Television For The Blind

Originally uploaded by TSHolen

First of I'm a bit angry. If you guys really had to revive skins, then do it properly for fucks sake. Shallow and unrealistically stereotypical characters does not do it by far. Check out episode three of series two and that scene in the club where the Crystal Castles performs Alice Practice while Sid finally realizes what's happened. Dude, you guys aren't even grasping anything remotely near that authenticity in the new series. No need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that that Cooke guy is a migh suicidal and that it has something to do with his mother. Unless there's something impressive hidden behind it, I am ready to stop spending any more time on this series.

Speaking of television series; ever since I downloaded Smallville when it first came I have been aware of all the bad that comes with downloading series. Television series are in general made with the intention to get you rather addicted to them, - make you tune in your tv next week and all that. You know how this works, after the episode is finished pretty much all you can think of is how it continues in the next episode. The problem is that when you download several episodes and see them in a row this addictive element gets rather amplified. Obviously your own life seems disappointingly uneventful compared to that of the protagonist in the tv show. And you get super-addicted to watching the show. The worst is if the show mainly follows one character because then your life seems to follow his/hers in a way. If things go to shit with him/her you feel bad and the opposite. And when you sit there with a happy feeling after watching, in the end you realize that it doesn't really matter at all. It is not real (a lot like what I know accomplishments in computer games also makes you feel), it feels kind of shit, doesn't it? Of course if you end up feeling bad because something went to hell in the show then it really isn't as easy to shake it off. In essence the series makes your life seem pretty uninteresting. In this light it is funny that it is a well known fact that the Norwegian prime minister is a big fan of Sopranos and that he watches a lot tv-series. I can't help but wonder if he feels the same way after watching a show.

The other day my mom tipped me of this study saying that a lot of young people are suffering hearing losses because of playing music too loud in iPods and other mp3-players. I guess this is not really that unbelievable. My brother once said that he thought that this decade would be the one when everyone started experiencing the world around them with a soundtrack. Music in your ears. Constantly. I really think he was onto something, and another thing that strikes me is that in order to actually have contact with someone you meet on the streets of a big city (I only really have experience with London but I'm guessing it's the same everywhere) you have to have them take out a plug playing music in their ears. And that will only happen after you've taken out yours to start the conversation. Real world sound is second to that of your iPod and you are not really meant to have anyone talk to you, unless of course it's through your phone which incidentally is connected to, again, earphones. To top it all, today I was sitting on the bus next to an old fella. It seemed he had some difficulties breathing as his throat seemed to give of some kind of ticking noise once and again. After a while I realized how impossibly rhythmic his breathing was and to be honest I thought it sounded rather like a snare drum of some sort. I looked at him to check if the ancient guy could really be wearing headphones, and no it didn't seem so. The only ear I could properly see was filled with hair and wax, but no earphone. So I went back to listening, and I really couldn't help but making out a kick drum and some synths to go with the snare, and I even felt I knew the rhythm from somewhere. And then suddenly he gets up to leave and I notice that his other ear is indeed not quite as empty and a white little apple plug is anchored in between the hair and all that other stuff. And would you believe it, the old man sitting next to me was listening to Let It Rock by Kevin Rudolf and Lil Wayne! Not only is it a rather hip-hoppy track, it is actually pretty new too. Made my morning that one.

The other day we were out clubbin' at local Oceana (really ought to try some of the others soonish..?). Pretty allright night, didn't get too drunk but all in all good fun. In the queue I started becoming aware of the excessive number of guys wearing hats. I didn't really give it much thought seeing as, well, English guys like to wear hats sometimes. Anyways, inside we noticed a girl wearing a corset and hot pants dancing up on a platformy thing in the spotlight. In my understanding corset and hot pants are categorized as underwear. Not so much like that for her, for her it was more like: proper party wear. I know I'll get in trouble for this, but I have to say that I get a bit nauseous thinking about how she in every probability would complain to her equally dressed friends how the boys were coming on to her like she'd invited them to it or something. Now, let's say we skip that part where all the girls get f-ing angry saying that they should be allowed to wear whatever they want without having to become a rape offer. 'Even if the fruit is peeled it isn't yours to take' and all of that. I do by no means say that the guys have any right to take whatever they like because you wear, well, underwear or something other rather sexually inviting. But do you not see the POSSIBILITY that _maybe_ it gives some sort of signal when you yourself seemingly try to rape the railing on the platform your dancing on in the spotlight in a club. No? Anyways, this is more of a general frustration and not solely based on this happening, because it seems that very night was a themed one, namely 'Pimps and Pornstars', fair enough I guess. I have to say though, that when the spotlight was moved from one platform to the other, we noticed that our trusty underwear-clad friend had moved along with the light. Conveniently.

