The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

This Tuesday involved a lot of running around blue-arsed fly style. Firstly, everything in the house needed to be packed into boxes in preparation for moving house on Wednesday, and secondly there were two lectures to be attended; the first by Turner Prize-winning artist Simon Starling at De Ateliers in Amsterdam, the second by the art curator/write Ralph Rugoff on the work of Aernout Mik in the Leeuwenberghkerk in Utrecht. There was only about an hour and a half between the two, so this meant a lot of running about in the rain trying to find places and catching trains with minutes to spare. Not really the best way to arrive relaxed and prepared to listen to an hour’s-worth of art analysis, but never mind.

In between all this I found time to go and organise a costume for tonight’s Hallowe’en party in the Sláinte (my employers). I opted for what seemed like the easiest and cheapest option; a brown monk’s robe, but instead of a cross round my neck I bought a peace symbol instead. “Peace, monk”.

Oh, and there was this cool thing outside the costume shop (Louis Wittenburg on the Raadhuisstraat). You can’t quite see it in the video, but it was shaking violently as well as making gruesome noises…

Arrived late and pretty tired after all the day’s activities, but ’twas fun nonetheless. I have to say that the staff made a lot more effort than the punters in terms of getting dressed up, but then again the whole business doesn’t seem so popular here anyway. I know it’s an American import, but for once I think it’s quite a good one. Yes to dressing up!

Oh, and one other strange happening. On the way home it was quite windy, and whilst crossing the Singel a crash was to be heard on the other side of the canal. A large tree had fallen over, and in the process had lifted up a car sitting next to it to a 45 degree angle (see photos). The car seemed to not really be all that damaged, but it would certainly be a surprise for the owner in the morning!

Saturday night featured a hallowe’en party in the Maloe Melo bar on the Lijnbaansgracht. I love dressing up, and Björn’s band were playing so it sounded like it would not be one to miss. Of course I ran out of time for making/finding any sort of proper costume, so I instead took the easy option of using the yellow jacket I had bought for Lowlands, along with some yellow wellies which I had found some time ago in a second-hand shop, and making a sort of chain arrangement to hang around my neck with a cardboard fish on one end and hook on the other; you could call it the “bling-bling fisherman” look.

I tried to take a few photos using my phone, but as can be seen the results are not that great. If you want good photos, don’t buy a Nokia N70, folks (not the phone I wanted, but that’s a long story). As I explained a few days ago, I am hoping to get a much better one soon.

It has been another extremely intense week at the DAI, with more lectures, seminars and screenings than I would like to count, although really exciting and definitely inspiring.

Started out in the pouring rain on Sunday evening with a rucksack completely overfilled, a shoulder bag and two enormous cardboard boxes which were soaked and so just about falling apart before I could even get on the tram to CS. Finally arrived at the DAI house (the Spartan accommodation which they have provided in the centre of Enschede) about 3 hours later completely knackered and with my arms half falling off. It’s a nice feeling though to arrive somewhere after carrying a huge amount of stuff and to feel about half your normal weight when you take it off; almost worth the effort, I would say. A poor man’s weightlessness suit, in fact.

Monday was taken up by a completely brain-mangling series of presentations on what the 2nd year students got up to on their research trips last year, and some explanation of what we are likely to encounter on our own adventures, which are likely to take place in January or February and will be to either Khartoum in Sudan (yes, that’s right) or Diyarbakir in Turkey. The group last year had visited Taipei, Damascus, and Beirut (obviously before Israel’s recent bombardments), and had of course encountered all sorts of culture clashes and communication problems in the process. The work resulting from their efforts had certainly been interesting, but had achieved admittedly mixed levels of success.

What several of us agreed upon after hearing about the situation in these places is that it will likely be extremely difficult to practise as artists in these kind of environments; how can you possibly start making works of public art in places where people are scarce guaranteed enough to eat and where the life expectancy is below the age at which most people in the West think about getting married? I can’t help but feel uncomfortable about the whole thing.

