ARTISTS TALKING

# 20 [12 January 2010]

(Mis)Communication

Without easy communication, time slows down, and we think more about what to say, how do we communicate our feelings. We miss people. Writing a letter becomes an action, a gesture of expressing feelings and emotions which have no other outlet.

Jiba tells us that there is a tradition of sending a message 'home' when you cross the equator. We decide to send messages in bottles, to past, present and future homes. We write to our great-grandparents in South Africa, our father in England, and to our future selves, who knows where. We mail the letters by dropping the bottles from the side of the ship, watching the words disappear into the waves. Perhaps this is the most appropriate place for our words to go – we have let them out, but it is the lived emotions that really matter, not the externalised words.

We send a lantern into the sky on New Years Eve, with a message translated into Morse Code. Using the code, words become a series of lines and dots. The ultimate removal from the confusion of emotion to the cool rationality of representation. Maybe its right that the lantern is caught by high winds, the code is ripped and flies off to the skies, part caught on the crane, burning.  Words on fire, seems to express them better than the ink on dry paper.  Bergson writes that language used to describe emotions and feelings can trap and externalise feelings. Language rationalises things which are not rational.

Translation, which derives from the Latin 'Transferre', meaning 'to bring across', can be seen as a metaphor for migration. (Basu & Coleman, 2008)  An object transferred takes on a new set of significances – or may be evoked using new objects which 'stand for' the original. Similarly, in the carrying over of language, words take on new significances; Benjamin's question of how translation can constitute the continued life of the 'original' mirrors the question of how the migrant can continue the life of their 'home' in a new context. The difference between translation (word for word rendering) and transduction (sense for sense), and therefore of entextualisation, extracting discourse from its original context and re-inserting it into a new context, expose how translations and migrations can transform, as well as cross boundaries.

The written language of ship is in a multitude of words: German/Polish/Italian/English..a palimpsest of makers/users/voyagers. Original signage has aged and one language has gradually replaced another, hastily typed and pasted over. The crew speak Polish, and we write out a series of questions for them, and ask the Captain to translate for us. Somewhere the question “A family recipe” gets confused into the Polish “what do your family think of your job?”- a question that has a very different, emotive meaning. We provoke angry, difficult, upset responses without meaning to. By the time we work out that the word 'recipe' has been confused with the word 'receive' we have already had some difficult but interesting conversations about the hardships of their lives, one perhaps we would have avoided with a question about the culture of food.

On Christmas Eve, we were invited to share and exchange tiny pieces of communion wafer with all the officers and crew, a ritual they always share at Christmas. The etymology of the word communion is moi, and signifies change or exchange. (Newling, 2001) Common, communicate, mutual and renumerate all spring from the same route. Etymologically, a companion is a person with whom we share bread. Sharing the wafers, or our baking bread from the starter culture and offering it to the crew, seem more profound means of communication and exchange than the verbal questions, which lead to confusion.

Katy Beinart

References:

Bergson, Time and Free Will (Essai sur les donnees immediates de la consience)

Basu & Coleman, Introduction: Migrant Worlds, Material Cultures,  Mobilities Vol 3., No.3, Nov 2008

John Newling, The Kitchen Table, August 2001

# 19 [12 January 2010]

Time and Waiting

For four days the table is occupied by Katy’s jigsaw puzzle. It mustn’t be moved. It’s a difficult one: a picture of a steam train, with lots of leafy foliage and vague white steam, which means many pieces that look extremely similar. Katy works at it patiently, and spends an entire day finishing it off. She tells me that she learns a lot from the experience: that you only find the right piece when you stop looking for it; that when you think there’s no solution and you walk away, the solution offers itself to you when you return. I do not help with the jigsaw puzzle. I have made a surprising discovery about myself on this trip: I am impatient.

