumed in not so reckless abandon. How can they be so thin and gorgeous when their snacks are so fatty? This city is like a catwalk where the fat people are kept well away from prying eyes. It’s odd and very unnerving. Obligatory trip to H&M follows. One must keep up with the trends. But never pay in full for what you know is a folly. More food and wine and conversation and Sam holds court at Sebastopol. It’s not often I like the background but this is the perfect time to lurk in the shadows. Tomorrow will be a before dawn rising and I must sleep but I don't want to leave this scene unattended. It’s my eyes who have the final say as they close the curtain on a truly great moment.

Day 3
Stop dreaming NOW. Time to go and head into the early morning. Emotional goodbyes are had after coffee as Sam leaves Elvis behind one more. They agree to not leave so much time between meetings. I will do my best to hold them to it. Another bus, another boat and bad, bad food. We’re heading home. But home is a city I've lived in for all of 10 days! How easy we adjust, I guess that's how we make friends. Back to the world of the U5 then the S2 with a smattering of ticket harassment to keep you on your toes. Only another 72 hours left and I realise I must give up my pledge to do all I wanted to. Chris and I make plans to see the city through our eyes, his camera and my words. I’ll have a beer please.’ Hang on, you mean to say this is 1/3 rd of the price I paid for the same thing last night? Why doesn't everyone live in Berlin?

so chris our final transit lounge artist has arrived, along with parents, a random friend from israel, alex. And I hear there are more on the way. on hearing the israeli is in town ex sydneysiders are all planning to descend on the city - and probably onto the floor of my 25m2 apartment. Rediscovering the city that I consider home through the eyes of these new arrivals - and their lonely planet. Just discovered a huge new art library in the centre of town, and that one of my favorite buildings (the einstein tower by mendelhson) actually exists, and not only in books, just down the s-bahn in Potsdam.

People have been writing me what they would have me do if I was in their city for a day. Interesting to compare this to the way in which we are now discovering Berlin together and apart. And with the blurb in the front of all of our various guidebooks. Seems that according to the majority of respondents we wouldn't see a single landmark and concentrate on food and drink. That is unless you count sitting at a bar overlooking sydney harbour watching the sunset reflected in the white tiles of the opera house.

One thing this last week has made me realise is how my friendships have become "transit" entities. I know that we will never all be in one spot again. I now have a network of friendships across the world, and even when some of us can get together there is always the sense of the people that someone is missing. The others absence is almost palpable. It reminded me of the work that miriam and I completed in Sydney which became the inspiration for the transit lounge. ripped up photos sewn back together describing the feeling of moving back and forth across the world. Reestablishing friendships and by necessity losing others. Sometimes permanently, sometimes not.

But now i move away from the personal to mass tourism. Working on a piece for BANZAC day in Kreuzberg, which will also be reshown at the final exhibition for the transit lounge.

After being here 5 days this is this first time i have actually sat down and considered what it is that I am doing here. Not that there are any conclusions to that question mind you, rather the fact that everything has been so hectic has limited any kind of retrospect or contemplation. Certainly the pragmatic approach is my personal favourite - for within it meanings and ideas begin to emerge of themselves... and this is what I will attempt to formulate here.

I have, amongst going to the Biennale, dancing to nine am at Panorama, been wandering around the city with my camera and tripod capturing images that border between documents of the city space - architectural - and people - portraits of its inhabitants. Without going into too much detail regarding the social complexitites of the architecture that seem kind of obvious in their utopian apartment style design, the videos are rather tracing a movement within that space. Its difficult to say just yet whether they are completely nothing videos as they are still in raw footage stage. The plan is to keep shooting for the rest of the week and begin an editing process next week. In any case I am quietly confident of their subtle translation of this idea of 'transit' as in the transit lounge and hence why the fuck i am here. Which is a strange occurence as my intention was to proceed as I usually do when I approach making work - that is, semi-pragmatically and relying on an intuitive and personal response to any given situation. That the work I have made here, through that intuitive capacity which resulted in tracing movement, corresponds to the idea behind the transit lounge seemlessly.

