Social Networks

Zdeňek Hůla

They say that people tend to be happier when they are members of strong social networks. As much of a misanthropic loner as I am, I believe that social networks are good things. This is the time of year when it is nice to receive words & images from friends one has been unable to see in person during the year.

Bohuslava Franková

Franta & Milada Stoček & Pavel

Franta Skala Always On My Mind

André Stitt's planned gig in San Francisco fell through, so I went up to Portland to see him there at Sabala's, on Hawthorne near Mt. Tabor. Except for 5 minutes in a Reed College dorm parking lot in 1977, and 15 minutes standing on the curb outside Union Station in 2003, I'd never been to Portland, & I'd always meant to go, so this was a good excuse.

I also wanted to meet Paul Lambert, a writer & artist I'd been corresponding with for the past 8 or 9 months. Paul had offered me bunk space at his house in SE, not too far from Sabala's, so I dropped off my bag & Paul & I went out for Thai food. Here's Paul at his house:
After dinner Paul & I went to the show. For some reason I'd thought he knew André but I was wrong. André's a pretty hard-core performance artist originally from Northern Ireland, lived in London for a long time, now he's living in Cardiff, Wales, directs the Time Based Arts course at Cardiff School of Art, teaches at University of Wales, founded & directs trace: installation artspace.

I first met André in 1989 when he, Shaun Caton & Tara Babel performed in San Francisco at Artists Television Access, had seen him a couple times since, most recently in 2001 when he invited me to London for the Span2 festival he'd produced. Anyway, on this tour he's doing music, as Panacea Society, he's the singer, with guitarist/programmer Matt Cook. Here they are at Sabala's:

My Berliner friend Franz John is in town this week setting up his installation Turing Tables at the Exploratorium. The piece, developed in collaboration wih Ed Osborn & brsma, uses live data from global seismics events to create sound & image. This piece is as much about human perception and digital interconnectivity as it is about techtonic events. Turing Tables opened last night & will run through June 18th.

Franz is an interesting artist who often works with the technologies of reproduction: photo-copying the entire inside of a gallery, scanning the sky, turning military bunkers into cameras-obsurae etc. Take a look at his projects at: www.f-john.de

And also his cd-rom project which simultaneously documents the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and transforms that experience into something out of Tarkovsky's Stalker: www.i-n-t-e-r-z-o-n-e.de