The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

It’s that time of year again, when Dutch people leave aside their usual respect for authority and Calvinist work ethic in favour of general mayhem, drunkenness, and shameless profiteering – I love it! Yes, I’m talking about the strange phenomenon of Koninginnedag (“Queen’s Day”), the one day of the year where everyone is allowed to empty out the zolder (“attic”) and sell all their troep (“junk”) on the street to whoever is crazy enough to buy it. Not only that, but since most people have both today and tomorrow off work, it’s a very good excuse for a party. Officially it’s the Queen’s birthday, although not of the current one but of her deceased mother (just as well, since old Beatrix has hers in January).

To get things going, the night before, Koninginnenacht, has plenty of parties all over town. I met up with Andy and Laura at a strange venue on the Utrechtsestraat which appeared to have previously been a butcher’s shop or delicatessen – the DJ’s and various bands were playing on top of what would have originally been the serving counter. Not only that, but on the way to the bar it was necessary to squeeze down a narrow corridor and through a tiny room in which a bunch of girls were, bizarrely enough, sewing things. We were there because an associate of ours, who goes by the stage name of “ElectRick” was playing; the usual disorganisation meant that it looked like we were going to miss his set, but since everything ended up being later than planned this was not a problem. Anyway, the atmosphere was a bit better after a few beers and as it got more packed.

Next day, the big day itself. Astrid and a friend had planned to bake and sell various types of cake in the Vondelpark, and so my first bit of wandering of the day was through the chaos of said park to try and find them; this was no walk in the park (ha ha), since the place was absolutely mobbed. In particular there were a lot of young children displaying their talents as the next big thing in rock’n'roll – though whether this was always their own idea or the result of over-encouragement by ambitious parents was not too clear.

Eventually I found them and was rewarded with some delicious cake, before setting off in search of some DAI folks. I succeeded in meeting up with Jae-Min, Maciej, and Manami on the Museumplein, which was even more packed than the Vondelpark. Since Manami had also been baking, and had in fact brought two huge boxes of little cakes all the way from Enschede to sell, we decided to head back to the park in the hope of finding some customers. I had feared that it might be a little late in the day, but in fact people were starting to get a bit hungry at this point, and any case she seemed to have quite a good sales technique.

Later on we met up with Renaldi, and headed off for something to eat. On the way, something happened which has actually happened only once before in the whole time I have lived in Holland – I ran into a random Scottish person! In this case it was a girl I kept meeting at Antoine’s parties named Monica. She used to always make fun of the fact that I could never remember her name, but strangely enough I could remember it immediately this time. We exchanged numbers but the general chaos of trying to organise movements with a large bunch of people meant that we did not succeed in meeting up later.

Just before leaving the park, we walked past a bunch of people trying to get rid of the rest of their old stuff – including one guy who tried to give me a hi-fi amplifier for free! The one I have at home is on the way out, so it seemed like a tempting offer. I felt a bit guilty, though, and so I offered him €2 for it, and then €5 when he looked a bit offended; strange, since he originally wanted to give it away for nothing. Perhaps it was some amazing genius reverse-psychology sales patter, but in any case we ended up walking away with not one but two amplifiers, and me €5 lighter.

After a bit of confusion and by way of some very expensive food in a snackbar, we met up with Andy and headed back to ours for a few beers on the balcony, and then later back into town to the Sound Garden. Here I was astonished to run into my old Sláinte colleague Björn behind the bar, although since it’s his kind of place I suppose I shouldn’t have been too surprised. The evening was rounded off on the floating pontoon out back, as the last boats of singing revellers motored by and with the streetlights reflecting idyllically on the canal; once again, a very fine day indeed.

DAI lecturer John Heymans has been very busy recently organising Symposium on Sound, an event which took place this weekend at the Veenfabriek in Leiden. The idea of this was that it should be a varied programme of discussions, performances, and an exhibition, all centred on sound as an art form, or as a starting point for artistic investigation.

Since a particular area to be focussed on was the relationship between art and technology, something which interests me very much, I was very keen to attend. So it was that I found myself in Leiden this morning, my very first visit to the town; it’s a small place and home to an ancient university, so I suppose you could say it’s the Dutch equivalent of St. Andrews in Scotland.

As it happened, I was certainly not the only DAI (and ex-DAI) student to attend; not only that, but the event was actually very well attended indeed. It’s nice to see people interested in this type of experimental thing.

The first thing on the programme was a lecture/concert by David Behrman, who had visited us a few weeks ago at the DAI. He gave a very interesting lecture while stopping now and then to press some buttons on his laptop and pluck strings on a violin; this he did whilst being accompanied by Frances-Marie Uitti on the cello (apparently she’s the world’s most famous cellist or something, but I wouldn’t know).