I will present some footage on a talk this friday night, along with Alex who finishes up then. The following friday we plan to reinstall the transit lounge in its 'optimum' reconfiguration, which I anticipate will be the culmination of my residency here too.

There is much to do in Berlin. I will see the Olafur Eliasson exhibition this afternoon and hunt down more project spaces. As well there is delving into the complex history of this city which seems to offer itself to you through exploration. For example the documentation center on Bernauer Strasse is an exhibition of images video and audio that traces the development, building, sustaining and collapsing of the wall. There is also a tower overlooking one of the last remaing stretches of wall and border terrain between east and west.

these images are a bit random - once i start editing i will post some stills, in the meantime theres a Mark Manders work from the biennale, a streetscape, the tv tower, and I cant remember what else.

Chris joins us in the transit longe today for a three week residnecy. Here we ask him the big questions:


1- It's been a few years since you last found yourself in Berlin. what's changed?
2- How did you come to get involved in Le Lounge?
3- What type of work are you doing at the moment ?
4- If you were forced to put yourself in a box with a label on it what would it say?
5- Is there a place for big dogs on public transport?
6- What have you left behied in Brisbane to be here?
7- You've been here for less than 24hrs but do you have any ideas of what you'll be up to so far?

On Tuesday Miriam, Katie and myself met with a Berlin-based Australian performance artist Gaby Bila at Clubcafe in Kreuzberg.
Gaby and I got a chatting and decided to try our hands at collaborating. The idea we've come up with involves us diarizing our Berlin experiences - mine as a first time-tourist and hers as an expat to see how 2 people from the same country (Australia) experience a foreign city.
Here's what's been going on with me

DAY 1
struggle to find words for things like coffee, cheese and toilet - the last one being particularly necessary at one almost very embarrassing point.
Feel somewhat alienated by my lack of language and inability to communicate with people the way I like. I’m very much out of my comfort zone here and it feels rather confronting. I can't recall feeling so nervous about basic day-to-day things. The plus is that I’m not spending nearly as much money as I would if I wasn't gripped with fear each time I meet a cashier.
Wander into Mitte and around the Friedrichstrasse shopping area - marvel at the fact a Bentley dealership sits alongside an H&M - I love the contrast.  Duck into Galleries Lafyette and pick up the most amazing smoked salmon rye baguette. I thought it was pretty cheap at 4 euros, it was only later I realised I could get a sit down meal for the same price in the burbs! Still you can't put a price on good salmon, well I’m sure you can but I’m trying hard to justify the purchase.
A few hours pass and I meet Miriam and Katie back at the gallery to go meet Gaby in Kreuzberg. On the way I see a part of The Wall for the first time. I get shivers.  It’s like this flood of memories of experiences I've never had has just hot me like a truck. Really odd. I’m starting to get a feel for just how much has gone on here.
We meet Gaby and the girls start to discuss what they will do as part of the BANZAC Day party gab is organising at clubcafe. It’s a celebration of all things Aussie and New Zealand-ish here in Berlin timed to coincide with ANZAC day on April 25.
After that gab and I get chatting and come up with this as an idea - is it working?
For there it's off down to the canal for a beer and some dinner. A great thing happened at the restaurant - the waiter could tell some of us spoke no Deutsch, and he clearly did speak English, but he kept speaking in German so we could learn.  Usually the second people pick up that you're a foreigner they use you as an opportunity to practice their English. We left contented and headed back to the U Bahn and then home.

