28 January
I’m finding myself increasingly coming to resent artists and their daft conceits, Internetters and their stupid gadgetry. Dear Juan (Arzubialde) invited me to Bilbao, and A. arranged for Stewart to go too. The idea was to look at some sites for an installation. Picked up at Bilbao by deputation of sweet Spanish men with strong breath. One of them laid straight into S. (as Godfather of The Well) with tortuous accounts of baud rates and net-surfing. Anyway, to truly fantastic restaurant (Marinaro) in Laredo - where the proprietor very kindly gave me a 1954 Vina Real out of goodness of his heart (I had asked how much such a bottle might cost). Huge meal: wine and all (at 3.30 p.m.).
On to Santander, discussing Real World [A proposal for a future theme park instigated by Peter Gabriel] with Juan, and then a mysterious journey round harbour facilities. ‘Why am I here?’ says a voice deep in my limbic system. The same voice began positively screaming upon our arrival at the oil refinery (turned out to be an olive oil refinery!), when we were thrust into a room of mayors and lawyers and PR men and architects and asked to help design the proposed ‘Data Centre’ on the promenade. This was interspersed by a largely incomprehensible presentation (projected from a laptop, of course) and booklet (all Photoshop-designed - overlays, fades, etc. - and the only thing you really needed, the maps, unreadably minute) - both astonishing triumphs of form over content.
Taken somewhat by surprise, we started by saying that data, as such, is not that interesting. Stewart said that installations that depend on cutting-edge technology are fine the first year, out of date the second, and embarrassing for ever afterwards, and that, on a promenade, people would prefer to walk. S. and I pushed the theme ‘Im prove the promenade’, while I silently fumed at poor Juan for being dropped into this. Still, they seemed pleased that we’d come down ‘for the people’. Later discovered that there had been a big rift within the council between the Internetters and the architects, and that we - hired in by the Internetters - had inadvertently supported the architects.
Another enormous and delicious meal. Must improve my Spanish. To bed at 1.30
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten