¡ TEASER Inti-Illimani TEASER !

Above is a short teaser for the new music video of Inti-Illimani. They've got a hot new song, La Siembra, that they wrote together with Chilean musician Nano Stern that talks about society and fighting to keep the truth alive.

This Saturday they are filming the music video, directed by Matías Muñoz R., to be premiered next month!!

I've been asked to do the Making-Of, which I am rather excited about, especially because it is small way for me to thank them for being so generous with their talents earlier this year.

SCL CDG NBO

It's started. I can't say thank you enough to everyone who donated money, time, their musical talents, organizational talents, love, reposted on facebook, retweeted on twitter ... it has been a very gratifying experience to really make this project happen.

As some of you know in the last few months the structure of the project has changed a bit: instead of 2 months, I will be in Kenya for 3; instead of being in Osieko (Western Province) I will spend February and March in Nairobi - though in April I hope to be in a more rural area investigating and documenting surely different rituals in the country. Additionally I will be volunteering part-time with Maji Mazuri in their Youth Media Program during February and March - I start on Sunday!!! The other half of the time I will, of course, be working on Common Ground (looking for participants, building rapport with them, documenting them ...) If you know me, you know that I thrive on constantly keeping busy.

In the image is my last night's sleep - well, it was almost a whole day really. After months of non-stop fundraising, planning, organizing ... I finally got to rest in a cozy hotel during my 24-hour layover in Charles de Gaulle airport.

Right now I'm using my last 10 minutes of free internet at the airport to write this post. Hoping to convey a bit of my excitement for what I am about to embark on. Not only this project, but also the experience - culturally and personally. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. It is because of all of you that I am here. I will try to report as often as I can. Additionally my posts will be translated into Spanish and posted on MisosoAfrica (http://misosoafrica.wordpress.com/http://misosoafrica.wordpress.com/). Please repost, share, retweet ...

Warm wishes, Nicole

Nicole Rademacher is a currently in Nairobi, Kenya until the beginning of May doing research and documentation for her current project investigating domestic ritual (made possible by the North Carolina Arts Council, USA and many private donars/patrons).

official website • follow her project on Facebook

Common Ground: exploring domestic ritual in Kenya

I just did a pre-launch for an indiegogo campaign!! Check out the video, I'm super proud of it!!! And the campaign is now in OFFICIAL LAUNCH MODE.

Help me GET THERE!! Join in the fun by contributing (I have a heirarchy of "perks" set up for monetary donations - you should note that my project is sponsored by Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. So contributions to support Common Ground are tax-deductible!!) and/or spreading the word.

JUST GO CRAZY! and send share this post, post/tag/comment in facebook, tweet about it ...

Other ways you can help is to get the word out there: word of mouth is the best!!

• Visit my website: nicolerademacher.com
• Like me on Facebook: facebook.com/nic.rademacher - if you haven't already ;)
• Tweet about the project and follow me on twitter: @nicrademacher
• Follow this blog: nicolerademacher.blogspot.com (I know, silly to post it here, but just in case)
• Join the my mailing list to stay up-to-date on the progress of the project and my work!

THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT!!

6 - 12 November 2011

What a week! Phew, glad it is over and with great results!!

First I want to share my photo contribution for this week to Eyes Everywhere (see link in the side bar or just click the words). Every month there is a new theme to collaborate on - from our separate parts of the world. November is SELF PORTRAIT: IN YOUR USUAL PLACE.

This photo was taken during the third shoot for my promo video for my SOON TO BE LAUNCHED indiegogo.com campaign to help raise funds so that I can GET TO KENYA... (those three dots are so that you know that more info is to come - same bat-time, same bat-channel)

Another exciting news item :  the photo above was taken yesterday at Aguafuerte Taller de Dibujo y Grabado, where I am currently an artist-in-residence - developing a series of lithographs for "Potential Spaces". But this photo is with Chilean artist Mariana Tocornal. I've been invited to participate in an exhibition entitled "Seis=Doce" (Six=Twelve), organized by Paula Cortés, director, Galeria Espora (Santiago de Chile). The prints that Mariana and I will make (printed by master printer and Aguafuerte director Iván Lecaros) will be paired together as a diptych! Paula paired us together even though we didn't know one another before yesterday - of, that is a lie, we met briefly at a dinner party at American artist Melissa Wyman's apartment when she was living in Santiago. Anyhow, I think Paula has great intuition. Mariana and I chatted for a long time yesterday - explaining our work and process to one another. We definitely have a lot in common, even outside of the visual similarities. I'm super excited!! More news about this show to come. P.S. other artist pairings: Melissa Wyman & Iván Lecaros, Felipe Santander & Paulo Toledo.

