World Tour I is a virtual journey around the World.
We gave reports about the state of the cyber-world and about our daily discoveries on the Internet.
The site also functioned as a place for exchange of ideas and kept a discussion going on.
.Virtual World
The first part of this trilogy started on a cold but sunny day in Stockholm, Sweden in april 1998. For the next month we would be ”travelling” on the net from New-York to Los Angeles to Rio, Japan, Africa and so on around the World.
We met few ”real people” and our trip was like a huge vacuum in which we wandered like shadows of ourselves. we visited web-cam , chats, personal and public sites. Testing, searching and getting lost, new technologies should make the virtual reality a better ”place” to be. This virtual tour also function as the prototype to world Tour II.
Projektet world tour påbörjades våren 1998 med en virtuell resa runt jorden. Denna resa låg sedan till grund för projektets andra del, den fysiska jordenruntresa som genomfördes december 1999 till maj 2000.
World Tour 1 utgick från vår hemsida, där vi förde anteckningar och skrev dagliga rapporter om var vi befann oss, våra upplevelser, möten, m.m. Resan var upplagd så att vi från våra datorer i Stock holm ”surfade” jorden runt geografiskt, sökte kontakt med folk via deras hemsidor och e-mail och försökte ta oss fram i och förstå den virtuella världen. Reserapporterna lade vi ut på vår webbplats samt skickade till det 100-tal personer som fanns med på vår mailinglista. World Tour I var en resa utförd av två personer, med tillfälliga medpassagerare. Den riktade sig till en begränsad publik, internetanvändarna, och rörde sig i en begränsad värld.
World Tour2 var en resa i den fysiska världen med World Tour 1 som resplan och utgångspunkt. Vi reste i våra virtuella spår, men i en fysisk verklighet och sökte upp de platser och de personer vi besökt på Internet. Med hjälp av en dator och en mobiltelefon skickade vi reserapporter, bild- och ljudfiler, samt uppdaterade vår sajt: www.worldx2.com.
Med foto och video har vi porträtterat ett 80-tal personer vi mött och bett dem beskriva sig själva, sin vardag, sina bilder av här och nu – på den aktuella platsen, vid den aktuella tidpunkten. Deras berättelser bildar ett pärlband av ”nu” eller av tillfällig närvaro runt jorden. Berättelserna är en sammanfattning av rumsligheter, stämningar, tillfälligheter och situationer, som transporterar en bild från en samtidighet till en annan.
World Tour 2 är en resa som i första hand vi två har upplevt genom att fysiskt förflytta oss, möta människor och försöka förmedla ett tillstånd. Samtidigt har den fungerat som en virtuell resa för de 200 personer som följt oss på distans genom våra rese- rapporter. De frågeställningar som projektet arbetar med handlar om olika nivåer av verklighet. Hur upp- fattar vi tid och rum, oss själva och nuet på olika platser på jorden? Hur transporterar man närvaro?
Verklighet , virtuell och aktuell
Verklighetsbegreppet har under 1900-talet varit i ständig förändring. Från att ha haft betydelsen av det påtagliga, sanna och fysiska, har begreppet även kommit att innefatta de flytande gränsrummen mellan olika tider och kulturer, folktro, berättelser, media, TV, film, fiktion, Internet som en social are- na, m.m. Vår uppfattning om världen är i förändring. Hur står isåfall de olika verkligheterna i relation till varandra? Påverkar de vår upplevelse av världen? Möts de någonsin eller löper de parallellt?
Virtual Reality har beskrivits som en teknologisk företeelse snarare än erfarenhetsmässig, som en närvaro genom teknologisk hårdvara istället för den mänskliga erfarenheten. Närvaro definieras som känslan av att befinna sig i en omgivning. I den icke-medierade upplevelsen tas närvarokänslan för given eftersom man erfar sin faktiska omgivning. När perceptionen är medierad upplever man samtidigt parallella verkligheter. Förstahandsupplevelsen av världen utgör den standard gentemot vilken all medie- rad erfarenhet kan jämföras. Istället för att låta den virtuella verkligheten härma den reella, har vi låtit vår virtuella jordenruntresa vara utgångspunkt för det vi företagit oss.
Att göra en resa på Internet är att befinna sig på två platser samtidigt och blixtsnabbt kunna förflytta sig mellan olika rumsligheter. Men en virtuell jordenruntresa är ändå ett absurt företag. Att följa den geografi som inte finns, att söka utrymmet mellan webbplatserna. Under en resa på Internet kan man inhämta information, men upplevelsen av resan är den bild man skapar i huvudet. De stora ”sevärdheterna” runt om i världen är väldokumenterade, Gol- den Gate Bridge, Taj Mahal, Kinesiska muren etc. Människan bakom en webbsida är oftast osynlig eller anonym, mellanrummen och de fysiska ”icke- rummen” är, liksom tredje världen, bristfälligt representerade. Den digitala världen har ingen upp- fattning om storlek, fysiska egenskaper eller sanningshalt. Man följer inte tyngdlagen, men är heller inte fri från den. Vi sitter med våra kroppar framför datorn. Vi rör oss ljudlöst från hemsida till hemsida, från konstruktion till konstruktion, från spegelbild till spegelbild av världen, för att skapa vår egen utgångspunkt, en digital världsbild. Plötsligt är det stopp: ”broken link”. Våra skuggor är levande och vi är inte osynliga, vi kan både spåras och förföljas. Via länkar reser vi vidare och länken fungerar som ett flygplan, ett tåg eller en människa i den verkliga verkligheten. Det som bär oss vidare. Man ställer en fråga och kommer ett steg längre. I ett samtal sker en rumslig och tidsmässig förflyttning. Man länkas från en person till nästa.
Den virtuella världens begränsningar har motsvarigheter i den fysiska. I rollen som resenär, som turist, leds man ut på redan färdiga framkomliga spår. Man kan inte lämna vägen. Vägvisare är massturismen och ”travelismen”. Genom guideböcker (som också finns på webben) möter man världen. Vi re- ser till avlägsna platser som har en infrastruktur som gör det möjligt att komma dit och därifrån och som verkar utvecklas i ett direkt förhållande till dessa guider. Ibland undrar vi i vilken värld vi befinner oss? Starka fysiska intryck kan få en att tvivla på sin egen faktiska närvaro. Genom sprickor i väggen tränger den andra världen in i våra gamla rumsligheter. Världen har, enligt den franske filosofen och arkitekten Paul Virilio, spaltats upp i två parallella verkligheter. Vi rör oss allt snabbare och i slutänden, resulterar den ohejdade hastighetsökningen i fullständig desintegration och dematerialisering och paradoxalt nog, fullkomligt stillestånd. Man rör sig lika lite i flygplanfåtöljen eller på tåget som i stolen vid skrivbordsdatorn. En ovän- tad likhet mellan våra båda resor uppstår. Det finns rum som inte är parallella och inte heller samtidiga.
Det elektroniska rummet är betydligt mer närvarande i den industrialiserade delen av världen jämfört med i tredje världen. År 2000 har 99% av jordens invånare aldrig använt sig av Internet, 70% har inte ringt ett telefonsamtal. Men medelklassen är sig lik jorden runt. Vi kommunicerar obehindrat med våra engelsktalande, välutrustade likar runt om i världen. Under en fysisk resa kommunicerar man med människor, både fattiga och rika, på flera olika språk. Alltså även med dem som inte är ”samtidiga”(c:a 99%). På så sätt är tid pengar. Vad är då rum?
”’Funktionell plats’” är en plats, en operation som äger rum mellan platser, ett kartläggande av institutionella och diskursiva förgreningar och de kroppar som rör sig mellan dem (framförallt konstnärens). Det är en plats för information, ett lokus för texters överlappande, av fotografier och videoinspelningar, fysiska platser och ting. Det är någonting tillfälligt; en rörelse: en kedja av betydelser utan något särskilt fokus.” (James Meyer)
11 May 1998, New York City, USA
”We have started our virtual journey around the World. The first stop is New York and we arrived at about nine, local time, this morning. We visited Brooklyn Bridge, Bryant Park, Harlem and a street-corner where we spent quite a long time, watching people passing by. The weather is grey and it is raining. People are carrying umbrellas, but we do not need any. I have been looking around NY for people working with multimedia projects and have been trying to meet someone, sending messages in all guest-books I could find. In despair I stopped surfing for a while, resting on a picture of Central Park I tried to feel the wind in my hair. Then I went back to my favourite bar at the Casa- blanca Lounge to check out all their links (we almost took a ride to the nasa but though that we were not ready for the moon, yet.)
7 Dec 1999, New York City, USA
”The first morning we take advantage of our jetlag. A very early morning walk down to the Brooklyn Bridge. By the riverside an old Chinese couple are practising tai chi. The sun is shining over the bridge and the water is reflecting the skyline of Manhattan. We walked Broadway up to Times Square. A naked cowboy stands in the neon light in the middle of the traffic-jam. (How did we know he was a cowboy? He had his hat on.) We are in the middle of the world. 10, 20, 40, 80, 100 … within a few seconds we reach the sky. The elevator is taking us 433 meters up above the streets to the 106th floor of the Empire State Building. The view is astonishing. The city stretches itself in all directions like an organic creature.”
”A few days ago we got in touch with some of our NY based friends and they intro- duced us to a totally different city. Saturday night we went to see a performance at the Experimental Intermedia and then they took us to a party nearby Wall Street. On Sunday we went to the galleries in Brooklyn and now suddenly the whole week is booked up.”
”As we already knew the best way to meet people is through friends and shared interests. Pia and Grady introduced us to Juulia and Marko and we spent a very nice evening together with them and the video camera, talking about everyday life and love. Actually we spent more or less every night with the camera. One night we ended up fil- ming each-other dancing, drinking and paintball-shooting human rabbits at a weird
New York City, Dec 9, 1999
party on Broadway. We also met Tom Igoe at the Tisch School of Arts to see his student’s exhibition.”
13 May 1998, San Francisco, USA
”Finally, with patience and concentration I managed to get back to San Francisco and to stay there for a while. I found some very interesting essays about art and technology written by Stephen Wilson. I contacted him and I hope to receive his reply.”
Wed, 13 May 1998 09:25:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: Stephen Wilson
World tour sounds great I am very interested in exploring the correspondences/discontinu- ities between physical and virtual space. Would be fun too meet with you if you physically come to SF. be sure to check out my physical/web event called Crime-Z-land
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~netart/crimezy/crimemain.html best regards, steve
Wed, 22 Dec 1999
Hi, do you remember us, Anna and Michel from Swe- den on the virtual world tour in spring 1998? We are now in San Francisco, doing the ”physical” part of the project. It would be very nice to meet you while we are here, (until Dec. 26). Please send us a mail and give us a telephone number where we can reach you!
with best regards & merry christmas
Anna & Michel
Tue, 28 Dec 1999 21:55:44 -0800 (PST)
Dear Anna and Michel
I just got your message about being in San Francisco. I am sorry I missed you. I hope you found SF interesting? fun? wish you well on the next leg
best regards, Steve
20 Dec 1999, San Francisco, USA
”We crossed the North-American continent in 6 hours. We flew above the desert, the open fields and the Rocky Mountains to land in San Francisco at 11 am local time. Our hotel is located on Mission Street number 2361. In this ”relatively safe” area we had to beware not to step on yet another junky or homeless person in a package . The situation became precarious when some kind of riots just started in front of us. Some black guys went out of a car just as we passed by and at the same moment a Mexican gang came towards us with baseball bats and other weapons. Their anger was not directed against us but we stood like paralysed for a second. A guy came up to us and told us immediate- ly to move away from this place in a 90 degree angle, any direction, to avoid the bullets when they start shooting down the street. Excited and exhausted we found the hotel and locked us in. The man in the reception smiled and said: It is worse in Seattle.”