DAY 2
today we order black coffee with the right words and then get sabotaged by a whole host of new words. Sugar, milk, large or small - I mean this stuff isn't easy. We must have come across rude simply answering an abrupt 'nein' to each question the barista asked.
Feeling the need to see some of the more touritsty parts of this city we head to the Brandenburg Tor for the Free Berlin Tour. As its name suggests there was no charge, however you're urged to give tips. I have to say in all my travels I’ve never had such an amazing tour guide as Luke, a UK native and new Berliner part-time juggler and comedian. His love of Berlin was so intense and his knowledge of the city's history, frank and often confronting opinions were inspiring. After checking out the hotel Michael Jackson dangled his youngest son out the window of we wandered through the gates, down through the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe, took in some amazing Nazi architecture in the form of the current taxation office (if my memory serves me correct Hitler used it as the Luftwaffe HQ). Then it was down to the wall, through the re-created checkpoint Charlie past many more buildings etc etc all the while getting more and more impressed with the place. I'll spare you all the details but 1 thing stood out... 1 - Bebelplatz Memorial. this is to commemorate the sight were Hitler staged his first book burning ceremony effectively gaining control of the university system  check it out via this link[http://www.well.com/~tom/berlin/bebelplatz.html]  as  it really needs to speak for itself. In particular Heinerich Heine's eerie foresight in the form of the quote from 1820 "where books are burned, in the end people will burn."  
If that wasn't enough for one day we then went with Katie to her Jewish mates place and celebrated Passover!  The guys we're really open minded and wanted all of us non-Jewish people to share in their feast. Out of the 20 or so people there only half were Israeli Jewish - the rest of us were Australian, Greek, Romanian, Swedish and even a couple genuine Germans!  It was the fist time I'd ever come into such close contact with the Jewish faith and as they read and sang I really felt part of an amazing tradition. After going through the rituals with the unleavened bread and wine we all tucked into the most amazing feast. It's really hard to explain the feelings the evening stirred in me. I guess the best way to sum it up is that within our diversity we are all bonded together by our common thread - humanity and that this should and must be respected above all, including faith.

DAY 3
That’s today. A little hung-over from all the red wine we drank last night I sleep in more that I have so far - getting used to this European approach to the mornings - that is not being awake for too much of them!
Get the U Bahn to the gallery and meet Miriam - head off to the gym.
She’s struck a deal up with her gym so I can use it for 2 weeks for 20 euros. I’m feeling rather '"soft in the middle" to use a Paul Simon lyric and 90 mins of high powered cardio and weights are the perfect antidote. The place was packed with characters. One African man spent the hour-long weights session singing out loud to the tunes on his iPod. The thing is he was listening to hard core misogynistic rap. So every now and then the sound of people working out was interrupted by these guys shouting "bitches", "guns" "what up nigger?" It was like working out with Tourettes sufferers in the ghetto. Then when we were leaving Miriam pointed out a rather tall, very masculine looking woman. "See her?” Miriam asked. "She was one of the top volleyball players for the GDR (Former East Germany). The government sporting officials pumped her so full of hormones without her knowing that she started to become a man. She only realised what was going on when she started growing a beard. Now her bones are so wrecked she needs to do muscle strengthening exercises to support them." I asked is she tried to sue. "She did but she was told that because she was over 18 at the time she didn't have a case." I wanted to go up to her and get her story, ask how she felt about the government, communism and gender dysmorphia but thought the better of it. If I see her again though I won't be able to resist.

Now here I am finishing writing this up in time for the open studio which starts in 90 mins. Better go........

Hi Elle
Here are a few questions for you to answer for all us folks to get to know you better.
1- This is your first overseas trip. is it what you expected?
2- What has impressed you about Berlin?
3- Anything you dislike and if so why?
4- Three tips for surviving a long haul flight -
5- If you had to sum up Berlin in 5 words what wouuld they be?
6- And if you had to do the same for Sydney?
7- How have you coped with the language?
8- Creatively has your work evolved as a result of the trip?
9- What will you be showing tonight?
10- Are you nervous about the exhibition?
11- My perfect Berlin day would start like this.................. then this would happen.............and it would end like this............unless of course i ran into.......
12 - Do you think Aussies have anything to learn from the German's? If so what?

I'm collecting portraits of peoples cities. Not sure what they will be used for yet. Possibly included in the exhibition of Elle's work on Thurs. So please leave your comments in response to the question:

If you had one day to show me your place what would we do?

