Ah, and on saturday I’ll have to leave Gent early enough to be back in Amsterdam, because I’ll be performing with Oorbeek at the Cyclic!-event: bikes & art. I will be playing QuicktimePro and banjo (no I’m not joking), and wear my 1975/1976 Gitane-Campagnolo shirt: http://www.cyclicamsterdam.blogspot.com/.

Tomorrow I’ll be in Gent. I will moderate a talk with Edwin van der Heide, TeZ, Lucas van der Velden (telcosystems), Bas van Koolwijk and Gert-Jan Prins as part of the Almost Cinema-program: http://vooruit.be/nl/event/2023.

This summer I wrote a short piece on Finnegans Wake and Vico for the catalogue of the exhibition Lunar Distance at De Hallen in Haarlem. It’s available now, and I am very happy with the publication — I like it a lot, it’s very beautifully designed. (And btw, the exhibtion is worth while visiting too, runs till 29th November): http://www.lunardistance.nl/.

Nauwelijks een ritje eigenlijk, begin van de avond even snel de racefiets op, bij storm en sporadische buien: herfst. Om geluidsopnames te maken voor een Oorbeek-performance op het Cyclic-event volgende week zaterdag: http://www.cyclicamsterdam.blogspot.com/. (Ik vrees dat de opnames meer gaan over laag overvliegende vliegtuigen dan over fietsen bij storm — ze volgden elkaar binnen de minuut op). Wel lekker om bij dat weer te rijden: er is verder niemand onderweg.

Marcusstraat – Amstel – dijkje naar snelweg – langs snelweg – Amstel – Marcusstraat

I missed this earlier: HUO interviews Raoul Vaneigem: http://e-flux.com/journal/view/62.

Ik vind het geen fietsweer. Warm, benauwd, windstil, bewolkt. Toch een rondje omdat je bij stilzitten ook de rijwind mist. Geen puf voor inspanning. En, net als gisteren, in het Florapark (toekomstig Noorderpark) geweest waar F. een week ‘artist in residence’ was. (Het uitzichtspunt/shelter dat ze bouwde staat er nog tot morgen — tenminste als de nachtelijke bezoekers van het park het met rust laten). Op de terugweg kreeg ik de volle laag: warme regen. Ik was met reden op mn slechtweerfiets.

Marcusstraat – Schellingwouderbrug – Durgerdam – Uitdam – Zuiderwoude – Broek in Waterland – Schouw – Florapark – pont – Piet Heinkade – Marcusstraat

This afternoon I’ll take a break and cycle up to the Florapark, where F’s Dream Depot has a small exhibition (until April 10th) at the Noorderparkkamer: http://www.noorderparkkamer.nl/: Kijk wij hebben papier gemaakt!. It shows the results of a paper-making workshop at a school in Amsterdam-Noord, and also photographs of the project. A few are online at the still temporary lo-tech website of Dream Depot: http://www.dreamdepot.org.

Just reading a bunch of reviews and essays I come across this in a London Review of Books essay on computer games by John Lanchester:

“Northrop Frye once observed that all conventions, as conventions, are more or less insane; Stanley Cavell once pointed out that the conventions of cinema are just as arbitrary as those of opera. Both those observations are brought to mind by video games, which are full, overfull, of exactly that kind of arbitrary convention. Many of these conventions make the game more difficult. Gaming is a much more resistant, frustrating medium than its cultural competitors. Older media have largely abandoned the idea that difficulty is a virtue; if I had to name one high-cultural notion that had died in my adult lifetime, it would be the idea that difficulty is artistically desirable. It’s a bit of an irony that difficulty thrives in the newest medium of all – and it’s not by accident, either. One of the most common complaints regular gamers make in reviewing new offerings is that they are too easy. (It would be nice if a little bit of that leaked over into the book world.)”

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n01/lanc01_.html

I’m not sure if I totally agree with this (but I’m not a gamer), but as a quote I like it.

5 students of the Rietveld Academy (interaction / unstable media) have written a manifesto. There’s a presentation tonight at OCCI, Amsterdam: http://idum5.net/the-vidum-manifesto/.

Informal exchange about contemporary art — in Dutch: http://www.endlesslowlands.nl.