I’m keeping an open mind about it, though, and in any case it will be an amazing experience. Africa, for Christ’s sake! Still need to find another €400 towards it, though (already paid €200). The Dutch government picks up the rest, so I’m not complaining too much.

Tuesday & Wednesday involved some pretty interesting lectures in the morning (along with a long list of books to be read, unfortunately), followed by visits to our studios by a couple of guest tutors. I have to admit that I was quite nervous about this, especially since my background is of course in design and I still feel like a bit of an imposter here on what is a fine art course. In fact they were very encouraging and stressed that this is just the beginnings of a 2 year course, which is naturally pretty much exactly what I wanted to hear. Lots of useful advice too, and plenty to get working on when I get back to Amsterdam.

More of the same on Thursday, pretty much, although also quite a lot of stress on my part because for some reason my wages had not arrived in my bank account and the rent plus 2 month’s deposit is due today. Once again I have financial troubles which will doubtless involve a lot of excuses and apologising at the very least, and all caused by someone else’s screw-up somewhere – it is a common occurrence and I am really getting annoyed with it.

On Friday we made a trip together to the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven (preceded by a horrible 3 hours sitting in a traffic jam in blinding sun in a coach with the most tortuous shite on the radio), which I suppose was OK; by this point though I was getting a bit tired of 5 days of intellectual artyness. Time to get drunk and make jokes that 5-year-olds would find childish, I think.

One thing which kind of pissed me off was the design of the museum’s tickets (see example below). It seems to be fashionable for institutions in the Netherlands who want to appear cool and trendy to adopt the most bizarre and stupid sounding English slogans (I bet that’s not the proper term, it’s probably “brand statements” or some nonsense like that), most likely developed at great expense. “Museum. Good Idea!”. Give me a break.

Following this a few of us visited the graduation show of the Design Academy Eindhoven, which had a few quite nice things, although it also kind of reminded me of why I want to get away from design (at least for a while). There were several ideas which I thought were really great, but just like back at GSA there was just too much that only made you think, “aye, smart idea, but why?”. Sometimes it seems that people are working too hard to find imagined problems to fit with their own tired, repetitive, and arbitrary “solutions”. Real life will separate the wheat from the chaff I suppose; cruel, but in the end probably for the best.

One interesting footnote to this. One girl’s work involved a huge collection of her own holiday photos from which you were invited to take one or two (for a donation of €1), creating your own sort of “imagined holiday”. All fair enough in itself, except that one section of photos was labelled “Stonehenge, Scotland”. Now of course Stonehenge is nowhere near Scotland, which throws up two possibilities;

1. She did visit Stonehenge and believed that she was in Scotland at the time. I have no idea how this could have been the case. I would say that even in my most drunken or wasted state I have always known what country I am in.
2. She was actually in Scotland and thought that she was looking at Stonehenge. I suppose the Callanish stones on Lewis (though I’ve never been there) might be close enough if you were half blind or drunk or something, but I would say it’s a long shot. Perhaps someone had said for a joke that the Armadillo in Glasgow is actually called “Stonehenge”.

In any case, mysterious.

I decided a few weeks ago that it would be a good idea to get a abonnement (contract) mobile phone. I think it will work out cheaper, and more importantly of course I want a cooler handset. There’s a serious reason for this, though, since my digital camera is broken (hence relatively few photos recently) and it seemed to make sense to get a phone with a decent built-in camera instead of a new one. Less things to lose that way, and I really really need a camera for my course (not to mention this website!).

Thing is, to sign up for a contract you either need a Dutch passport, ID card, or Rijbewijs (driving licence), none of which I of course have. The alternative for foreigners is to get a Verblijfsdocument-EU which basically says that as an EU citizen you have the right to be here. Forever, in fact. Hooray for Europe!

The procedure to do this is that you must phone up the IND (immigration & naturalisation service) and request an appointment. This was of course somewhere weird (Hoofddorp) which meant a train journey. Despite this being the capital city they seemingly have no office here.

This appointment was scheduled for this morning, and so I turn up, show the numerous documents I had been asked to bring (including one where I had to solemnly swear that I would not be a burden on the Dutch taxpayer, although of course I do in fact pay taxes here myself), and get this swanky little embossed sticker in my passport. No problem.