”Sending the last report from our hotel-room took us two days and lots of energy struggling with technical problems and our wireless connections. In some ways, it reminded us of our virtual tour and the people we had met on the Internet. Stephen Wilson was one of them and we had been looking forward to meeting him. Unfortuna- tely we didn’t manage to find him in the real. ”
26 Dec 1999
Through Juulia and Marko, who we met in New York, we got in touch with Tiffany. She works as a stockbroker in the Financial District of SF. We visited her in her office and she very generously invited us to stay in her home (in the Richmond area) while she and her son Simon went to Las Vegas for the holiday. We spent Christmas eve in an unusual way far away from home. Hilda, from Hong Kong, who also lives in Tiffany’s home, took us to a Cantonese restaurant where we exchanged the traditional Swedish ”julbord” for Chinese Dim Sum.
2 Jan 2000, Hermosa Beach, Los Angeles, USA
”A few days before New Years Eve we moved from David and Stephens place in South Pasadena to the Surf City Hostel on Hermosa Beach. Getting an overview of Los Ange- les is not easy. The LA area consists of smaller cities, like Santa Ana, Compton, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Inglewood, Long Beach, Anaheim etc. grown together and connec- ted by huge freeways. It took us about one hour driving from Pasadena in the east to Hermosa Beach on the western side. At Surf City Hostel we got a room with an ocean view and Anna got a cold. Year 2000 arrived in L.A. just in time but 9 hours after Stock- holm and three hours after New York. The world kept on spinning and we were some of the last human beings on earth to experience the dawning of a new millennium”.
14 May 1998, South America
”Today we came to Mexico City. The first thing we met was a massive information-site from the City, in English. We felt like the typical European tourist. When we tried to find something more personal the connection was cut or it took incredibly long time to download the pages. We passed by ”Communication Art” which has a tempting title. But the site has more to do with design than communication.”
”Looking for adventures, we decided to get onto the Amazon River (not many web- cams but lots of sites about ecology and the rain forest) The only problem was not to get linked back to the States.”
15 May 1998, South America
”The fifth day and my feet are not hurting, my nose is not burnt. Our second day in South America and instead of trying to find what I am looking for I try to look at what I find. The borders are obvious but invisible. Are they necessary? Would it be possible to create a special net-language to make the borders more transparent?”
4 Jan 2000, Havana, Cuba
”It is amazing to see how reality changes in a couple of hours, travelling by plane, cros- sing time-zones, changing temperature and different cultures. We went from Los Angeles to Havana via Chicago and Toronto within 24 hours”
13 Jan 2000, Trinidad, Cuba
”Our tiny beach with white sand, populated only with a few diving-enthusiasts, is boarding the crystal clear blue Caribbean Sea. Here we have spent our days, exploring the coral reeves and the transparent water with its aquarium fishes. It is a spectacular under-water scenery, the violet coral-shapes and blue, black, white, yellow, striped and spotted, big and small fishes. From snorkelling to scuba-diving seemed only a small step for us but our senses got turned around in this third dimension; floating, breat- hing and almost flying, in-between realities.”
”This letter is sent from Havana, from one of the five computers in the library. Our next travel will take us to Cancun, Mexico, for a day, Tuesday, and from there we’ll fly to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.”
19 Jan 2000, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
”The small aeroplane took us not only from one country to another, it brought us to another world. Cancun in Mexico. 1970 Cancun was a fishing village with 150 inhabi- tants. Today there are about half a million and who knows how many tourists? It looks like a little Disneyland, only fancy hotels, extravagant shopping centres and plastic ’jungle restaurants’! Who wants to go to a shopping mall for vacation? We found a rock by the sea where we could sit for free, watching the breaking waves while waiting for our Miami flight leaving at 6.30 a.m.
We flew back over the Mexican Gulf and we saw the lights of Havana by night, far underneath. In Miami we were put into a dull transit-hall with 2000 chairs, 8 TV- monitors and 3 vending machines. There we waited, bored and tired, for the last flight of the day going to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.”
”We flew from winter to summer and arrived in Rio with a jet lag and all warnings about how to behave in Brazil in our minds: Do not walk on empty streets. Do not go out when it is dark. Take off your watch, your necklace and your earrings. Do not bring a bag or anything else that you are not ready to loose. If you have to go out, take a taxi from door to door …”
31 Jan 2000, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
”Brazil is a country full of contrasts and contradictions and without Tatiana’s help it would have been even more confusing and hard to understand. Not only the image of rich and poor side by side, traces of the near colonial past and the always present milita- ry rules, the African culture mixed with the catholic religion but also the carnival rehear- sal in a Favela, the beach-life of the Cariocas and the beauty of Rio. The nature is over- whelming, shades of green in the forests, the sharp mountaintops hidden in clouds and steeping straight into the sea. Huge environmental problems are more or less visible.”
18 May 1998, Polynesia
”Some places are more anonymous, day or night, than others, probably because the network is not available to private people. In Polynesia we were not allowed to rent a car since we had no airline-ticket!”
”Surfing in Polynesia. Isn’t that a dream come true! We found a hairdresser and Michel booked a time for next year …”
11 Feb 2000, Maui, Hawaii
”All our preconceived ideas about Polynesia have had to be reconsidered. When we made the virtual tour and ended up in Polynesia, it see- med to be a rather undevelo- ped area according to the few internet-sites we were able to find. Although we found the Banana Bungalow where we now are staying, the Polynesi- an Culture Center is a real place on the north side of Oahu. In this village the natives are actually living. Tourists can spend the day with them for 99 dollars and see them dancing and playing with fire in the very culturally native way as they always do. They are guaranteed real natives from this special area. We didn’t go there.”
”The idea of creating reality becomes very obvious on these islands. In 1961, Hawaii, which consists of a group of Volcano Islands in the northern part of Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean, became the 50th state of the USA. In spite of the relatively short American presence, it is very hard to experience any leftover Hawaiian culture at all. Except for some exotic words and names such as humuhumunukunukuapuaa, which means trig- gerfish. The American aesthetic is brutally imposed on this unique landscape. Although there are only 106,000 inhabitants on Maui, highways, comparable to those in Los Ange- les cross the countryside and just as in the rest of the USA, the only way to get around is by car. The way the arid southeast side of the island has been changed and irrigated in order to create its lush, green ”look”, complete with waterfalls, hotels and golf courses, makes us believe that Disney has set up the entire island. This is all a huge construction.”