After this, we were treated to a performance by the Siren Orchestra, a bunch of scruffy students dressed up in shirts and ties playing some reconstructed sound experiments from the 19th century. “Siren Orchestra” is actually a pretty descriptive name; imagine a hall full of half-broken police horns all playing at the same time. Some pieces worked better than others, I would say, but on the whole it was a very interesting performance.

When this was over, there followed the opening of the exhibition. Once again, sound was the theme, and once again, some things worked better than others. One very interesting piece was a performance by Jochem van Tol entitled Papier (“Paper”), which took the form of three musicians making sound using only paper: rolling it up, scrunching it, tearing it, and throwing it about in big piles into the air. Surprisingly melodious.

After this we were all pretty knackered and hungry, so quickly set out in search of something to eat. Unfortunately, there wasn’t so much time before the evening programme. We ended up in an Italian restaurant (on the basis that pasta can be cooked quickly), after which it was necessary to head straight back to the Veenfabriek.

The evening programme was the highlight of the weekend; an evening with Laurie Anderson, the famous American composer, performer, and artist. Unfortunately she didn’t actually play any music (doubtless unaffordable), but it was certainly interesting to hear her talk about her work and her opinions on music, art, and politics.

All in all, a very interesting day and well worth the trip.

About a month ago, I was busy making recordings for a new film piece that I have been thinking about for a while – me doing things very fast, with everyone else moving normally. It will get played back in slow motion, so that I look like the normal one. In the meantime I have been busy with a lot of other less interesting things, but I finally got the chance today to do some more filming – and once again, thanks to Astrid for assistance.

We returned to the Zuidplein (which is not called the WTC Plein as I had earlier thought), but as with last time, it was too windy to get much done. The problem is that because there are tall buildings on all sides, even a small amount of wind creates huge gusts at ground level. Can’t understand why the architects didn’t see that one coming. Anyway, it meant that I couldn’t really act very convincingly, what with things flying about all over the place.

Location number two was the Museumplein. Less problems with the wind this time, but more with irritating teenagers (god, I sound like a right old granddad), and litter flying about all over the place.

Looking back at the recordings later, I was not particularly happy. Still, I do believe that this is just the sort of thing that I need to keep doing ten or twenty times if necessary, and sooner or later it will work the way I am hoping. So, that means more filming next week.

This has been my second-last-ever DAI week. One more in May, none in June, assessments in July, and the whole business is complete.

Things were a little chaotic on Monday morning due to a visiting lecturer being ill, meaning that we didn’t really get started until noon. We ended up having one big feedback session for the whole group, at which I was able to show my little greenhouse. Although I am far from happy with it, it was still useful to get some constructive feedback from the other students.

Tuesday took the form of a class with Gabriëlle about “the future”, a topic which I find almost too frightening to even think about. It was quite useful though to have to answer some of the awkward questions that I have been doing my best to avoid, even such basic ones as “how are you going to feed yourself?” and such things.

I sat very nervously in my studio on Wednesday morning, since I was due to receive the first visit of the day from David Behrman. Various staff members had pointed out that he is a very important figure who we should all be suitably in awe of. As it turned out he was a very friendly old man and not at all arrogant, in contrast to some other visitors we have had from time to time.

Thursday was the busiest day of all as we tried to get as much sorted as possible for our forthcoming appearance at the Kunstvlaai in May. All this while at the same time trying to write some text to submit for the book being written based on the Here as the Centre of the World project, and on top of this a presentation on Friday morning about the Gerard Byrne workshop in Utrecht in November.

Friday afternoon was once again time for Sanne’s performance workshop. After some discussion of works that people had prepared, we were once again running around and showing our expressive sides, forgetting our inhibitions, and of course being a bit childish at the same time. This is nothing to be ashamed of; adults should do so much more often, in my opinion.

Finally, dinner at the new DAI house as prepared by Maciej and Manami, thus Polish-Japanese with plenty of vodka to wash it down. A fine end to the week, but of course not the best preparation for the journey back to Amsterdam the next morning.

It has been a busy week. After my earlier bicycle problems, I am now once again mobile after assembling a working bicycle from a non-working one salvaged off the street, combined with bits of the old one. As I had a meeting in town on Thursday morning for which I needed some transport, and because I only got the bits together on Wednesday evening, this meant some late-night bicycle repairs on the street while trying not to wake the neighbours. No-one complained about my hammering and sawing, which in any case was drowned out by the roadworks which have been being carried out at night for the last few weeks.