All excited (never a good start) I took the train back to Amsterdam and found the shop which had the offer I was interested in. Everything was going OK, until I showed the woman my new stamp thing. She furrowed her brow and said that she didn’t know what all this was about, before phoning head office and asking if this was acceptable.

The problem was that the system has recently changed, and they no longer give out documents separate from passports, although of course no-one seems to know this, so basically the end result was no phone. Dammit.

I emailed the IND to make sure there was nothing else I was missing, but no, it was just the phone people being fannies. So it looks like a return trip will be necessary along with a copy of the email!

Finally got a contract signed and got the keys to our new place. It’s on the Aalsmeerweg, close to the Hoofddorpplein at the far end of the Vondelpark, so quite far from the centre; although when rushing to get to a meeting with the landlord the other day I managed in from the Sláinte it 20 minutes by bike, so it ain’t too bad.

Not much to say about it, except that it has 2 small bedrooms (to be occupied by myself and Julien), a large living room (where Andy’s gonna stay), a small kitchen, bathroom and hall. What for me is the best feature though is the balcony which runs the whole length of the back of the building, with French windows opening out from the two smaller bedrooms and the kitchen. I had decided after staying in our current flat that I really didn’t want to not have a balcony, and this one definately helps make up for the smallness of the rooms. Just a shame the winter’s coming, though.

Remember I said last week that I saw a nice flat but the guy wanted only one person/couple? Well, either he was talking the usual shite or no-one else was interested, but in any case he phoned me back to offer us the place. €1000 for a flat which should fit 3 people is not tooooo bad for Amsterdam, especially since Andy is willing to pay a bit more for a bigger room, and I am quite willing to live in a cupboard for a while as long is it is cheap. Funds are low right now…

So, myself, Andy, and Julien (from my course) went round to have a look and a chat about it, and apart from two things, all seemed to be OK;

1. He wants 2 months deposit. That’s a hell of a lot to fork out at once.
2. He also wants €75 to have the place professionally cleaned before we move in, which is a bit cheeky if you ask me.

After some discussion we decided it was still worth it. Since the Makelaars (Estate Agents) often want a month’s rent as commission (ie you don’t get it back), at least in this instance we should get a nice wee windfall when we eventually move out, all else going according to plan.

Most important of all, though, is that we get a signed contract this time around, which should put an end to all the crap which has happened since day 1 with our current flat. Official and by the book is the way to do it from now on, I would say.

Due to circumstances completely beyond our control, we need to move house. Basically, we are subletting our flat from our landlords, who are themselves tenants of a housing association. This is illegal, but quite common here. Unfortunately, a few neighbours who have fallen out with our landlords have decided to complain, and the result of this is that they have lost the lease on the flat, and so we also have to move out. It is hard to see exactly who gains from this mess but as they say it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good (one of my favourite sayings, in fact).

As I discovered when looking for our current flat, househunting in Amsterdam is a fucking nightmare. This comes down to basic market economics; limited supply, high demand. The only really useful advice that anyone can give seems to be that persistence is the most important thing – de aanhouder wint.

Saw two places last week, one of which was far too small and the other which was lovely but the guy was keen to just have one person staying there or else a couple. And I ain’t pretending to be Andy’s lover, so that’s out.

Another two last night, a bit closer but still kind of small. And then tonight yet another, way up across the IJ in Noord (the “wrong side of the river” part of Amsterdam). By this point I am losing patience, and this place is yet again way far from suitable. For a start, she was wanting a silly amount of money for it, secondly it is miles from the centre, and thirdly we couldn’t even see half the rooms because they were full of stuff. Oh, and there was no electricity at the time, so this was all done by candlelight. And the guy’s bloody enourmous dog almost bit me in the balls.

Further to this, when the guy found out that we were Scottish he started dropping the names of various Dutch football players who have played in Scotland, mainly Bobby Petta, and going on about how they were all his “close, personal friend”. Who cares? Your house still stinks of dog, you sad, sad cunt.