That's all the update for now - I think... I hope didn't forget anything, I've been doing that a lot recently. Thanks for reading! Woot woot! If you haven't already hit "like" on my facebook page, please do! And tell your friends! Gonna make this residency at Lake Victoria Arts Residency Program in February/March HAPPEN and I am going to need all the help I can get to spread the word!

until next time ...

Taller Clik

VE Global Blog Post
I know, I have to make you work a bit to see it, but in the meantime, I will leave you with some nice imagery made by these super amazingly creative kids that I work with:

Les Amoureux au Ban Public

While in Paris, Matías and I worked with two bicultural couples who are both part of this group for the Potential Spaces piece. One of these couples is featured in this documentary. Please watch.

Where am I?

extra sound for Verano

Apparently I am now a once a month post-er. Slack, I know. There has been lots of action here in the skinny country next to Argentina.

Summer came in a threw me into "action-mode", and I will soon have my acting debut - ha! I was an extra in the next film by José Luis Torres Leiva, called Verano.

Nevertheless, juices started flowing and I have picked up speed on several projects and added a few others in case I get bored.

Along with working comes writing and reflection. The bicultural couples piece (as you can see from the image) is turning into prints - very much in process, but I like where they are going. The lost files and then recovered corrupt ones - from my images in Cuba, opened me up (because sometimes you forget about all the possibilities) to new thoughts and ideas with this material.

in-process BiCultural 

While many of the images were recovered without damages there were several that were corrupt. They weren't just corrupt, they were mixed with other images found on the drive. Obviously this led me to think of this mixing and colliding in the bicultural couples piece (I really need a better title, suggestions welcome). So, manually, I have been going through the photos, finding moments - similar to the moments I looked for in the You are a Perpetual Tourist video series. But now I am stripping away and collaging. Like I said, these are in-process, so the stripping away part is what has got me hung up a bit. What am I stripping away? I haven't figured out why I've turned to that method. Anyhow, the image below is one of the "inspiration" images from Cuba and some-other-photo.

corruption inspiration

Meanwhile in the land of Nicole, which sometimes becomes a fantastic land of looking for new and interesting ways to procrastinate, I have started a food blog - you will notice the new link on the left. It is aptly called "FOOD". Currently it is hosted by Wordpress, because at first it was just a distraction, but I am now taking it seriously and improving my food fotography skills.

food fotography

I am planning on moving it to a sub-domain of my website (and this blog too), which do you prefer: food.nicolerademacher.com or kitchen.nicolerademacher.com? The crappy thing is that Wordpress makes you pay to redirect your blog to a subdomain, so I guess I am just going to have to reconstruct it - good thing I just started it.

Ok, so I can't guarantee that I will be posting every day (such a love/hate relationship with you, blog-o-mine) or every week, but I will be posting more often.

aSpecificProposal at Streaming Festival, 5th edition, 2010

aSpecificProposal, starring Kajza Ekberg, has been selected to be a part of the Streaming Festival, 5th edition, 2010 taking place online and at The Paardcafe in The Hague. The exhibition will take place December 1 - 5 and you can all watch it online - if you don't live near The Hague, that is!!!

Chilean Video Art RIGHT NOW!

Back in June of this year I was invited to curate a session of videos for a First Friday at Hudson Beach Glass Gallery in Philly. Jenna Efrein, the events coordinator, gave me complete freedom with the theme. I thought long and hard and decided that I wanted to show some of what I have been seeing from the video art sector in Chile, thus "Chilean Video Art RIGHT NOW!" was born. While the selection for Hudson Beach was rich, I felt there was a cohesion among the pieces that was missing, so when I was given another opportunity to show them while I was in Paris, I decided to make another call for more work - to create a stronger and more complete selection. I continued to stress the diversity of the work, because I think that is something rich in the culture and landscape of Chile that also permeates to its art. The work was well received in Paris (at an underground space), but somehow I didn't think it would go any further, that is until I read an open call for the III Festival de Videoarte Camagüey.