I've been reading a book on young designers in Berlin called "Radius Berlin". The following is from the intro.

To live in this city involves living with change. It is not unlike applying and removing layers of paint to a piece that is never quite reaches completion...In committing ourselves to creating a portrait of Berlin...we were particularly interested in places holding things unsaid and invisible beneath their surface. Places, where the marks of history are not immediately apparent, where the secrets of their past are embedded like healing wounds.

Duality has been a predominate force in shaping Berlin. Determined to overcome an undeniable fissure, the city has taken steps to pave over glaring oppositions an mask their existence by making the visible invisible. In many respects, this effort may have been a contributing factor in bridging the gap between what was then with what is now., and what was there with what is here. Now another brand of duality has taken the place of irreconcilable differences. A more subtle and covert one that reconciles opposites but leaves a state of abeyance, nonchalance and uncertainty in its place.

I just found this cool guided tour performance from sheffield -

http://www.forcedentertainment.com/archive/nightsInCity.html

1995. Site-specific coach tour and installation. Forced Entertainment. 1997 Rotterdam version commissioned by Rotterdamse Schouwburg and R Festival (Rotterdam).

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Rome.. this city is known to me for three things—the beer, the historical buildings and something else... just there, behind these buildings, on the skyline you might just catch a glimpse of the leaning tower of Pisa... and those of you who've been to Venice before will recognise the smell... Ladies and Gentlemen, I think its fair to warn you that I have been drinking and I've never been that lucky... this city, er yeah, this city, let's call it Berlin, Berlin is known for five things, (1) Steel manufacture, (2) Football, (3) Ray are you sure this is the right route?”

Perhaps the first ever guided tour of Sheffield, Nights in This City was a performance with both audience and performers on board a moving bus. Later restaged in Rotterdam, the project created a guided tour conducted by male and female tour guides who avoided facts in search of a different truth.

Poetical and mischievous, the project explored the different histories written in urban space—from the official and the historical to the personal, the mythical and the imaginary. The public were bused around a particular route whilst commentary from the performers renamed and re-invented real-world events beyond the window. Occasionally, performed interventions by members of the company were staged along the bus route. Slipping through the centre of the city and out of control, the tour ran decidedly off-the-beaten path, playing always to the differences between on-route and off-route, centre and periphery, legitimate and illegitimate.

The performance ended with an installation in which the entire street index for the city was written out in chalk on the floor of a found space.

photos from elle

	pink ice cream van
	girl with a red rose

by chris

I get what you mean by portal, and it sounds really
good. Do you think its similar to abstraction where
forms and shapes are deconstructed into an 'essence'
in order to ascertain a more 'truthful' interpretation
of being. It does seem that a less-literal
representation of [whatever] will offer a more
psychological interpretation of that [whatever], and
by persuing a more psychological interpretation of
something are we foregoing the strictures of our
senses. If so we are talking about metaphysics and
even perhaps God. Either way the idea of portal seems
to exist in that psychological space, in particular as
an instrument of unification (geography in this sense
would cease to have distance - perhaps only space).
Now, in relation to multiplicity vs constructed
experince (say of a city), let me describe my thoughts
about research. I have this funny feeling that
knowledge and intelligence are only modes of the
accumulation of distance away from truth. In my own
doctorate it would seem that through research I am
accumulating an amount of data which will be analysed,
interpreted, reconfigured and concluded into a new
piece of data, which not so much resolves the
complexities of the existing data, but adds to it. All
the while I have another feeling that my own
'intuitive experience' of being - which occurs at any
particular place at any particular time - is truth
absolute no matter how unmeasurable and
un-quantifiable that is. Now if we consider the
accumulation of knowledge and intelligence (as in the
academic model) has largely shaped our current reality
(through research etc) the 'constructed
representations' of cities begins to make sense.
Debord might suggest this as an accumulation of
spectacles into a representation of false
consciousness. The beauty of all this is that everyone
has faculties toward intuitive experiences.