Just to make me even more annoyed, I ended up with a flat tyre on my bike, and this at the point which is probably the furthest I have ever cycled from the flat. Jobbies!

I was away out in Enschede this week. The pattern of events from now on with the course I am following is that we all meet up Mon-Fri for one week out of four, then go off and do our own thing inbetweentimes. Obviously we will be required to report back on what we have done at the next DAI-week, as they are called.

The first of these weeks began this Monday at 11am, when we were required to meet at the house which the school is renting in the centre of Enschede. The reason they have done so is that a large number of people, perhaps the majority of those on the course, have decided not to live there but instead do so elsewhere (for the most part in Amsterdam, actually), and so we need a place to stay whilst activities are taking place at DAI. We pay a very small rent for the pleasure of doing so, which makes the whole arrangement fairly do-able, or so it seems so far.

Anyway, this house (big enough as it is to sleep about 10 people) was pretty empty, bare, and so fairly depressing. With some foresight the first task we had been collectively (there are just over 20 of us spread over 2 year groups) assigned to do was do something about this. In just one day, and with about €1000 to spend, which gave the whole thing a bit of a Changing Rooms atmosphere. All this was done under the direction of the architect Paul van de Berg.

What this meant in practical terms is that some folks ended up volunteering to strip wallpaper and then subsequently paint the walls white for the neutral/modern look, others who were handy with sewing machines and whatever made up some curtains, and still more of us were sent off to spend the money. Of course I was more than happy to volunteer for this role.

We started with a tour of various kringloopwinkels (second-hand shops) around Enschede, buying as many bunkbeds, chairs, and hatstands as we could find, before ending up (inevitably) in IKEA, where of course the same stuff could be got new for about half the price. All this ended up taking pretty much the whole day, so in reality there wasn’t much of a monumental change about the house, but good fun, anyway.

The rest of the week was taken up by a much more involved project. Alongside the radio/sound artists Knut Aufermann and Sarah Washington, we spent 3 days preparing for the one-and-only perfomance of DAIRO (Dutch Art Institute Radio Orchestra).

What did this entail? Well, to keep things short, the process can be reduced to a list. I like lists.

1. Everyone needed to bring an FM radio.
2. Knut & Sarah had a small FM radio transmitter. This may or may not have been illegal.
3. We were to collectively compose a sound piece of approximately 27 minutes.
4. We would then travel to the Gasometer in Oberhausen, Germany (a huge metal cylinder nearly 70m wide and 120m high).
5. Within this space we would perform the piece we had made, as part of an evening to be known as KlangLangWelle. This would be done through it being broadcast on the small FM transmitter, and us all having our radios tuned into its frequency. We would make use of the amazing acoustics of this space and the potential to manipulate the sound coming through the radios, alongside a loosely-coreographed series of movements, to add a further dimension to the performance.

Well, that was the plan, and actually it worked out pretty much as intended. The three days of preparation involved a lot of experimenting with the possibilities available in broadcasting a signal through 21 separate radios, and of course a lot of collection, recording, and composition of sounds to contribute to the final work. For my own part I produced a percussive piece using a recording of a toy piano which Astrid (another student on the course) had supplied.

The performance itself in Germany was quite an experience. The scale and strangeness of the space was enough to make it very special for me at least, and it seemed that everybody else enjoyed it just as much. Unfortunately my camera has been broken for the last month or so, but Sarah has very kindly emailed me some pictures.

For anyone who is interested, an MP3 of the whole performance can be downloaded here… (it’s pretty big).

One final interesting task during the week… We ate together as a group every night, and took it in turns to do the cooking. On Thursday myself, Julien and Jae-Min were responsible, and having never cooked for 25 people before it was quite a challenge. We opted for a sort of completely unauthentic Asian-fusion-type-thing, on account of the lack of equipment and money: €2 per person, which ain’t that much. I have to say that it actually seemed to turn out pretty good (well, it all got eaten). If the truth be told, I was happy to act like a bit of a passenger and do what I was told in respect of the cooking, but it’s still something to be pleased about!