 We have a calendar on the wall, on which we cross out each day as it ends - counting off the days until we arrive in Cape Town. Due to bad weather, and waiting at anchor, we have been adding days almost as fast as we cross them off: seven extra days so far. A lot of this voyage has been about passing time, and waiting. Waiting to leave, waiting to arrive. In some ways it is a luxury for us both: to have so much TIME at our disposal. Time to think and read, time to sunbathe and relax. But as we near a month on the boat, we feel like we are running out of ways to fill the time. Each day is similar, the routines of the boat runs like clockwork, and there is a ‘Groundhog Day’ like repetition of waking, meal times, and conversations with the crew. We repeat daily tasks to keep track of the passing time: a logbook, a video diary, daily sea observations, and photos of the sunset.

 We have been reading Henri Bergson’s writings on Time and Duration. Bergson challenges our usual conception of time, as a linear experience: he argues that this way of understanding time is based in a scientific, spatial way of thinking. The way we describe our experiences of the world in this mode of thinking are as something we can count, and quantify. He argues that what we actually experience in our lives is very difficult to reduce to language, and that our experience of time is not an unwavering forward march. He offers instead the notion of ‘Pure Duration’: our experiences as we live them, which are not a linear narrative. Time is simultaneous, fluid and flowing: our inner experiences of the world are overlaid with immediate and remembered emotion, sensation and association. The closest we may come to an awareness of Pure Duration is in our dream life, where there is no linearity.

 Bergson uses the metaphor of melody as a way of thinking about our experience of duration: ‘The metaphor of the musical phrase conveys the notion of ensemble that attaches to the experience of duration... a multiplicity without homogeneity, in which states of feeling overlap and interpenetrate one another, instead of being organised into a distinct succession.’ [Time & Free Will, p67]

 Bergson’s ideas change our way of thinking about the duration of this journey. There are a host of characters, stories and memories that are travelling with us – as real and influential on our experience as Niko the steward or the Captain. In some way, our ancestors are making this journey now, with us - and we are making it with them, then. The seascapes slide into one another: not a series of distinct scenes, but ever-changing and flowing, exactly the same and always different from yesterday, a year ago, a hundred years ago. We count the days, but we also stop counting. We give in to the idea that we will arrive when we arrive.

Rebecca Beinart

# 18 [12 January 2010]

Sea Observations Part 2

1^st January. I saw flying fish shimmering over the sea like giant dragonflies.

 2^nd January.  On the bridge I look over the railing, straight down to the sea, 15 metres below. The deep blue is interrupted by clouds and eddies of white and turquoise, caused by the turbulence of the boat’s passage. Looking down I have a half-desire to jump, a half-fear of falling. It is vertiginous.

4^th January. I watched the lifeboat drill: the sailors jumped in whilst the boson winched the boat down to the water. They tested the engine and ran a few checks before being winched back up again. As the boat levitated a few metres above the sea, a seal appeared underneath it, and turned belly-up before slithering away beneath the waves.

5^th January.  Still at anchor outside Walvis Bay. We have been sitting here waiting for two days. Being close to land, and still, the Sea is completely different. Calmer, more transparent, a patchwork of colours and currents. There’s a rich turquoise green and a muddy brown, clouds of pink-orange jelly fish and dark seaweed. There are seals and birds. And on the horizon is the hazy yellow desert – a series of colours and shapes that seem all the more foreign to eyes that have seen only sea for two weeks.

8^th January. Ha! the sea says. Ha! you thought you were safe, that all I had left in me was calm-blue easy-riding. Oh fools, never underestimate me! I can still toss you awake at night and shake your brain, making you wobble around like a drunkard.

(I didn’t sleep much last night.)

Rebecca Beinart

# 17 [12 January 2010]

Sea Observations Part 1

17^th December. Snow, hail and strong winds – the sea is wild and wavy, white spray against the boat, a dark aquamarine meeting the bruised brown sky at a black horizon.

18^th December. The sea is light grey-turquoise, lively and choppy, each wave capped with white

20^th December. It’s breathtakingly windy. The dark grey-blue sea looks sculpted – solid and fluid at once. As the boat ploughs through the unyielding waves, it shatters them – revealing glimpses of bright turquoise and sending huge sheets of white spray up onto the containers. The sky is cold blue grey today.