Another memorable thing happened in the club. We were dancing to some awesome-ish british drum and bass, and the Dj and the song agreed that everyone ought to have their hands in the air and jump. The kind of thing you hate when you hear the song the first time on the radio or whatever, but do rather shamelessly in the club. Anyways, when you do this there's the rather frequent situation where someone's head comes beneath your elbow on your way down from a jump and it all results in a heavy thump in that someone's head. I was wary of this happening, and therefore kept my eyes looking out for people. It just so happened that a guy standing not far from me went and smashed his elbow into some girls head, - rather hard I'd say. He seemed very sorry and apologized to the girl. Her (rather enormous) boyfriend was not impressed by the apology, and seemed to think it appropriate to trust violence to solve it. The other guy, foresighted enough to realize what the biggie was about to do was already moving away when mr tough guy launched his punch. Now here's the brilliant part: in doing so, running away that is, the guy accidentally pushed the girl into the trajectory of the punch making the big guy punch his girlfriend right in the head, making it her second head trauma for the night. It was a pretty awesome sight, and I really hope that guy got away in time because the brute seemed rather ill-content with him punching his own girlfriend being the final act of the exchange.

I'll try to write more often here, but I'm not sure that I will be able to. I'm more of a 'one f-ing big post now and then' than 'a small post every other day'-type i guess. Anyways, have a good one!

Pigeon Wharf

Pigeon Wharf
Originally uploaded by TSHolen

It's been a while since last post now. This is by no means of lack of stuff to write about, more the opposite to be honest.

Christmas was good, very good. To be frank, it was so cool meeting everyone again that going back kind of sucked for some days. And we DID have some good parties. As usual I have serious difficulties remembering what actually happened at these, but I am fairly positive I had fun. As far as parties goes, I feel the climax was reached new years eve. For the very first time (ever) I dared host myself, and I am truly impressed by how good everyone behaved. In fact after getting some recaps of the night, I actually have an inkling it was I who was the biggest troublemaker there. Impressive stuff. This conclusion was reached after hearing accounts of how I managed to drop my phone in a glass of water while speaking on it, only to continue the conversation casually with a wet phone (the poor thing is dying anyways) after fishing it up (I believe; with some difficulty) out of the glass. Apparently the guy I was speaking to, who had earlier seen the state I was in, merely thought it sounded like I drowned for a while. I don't blame him for not being overly surprised that it sounded like I was doing something crazy.

Following a photographic dry spell I finally managed to do a project I've been thinking of/planning for half a year. Big ups to you guys for actually showing up to do it. And sorry if anyone feels left out, but the 'roles' were taken so I couldn't add any people. I've got the films developed, and it's looking pretty good..! Now I only need to find time to scan them all (and the 8 other films I recently developed) within the 10am-5pm time frame the scanning room is open. This is actually such a big hassle that I consider buying my own scanner. It is pretty damned annoying to attend a university (for which I am paying £10k p.a.) and have colour negative processing, b&w processing, colour and b&w print-darkrooms, a studio (in fact 2), and two scanning rooms that are ONLY open between 10am-5pm. I think you might get an understanding that there is quite a lot that has to happen between those hours every day. And that is granted I have nothing else to do at those times. Of course that is not the case, for this is also when we are having all our lectures, tutorials, workshops and whatnot. And if you know what it involves you might also understand that all of these things; studio, darkroom and scanning, are things that you have to work quite a lot to get started so that there's no use to try and fit these activities in between, before or after etc. Well, all of this is mounting up to the inevitable eventuality that the weekends wind up pretty fucking quiet. All of a sudden nothing can be done. The only thing I really can do is to go out and take more pictures which would again only add to the workload in the week. Hmpf!

The reason why the rooms are not open any longer is that it is not felt that the interest is that great and that the facilities are being exhausted by the number of students using them. Of course not, we are supposed to be everywhere else aren't we? Granted, there really isn't that many students in doing darkroom/analogue work, and honestly I don't know what people are doing because everyone seems to scatter as soon as they have the chance, only to show up with some mediocre digi shots a couple of weeks later. I mean, people, you are paying for this! Maybe not as much as me (actually less than a third), but it's still money..!
And as far as facilities being used, there are really only three dedicated film scanners, and of those three I would find something else to do if none of the two best were available. So that leaves two people to scan. The studio can only effectively be used by one person (with assistant), and it is also nearly always booked. I would stay all night if they were open, honestly. And I do believe some five more students would as well, give or take. Maybe someone new would actually come in in the evenings. Who knows?

On another note. I am beginning to fear that photography is not for me, simply because in the long run, I really don't work well alone. Well, I work well enough, but I just somehow need to be around loads of people on a regular basis. I guess some areas of photography would not work too well, I'm thinking of James Nachtwey who travels around to war zones alone and that stuff. It'd be really awesome, but lonely in the long run I expect.