I was perusing open call sites, as I do at least once a week, looking for opportunities to show some of my work. Initially I was thinking about which videos of mine would fit into the festival, but then I read the call a bit more completely: If you are interested and you are an indpendent artist, art gallery or art institution representative, a curator, an art critics or anyone close to these areas, it will be a pleasure to count on your participation. We encourage you to prepare a proposal for this Festival III Edition.
When I re-read the word "curator" I thought, it's hard to find festivals that allow open submission for their curated sections - so ... why not?! I made a DVD of Chilean Video Art RIGHT NOW!, filled out the application and sent it off - granted I was in last minute mode so I did end up literally running to the post office to make it there before 6pm the day of the postmark deadline.

That was in August. To be honest I kind of forgot about it, which is really the best way to be about these things, but lo and behold Sunday morning I received an email from a Ms. Teresa Bustillo inviting my selection to be a part of La Próxima Resistencia, which is the curated area of the festival where the videos are not a part of the competition but are screened/exhibited - with pleasure I replied!!

So here we are. I am waiting for a reply from DIRAC, the department of foreign relations for Chile; they give financial support for these types of trips - the problem is: it is the end of the year = no money left in the budget, but they are looking into it and we are crossing our fingers in hopes that I can go and represent the selection and the works. Either way this is a fantastic opportunity for all involved and it reminds me that it is important to GET YOURSELF OUT THERE!!! It's easy to forget that during the day to day hullabaloo.

Below you will find my curatorial statement (in English, currently translating it to Spanish and adding to it) and image stills with the artists' info.

Chile is the skinny country next to Argentina, at least that is what Chile always was to me until I finally visited for the first time in 2007. And it is true: it is a skinny country that shares a border with Argentina, but it also shares a border with Peru, Bolivia, and (a long one) with the Pacific Ocean. Its landscape is infinitely diverse, and visually clashing. These bizarre juxtapositions are also found in its capital city of Santiago where changing political climates and economic crises have placed one story homes built in the 30s next to 20 story condos built last year. Or perhaps you will notice it as you walk down a decidedly urban street where at almost any moment you can see the gigantic snow capped mountains towering above you. The visual (and political) contradictions, and sometimes confrontations, are present in the Chilean culture and thus in its art.

While Chile is a country with one foot in the developing world and the other in the developed, video art is still quite new on the curriculum. Before it was more common for these artists (i.e. Juan Downey) to go to places in the world where the community of video artists was blossoming. Now, this isn't necessarily so. There is a rich and diverse community of makers and educators. And enthusiasm is growing.

This program aims to show you exactly what the titles says - RIGHT NOW, what are video artists making in Chile? The eight videos in the program are as diverse as the Chilean terrain itself, creating a dialogue between looming capitalism and commonplace non-violent robbery, ideas of the absurd and thoughtful meditations on landscape. What is it exactly that they are making down there in that skinny country?

Nicole Rademacher
Santiago, Chile 2010


ERRORvideo 2
2009
1:54
ERRORvideos
(Esteban Cabezas & Joaquín Fernández)

Palomas
2009
1:00
Rafael Guendelman Hales

DOWNLOAD ERROR
2009
1:35
Terror Videos
(Rodrigo Dueñas & Francisco Schultz)

En tránsito
2009
4:32
Constanza Gazmuri

Dollar
2009
1:00
Macarena Molina

De la serie "la hora del te"
2009
1:41
Bernardita Bennett

Robo Sin Violencia
2010
3:47
Luis R. Hermosilla

De Potestate Maleficarum
2010
3:44
Pancho Schultz

Video Art For All (VAFA)

the Delay has been selected to be a part of the MOVEMENT VS NON MOVEMENT program for VAFA Exhibition 2010 in Macau, China. The exhibition will take place November 12 - December 3 at Orient Foundation, Casa Garden Temporary Exhibitions Gallery. The following is a list of the works (and artists) that the Delay will be presented with:

GIORDANA GUERRIERO, FRANCESCA MACCARRONE, PATRIZIA MONZANI, NICOLA TRABUCCO – Embers – Italy
NICOLE RADEMACHER – The Delay – USA
MURIEL MONTINI – Children’s Games – France
GIANFRANCO FOSHINO – The Waiting – Chile
DIEGO FIORI – Donate Silence – Italy

Video Art For All exhibition website.

Just a lil update.

Well, August is almost over and I feel like it just started. I have been super busy, so I thought I would take some time to catch you up and share some thoughts (this one is kinda long, so go get a warm-up on your coffee).

Since my return to Santiago I have been in contact with BLOC/Tutorías de Arte, which is an artists' space and educational residency - a really new thing here in Santiago. I would write more, but I am writing an article about them for I Love Chile (another new connection), an all English news and media source, and I want to save all the juicy details for my article (of course I am supposed to be finishing that up right now - perhaps I am using the blog post to get the juices flowing ... or to procrastinate - what would you wager?). The artists at BLOC have been really fantastic in talking with me and also in sharing their space with me. On the 15th I did a workshop there. It wasn't a personal workshop, it was part of my collaboration with AREA Chicago on their project Notes for a People's Atlas (the link is to the Chicago version).

The project is simple: AREA Chicago furnishes blank maps, basic outlines, of the city and the inhabitants fill it in. What can they fill it with? Anything. The idea is to get the people to make their city their own, to say that what is important to them (restaurants, places they walk their dog, sites of demonstrations, public sculpture...) are important for everyone to know - and then share those experiences, histories, and stories. When confronted with the blank map, most people just starred and asked for examples. This was great because we could show other maps that had been done - already starting to show other people's experiences of the city. Between the workshop at BLOC and smaller workshops done by volunteers with VE-global (a Santiago-based American NGO who I have been in contact with since April), about thirty maps, so far, have been made for Notes for a People's Atlas of Santiago, aka Notas para un Atlas por la Gente de Santiago. We should make more, Santiago !!! Thanks again, BLOC.


BLOC has also been a bit inspiring. They (and Die Ecke Gallery) hosted three Australian artists and one Aussie curator for 2 weeks. The ladies came to make work for an exhibition: Risk Potential - and then, of course, to have the exhibition; and they also presented their work (both past work and the work they made specifically for the show) last Monday at BLOC. It was a very thoughtful talk. The artists brought us through their process, allowing us to see the visualization of their thoughts, how they negotiate parameters and form for their work, and the place of "drawing" in their work. I have been trying to figure out exactly why I post these images from Fotolandia. Bridie Lunney, one of the invited artists, showed some photos as sketches - instead of the drawings and/or mark making that the other two artists shared. Now, I know I use video as a form of sketching, but I had never been aware that I too use photography as a form of sketching. I know, seems obvious, right? I guess sometimes you can be blinded by concentration of your own process. So, this talk was a big "Ah Ha!" moment for me, which are always delightful. But again, like I said above, I don't want to give too much away because this is all supposed to be a part of that article ...

I Love Chile. The media hub. I came upon it quite randomly - chatting with a former colleague on gmail. He had met the owner in a bar (one of those gringo bars that I don't ever go to because I am scared of my gringo-ness), and he was looking for contributors. At the time when I was chatting with my friend, I was looking for interesting things to do (that earn money, though I currently write pro bono). So I contacted him and met him the following day. He said that what he wants are people that are "excited about writing". That's me! I want to make some of the not-so-apparent things of Santiago to be a bit more inviting to us Anglophones. So I am going to write about all things artsy. Of course, like most of my projects, I start out with really great hopes, then I loose steam, only to find the momentum again, but at normal speed. That's where I am now: normal speed. I have only written one article (tragic, really) so far, but if I can crank out this one about BLOC - that will be two! And this week there should be lots of openings ...

Additionally, I have been weeding through the footage and photos from the bi-cultural project (we really need to find, if even, a working-title for this thing). I knew that we didn't have much - which has to do with the ambitiousness of the project and the time constraints for such an ambitious project. In other words, it was bad planning on our part, but that doesn't matter since it wasn't obligatory to finish the project during the residency. We have several hours of footage, but it really wasn't until the last meeting - maybe the second to last - where we got mostly usable footage. It all has to deal with building rapport, right? I really have to commend our participants for letting us into their personal lives. Now that I am watching the footage, even from the first meeting, it is very personal and intimate. I am excited about what the final product may be, but I do see that as being some time away.

More? Really? Yep. The video sketch below (that I posted the other day) is tied to an old project, one that I started a very long time ago, one that is very personal. It has taken some time for me to be more objective with the work/topic, so that I can make work rather than (just) therapy. Personal themes in my work come and go. Of course it is always personal, but not always directly related to personal events. Some of my first self-portraits were this: personal, self-reflective, raw. (Next time I'm back in Charlotte I will have to scan those and add them to the still in-process archive.) While these self-portraits were not about these events for the new piece (yes, I am being deliberately vague), there are ties. I wanted the same "raw-ness", but I don't want the work to be self-reflective. Instead I am looking to find points in the "story" that have a universal relationship, that while you may never have experienced these same specific events, you can relate them to your own personal events - empathy, basically. Perhaps that is what I am always looking for with my work, or what we are all looking for... Anyhow, I am once again tackling this project (I have a feeling that it will be a body of work rather than one or two pieces) - wish me luck! I'm looking at some of Sadie Benning's diary work, any other suggestions?

There is more going on, but that should tide you over for now. and yes, I promise to send a link to the article about BLOC and once I get a blog (for documentation) of Notas, I will also send a link.

Retreiving Humanity TONIGHT!!

Hi and sorry for the late post. I was internet-less for 2 whole days!!! I know, I myself was frightened for my well-being as well.

I was invited to collaborate with Parallel Flux on their Retrieving Humanity interactive performance and installation in Santa Fe, New Mexico TONIGHT! Many of you perhaps don't live in Santa Fe and won't have the opportunity to go, but I am sure that Parallel Flux will be documenting like crazy.

Retrieving Humanity will address the difference between viewing culture from the outside or engaging with it as a participant. The audience will be encouraged to explore these differing attitudes and test the traditional boundary between audience and performer by becoming a participant. Santa Fe Complex will be transformed into an immersive space with a promenade of six kiosks, each with unique video and audio from around the world. At the end of the promenade will be a large screen displaying a mix of this visual information.

As participants approach each kiosk they witness various live scenes from around the world: from my living room we will be transmitting an Once (which is a dinner, of sorts). The other participants are as follows:

Ipoh, Malaysia – Kamal Sabran

Brisbane, Australia – Rozina Suliman with LALITCS

Seoul, South Korea – Bo Kyung Suh

Lagos, Nigeria – Emeka Ogboh

Bern, Switzerland – Michael Spahr

Should make for an exciting event.

Please stay tuned for more updates about this exhibition and other things of the like.

Chile reconfiguration

Whoever said that you can't re-edit old work? Ok, no one, but anyhow. Have a - still yet to be officially officially confirmed - show at La Maison du Chili in Paris for July. I will be showing videos from You are a Perpetual Tourist (also known as An Infinite Ordered Set of Events, gosh that's confusing), but only ones that I shot in Chile.



While initially making this work, there was a round where I played with meshing the videos together. In the end, it never panned out, but I am definitely sure that for these particular ones, this is where the installation needs to be. Here is a simple sample, I have more intricate combinations I am working with. I will post another sneak peek one, the sequences are more firmed up - oh and one the show is more firmed up.

P.S. don't mind the pixelation.

I have no idea what title to give this post.

So here I am, 2am and with insomnia - ok, not real insomnia, more like anxious thinking keeping me awake, but you know me: I like to self-diagnose. Lots of news and work to share - don't know where to begin.

The residency is going well. The project itself has had a lot of false starts (due, unfortunately to participants backing out or just simply not returning calls and/or answering emails - thank you to those of you who have), but I think we are finally getting going. Despite the material specifically for the project we have been researching in and around the city and we have each started our own projects. Matías has started these photo-portrait-collages. Not sure how to describe them, but once his website gets finished - they'll be up there and you can check them out. I have been doing some drawings, writings, and video-ing. Oh and I have been taking pictures. Ya know, taking in all that there is to offer here. And yet another "unfortunately" there is nothing sufficient enough to post, YET!

The drawings are based on gestures of couples: couples that I have seen interacting on the streets (then drawn by memory), or from images that I have taken. Some aren't even real couples, they are just a "couple o' people". The drawings are, of course, abstract - really, what would you expect?? I'll have to take pictures of a few and post them. [Yet, another thing on my list of things to do tomorrow - always tomorrow, but tomorrow really does get here quick!]

The photos are the same things you have always seen from me: funny juxtapositions, people on the street, pretty buildings ... I have been looking at them trying to find a camino, but one hasn't revealed itself yet.

The writings started as things on the computer, then mutated to actual physical writing in my sketch book (really, should I still call it that?? "sketch" when have you know me to sketch?), and then they became transcriptions from pretending that I am talking to an old friend (not anyone in particular, maybe I should choose someone).

Do you feel like this post is as anti-climatic as I feel it is? Oh well. I am in the smack-dab middle of the damn residency - what can one expect, really?

Oh the videos. These I am excited about. Not that I am not excited about the other things, but I feel like these have started to take a bit more form, even though I haven't actually touched any of the footage yet. Or maybe it is just because I think with these I am straying a bit from the gestures, or rather looking at them in a different way - AND starting to work with narrative again (that's how those texts started). In intimate situations (someone's home) I have been taking a lot of mise-en-scène (like how I am working on my French?) shots, which is something out of the norm for me. I have also been clandestinely recording these people's conversations. I don't know how this will all come together, but I like breaking out of my current usual. Who knows, maybe it won't turn into anything.

It's over.

Well, it is finally finished (Zapatos, that is). OMFs have been exported. Why OMFs? Well, your friend Nicole is a little green with the official protocols of movie making - oh, I remember a time when I thought I was gonna "snap" get a job at a production studio, sigh. The story is, that as hard as I tried to make it easier for the sound engineer, I should have just asked him - exactly what format do you want everything in? But I didn't. This of course caused me to have to go to the studio, hang out, chit-chat, and just create general camaraderie with the techs. In the end I figure it was better.

And now I have no excuses to get on the ball with my own work.

Mati is the executive producer for this documentary, that is still looking for funding. I came in at the end of his meeting with the director on Monday. It got me thinking about "Chapter One" or "Prologue" or whatever the hell it was that I was going to call the piece about finding my birth family and the hullabaloo (after using that word for the subtitles of Zapatos, I have decided that it really needs to become a part of our vocabulary again) around it - and of course still swirling around the event.

So, there is this genre of autobiographical documentaries, but the key is that even though these projects are COMPLETELY therapeutic for the director - how to make the piece without it only being therapy. I have written about it before - in sketchbooks and a few here on the blog. I am desperately looking for the "clave". But it isn't about looking, is it? I know that. I have always known that, but for some reason it is easier to keep looking - it's that procrastination trap that we all fall into.

Why am I into this "final thought" business???? The final thought for the post - GET TO IT!

Residency at the Cité

Mati and I have an artist residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris this May and June.

Our project is vague. I mean, I figure that is ok, since the point is to develop the project during the residency and it will take more form between now and then and during then and after then.

Shall I copy and paste the proposal (in French)? Why the hell not:

Nous avons tous les deux un fort intérêt pour la communication et les méthodes de communication. Nous allons confronter nos idées et notre vision sur la perception et la réalité de la communication. En étudiant la façon dont les couples internationaux (c'est-à-dire les couples qui sont originaires de différents pays) surmontent la difficulté d'une communication simple et / ou des questions culturelles, notre idée n'est pas nécessairement de faire un documentaire, mais d'obtenir plein d'informations sur ce sujet à partir desquels nous pourrons construire notre exposition de retour à Santiago.

En outre, nous avons l'accord d'un couple, franco-américain (ayant des racines cubaines et mexicaines),qui vit actuellement à Paris.

This couple I speak of in the proposal, they don't really know that we are going to "study" them, and, honestly, I haven't decided if we should tell them or not (they are, obviously, friends of mine).