”A week ago we left Maui for the Big Island, Hawaii. We rented a car, Dodge Neon, model 2000, at the airport of Hilo and they didn’t ask either for passport or airline ticket. As long as you have a VISA-card you wouldn’t have any problems in this coun- try. Having our own car was luxury though! It took some time to get used to the Ame- rican way of driving, with automatic gears. We drove over the volcano, over the lava flow, down to the sea on the other side of the island where we could see the glowing, red lava advance into the ocean in clouds of steam.
Surfing (for real) in Polynesia was the last thing we did on Hawaii. We rented a long board and mingled and floated with the crowd of young surfers for a few hours.”
Dec 7, 1999 New York City
marceau: Alors bon vous etes dans un avion alors l’avion seras comme ca, alors nous sur un bateaux ça auras tendance a bouger comme ça … Et en faite euh … votre cerve- au prend des reperes au niveaux des pieds, des mains, au niveaux de tel ou tel choses aussi au niveau de la vue qui joue et donc euh … apres une fois que vous mettez le pied a terre vous avez toujours ces memes reperes. Donc c’est pour ça quand vous voyez les marins titubés, vous avez l’impressions qu’il sont saouls, en faite c’est totalement faux! C’est ce que l’on appelle le mal de terre. C’est qu’ils ont pris leur reperes sur le bateaux pour éviter de tomber, et bon une fois qu’on a mis le pied a terre faut qu’on reprenne les reperes pour eviter de tituber.
Dec 11, 1999 New York City
Arne Anton at the American Primitive Gallery.
arne anton: My name is Arne Anton and I am the director of America Primitive Gallery, here in New York, in Soho. The focus of the gallery is primarily showing works of self-taught artists, some outsider artists, folk-art …
My personal passion is discovering artists and art that comes from outside of the nor- mal art-world-sphere. In this case discovering the work of Edward Nagrodsky who was an inventor. He lived in upstate New York and he passed away earlier this year.
We are seeing just little pieces of what he created in his life and in a sense he would have died in obscurity, if not for this wonderful objects that he created. But we were also discovering that he was also a remarkable inventor, who invented the cigarette- vending machine, he invented the electronic type-writer memory. He was working on inventions for allowing the blind to see. And his great work that he was always involved with was a gravitational engine for penetrating deep space. And another camera he invented that was in the shape of a pistol. When you were shooting a picture as if you would shoot somebody with a gun … Why he invented that I don’t know …
Dec 14, 1999 New York City
We spent some time with Pia and Grady. Grady tells about when he met Pia.
grady: We met at MIT, in the fall of our first semester there, which was fall -97. There were only six people in the program and it was so small, it just seemed like a bad idea to get involved with someone … who were so close …
Our conversations, beyond realising that we had the same theoretical interests and the same art-interests, our initial conversations were about our recent break-ups. So we talked about my ex-girlfriend and her ex-boyfriend, why it happened …That’s how we got to know each other and became more personally friends.
There was a few weeks there of strangeness, where we actually kind of knew what was going to happen but we tried to deny it. So rather than go to bed we would stay up all night and talk, literally all night till the sun came up …
Dec 21, 1999 San Francisco
On a street-corner in San Francisco we met Tony and Bonnie.
bonnie: I am really fortunate, I go home to a beautiful home and I work for a huge corporation that makes billions of dollars … and my boss drives a Ferrari to work … And then I come out here and I look at him and the two extremes in a matter of thirty seconds, just coming down the elevator! How many times have I said I wish I could take you home with me? I can’t save the world and I can’t figure out how to make his life better, except to come out and rope for him and get other people like yourself to help, being a cheerleader. Let people know that he’s …There is a lot of scams, people that are working the system. And I think that’s why the American public has given up trying to help. But then you have exceptions like Tony who is not physically able to go out and get a job.
tony: I could get general assistance, but I don’t do that. It’s like a $300 a month or something, it just puts you in a nasty hotel-room and … If I had the money I wouldn’t want to stay there, it’s really bad, it’s really dirty and full of drug-addicts, cockroaches and rats. You know, that’s all what’s available for that much money, that’s it … I hear of some waiting-list for housing and stuff, but there are years waiting. My plans for the future is just hopefully the Lord will heal me soon and I can get back into work and do this for myself. I don’t like being here, I don’t like asking for help, but I don’t know anything else to do. I could be … my options are either a thief, a drug-dealer or this, as far as I see it.
Dec 23, 1999 San Francisco
At Seacliff, San Francisco, we were watching the sunset with Xavier and Sepehr.
sepehr: When my father was working for the Princess of Iran, which is the Shah’s sis- ter, they were calling Iran a second France because of this lush greenery and its beauty, because people could actually come there and visit without being suppressed by reli- gious believes and so on … That soon changed very rapidly. That was at the time of our departure, the revolution, that’s when my father saw and foresaw it happening and basically took him and his whole family and requested a four years mission to the Uni- ted States by the council and was granted … and he landed here … That’s how I ended up in San Francisco.
Jan 5, 2000 Havana, Cuba
The second day in Havana we met Valerio and his bicycle.
valerio: Je suis Italien , j’habite a la frontiere Suisse et pendant mes vacances je fait des tours, deux, trois, quatre milles kilometres. Cette années j’ai décidé de venir á Cuba parce que ça m’interesse. J’ai fait beaucoup de pays, trente-trois pays mais pas pendant les vacances c’est un compromis entre le choix de faire le routard, faire le tour du monde et travailler normalement, pendant les vacances un mois, un mois et demi je fait des choses comme ca.
J’ai fait des pays arabes, j’ai fait le tour complet de la mediteranée je pense que je suis le premier parce que personne ne pouvais traversé la Lybie avant, et maintenant l’Algerie c’est interdit, alors je pense etre le premier de l’histoire a faire le grand tour en bicyclette, j’ai fait l’Australie, l’Argentine, le désert, j’aime le désert.
Jan 3, 2000 Rio de Janeiro
In Rio de Janeiro, there is a central of rumours.
