The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

We had hoped for perfect weather today, but that was not to be. When at last the rain stopped, we dashed off back to the construction site from yesterday to try and get something filmed for our crane video. Of course, this was not an easy task with four of us all having strong opinions about what should be done, not to mention no experience of heavy lifting equipment, but in the end we did end up with enough footage to work with. It then turned out that Julien had no space left on his computer, and so the editing would have to be done on mine. This in turn led to the realisation that I did not have the correct (FireWire) cable, and so I set off on a search for one around Enschede, in the sure and certain knowledge that it would likely be expensive. Well, I was right. TWELVE Euros! For a bloody cable! Couldn’t be helped, though.

Finally we could get down to capturing the video and getting it edited. This was not an easy task, with three separate cameras and several takes to co-ordinate, and only about five hours in which to do it. Naturally there were once again disagreements, but in the end I do think that we got something worthwhile. Not bad considering the whole thing, filming and editing, was done in less than a day.

We were able to get a quick bite to eat before the final presentation for Here as the Centre of the World in Enschede took place, before which I struggled without success to get a DVD burned of our work. In the end it needed to be shown straight off the laptop, which was no big loss. Of course, these technical problems usually occur at the worst sort of times.

It was very satisfying to see everyone’s work come together into something after eight days of hard work, and to my satisfaction ours got a very good reception. The work of the other groups was very interesting, and it was also encouraging to see that people had got so much out of a set of environments which at first seemed not at all promising as the backdrop for public art projects.

And, well, that was it; HATCOTW is finished (notwithstanding the book to be published later). It has run for two years and has involved people from numerous countries and continents, and despite some criticism of it I would have to say that I have been very glad to have been involved.

We headed out for a drink afterwards, but in my case at least I was pretty tired and not really in the mood to chat, much though I would have liked to since the participants from other countries are leaving tomorrow. Hope to see them before they go.