I feel ashamed to say I have not been following the Gaza war too closely, but I did do some reading up on it. It is and has always been a very complex conflict. One thing has to be said though, when the Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert working in Gaza (up till today) states that he has "seen ONE military person" in the hospital, he really has no reason to lie. The people who are hurt and killed, simply are not military, they are civilians. In lack of a better way to put this:
That is unbelievably wrong!

till next..

Status Quo?

Status Quo?
Originally uploaded by TSHolen

It's been christmas eve. Here in Norway we open our presents in the evening and not the morning after. Weird? Well, sucks to be you, having to wait and all ! I realize that the time when the presents meant everything is long gone by now. Of course I am truly grateful for the stuff I got (some truly awesome things, thanks everyone!), but somehow it seems that my anticipations and expectations were far greater for the reactions the gifts I gave caused.

If you're not into photography or long texts of b.s. I suggest you stop here. Come back next time I post something..!

So this is it. One semester - half of the first year at my BA Photography is done. I have made some work that I am truly proud of (as Vince proposes I will not pass judgement of the mere quality of the work, but regardless of that I can very well choose to be proud of it). It was different, the course that is, than what I expected. I though I would have someone tell me that if you put light from this and this direction that would make good light for a portrait. I'll come back to this some other time.

I am considering different things:
- I just make a jump for it and spend the ridiculous £3k for the lens I have been wanting more than almost any other thing the last two years. A question to be asked here is whether it is probable that this lens will indeed help my photography or whether it'll only make me rely on the lens to create the ompfh in my pictures. Well this is a bigger discussion I'll come back to later. The thing is; I've been wanting this lens for so long, I'm just stuck with the obsession. I mean really if what happens is that I buy it, try it and find it doesn't add anything (indeed it only limits me to use that special effect all the time) and I wind up selling it again, that'd be really good. I'd have been there, done that. And the stupid unproductive lust for this lens would stop (there's actually a specific term that exists for just this).

- I give up all the focus on equipment and start doing photography with some stupidly basic camera that I loath (like canon starter DSLRs; 450d etc). Truly talented people, in any branch of art, are by no means limited by the tools they use. It's in fact easy to point out a truly talented photographer by the fact that he never mentions what camera he uses, and also that he might as well have painted, but found that photography was simpler or something. In terms of music, these are the people who could make a hit song out of a plastic cup and a rubber band (Timbaland actually made a song this way, never released it as far as I know though).

In some respects it is arguable that photography is a form of art where equipment is of significance in the process of making the artworks. The equipment leave a fingerprint if you will. A great person once said (well not so great, as far as I know, this has come out of my own imagination) that in photography as opposed to painting and drawing we empower the camera, lens and film to do decisions for us. When you draw you have to make every line in the picture, in photography you mainly have to decide which lines you want to include. To do another analogy; photography is like driving a car when drawing is like walking. The two are hardly comparable as means of transportation, speedwise anyways. No doubt would it in most circumstances be easier to drive a car - it simply moves faster, _that is_ granted you know how to drive the car. No matter how superior the car might be in terms of speed it is also obvious that the car would not move very well without a driver. And also a different car fits a different need. This means that while we should not rely on the camera, lens and film to create the picture for us, we can (and should) choose whatever is most suitable for our needs. And here comes another question, can one really know what is best (most suitable) equipment without trying everything?

My thing, - or what I like the most about photography is shallow depth of field. There are a number of reasons for this:
- Shallow depth of field is one of the most powerful tools in photography. For me it represents something that we cannot replicate with our eyes, something that is not easily replicated in paintings or drawings, simply because it is an optical phenomena. To a certain degree I feel it helps rid the camera of its 'never lies' reputation.
- Also I believe that it is when a lens is used wide open (at max aperture) it's true characteristics are shown. The lens fingerprint becomes evident, be it good or bad.
- Choosing what is in focus in the picture in turn directs what we as viewers focus our attention to. This means that it is easy to pick something out of a scene to make the viewer pay attention to it.
- The bokeh. This word originates from a Japanese word for out of focus. It has been interpreted and made into different meanings, but often bokeh now refers to how a spot of light is rendered as a bright, round dot when out of focus. While this is a fascinating effect, it is more an invited biproduct of the shallow depth of field than a main motif for me.

This is my comfort zone. This is what I do. I have been asked to do two important things during this course so far. One is: 'Learn to develop your ideas creatively'. The other is: 'Step out of your comfort zone'.
I think the only thing I have been able to really learn about photography (that exceeds what I've learned from my obsession) this far, is to try and have an idea behind the pictures. And I have been working so hard against it. I mean read a couple of these posts and you'll see it, simple as that. Still I believe it is the most valuable thing I've picked up this far.

I think my goal for next term will be to step out of my comfort zone. Try and do some 'stopped down' shots and try not to care about the equipment. It's gonna be hard for me, but it's the only way I'll learn more I believe.

