Later last Friday

So those first parallel sessions ran so late--well, the whole schedule was already running behind--that when we got down to lunch there was almost none left, and by the time it was refilled, I had about 5 minutes to eat before I had to find the session where I was speaking. But I did find it. I did have a nice if brief chat with Mirko Schäfer before/during that abbreviated lunch. He says he'll be at the Piet Zwart graduation show; I hope we meet up there and can talk further. Anyway. My panel was ok; the other talks were interesting, and mine went fine, but we each only had 15 minutes, which is a nuisance, and our moderator didn't cut people off, so we lost most of the time we could have used for Q & A. We still had some, but a couple of people took all of it up...

Anyway, then I had to dash in order to catch the 5:26 train back to Rotterdam, so I could be in time for the opening of the Piet Zwart MDMA first-year show at V2. Except that there was some big accident on the line right outside Rotterdam Centraal, so no trains could go through Rotterdam... Well, after scrambling around trying to figure out another route, finally it's announced that anyone bound for Rotterdam should go to this other track...so I get that train and get to R'dam at 7:15 instead of 6:30. The show was scheduled to start at 7, so I run through the station and grab a taxi, and get there at 7:30. Luckily (for me) they are running late too, so I didn't miss anything. --But it was strange because I thought the Dutch were so punctual!

The show was really good, an impressive demonstration of hardware hacking and in some cases reflection on the web/internet, or on our relationships with "new" media. I had the chance to speak at length with a student about to graduate, which was really informative and gave me a very good impression of the program. --Also good to see that graduating students would come to the first-year show. I will post pictures or links to others' pictures later.

At the show I got to meet Jaromil, which was an unexpected treat. He's a hacker/artist/activist from Amsterdam who has released a lot of free software specifically designed for media artists and also has been a teacher at Piet Zwart. We had a really good conversation about teaching; what students need or don't. So I ended up staying until about 10 or 11, and then I was starving because I never really got any dinner during my mad dash back to R'dam. Luckily some people, including Jaromil and Florian, were going for Roti around the corner, so I went along. It was yummy, and we all talked more about US politics and political activism (or lack thereof). A bunch of the students wandered in and it was like the show was spilling into the neighborhood. Good thing I could sleep in on Saturday.

More on Saturday later. Now I need food.