21^st December. The sea is breathing and we, travelling across her belly, feel every inhalation and exhalation. Sometimes she breathes deep and slow, sometimes she pants excitedly and our huge vessel feels like a toy, tossed from side to side, trembling.

(Later) the nose of the boat bounces slow motion up and down through the waves, huge crests of white spray bursting with every down-stroke. I see rainbows in the spray.

22^nd December. What a night. The sea has been unrelenting, tossing the boat violently all night. I didn’t get much sleep: it was an effort to stay in bed.

Skittish waves playing in the sun, spray whipped off them by the wind: a moment of gold, a handful of glitter in the sunlight.

23^rd December. Another rough night, lightening flashed on the horizon and rain lashed the boat and the sea flung us about.

(later) I just went up onto the bridge, looked out at the stormy seas. There was a small black bird following the boat, keeping up in the buffeting wind. Is it seeking shelter or looking for food in the turbulence caused by the boat? it is a small black bird with white spots on the top and a white underside to each wing. It’s the first animal I have seen on this journey, apart from seagulls.

25^th December. Christmas day and my first day of sunbathing. It’s windy but hot and the sea has calmed down – is even resembling blueness. I am sunburnt.

26^th December.  An amazing sunset and dolphins following the boat, jumping along beside it. We go to the front of the boat for the first time, scary and exhilarating – we stand on a precarious ledge, looking over a railing out to sea. Nothing but sea.

27^th December. It is hazy hot, the sea a silver mirror fading into the sky.

28^th December. Today the sea is light blue-grey, ruffled by the wind into a million tiny waves.

29^th December. The seascapes, the horizons, are a flow – a changing continuum. I have tried and failed to capture the horizon each day in a painted sketch, tried to capture a snapshot. But it doesn’t work, it doesn’t tell of the continual slipping by of the sea, of all the shades and shapes that run into one another. I try to stop time, to steal a moment. But my hand is not a camera and as soon as I start painting, that moment is gone. Or perhaps, as Bergson suggests, it exists along with all the other moments.

Katy was gazing out to sea, and asked – what if we haven’t been moving at all? Could it be a hoax – there’s nothing to tell us that we’ve covered any distance, apart from the changing stars, of which we are mostly ignorant. I think about the changing seascapes, and suddenly think of them as a blanket of scenes pulled past our static boat to create the illusion of movement.

31^st December. We induced the wrath of Neptune, by crossing the equator without seeking his permission. But after being put through an endurance test involving being dunked in beetroot soup and smeared with engine grease and mustard, we were brought before Neptune and forgiven, and christened with our new Seafarer’s names.

Rebecca Beinart

# 16 [20 December 2009]

Life on board ship

Early on Thursday morning, we finally embarked from Antwerp docks. It was snowing, and no horizon was visible as we stood on the bridge listening to the captain shouting readings – “20 starboard... 10 port”

We have been aboard for three days and are already getting accustomed to the different rhythms of life on board ship. Everything runs to a strict schedule: mealtimes are the same each day and the crew work in shifts. We have also been shifting through time zones, latitudes and longitudes, slowly making our way through the English Channel, across the Bay of Biscay, and along the Spanish and Portugese coasts. We are trying to get used to the rhythm of constant movement: the motion of the Sea has been rough most of the way, and our bodies are always attempting to balance.

The entire crew are Polish, apart from one South African who is training to be a sailor. The food is Polish too, which involves a lot of meat and potatoes, but we have managed to negotiate vegetarian options. Katy is braving the sailor's menu!

We go up onto the bridge everyday to look at the charts and navigational equipment. The crew are not hugely communicative, partly due to language, but they are happy to show us the readings and our position. We travel at 16 miles per hour, a great big vessel ploughing slowly through the waves – we've still got a long way to travel.

Last night, the Captain invited us to join him and the first mate and his wife (the only other female aboard) for a drink in his lounge. We had Polish vodka and the cabin was filled with cigarette smoke whilst we discussed the benefits of smoking, eating, drinking, early death and life at sea.

Activities:

Exercise - quite difficult. Due to rolling.

Daily horizon painting, photos.

Methodology seminar.