And sorry for the horrendously long post, I had a lot to say. In fact I'm not sure if I'm even finished on this topic yet.

Coke And Airports

The Traveler III
Originally uploaded by TSHolen

This has been, at least in some meanings of the word, a pretty interesting day. Not interesting as in genuinely intriguing and entertaining, more in the sense that ALOT of stuff has happened. A day filled with action. This day is the one the plan was to go back home to Norway for the Christmas holidays. Well, we usually pay a little extra to fly with SAS. For one: because they usually fly from Heathrow which is the airport closest to where we live. Secondly: if they fuck up (airlines are rather good at that), then they are also responsible for getting us back to Molde from Oslo because only they fly there.

Anyways, we managed to run a little late for our bus, so that we almost missed the connecting bus that'd take us to Heathrow. As we left the first bus we waved hysterically to the next bus, so much indeed that it stopped for us. That is something I believe the bus drivers are strongly discouraged to do. Some good luck (we thought).

We got to Heathrow, and made our way to the right terminal and the right gate. Only, the plane was said to leave some thirty minutes later than it said on our tickets. Well, a little postponed then, maybe? I tried the self service machines which told me to contact the service desk ('go fuck yourself!'). We went and talked to a lady in the desk who could tell me that:

'Sir, you're in the wrong airport'

Fuckety-double-fuck! Really, this only happens in movies! We were faced with two options: pay £277 a head to change the tickets to Heathrow tickets (ARE THEY MADE OF GOLD?!) or catch a cab to take us across London in its very entirety to the correct airport (thirdly: just give up the whole damned thing). The correct airport was London City Airport. Now come on, who in the name of what's-his-face has ever heard of London City Airport?! Everybody knows the airports in London are Gatwick, Stansted and Heathrow. No LCA. No no no (the only LCA that should be allowed to exist is the brilliant Lomo LC-A camera, which inspired the whole trend of Lomography) And second of all, when did SAS start flying from that rubbish airport? And why didn't anyone fucking TELL US? (well they probably did several times, but I'm taking the liberty to be angry and accusative nevertheless).

Anyway, the cab driver pretty much laughed at us when we told him our destination. Ninety fucking quid did it cost us. Besides from the unnecessary 'Did you REALLY go to the WRONG airport?' he was pretty much our hero. I wouldn't know this, but apparently going from Heathrow to London Fucking City Airport in an hour is some kind of feat. He was pretty nice about it anyways.

So, well that's pretty much it for today. Some sixty-something pretty painful and expensive minutes in a cab through London, no time for tax-free shopping (in England anyways, plenty in Norway) and we actually managed to get home. And as I get home I realize two things:
my bed is just unbelievably soft
I am no longer the master of my own house, as I was pretty much sent to bed by my mom (hmpf!)

Anyways I have to get up early tomorrow to have the dentist go on for about an hour about me drinking too much coke.
I have a theory about that. A theory of the type: conspiracy. How come everyone is totally addicted to coke? (and I mean the soda/fizzy drink, not cocaine, even though a lot of people are pretty addicted to that too) If you offer a cokeaholic (I am one, and proud) another type of fizzy drink, he will probably accept it (free stuff? yeah!) but he would by no means consider it equal or even similar to coke. Why is this? Coca-Cola was invented in the eighteen hundreds with the purpose to be some sort of medicine against nausea and headaches (I think). Anyways, everybody knows this, because this is what you would always tell your parents in order to get them to buy it to you (whether the headache/nausea was real or completely fictional). The coca in coca-cola is there because of the not-insignifficant content of coca leaves that used to be in coca-cola (cola is for the Kola nuts which is where the caffeine originates from). If you didn't know this, coca leaves are what you use to get cocaine. At some time the guys at cc decided it might be a good idea to reduce the content of COCAINE in the fizzy drink. So they started to use leaves which already had had the cocaine extracted from them. So-called 'spent' leaves. This is all, in accordance to the divine web page called Wikipedia (Wikipedia is your friend).

Oh, so it's not cocaine in it anymore... no no no, they 'extracted' the cocaine. I mean you really have to ask if there's not even the slightest chance that _maybe_ not _all_ of the _cocaine_ got _extracted_? Which again begs the question:

ARE WE ALL REALLY FUCKING COCAINE ADDICTS?!?!?!

I, The Terrorist

Originally uploaded by TSHolen

Done. I am finally finished. Damned essay. While it is on a subject of great interest to me (Magnum Photos), it's still something of a drag. That drag, was indeed the culprit that caused my project to go shit. I had two ideas. One was to photograph lobbies in skyscrapers. I like the design in them. I believe a lot of thought is put into these, seeing as they are one of the first things we see on the scraper.