So, as vague as it is, we have started a blog (you can either click on the link on the left side panel or just click on the word blog - the latter or the former). Need I repeat that the project is in its infancy? Probably not, I have been pretty redundant about that - perhaps I am feeling inadequate. Oh well. Or should I say: tant pis.

The flights haven't been bought yet, but soon, yes soon. The residency is slated for May 3rd - June 28th. Ah, Paris in the springtime...

I no us preocupáis, esperem fer un viatge cap a BCN. Només cal treure una raó del no-res, vull dir una raó per "treball" és a dir del projecte. (Yes, google translate had to help me. Damn my català is so rusty, sigh)

3:34 am

I never really imagined what an earthquake was like. In fact, it took me a while to figure out exactly what was going on, with the blue glow of the moon through the bedroom windows, watching my house dance as if we were on a boat during a storm.

Mati was telling me - put on some shoes - get dressed - go outside. With no lights it was hard to find clothes and shoes. I ended up with a dress on over my pj's and Mati found a pair of my shoes for me.
I took the dog and just stood there on the sidewalk trembling, and kinda cold too. I watched as people popped out of their houses. The older lady next door stood on her doorstep smoking a cigarette. Eventually Mati found the flashlight and had surveyed the - lack of - damage in the house and joined me outside.
Sitting there I noticed the layer of dust, from the ground to above the roofs.

I immediately went inside to grab the cameras.

I never got a picture of the dust because I was too busy trying to document the fallen and sprawled things in the house.

Around 6am we fell back asleep. I remember asking Matías what magnitude he thought that was, he said 6. A friend called at 10am. That was when we found out it was an 8 or greater. We immediately got up and turned on the news.

As cliché as it is, the terremoto (earthquake in Spanish, just the sound of the word is fitting) has made me realize the more important things in life.

And seeing as we have now returned to life as it was before (minus a few glasses), I can't help but feel guilty (perhaps that isn't the right word to describe the emotion): this has been quite devastating for so many people, even here in Santiago, and we walk away with barely a scratch.

We watch the news the same as my friends and family in other countries; we gape at the horrible devastation. In the afternoon when we take our dog to the park, we walk by piles of rubble on the sidewalk next to buildings that look like nothing has happened, but the piles of bricks and plaster had to come from somewhere. I fail to understand the hardship of so many of the people around me. And that really bothers me.

We have turned off the news (that runs almost 24/7). Are we shutting it out? Going back to our lives trying not to think about those around us? No. It's the news. The images have been fearful and quite sensationalist. Letters by TV executives have been written to the newsrooms deploring them for their coverage over the last week. There was one (actually two shown successively) of a foot and then of a hand, both being torn from the destruction, both from bodies that have since lost their breath. These images put me between crying and vomiting.

The favorite word of newscasters and TV commentators has been "dantesca" (horrific, shocking, gruesome). While the journalist is interviewing people gathering water from the nearby lake in Concepción, because they have no running water - water that they have to boil and then add a few drops of bleach before they can consume it - tells them that this situation is terrible. These journalists are completely irresponsible! Firstly, the public knows that the situation is horrific, that is clear by the un-edited images that are shown. Secondly, the people living through the "dantesca" events know that this is terrible. Your responsibility as a journalist is not to tell them that or sensationalize it to the public more - placing more fear upon the events. Your responsibility is to observe, report, and document - objectively.

Ok. I have gotten off of my high horse. My next post will be about the trials and tribulations of editing a short film - or perhaps something else, but art related, I promise.

By the way, this epidemic of sensationalism in journalism is not Chilean.

Zapatos. cortemetraje por Matías Muñoz Rodriguez

My house has been turned into a production studio.
only for a few weeks.

Claude Lévi-Strauss

   1908 - 2009

Now you can actually flip through them!!

Yipeeeeee!

I published my books on issuu.com andit gives you this fancy-schmancy flash movie to embed everywhere!!!

Watch out everyone!! I just might start producing my own online magazine! - ooh what a great idea! what should it be about?

Ok. Longing & Distance: through gesture:




and Milwaukee after coming to Milwaukee from California:



or alternatively you could view the pages on my website: Longing and Milwaukee

Well, it is all pretty fancy, if you ask me.