the first day, feng shui of the room is complicated by rafters, skyLights, and the orientation of the bed. will have to think about that. meeting Milos who is terribly sick with this flu epidemic sweeping across central Europe. I am hoping it is the same bug that is in Bremen, so that there's no further risk of infection. The deep mediation of human presence by technology is a critical issue in the moment. A radical shift in awarenesses it necessary to decode the creative possibilities and complex problems of what is becoming a kind of global crisis. Establishing a lived artistic praxis that is beyond ego, product, and process, one that is expressed in momentary be-ing and is beyond the framework of consumerism is of the greatest importance. The dynamic of human networks suggest a powerful model for this praxis. By understanding the role of technological mediation in the larger picture, it is possible to re-establish a condition where humans lead technological development instead of the other way around.

early morning departure. Frieder up hours before dawn as usual, Susi asleep. not too hard for me waking up. Light sleep on the before-travel night. some fast-moving image dreams that later skip-segue into closed eyes against the rising sun and the flashbacking shadows of trees flickering across rod-cone consciousness, triggering neuroshock shivers to the system. icy streets have thawed after being salted. train on time. squeezed into my reserved seat by a large girl. two hours, change in Dortmund to the U-bahn, change in Apelebek to a bus, a short cold wait, arrive in plenty of time at the small airport. home to several of the extremely popular cheap airlines (http://www.germanwings.de, http://www.easyjet.com, http://www.wizzair.com, http://www.hla.de and http://airberlin.com) that are now flooding the Euro market. Prague for €UR40 (U$D48), could have gotten it for cheaper by €UR20 on different days. Cairo and a host of other Mediterranean destinations for €UR50. radical evolution in the market. probably won't last too long -- and might even be a strategy to get people accustomed to easy/frequent air travel, then stick them later. it is clearly having an effect on the Deutsche Bahn long-distance service and the legacy carriers. DB standard prices are extremely high, but they now offer quite some deals depending on the destination. Prague from Bremen was still €UR92 so I saved about €UR10 taking the train to Dortmund and flying. getting back will save me 50 €UR as I'm going to Köln: every little bit. in this corner of extremity and lack of fiscal consequence.

arrived, baggage somewhat delayed (the Lufthansa flight sharing the carousel was first). cold. catching the bus, focusing on the names being spoken by the automated announcer, I mistakenly got off three stops too soon and had to catch a tram to the Metro instead. duh. making connections, clean, crisp, fast. get to the National Theater, re-read the instructions. whoa, not a bad location. the security guard waiting for me, speaking rapid Czech. right on the river, center of the old town, across the street from the Theater, penthouse, the top floor of the Film Academy -- for a view one has to poke a head out of the skyLights. sharing the very large five-room flat with a British screenwriter.

workshop ends with the thunderous rabbling-rumble of loud knuckles on desktops. Frieder later remarks on the enthusiasm judged from the volume that reached his office. I tell the participants that I have to record this phenomena sometime as it is ... different ... a definite culture-specific way of applause-feedback-energy! starting with a mid-morning breakfast, I was surprised that the discussion continues un-abated right up to 1600 on the last day. last year there was an exhausted fizzle after the Thursday happening, so that Friday was a few closing comments and some de-briefing, a collective lunch at one long table in the Mensa, and then departures. matter of fact, I think I took an evening train to Kiel to C & S's place to catch a plane to Helsinki a day or so later. cycles. orbits, gravity. this year, an equivalent level of energy, different forms. students here desirous of ideas and relevant pathways.

the box proceeds as though it has found a unique energy source in the configuration of the students and the situation. although our stream is lamed by a lack of time for preparing content, the local energy is considerable.

advice from Frieder:

Students often ask:
What should I consider when doing research?

Here are four important advices.