Looking forward to seeing/reading developments on the
club thing

chris

by elle

the first image is a glimpse of my work so far. i would like to express berlin as i saw it when i initially arrived, and also as each day goes by. because it is so cold here in berlin, the trees have no leaves yet and look like twigs. they are especially bold in tone and contrast against the bright colours of the streets.

the second image is from the markets in prenzlauerberg...

yes, i agree that berlin is a welcome shock. even for me coming from sydney as opposed to adelaide. it is berlin's grit and dirt that makes it interesting.there seems to be construction work on every corner, it feels a little like a set from a movie, how could there be so much construction going on! it feels unreal. are these people just pretending to fix things? do they not know what to do with themselves during the day, so they corner of a piece of footpath, a window or building? i am unsure.

i think there are also different states of mind in which you can accept the things you encounter during travel. the two main ones being; as a tourist and as a new permanent resident. as a tourist, things that seem foreign to me are exhilarating. i don't compare them to sydney and the things i know there because i know i will never have to fully submit to them. i will enjoy them for their eccentricity while i am here, but in the back of my mind i know i will eventually leave. on the other hand, if i had arrived here with the intention of making this my home, the things that i had found different may not be so exciting. in fact i may find them intimidating, foreign, scary, and may be constantly comparing them to my previous way of life.

by katie

There are so many things to respond to in the last few posts but I want to go back to Chris' last post.

When I describe the photos as bland it is because I position them in terms of strict photographic norms of the "interesting" photo - and in terms of the new movement in photography (which I have described as the new bland) in which compositional norms (of dividing the frame in 3 to create tension etc. Tension created through a single point of interest) are ignored, and subject matter prefers the everyday over the unique. This is not a social realistic exaltation of the everyday, but just its presentation. As the australian landscape lacks, as you said, a defined foreground, middleground and background, a photograph which accurately captures the sense of the landscape falls into what I have described as Bland.

That said, I think that the videos that the photographs were taken from sum up my experience of the landscape more effectively. Its all about time. Driving through the Australian desert for days is about monotony and an awareness of detail. The landscape seems unchanging until you begin to notice the way that shadows from the clouds overhead bring out new details, the changes in shades rather than overall colour, density of plant life. And it takes time to begin to percieve these things. Time which your videos give us but the photos don't.

As for portals - I stole the word from one of your first emails, but I'll explain what I think it can mean. The word implies linkage. And perhaps the creation of new tensions. Transcendence of the local and the recreation of the far away. That might not be through displaying representations of actual landscapes but by trying to recreate the psycholog(ies) of australian landscape.

On that - A friend and I were discussing the psychology of the australian landscape in the response to a film which she described as Australia's Blair witch project (I think it was called the Lost Things). This film takes place on a huge long beach in an unknown location - and unlike Blair which the psychological pressure of the film comes from the lonely expanses and emptiness of the beach. Where the Blair which worked with claustraphobia the aussie horror film relies on agoraphobia. I think that this sense is often missed or forgotten when we immagine the aussie landscape from a far.

Finally on kitsch. I don't think that we are in disagreement on kitsch. I am interested in this constructed representation of the city verses remembered, sensed and experienced ideas of a particular place. One of my favourite books is Calvino's Invisible Cities. Marco Polo tells tales to Kublai Kahn about all of the cities that he has seen throughout his decades of travel around the world. Tales which don't in fact describe other cities but are multiple facets of Venice. Its this multiplicity that gets lost when a city is represented in terms of a serious of icons, easily packaged and consumed by tourists. I am fascinated by this gap - between the city as experienced by its inhabitants and that prepackaged for tourists. Especially in terms of places such as Venice and Florence which we think we "know" before we get there. I all still trying to work out how to address that gap - without just recreating the icons. I am working on a performance piece for a club in Berlin on the 25th April. A cheap arse aussie tourist agency. Go to oz without leaving Berlin. I'll keep you posted on the details as I figure them out.