The other project was to stop strangers on the road and take a picture of them, without including the head. The idea was to see how much you could tell about them from looking at the body (language), I also like the idea of fucking around with them abit, making them smile and stuff. Also that would make them anonymous, and anonymity seems to be something of a theme in my 'work'. In addition I like how people don't really like it when you ask them if you can take a pic of them, while they are photographed hundreds of times every day by mr CCTV.

I went to that business area close to Liverpool street, where that crystal thingie is and that building with the elevators on the outside (I believe they are known as the Gherkin and the Lloys building) are located. First time I brought up the Swede, a security guy came out of nowhere and had a go at me. I produced my precious 'fuck-you-I'm-a-photography-student' letter from Vince, the guy had a very very quick glance at it, but didn't feel that it made any difference. Anyways I left after considering for quite a while to snap a picture of him just for the hell of it. Next building and hard stares. I didn't really approach the building properly, and went on to the next one, which was more 'interesting'. I framed some architectural goodies and stood there for a while looking for someone to walk into my perfect picture. I suddenly noticed someone moving inside behind the windows. It's one of those blasted security guys, I noticed that he was walking towards me looking menacingly at me while seemingly talking to the air around him. Well obviously he wasn't. After I had tried to gesture that I actually couldn't hear him through those plenty centimetres of glass, I turned back to my perfect picture. And in it was a fucking security bastard literarily legging it in my direction. I turned and bailed pretty quickly (really should have just snapped a pic of him running towards me). After that I got the rather unpleasant feeling that every fucking security guy in the area knew about me. They seemed to already be looking for me when I came. I got the slightest inkling I might very well be mistaken for a terrorist. And being mistaken for a terrorist is hardly the coolest thing to do these days, so I left the place after this feeling slightly down to be honest. My feelings from Canary Wharf returned. What, REALLY, is the point in building these rockin' buildings if I can't fucking photograph them?! I mean seriously, did you guys seriously not consider that someone might be interested in photographing a building with the elevators on the outside, or even more a building which gives associations to giant didelydo? ! stupid stupid stupid!

Seeing as that project went to shit, I went to the Magnum Photos agency. I had planned going there, because I'm writing my essay about them and because I seriously dig their shit (well, not literarily though). After nearly an hour of looking after the agency (during which I stumbled over a Leica shop, fucking aye!) I finally stood outside. As I feared, they had one of those press-to-ring-and-talk things. Just as I was about to press it, I realized I had to say something to them. But WHAT? Really, what? 'I want to be a Magum photographer!' ? Like how many millions of others? Well anyways I babbled something about being a photog student and a nice lady let me in. She told me they didn't really do private portfolio reviews, and I was totally lost. I hadn't thought this through even a little bit. I mumbled something about internship, which I know they do have. She said they usually go through universities, and I suddenly realized that there's probably university courses whose sole purpose is to make people ready for Magnum-type photography. Needless to say I felt a little stupid, and I felt I really wouldn't be anywhere near their top choice. I mean seriously, if there was a list, no matter how long it was, I wouldn't be on it. No chance. Anyways she let me in to see an exhibition of magnum photographs from the revolution in Cuba. And even though I felt somewhat like that very young kid who they let join the football team just to be nice, but who's never gonna fucking play, I rather enjoyed being in there. A free magnum exhibition, very nice thank you.

Next day I did my strangers thing. You'd be surprised how short the gap is between gladly posing for a picture for a stranger, and saying how you don't wanna do it in a way that gives the expectations of a follow-up-punch. Out of the 50 people I asked, some 5 agreed to be taken a picture of.
They were:
only men (I guess it would be slightly more creepy for a woman)
walking in a natural tempo (I didn't even bother asking the joggers).

Two of them walked in the same direction as me, making for some minutes of uncomfortable silence after picture taking, two of them asked me what it was for, upon which I answered once that it was an art project and once that it was a photography project (the guy asked me if I did graphic design, apparently that seemed more natural than photography to him). Anyways, the pictures turned out shit, I'm not happy at all. Hopefully my essay is a better read so that these last three weeks have not been for nothing.

Everybody in Kingston, be warned. You know that German market by Borders? You know those guys selling pick and mix candy that is laid out on that big table? You know they do not under any circumstances let you taste before you buy? Yeah, well, there's a reason. You have to give it to them though, those huge chunks of chocolate marzipan looks friggin delicious! They are, in my honest opinion as a rather ventured taster of marzipan, by no means delicious. They are bricks of awful fudge which in an act of desperation have had some essence of marzipan or almonds or something far far different (you go ahead and imagine!) added to them and they are covered with a layer of a chocolate which under certain circumstances I am sure could have inspired both the Swiss and the Belgians to go to warfare. And we bought A LOT of that fucking shit, confident that they would taste so good that the rain that had been blown in making them wet, would not be noticed. I feel screwed over, and the fucking wet fudge melted out over all the other gooddies we'd bought. £8 we paid for it. RIP OFF! Just don't go there and buy that stuff, not matter how good it looks. If you ever consider it, come to me and I'm sure you can sample some, I believe I will never finish it all. The most stupid thing is that we'd been waiting ages to try that stuff, walking by saying that one day we'd buy loads. That stuff makes me angry.