Give a very precise formulation of the problem. Improve it over and over again.
Know how others have treated the same problem.
When you encounter difficulties, find out where they come from.
Make explicit what your contribution to science progress will
be.
-- Frieder Nake

a flu sweeps the class, knocking many people out. I felt it come on late in the afternoon yesterday, and headed home to bed, but it still comes on all day today. despite that, the day was very productive and busy with a tentative meeting with Steve's class in Baltimore. on the way home, M. tells me about the prevalence and common knowledge about the psilocybin mushrooms that this neighborhood, Upper Borg, is known for -- at least the fields around the area. seems the psychedelic culture was widespread in Germany pretty recently.

the protocol for delivering your trays to the dishwashers in the Mensa (Student Union) last year consisted of a woman posted at the head of the conveyor belt who reconfigured the utensils on each tray deposited by a happy and full customer. last year we played with the concept by trying to come up with a configuration on our trays that she would leave alone. but it seemed that even if we exactly mimiced her resultant layout, that she would make some adjustment to any layout that was proferred to the belt. this year, with the aid of a bolted and glued down example, it is possible for the worker stationed in that job to relax a bit as long as the German system of implicit order is operational (the systemic coercion to follow an established order). and there is a flu going around the class: washing hands and heading to bed early. what else to be done?

as per usual. workshop adsorbs any spare energy away from jotting here. different dynamic than last year, but similar. workshops in Germany are always more intense as far as the intellectual challenge goes, but on my side is the pressure to challenge what is not intellectual but other psychic spaces. Frieder and Susi are gone to Karlsruhe for his opening at ZKM, so I have a routine of walking 5 minutes and catching the bus at 0748 to school, 15 minutes away. not feeling up to doing the bicycle thing. too spoiled by my own mountain bike in Arizona. finally over jet lag, and caught up on sleep. and body rhythms synchronize: hunger times corresponding to feeding times.

time slips. many direct impressions, people, dialogues. and that directly keeps time away from the keyboard of this machine. for some measure of being that shifts away from mediation to the contingencies of momentary presence. as usual, when visiting Volker, we spend much time meeting and visiting with local artists and connections he has in the Köln area. the evening with Thomas was interesting, jumping into the Catholic church where there is an exhibition opening for Rune Mields. the work is about her research into the numerous convents that were once scattered around the center of Köln, and the process of secularization initiated by Napoleon that destroyed them. Thomas has had MS for more than 25 years but remains upbeat about his situation and intense about his artistic ambitions: brilliant!

Susanna comes by and we go to the Mediterana spa in nearby Bergisch Gladbach. in my spacey jet-lag way, I forget to bring earplugs for swimming, so am stuck swimming in the small and warm indoor pools. dang. Volker and Susanna go for the full sauna thing. it's like the spa I went to with Chris and Steffi last spring. seems to be quite the fashion across Germany, these very high-end places for relaxing and exercising.

snafu. actually several. ground fog at Heathrow, so the Phoenix flight is re-routed to Stansted where it is re-fueled and takes off after waiting in the ground for an hour. thankfully, I have an empty seat next to me on a two-across row at the tail of the 747, so I can at least doze in a pseudo-horizontal position. land at Heathrow, and find that the Köln flight is cancelled, so am rebooked on a flight to Düsseldorf an hour later, and then bussed to Köln. tried calling Volker from London and Düsseldorf, but we both have the handicap of no handy (German word for mobile/cell phone). I perambulate the airport every fifteen minutes, while it gets later and later. fire up the computer to get a list of other people that I could call to see about crashing. thankfully, after waiting for three hours and calling Volker's home line repeatedly with no results, I decide to call Peter and Kersten in Mechernich who I was going to call later anyway, but from Volker's maybe tomorrow. being the generous people that they are, Peter decides to drive to the airport and fetch me, thinking that I won't be able to catch a train as far as their place at this time of night. I was thinking that I could, but. man. LONG DAY. up early in Prescott, lunch with Janet and Annabelle (who cries almost all the way through lunch), they drop me at the shuttle, the Prescott Greyhound station. eyes burning, neck sore, not sure whether I'm hungry. tired. or what. chaotic systems. with the transit. and the weather. and just being in side that transportation system. and going from Prescott to Köln and on the Mechernich, a small town an hour from Köln. funny pathway. but this independence issue pops up immediately. what to do in the case of disaster. relaxing or stressing. to the flow of fate. just getting too soft for even this totally civilzed level of travel, what would happen doing this in India? or traveling in places where there is no real 'public transport' or telecom system. wow. leaving life to the fate of connecting with people. it's not necessarily a softness, because there is a body-wracking brutality of technologically-mediated travel. but there comes a conditioned state-of-being which propels the body through the spaces. where walking is embodied movement. flying is the externalization of all personality to a dominant social system.