– I have a central of rumours. You can ring me and I give you the best rumours of the week. What rumours are up and what are down in the … in the … how do you say … the New York … emmhm, the monetary system, the vulato, the … some rumours are souvulato, they are souvulato and they use to appear and disappear and appear in another country. And one of them is about some extraterrestrials called Chubacabras. Chubacabras are like the ghosts, the goats, not the ghosts, the goats, some extraterres- trial with … I haven’t seen one of them, but they let there… the best for you, to follow the Chubacabras, you have to go to Basha de Fluminese where they attack the goats and even the oxen. Maybe you can find them if you go with me. I will take you by bus or by car or by bicycle and there are lots of troubles to get in but it’s very funny! I have a photo of one of the creatures, I got one of them, but I have sent it to NASA to study, to make DNA-exams et cetera. Maybe I can sell you same photos of that, it’s for sale now and you can ring the Rumour Central, the number is 222 2222.
Thank you.
Feb 2, 2000 Teresopolis, Brazil.
Tatiana took us to the mountain to visit her grandmother Anita.
anita (shows some photos):… today he is one year, today …
(She takes the phone) … I like this … hi hi hi … my head is computed!
tatiana: She remembers everything, she knows everybody’s phone-number. She’s the owner of a super-telephone contact net, she phones everybody every day.
anita: Tatiana, Lucia … very expensive. (She talks on the phone).
tatiana: My aunt wanted to give her a computer, but she didn’t want it. But when I was in Berlin she went to my mum’s place everyday and wrote e-mails. She says she would get crazy, she thinks she would become a slave of the computer. All the time goes to writing on the computer everywhere in the world, it’s terrible, but my aunt likes it.
Feb 8, 2000 Maui, Hawaii.
On Maui we stayed at the Banana Bungalow. There we met Eric and Sheldon and we took the highway to Hana.
eric: My name is Eric Thomson and I am from Pittsfield, Massachusetts. We are on the island of Maui, on the north side of the east Maui, which is is one big volcano cal- led Haleakala. We are on the road to Hana and it is February 8th, 2000. When I first came to Hawaii, I stayed in this place where the water gets really deep off the cliffs, cal- led Sandy Beach: and I didn’t know how you can tell if there are sharks or not. Some locals had a term called ”sharky”, so I guess they know when the sharks are there and when they’re not. They have a pretty good feeling anyway, so, I asked this guy, he wasn’t a local guy, but he had lived there for twenty years. How do these guys know where there are sharks in the water? Well, the way I do it is, go to the water, you go close to the water, put your finger in the water, you put your finger out and you taste it. If it tastes salty, there are sharks in the water. That’s how you tell. There are sharks eve- rywhere but they don’t attack you, if sharks liked to eat people, there wouldn’t be any people left in the ocean, because they can swim so much faster.
Feb 13, 2000 Maui, Hawaii.
Sean is a marine biologist from Texas, working on Maui.
sean: My name is Sean, Sean Sanders and I am from Texas. I graduated from Texas ANM, I have a degree in marine biology. I came out here in May to study the dolphins and I was only supposed to stay for the summer, but I ended up staying a little bit long- er, and I will be here at least to the next summer studying the whales, doing photo-ID, taking pictures of them … figure out how many whales we got down here, where do they come from, where do they go and that kind of stuff … It’s a pretty neat thing to do, it’s a pretty big sacrifice coming out here, it’s a lot of fun though!
Feb 20, 2000 Sydney, Australia.
Gail is showing us around, telling us about herself, her work, the city and the Operahouse.
gail: I’m Gail and I live in Sydney. I have only been living in Sydney while I made an art-work, so I don’t know where I will be living, Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane.
A day in Sydney up until just recently involved waking up at 4.30 and putting on work-clothes, walking from the Cross, along the harbour, along Woolloomalloo into the Art Gallery and working, very difficult physical work in the wood workshop, with all the people behind the scene of the museum. That was very exciting … it is a com- pletely different world, it’s like in the museum, it is all light, but behind this doors it is all dark. And everyone wears work-clothes and is busy and stressed and trying to manage to do things and then all of a sudden you walk from that world into the muse- um where everyone is wearing their best clothes and walking around very leisurely, looking at things, not speaking and … So I enjoyed the double take of a place when having really only experienced the light museum situation. It’s nice to see this other side of it, it is like looking behind the looking glass in a way.
Feb 27, 2000 Melbourne, Australia
We visited Sten and Elizabeth Lindeberg’s and their four children Carl, Erik, Marcus and Annelis in Melbourne.
sten: We decided to postpone our honeymoon and work for a year. We moved over from the United Arab Emirates over to Kuwait. We moved to Kuwait in the end of July. And on August 2nd Saddam decided to invade Kuwait and we got stuck in that drama. elizabeth: We lived next to the palace, so … what do you say … Sten’s boss rang up at 6.30 in the morning and said ”Oh, it’s an invasion, you better not go to work today” and we thought that’s okay, we went back to sleep and thought that was great. And then at 8.30 the bombing started, and we were living next to the palace, so the palace was being bombed and we then realised it was a little bit more dangerous than we first thought. sten: We were kept in house arrest for about a month in Kuwait and then they trans- ported us through Iraq, promising us that we would be able to leave across the border to Turkey. When we got to the Turkish border they decided only to let a few people go, out of the hundreds that had come up to the border. Elizabeth were fortunate to get across. elizabeth: Most of the women and children from the Swedish contingent.
sten: The rest of us were taken back down to Baghdad, where we were kept as a human shield for about three months. The first six months of our marriage, when we thought we were going to work and save money, ended up being a disaster.
Mar 9, 2000 Tokyo, Japan
At our hotel, the manager Minato Kisaburo, showed us how to arrange flowers.
kisaburo: So, I have already made it at school, but I have to rebuild it. There are seven pieces. I must cut this in the water otherwise they will soon die. So if I cut it in water they can stay alive longer. I must bend it a little bit.
anna: Doesn’t it break?
kisaburo: No, you must be gentle like with ladies, you see! (He explains the flower arrangement.) This one, the tallest one, we call it ten, it means heaven. Ten, and this is earth. And this is man. So, sky, ground, and people. And those are helpers for all these three points. And this is receive, we say tome. So there is a special form. I am just a beginner and this is what I study, beginner’s special rules. And then you start to se the balance, for instance this one, this one and this one are held with a string. And this one has to be very straight. This is the centre.