Just some last annoyances that I have to get off my chest:

1. A black border around a picture does NOT make it good (or art). It really FUCKING doesn't.

2. Neither does turning it into monochrome (b&w so you won't have to ask WIki). If you go for the jackpot and combine these two = seriously not art. I mean there's art with it. I like b&w pics with black borders, that's not it. It's just that if it's a bad picture, adding black borders and making it mono doesn't magically make it good, it really fucking doesn't. I can't stress this enough...!

3. Cropping a picture into 16:9 or 1:2.39 or other panorama/widescree ratios does NOT make it cinematic

4. And if you do go for a cinematographic aspect ratio, are you SURE you need to put black spaces above and beneath the picture? In all fairness, it's really only there because our tvs aren't in those ratios. I guess it's ok, as it gives a bit more of that movie sensation, but for fucks sake, don't overuse it!

There will be more!

The Daddy Test

LSS Miniseries
Originally uploaded by TSHolen

Well, it's been a day. That's for sure. I will not pass judgement on whether it has been good or bad one, mostly because I have not been properly awake at all today. We had another one of our Mondays. And that day, yesterday, was a pretty good one I think. At least from what I can remember. We did our normal thing; Lloyds first for cheapishly drinkin'. I was first as always, and I had finished of a quarter of a bottle of Russian power water and a cup of a certain type of Irish cream mixed with coffee before I came. All in the effort of making the experience cheaper. Afterwards: across the road to venerable(?) Oceana.

The good things I remember:

we did drinking games (less success this time)
we got the same sofas as last time
Matt reminded me of the N.U.S. card, saving me a precious £1 upon entering OC
the revolutionary and undoubtedly ridiculously important and influential B.E.S. was created.
something I've been spending a fair amount of energy thinking about got confirmed, couldn't be happier!
Matt put me onto some British Drum and Bass
The DJ finally played Cash In My Pocket after I'd asked him some embarrassing three times
I spent less than £20 !

People either like drinking games or they don't. I can understand arguments for both. I can appreciate how it might feel slightly uncomfy having everyone closely monitoring how much you drink. And there's always lots of those "Can't we just chill"s and "that's just silly"s. Well, it's a good ice breaker anyways. At least our 'crew' has few problems with it, or so it would seem. Actually some are rather enthusiastic at times. We did 'knock-off-a-penny'. I've never learned this game from anyone, but I'm not gonna pretend I invented it, it's just too simple to never have been played before (and even if I did invent it; 'congratu-fucking-lations you invented a drinking game, come on, here's a fucking medal'). Idea is to have a tower of pennies; knock of one and you're in the clear, knock of more: you drink (and we added: knock over the whole shebang: down it! ). While this was somewhat entertaining(?) for a little while, throwing ice cubes quickly became more fun. That is until someone sitting in the couch behind us (I have an inkling they were feeling a bit of collateral damage) shouted (I say, rather aggressively: ) "STOP IT!!".

LONG overdue we finally founded the B.E.S. The Bureau of Excessive use of Sarcasm. While I might have been the one to start the initiative, Sophie rose from head chairman (-woman?) to actually becoming the official queen of the bureau in course of the night. Only fair seeing as the bureau was created in honour of her somewhat ... well, sarcastic comments.

There are a couple of good reasons to cry (as in: tears down the cheeks, not the shouting thing, more reasons for that) in a night club:
A girl (boy) might have screwed you over
A girl (boy) you have a rather strong liking to might have given you the impression that they might do that thing above, save the 'over' part of it.
Well there are thousands of different variations of people poking fingers and stuff in your eyes making those tears appear.

I guess my brief moment in tears falls into that last category. You know when you drink and you do stuff that might be considered to be a bit stupid? Not like those stupid drinkaware commercials, nothing like: unwanted babies, bruises (well small ones maybe) or any of that stabbing/mugging stuff. Just the small things. Minor screw ups. I am a Master of those. Anyways, I had a shot of teq. Salt and lemon and the whole package. I might not have been too particular about getting all that salt off of my hand. It's all just in order to prepare you for the teq, the same way the nurse used to pinch you before setting the needle.. no..? Some people say it's about opening the pores on your tongue, making the alcomohol (Clare!) go straight into your blood stream. However appealing this sounds, I'm not sure that millisecond you have the teq in your mouth would move mountains anyways. Back to the point: I can safely say that it only became obvious to me that I had indeed not licked all the salt of my hand when I got the sudden urge to clap in rhythm of whatever FIYA the dj was playing, spraying all that salt into my eyes. Whether or not you have had this experience before, I am sure you can imagine that this really is not particularly comfortable. In fact it hurt like a mothafucka (thanks to: mr. S. L. Jackson).