Sleeping a lot.

Reading Ricouer (also quite difficult)

# 15 [20 December 2009]

Journey to boat and arrival on board

We travelled by train to Antwerp, via Brussels. Katy read Maus on the train and was transported between times, other trains and travels across Europe, people fleeing for their lives or already captured and in transit to camps.

We arrived at Antwerp station with all our motley cases and bags, feeling a little worse for wear, and were totally bowled over by the station building. Later we read the description in Austerlitz (WG Sebald)..

“Delacenserie (the architect) borrowed the main elements of his monumental structure from the palaces of the Italian renaissance. But he also struck Byzantine and Moorish notes. And perhaps when I arrived, I myself had noticed the round grey and white granite turrets, the sole purpose of which was to arouse medieval associations in the minds of railway passengers..”

At the station we were met by a disgruntled taxi driver who proceeded to issue warnings about the crews desperation for female company, so that our arrival at port was tempered by a certain wariness.

We weren't on any lists and we weren't expected. A man casually looked at our passporits and waved us on to the Green Cape, which was loading cargo. We had to climb a rickety staircase leaving our luggage on the dock where it was unceremoniously hoisted up by crane and dumped on to deck.

The Steward, Niko, then welcomed us with a little too much enthusiasm and showed us our cabin, and we breathed a sigh of relief (collectively). It had a lockable door. We ate in the Officers Mess and were informed the boat would not depart for another 24 hours at least.

So, the next day we wandered off into Antwerp through the snow, to explore. We found the contemporary art museum, the MHKA, which had a show on textiles and social fabric. We tried on parangoles (capes), by Helio Oiticica, and were inspired by his instructions.

We talked about where you first go in city, what you first look for, and what our ancestors would have looked for.

Later we found ourselves in a mixed ethnic district and stumbled across a Russian shop where we purchased Lithuanian black bread!!!

We headed back to the ship for our second night, and watched The Fugitive as cargo was loaded outside our window.

# 14 [15 December 2009]

We depart...

Have spent days packing, trying to work out how to preserve and transport everything from starter culture to detail paper and ancient dresses. Resulting in a bizarre assortment of suitcases and luggage.

Tomorrow we set off for Antwerp to find the Green Cape (maybe its something we should wear?) and set sail for Southern Climes.

We have been given many tasks to do on board, as well as a jigsaw puzzle. We are ensuring a taste of home with earl grey tea and marmite.

We will be busy:

Learning to crochet

Fixing the world

Working out our Carbon Footprint (done it already, cheated)

Carrying out an action

Checking the charts

reading The Prophet

Writing a log book

Trying to discover what is in a container

Drawing the horizon

Meditating

Recreating family photos in costume

Being Victorian lady watercolourists

Sending messages in bottles

Playing chess

Inventing new constellations

Finding out the crews favourite recipes

and other things too...

# 13 [29 November 2009]

We set sail in 2 weeks...

Starting to pack and prepare for the voyage, it feels like there is so much to do. We are attempting to fold away our lives here, and chose the items to take with us on the journey.

We have booked a passage on a cargo ship that leaves from Antwerp and will take 19 days to sail to South Africa. The departure date has yet to be confirmed: the cargo, rather than the passengers are prioritised.

We each have our own fears and hopes for the journey, there are many unanswered questions. Will we get sick, or bored? Will we take the right things with us? Will the cooks allow us to use the oven to bake our bread? How many different skies will we see?

# 12 [21 November 2009]

Home Delivery: Borscht and Black Bread

A Performance

Images from the event at Barry and Edith s House, Saturday 7th November 2009.

# 11 [16 November 2009]

Home Delivery: a performance

On saturday 7th November, we carried out our performance "Borscht and Black Bread" for Artwash

The performance took place at the home of Barry Reeves, and we read extracts from our ongoing correspondance about the project, on identity, memory and objects. We then invited the guests to eat a meal of borscht and black bread, made from our starter culture.

After the meal we asked guests to tell a story about one of their ancestors, and we toasted each ancestor with a shot of vodka.

The images show the preparaiton of our performance.