Mar 21, 2000 Through China
On the train from Beijing to Hong Kong we met Chris from Austria and Mr. Liu from Hong Kong. Chris has lived in China for three years. Mr. Liu was born in China, but moved to Hong Kong when he was young.
chris: I found out that if I don’t have a girlfriend I have to move. I am moving pretty much. I don’t know why. They keep running away, you know … it’s maybe my fault? They keep running away and I keep on learning languages, right!
michel: Do you like Asia specially, or?
chris: Mmmmm, it’s nice because there are lots of contrasts here, lots of extremes. You come here and it’s like ooh, whatever you do you always get into nice situations, sometimes complicated, sometimes … people try to beat you up! During the embassy bombing I was jogging when ten or fifteen people tried to beat me up! You Americans! I’m not American! Please understand! That was fun, haha!
chris: Mister Liu.
(Chris and Mr. Liu speak Chinese.)
chris: When he was nineteen he went from Kenjin to Hong Kong …
(Chris and Mr. Liu speak Chinese.)
chris: When he was nineteen he went on a ship to America and to Russia and all over. So now he’s finished working, he is not working anymore.
anna: What did he do when he was working?
chris: He didn’t tell, hahaha!
(Mr. Liu speak Chinese.)
chris: He is sixty-two. Forty years ago he moved to Hong Kong. He is an immigrant, you know. He went back to China to see his mother. She is eighty-six years old, she is in Kenjin. China in the nineteen hundreds was really really hard and just after opening up, things started to get better …
(Mr. Liu speak Chinese.)
chris: Now everything is better, in 1997 it started to change, now we can come to China to study, everything is nice, it was kind of unimaginable before, very hard life, very hard, everybody had to work hard …
Mar 25, 2000 In the air
In the air between Hong Kong and Bombay we met Arvind.
arvind: I am from Palo Alto, California, south of San Francisco. I went to university in Stanford. After I finished I was assistant professor and then I went to work in an indus- try. Now I have my own company, that basically does printing and publishing. Our work involves preparations of digital files for both physical printing and electronic publishing. We have an office in Bombay. Because it is half way around the world, our office in Cali- fornia works daytime and at night they send everything to India and they work on their daytime and in the morning they send it back! We have customers who bring in work at 6.00 in the evening and say: ”We must have it by 10.00 tomorrow morning! You have to find a way to do it!” And we say: ”How about 9.00 tomorrow morning?” And they say: ”How is that possible?” We decided long time ago that rather than to bring Indian pro- grammers to America we would send the work back to India. That was a much more sensible thing to do. You don’t disrupt the life of people and they are still very eager and anxious to work. It has worked out better than we thought. When I was young and very idealistic I used to think it’s bad that a country like India is loosing all its brainpower to America. I was also part of this brain drain, and I felt very bad about it. But now I realise that actually, that was just wrong thinking on my part. I may have gone to America but ten other people came up in India who could do just the same thing as I could do. And now as we are on both sides of the world we can collaborate so it is actually very good.
Mar 30, 2000 Jaisalmer, India
At the main square in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, we met Shaman, a rikshaw-driver. shaman: This?(Points at his forehead.)
anna: Yes! Do you put it on every day or is it always there?
shaman: No, everyday I put. Every day. I go to temple in the morning time, I pray there, and there is one small pot of sandalwood and everyday lots of people make, some people make red some make yellow, every colour is different …
anna: Does it mean different things?
shaman: No, it’s the same, but some people like yellow, some people like red … michel: So we could do it, too?
shaman: Yes, yes, you can do it, it’s for luck. And it is good! Some people come and they think he has been to the temple, he is nice he is good, so no problems! Always be, where ever you go, always be happy! No problem!
Mar 3, 2000 Jaisalmer, India
To get henna-painted hands we visited Bobby in her house in the heart of Jaisalmer.
bobby: My name is Bobby. When I was born I got this very big Indian name, Vedje Lak- smi Vias. I put a short name for tourists that’s easy to remember! My house is very old, ten generations passed here. My grandmother gave it to my mother when she died, and my mother will give it to my brother’s wife. So, we will never sell our jewellery. I have a beauty salon. I make ladies beautiful: massage, face-shield, waxing, manicure, pedicure. anna: How long have you …
bobby: Seven years. In India it is very hard for a woman to start a business like this. Because there are no women in Jaisalmer who are educated. Everywhere there’s men in
the competition. If you’re a woman, they try to cut your business, because they don’t like it. It’s really hard, but since I have been doing this for seven years, I’ve met a lot of people and got my name in a guide-book, so if people recommend me I will go into the Lonely Planet. It is good for business, and my business are in progress … Both Indians and fo- reigners are coming here. I haven’t travelled but I have got a lot of experience about tra- velling! It costs a lot of money to travel, and now we are collecting money for our dowry, you know dowry? When a woman get married in India, the woman’s family pay dowry to the husband’s family. It costs like one lak, do you know one lak? One and one, two, three, four, six zero. I don’t think there’s a good guy in Jaisalmer. They are all smoking, drinking, perhaps some one from Jaipur, it is a nice place! Maybe you send me a guy!
Apr 17, 2000 Kenya
Paul was our guide and driver for a week. He took us to the national parks of Masai Mara, Nakuru and Samburu.
michel: We read in the guest-book, that Paul knows everything about everything, is that true?
paul: Haha, you can’t know everything, you know some percentage, you keep on lear- ning as you go along, there is always something new. We had a few encounters with animals: buffaloes hitting the van one time and the door was coming off, that was serious experience, and in Amboseli we had one of the windows broken by an elep- hant. It was at night, we were sleeping, but we had food in the van so he could smell the pineapples and the bananas.
michel: Do you have any favourite animals?
michel: Elephants, they are quite intelligent. If you look at them for a longer time you can see that they are quite smart and different. The trunk, the way they use the trunk.