Even though I spent only £20 yesterday (something of an achievement, no?), the reality is that I am rapidly closing in on that thing you know, that being broke thing. So today I checked my Lloyds TSB card for credit; £8. Smallest amount available: £10. Auch. My Norwegian card next. Ambitiously £40, expensive to withdraw so better get a proper amount when I first bother. Computer says NO. Starting to sweat, and when I pushed £30 I didn't really believe it myself. NO. £20? Please..? NoooO! Last resort please, just a £10. Oh no no no.. Fuckety fuck! Later deep dives into my financial records revealed that my balance was approx £4, but with one of those handsome - infront of it. Uncool.. Very much so indeed. Luckily I have some backup, but I realize I can't leave home anywhere near sober when we're going out in the future.

Today Michelle and Sophie came to me with what they thought to be good news. They said that next term starts 26th of January and not the 5th as earlier stated(?). I can understand how that might seem like good news. Here are two situations where it's not:

- when you don't really fancy staying with mummy and daddy that long (am I onto something miss Lawson?)

- when you've already paid for your flight from Norway on the 4th and you realize that three weeks without anything to do will mean three weeks where a substantial amount of money will be likely to fall into some big black hole, never to be seen again and also when you have in mind that your GF is indeed returning to uni the 5th, and that making her take all the flights and stuff alone might be a somewhat unkind thing to do. (breathe)

Life's a muthafucka (again thanks to mr. S. L. Jackson). What do I do? Thanks in advance for all the stupid suggestions with the likes of: you could to this and that for ME / you could do stuff that doesn't cost money / blah blah and a blah

The daddy test. An invention by dear Vince. When in doubt of what to choose; do the daddy test. Go through your options find the one that makes you cry DADDY. That's the one. Simple but genius. I think it relates to the phenomena of the holy Ompfh. Some pictures have it, some don't. It's not easy to point out why, they just have the Ompfh. And if they have it, I'd say it's likely they would also make Vince cry DADDY.

Art as it should be

Originally uploaded by TSHolen

Yesterday I attended the most enjoyable art and design history lecture this far in my life (with the probable possibility that I will feel the same way at eighty-something). Well, this guy (Space Hijackers agent Bristly Pioneer apparently) came along to give a lecture about his anarchistic protest organisation called the Space Hijackers (S.H.). He was there representing something like an activist branch of performance art. Other big players are Joey Skaggs and Reverend Billy & The Church of Stop Shopping. Both also doing some hilarious stuff.

The general idea is to fuck around with the capitalists and the authority as much as possible without getting a serious offence for it. The best way to do this, as agent Bristly Pioneer (who've only been arrested once in the ten years he's been doing it) says, is to only do things that have such a great element of humour in them that Bobby will either look stupid trying to stop you, or (even cleverer) he will only join in on the action if he tries to stop.

One thing they usually do is that they go to bars dressed in proper cricket clothing, get mashed and start challenging businessmen to a cricket match. Capitalists against anarchists. Anyways, police turn up trying to think of a good idea of how to suggest that playing a cricket match in the middle of a street in London at 2 in the morning differs slightly from what they think is cool. The funny thing about it (and what I believe S.H. really is trying to produce from this situation), is that the £500-a-suit-clad businessmen is fighting alongside self pronounced anarchists against the police. Apparently some of them pointed up to enormous flats in skyscrapers above saying things like:
"I live/work up there, why (the fuck) shouldn't I be allowed to play a little cricket down here?"

Apparently they meet once a month to organise stuff like this. They check that no one's undercover cops (specifically coloured underwear), get pissed and come up with ideas. There's a big arms fair every second year in London that is rather unknown for people outside the industry. S.H. however, are very much aware of its existence. Once they figured that all that fascination about guns and weapons were compensations for their own personal (sexual) shortcomings, and bought a shitload of dildos (funded by some art benefit thingy), went on the DLR (public transport) where everyone going to the faire was, and tried selling them. Apparently, neither them nor the police thought this was a very right thing to do. The year before they got hold of a similar load of prosthesis' only to be able to go down and sell arms at an arms faire.

Before this year's faire they had a meeting and someone proposed they should get a tank. This was considered a laughing matter, that is, until sufficient amounts of alcohol were consumed. So they decided they'd do that. The idea was to sell it at the faire to whoever wanted it. They needed to raise £5000 to get hold of one, and did this by selling tshirts and having fundraiser parties. After some hard work they had the tank. So, what to do with it before the faire..? By this time, the police had gotten properly interested in what they were doing. So they had to hide the tank, in the middle of London. As easy as it may sound, they did have some trouble hiding the tank. The vehicle that brought the tank couldn't make the 'sharp' turn at the end, so they had to take it of. During this, I can imagine, rather stressing situation, two police officers just happens to stumble upon a load of people trying to get a tank of a trailer. Rather shocked they were. They froze the situation, and started taking pictures of themselves posing in front of the tank, making phone calls like:

"Eh, sir, we stumbled upon a tank"
"...."
"yes sir, a tank"
"..."
"In the middle of Hackney, sir"
...