enroute. sitting on the floor. Phoenix SkyHarbor Airport gets poor marks on available mains plugs. very few, and so far, I found only one close enough to a seat that I could sit and work. and that chair was too far away from the gate for me to monitor what was going on, so, now perched o the floor leaning on one of the large concrete columes that support the jetway. as usual mixed feelings in the heart on departure into the unknown. never made a direct flight to Europe from Phoenix (in memory), so this is a new protocol. security seems marginal. have to change planes and terminals in Heathrow, not really looking forward to that as it will be in the middle of my night. tried to go to bed a bit earlier last night, and set the alarm for 0500, but with the stars still shining in the window and the house cool, no way to get out of bed before 0700 when the sun starts Lighting the eastern horizon. in the shuttle down from Prescott, a young guy sitting in front of me has the word "ambiguous" embroidered on the back of his baseball cap in Techno font face. red on grey. he gets the attention of the two young girls in front of him by asking their opinion on the diamond engagement ring procured from his pocket -- he decided this morning to buy it for his girlfriend whoh lives in Kansas City. he is on his way to the bus station in Phoenix. no baggage. he plans to propose in the Kansas City buss station. what a life. no baggage. can't begin to penetrate the reality of that kind of life. as equally perplexing as the couple profiled in USA Today with a detailed recounting of their financial status with pension, 401k, and other investments. USD 200,000 saved at 30 years old. the plan includes paying for their grandchildren's college. is this sacrifice or incredibly cynical control of life. nothing is made clear by media.

traveling Lighter than usual. Eagle Creek suitcase: 2x jeans (blue & tan), 7x socks, 7x underwear, swimsuit, swim goggles, knit hat, 4 teeshirts, 3 dress shirts, 3 pullover shirts, scarf, leather gloves, heavy wool gloves, biking half-gloves, umbrella, Birkenstocks, cables (firewire-dv, rca, 2 rca-to-minijack adapters, s-video, composite video, ethernet), three miniDV cam batteries and power adapter, usb mouse, digital cam battery charger & usb adapter, 160 gig ext hard drive, power adapter, cd/dvd case w/ OSX disks and 8 blank dvds, spare 250 mb zip disk, shaving cream, razor, 3x blades, tiger balm, skin cream, shampoo, conditioner, deoderant, electric toothbrush and charger, toothpaste, dental floss, brush, hair ties, 4x earplugs, extra glasses frame, 3 cans of almonds, bag of almonds, bag of pistachios, bag of walnuts, bag of cashews, 4 Luna bars, uh, what else? oh, an incredibly compact self-inflating sleeping pad -- normally my camping pad, but with my back problems, it is a good solution to soften some beds enough to ensure a decent night's sleep.

daypack: digital still cam, iPod, adapter, 2x earphones, miniDV cam, boom mike, remote control, spare DV tape, PowerBook & case, power adapter, dv-to-vga adapter, passport, ticket printout, several select rail schedule printouts, 2x Science magazines, Finnish bank deposit forms, glasses prescription, Visa card, Visa Gold card, SIM art union card, Icelandic residency card, bound notebook, eyeshades, 1-liter water bottle, toothbrush, ear-plugs, toothpicks, fine ball-point, cd marker, Euros, Dollars, some GB pounds and Danish Kroner...

wearing: bikers jacket, black boots, black jeans, red pullover, fleece pullover, heavy socks, tee-shirt, money belt, leather cap, earplugs, sunglasses, ear-plugs in pocket, but otherwise nothing else that will set off the metal detectors...

reading "Basin and Range" by John McFee again, and being out in some fine places just a mile from the house. Mint Wash, full of crystal clear water running through the granodioritic roots of a massive batholith.