Apr 20, 2000 Masai Mara, Kenya
At our camp in Masai Mara we met James.
james: Two years ago I killed a female lion. The lion came to take my cow. Very near, so you see the lion from here and the cow from here, the lion you see this side, you rotate and go from the back of the lion then he comes slowly. So after cut here you throw the spear, so the lion jump and turn and go about 1km then he died after one spear … Because you kill from the back and the spear comes out this side, cut the heart.
Apr 28, 2000 London, U.K.
In London we had lunch with Lisa.
lisa: I didn’t live in a house with a bathroom until I was 15. And I think that’s kind of why I now live in London. I could never live anywhere else, because I want central hea- ting, hot water, a computer and all that kind of stuff, luxuries. I think that when I have children I will live in big city. I will never let them grow up out of a big city, never. I don’t think that I am happy here because of London, I am happy here because of my fri- end, really. And if I could be transplanted anywhere else in the world it would be exactly the same. But I think that I try really hard to think about where I live and what I do in the most positive way possible, because you have to. Everyone has millions of troubles and lots of things to worry about and you have to just think about things as being good, cause if you don’t, you would just being depressed and don’t do anything really.
19 May 1998, Australia
”I have become almost as romantic as Michel! I pick every picture that comes in my way. Like flowers in the fields of the world … Australia is quite nice, Sydney, Melbour- ne and Perth. The aborigines have got one of the best sites around and Java is not too far from here. My last adventure for today was Woolloongabba. I did not nick anything there, because I want to say hello to Rob first.”
Wed, 20 May 1998 07:42:04 +1100
From: Robert Whyte Organization
Your project sounds great. Woolloongabba is part of Brisbane, as you would see from our site – and we have just put up another subsite about WestEnd which is nearby Woolloongabba. Our ISP Powerup, sponsors of our Brisbane Stories site, particularly like the Gabba which is their stomping grounds. At ToadShow, (our first office was in the Gabba) we also do the Great South East website – spanning a few more places in this local area. (see addresses below) Let us know if you are making a physical visit, and keep in touch. I will look at your site and try making it a link in our links section.
Good luck, Rob
Thu, 21 May 1998 09:23:24 +1100
From: Robert Whyte Organization
If you want to find out how the geography works, try the tour section of Brisbane Stories. http://brisbanestories.powerup.com.au/tours/tours_frames.htm There are lots of virtual places to navigate through there, and a few Links to friends who have done virtual Brisba- ne things like Scott Bennet’s VR of our City Square & his flat in Highgate Hill. I will be loo- king at your site soon & I’ll get back to you with a response. We’re having a Queensland State election here (politics) and it’s fairly busy. (Long story)
Rob
”Communication! There are people out there in cyberspace, who you can meet by accident, just like in real reality. You find something that catches your attention. One idea, one thing brings to another, just like links on sites.”
17 | glänta 4.00
Real Woolloongabba, Mar 29, 2000
29 Feb 2000, Brisbane, Australia
”We are now staying at the Explorer Inn, central Brisbane, waiting for the rain to stop. Yesterday we went to Woolloongabba. The site wasn’t what we expected. The area is undergoing a fundamental reconstruction. A new football stadium for the Olympics has been built and the old wooden houses are torn down to give place for new high- ways. In our opinion there is already too much traffic in Brisbane.”
Wed, 1 Mar 2000 15:44:41 +1000
Tricia Head <tricia@toadshow.com.au>
Hi Anna and Michel,
I’m on the Brisbane Stories mailing list (the site that ’the Gabba’ is a part of) and we’ve received a copy of your report from Australia. It is disappointing that you had to see the Gabba the way it is at the moment – mayhem! Have a good trip, good luck with getting up north and I hope the rest of your time in Brisbane is fun.
Wed, 1 Mar 2000 16:32:49 +1000
It’s interesting. I was just looking at the site again – at the Stanley Street Walk part of it – and realised it kind of looks like a nice quiet walk. When in actual fact it has been a noisy, busy, polluted street for years. It is much worse now though. I guess the designers of the site wanted to put across the idea that the look of the street (i.e. the shops and buildings, not the road) hasn’t changed much over the last hundred years or so. And that’s true.Hey, are you still in Brisbane? Would you like to pop up and see us here at ToadShow? Rob tells me you called the other day and he was rushing out and couldn’t speak to you. Perhaps you could come tomorrow. We’re not far from the Explorers Inn.
Cheers, Tricia Head
4 Mar 2000, Brisbane, Australia
”Life on the other side of the planet is surprisingly very much like home. A few important differences are obvious though: the temperature, the way the water runs down the drain in the opposite direction, the sun up in the north and to be standing, walking, sleeping upside down.
Fair dinkum, nothing but the truth.”
28/2/00 3:36 PM /
28 Feb 2000 16:30:33
hi Rob,
Worldtour is in Brisbane! It would be nice to meet you, can you mail us a telephonenumber?
work 32xxx xx11
hope to see you, Anna & Michel
cheers, Rob
18 | glänta 4.00
Virtual Woolloongabba, May 19, 1998
23 May 1998, Japan
”We have been surfing in darkness. The language or code-system is so rare that it does not stimulate my fantasy more than the black squares representing web-cams all around Japan. In the afternoon I suddenly found Michel at the same sumo-site as myself. We surfed together to the night-club Code … Not very exciting.”
6 Mar 2000, Tokyo, Japan
”Simple things like taking your shoes off before you go inside, sleeping on a large futon, taking a hot bath makes you feel comfortable at once. It is terribly cold outside (about 30 degrees colder than in Australia) and we are freezing, missing our winter- clothes that we sent home already from San Francisco in December.”
”We could be staying here for another few months if we could afford it. It is a thrill for all senses. The Japanese cuisine is an adventure and the aesthetics is so appealing; the way things are made with great simplicity and care, a golden string around a rolled plastic bag, the end of the toilet paper folded as a triangle, the umbrella-holder at the Museum for Contemporary art … It is a sharp contrast to the new technology.”