They got away because all their papers were in order. Back in the days when agent Briskly Pioneer got his driving license, they weren't too specific about types of vehicles and all that stuff, meaning that he could actually drive the tank. Also they conveniently managed to insure it as a minibus (!). But after that they pretty much had police on them everywhere they went. They wanted to move the tank once and made phone calls to arrange it, and all of a sudden retroreflectors and neon yellow was everywhere in the middle of the night, making them conclude that their phones were being listened to. They had loads of fun with this, making phone calls about moving the tank just to have a laugh at the police rushing to the scene.

On the day of the fair they tried to get the tank out, only to be met by a wall of police. They performed a silly demonstrative check of the tank to decide whether it was eligible for travelling on public roads, just to stall time. When it became obvious that they weren't going to be able to get going from there, our friend agent Bristly Pioneer got up on top of the tank with a megaphone to address the crowd that had gathered:

"I'm sorry to say that we're not going to be able to get the tank to the faire. The police simply won't let us. I'm terrible sorry to disappoint everyone that came to see this.

However, the REAL tank is already on its way to the faire..."

He produced a picture of the second, secret tank closing in on the faire, while telling that they got a bicycle charity to give them loads of bicycles so that everyone that wanted to go down to the faire could grab one. The police, proudly having made a blockade of some sort, didn't have a chance to get moving that fast. And again phone calls were being made (hopefully not by the same people):

"Sir, there's another tank"
"..."
"Yes sir, but there was one more"
"..."
"Yes sir, this one was a decoy, the other just crossed the bridge..."
...

The tank arrived and was auctioned with bids starting on an Ipod. Mission accomplished.

I took the liberty to fill in some of the things I didn't remember properly, if someone else attending the lecture notices something I've got wrong, please let me know. I also just realised that a more complete and better version of the story is at the Space Hijackers home page. Anyways, my conclusion is that as far as ART goes, this is probably about the coolest thing you could to.

The following evening, we decided to go out. Matt, Sophie, Trude (actually made it this time), Dan and late but trusty Michelle and Claire, and yeah, I was there as well. We started out at Lloyds, ordering pitchers of liquid hell (vodka+mixers) which went down rather rapidly. Drinking games as usual. Afterwards followed a totally bitching night at the local night club Oceana, during which I spent more money on alcohol than I have at my whole stay prior to this. Apparently I managed to down 6 or 7 shots of teq and some awful (but cheap) jack and coke on top of the jugs from Lloyds. Didn't even get sick. Probably the dancing. Maniac-like dancing. Dan was the star.

Though day today, although all of us were proud and ready for lecture in the morning. Rather impressive in my opinion, actually a better turnout than normal (good job Dan!). Mental presence maybe not as strong as some of us had a tendency to doze of at times. 2'oclocko and time for my presentation (prepared the last 30 minutes before 2) and seeing as no one else of the presenters turned up (one almost believably ill and the other claiming to have fainted earlier in the morning. Wow, GOOD imagination!) my pictures were the topic for the whole hour. Vince told me to look at photographer Brian Griffin, who besides having a rather strikingly recognisable name, produces some whopping good pictures. Apparently he didn't get a job after he'd finished his MA in photography. After a while he just took a (rather unattractive) job as a staff photographer in some business magazine. Seeing as they had hired him and was paying him they very well had to use his pictures. He discovered he could do whatever the fuck he wanted, and they had to publish it. This ended with a photograph published in a business magazine winning loads of prizes. Pretty awesome.

Memorable quotes from today:
"...then maybe I can stick my stick in your thing...?"
(Frankie asking whether she could use my mac to present if she didn't get hers before she had to present. The stick in question is type: memory- )

"Hunter S. Thompson is a fucking genius! People watch the movie (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) and think it's funny. I've read the book and it's fucking scary! That guy talks about drugs that _I_ have never heard of in my life before, and I funded art school by dealing drugs at the university for fucks sake!"
(Vince after I brought up the topic of Hunter S. Thompson as a photographer)

Upon being asked what would be a fail on the art and design history essay, our tutor suggested:
"Well, if you shit on a piece of paper and hand it over to me..."

The funny thing about this (as Sophie pointed out) was that you could actually tell that about three seconds after he'd said that, he got the mental picture in his head and started making faces, as he realized what he'd just said. Good stuff !

I'm going to bed in two hours ago. Never seem to get that stuff right, it's simply too easy to stay up.