My new bike runs like a dream, and I am very happy with it. The other new arrivals were some new flatmates, since Kjetil’s short-lived stay with us has been cut short by homesickness for Norway and his girlfriend. His replacements are a German couple who we got to know “via-via”, and who seem like a friendly pair. One extra person in the house will make it a bit crowded perhaps, but we’ll manage.

I’ve also been busy sorting things out for next week’s DAI week. This has involved trying to finish off the concrete greenhouse which I had mentioned last week, an enterprise which has been fraught with complications. I finally got the thing out of its mould this morning, only for half of it to crumble into dust in the process. This I managed to remedy with a quickly-assembled cardboard mould and quick-setting cement, but the thing is very far from how I would like it to be. Still, I do have some work to talk about in Enschede, which is more than can be said for most of the last few months.

Myself and Kjetil were going into town at the weekend to meet Laura for a drink, but our travel plans were disrupted when the back wheel of my bike crumpled in half when Kjetil climbed on the back. This was not too surprising since it has been a bit wonky for ages now, having been originally bent out of shape when I got it stuck in a tram rail whilst trying to overtake last summer.

I took the wheel off earlier today and got it straightened out again (by means of sitting it on the edge of the pavement and jumping up and down on it), and all seemed to be well. However, when I was back on it this evening the bike started wobbling even more than before, until eventually there was a crack and the whole wheel split in two. As I tried to push the thing home, the damage got worse; eventually, all that was to be done was to carry the bike on my shoulder. This happened in De Pijp, which is quite some distance from where I live. Why could this not have happened closer to home?

Almost an hour with a big heavy piece of steel over my shoulder, halfway across town, in the middle of the night. Plus a new wheel (or a new bike) to be located or bought, so not a happy sequence of events.

Look at the damn thing!

I have been busy lately on a proposal for a new work, which will take the form of a small concrete greenhouse. Eventually I would like to make a life-sized greenhouse from concrete, but this is a less ambitious first step.

What interests me is the phenomenon of the glastuinbouw (“under-glass horticulture industry”, more or less), which occupies vast areas of the Dutch countryside, particularly here in Noord-Holland. To satisfy Northern Europe’s insatiable demand for cut flowers and tropical vegetables the whole year round, these vast shining structures have come to dominate the landscape in this part of the country. Particularly when coming in to land at Schiphol, you cannot help but be impressed by the huge sea of glass below.

This weekend is, coincidentally, the open weekend for the industry. This they have given the name Kom in de kas, (“Come into the greenhouse”), although kas also means “cash”. So it’s a strange type of play on words.

Myself, Astrid, and Kjetil decided to make a little trip to Aalsmeer, the nearest venue for events taking place as part of this open weekend/public relations exercise. After about an hour on the bus, on the way passing the enormous Aalsmeer flower auction (the largest industrial building in the world), followed by some wandering around without a map, we eventually made it to the cluster of businesses which were taking part in events.

Our first visit was to a company growing gerberas, a very colourful flower which is produced here in huge quantities. Of course I was just as interested in their robotic sorting machine as I was in the flowers themselves, and indeed the whole place had a very clinical feel to it. There are tracks on the ceiling, climate controlled laboratories, and nowhere the feeling that any part of the process has been left to chance. It felt more like a factory than a garden.

Next, an even more enormous greenhouse (120 000 sq. m) which produces peppers – millions of the damn things. Once again, there was an atmosphere of science fiction, long straight lines of plants with little pipes going into their roots, more robots, and conveyor belts sunk into the ground to collect the precious harvest.

The pepper company have embarked on an interesting project with their neighbours, who grow roses. To try and improve their environmental credentials (and presumably earn some money), they have installed a combined heat and power plant. What this does is burn natural gas to produce both heat (which they need for their plants) as well as electricity, which they can sell to the national grid. They produce about 6MW, or enough for 17 000 homes. Quite impressive, very high-tech, and very noisy. The huge plumes of smoke rising into the sky are still quite disconcerting, though.

Finally, a greenhouse with more palm plants than the eye can really take in, some roses under ethereal, orange sodium lights, and a quick beer in the little bar they had set up for the occasion. Certainly an interesting experience, and also a little frightening to see how exactly it is that we can eat peppers the whole year round for next to nothing. This is the future, people, and it certainly ain’t cosy.

Following our meeting last week in Amsterdam, it was time for another meeting about my graduation publication. This time it was in Arnhem, and in the presence of Emily Pethick of Casco, who is editing and overseeing the publications of all the DAI students. To recap, the idea is that we all produce a publication in collaboration with a student from the Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem.

It’s about an hour and a half travel time to reach the Werkplaats, for a meeting that lasted half an hour. All the same it was fairly useful and encouraging. Still no concrete idea of how exactly the publication will look, but that will come in time.