12 Mar 2000, Tokyo, Japan
”Saturday night we decided to visit the nightclub Code together. Michel showed his press-card and we told them about our project. They smiled shyly nodded their heads, didn’t seem to understand but let us in with a polite bow. Outside in the street of Shin- juku it looked worse than a Saturday-night in Sweden. Japanese teenagers, too drunk, fainted or collapsed in the gutter in their own vomit.”
Communication, Tokyo, Mar 6, 2000
24 Mar 2000, Hong Kong
”Last week we managed to get a visa to China and a train ticket to Beijing. The 30 hours it took to go to Beijing passed quickly. The Chinese landscape passed by outside the windows, small villages, rice fields and yellow flowers. We passed factories spitting out clouds of black smoke and villages nearby covered with a grey layer of dust. In the countryside we saw people working with their water buffaloes and in endless suburbs large groups of men were building houses with their bare hands. Sharing compartment with the Chinese people was quite funny. Smiling and nodding not able to understand a word.”
A taxi drove us from Beijing Rainbow to the Great Wall of China. The wall follo- wing the edge of the mountain towards the horizon was an impressive sight. It is actu- ally 6000 kilometres long so we didn’t see all of it. (The only way to do so is from the moon.) We took a cable car to the highest point at Badaling, 888 meters, and climbed the last steep part by foot.
The same night after a great dinner – Wo bu chi gourou.- I don’t eat dog- we joined some Japanese businessmen and ”Chinese ladies” working at the hotel, for a memora- ble Karaokae. Anna sang ”Michelle”, Michel sang his brains out in a titanic duo and Darren and Lisa sang ”Only you” to each other …”
Bridge, Hong Kong, Mar 14, 2000
24 May 1998, China
”A short day in China and we did not see much. Took a tour along the Great Wall and through the Forbidden City. Unfortunately we did not have the time to plunge deeper into all the information. A lot is in English and it seems very well structured. We did not find any live web-cams, but an art magazine and the Chinese daily news. They also ask a daily question: Will the success of Hong Kong’s Sunday election help to persuade Taiwan to speed-up reunification with the mainland, as Beijing hopes?
”Lots of links about the Chinese history, languages and regions to visit but you can also find links to Tibet or Taiwan. Wish we could stay here for a few more days because China is getting bigger and bigger; the number of links between the States and China was also impressing.”
”Our last day in Beijing was grey and rainy. We walked the narrow back streets of our surroundings. People busy everywhere, but yet every time they got the chance started to talk and laugh with us. We met a man without a name who was a history teacher and joined him watching his house being torn down. In a park we met some old men sitting chatting with their birds in cages. On a street corner we tried to communicate with 5 girls making noodles and 5 guys selling cigarettes. All in all it was an odd situa- tion, without words but not silent …”
Anna and Michel on the Wall, China, Mar 19, 2000
25 May 1998, India.
”I investigate India today. I end up all over the world and even on Mars. So after the Bomb there is perhaps still a place to go, to live on, to be home …”
”It has been a long and hot day through the desert, the jungle and rice fields and after a few arguments with my fellow traveller I started to wonder what the h … I was doing here … Today’s news all over the Indian subcontinent (Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Maldives) has been about the nuclear tests, patriotism and bad feelings about their neighbours …”
25 Mar – 16 April 2000, India
”We took a rikshaw to a cheap hotel just at the western gate of the Taj Mahal. The dri- ver Muna convinced us that he would pick us up again next morning to show us the town. The next day at 9 am he was there ready for a sight seeing. As we had quite a lot of work to do he only drove us to an Internet place where he waited until late that night to bring us back home.”
”In the street we got really tired of people constantly hassling us, trying to pull us in to their rikshas, begging for baksheesh or wanting to take our picture. One night we woke up because of a monkey baby was climbing on the bars outside the window.”
” Shanti, shanti, patience is a virtue. You need a lot of that in India. Getting our train tickets from Agra to Goa took us two days and 5 hours of cueing together with Indian Freedom Fighters and their officers. Travelling by train in India is another pati- ence test. We left Jaisalmer with the night train to Jodhpur. 13 hours. Then on to the next train for another 20 hours going on at an average speed of 37 km per hour.
Our longest journey down to Goa, 2200 kilometres, took about 40 hours. The train was crowded, the temperature reached 43 degrees.”
Taj Mahal, India, Apr 7, 2000
28 May 1998, Africa
”Angolans invaded Namibia to say hello to Michael Jackson. I visited president J.T. Chiluba of Zambia and Steve Caballero of the jungle in Botswana, who organises Pha- kawe Safaris. Ten days costs about $950 per person to go by a Nissan ”safari” through Moremi Chobe & Okavango, or where ever you like to go. Africa is such a huge conti- nent. Internet-connections are not so common, except from South Africa, which has one of the largest markets on Internet in the world. Today more links than words. I have been reading myself through the day!”
17–27 April 2000, Kenya, Africa
”Hello Africa! Coming from Bombay, we didn’t get too much of a culture chock. It was like coming back to the civilisation, with the only problem that people don’t go out after six because of robbery and danger.
On Monday we booked our Safari -which means travelling in Swahili- with Savuka Tours. We decided to go for a seven days safari, to explore the country and to put a foot in Rift Valley, ”the cradle of Mankind”.
”The first three nights we stayed in Masai Mara, at a camp run by the Masai-people. In the mornings we woke up at dawn for breakfast and then we set off for the game drive looking for the big five: sleepy Lions, resting Leopards, eating Buffaloes, Rhinos and lots of Elephants! We found them all plus much more of the extraordinary but lazy wildlife. And the last day we even managed to spot a land turtle in the grass. After darkness we were back in the camp. Without electricity we enjoyed the company of the Masai-people drinking tea around the fire. ”
Taj Mahal, India, Apr 7, 2000
30 May 1998, Europe
From Spain to Finland huge telecommunication companies are fighting for users and clients … the net is developing so fast we see no end to it … we are really tired of travel- ling in this strange digital world, that’s it. The trip is over.
29 April 2000, Sweden
”Outside the train window, green fields are passing by, we are crossing a few rivers, the air is pure and the streets are clean and empty. We are home.
Copyright fotografier: Michel Thomas
Projektet genomfört med stöd av Stiftelsen Framtidens kultur