Move Project » Tobias

Gallery

Tobias — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 17:36:49 +0000

Images from the trip in Ukraine are now available:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/moveproject/

24 ours on a train

Tobias — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 13:52:35 +0000

I am so tired- due to lack of tickets we were forced to leave Dnepropetrovsk at 5 in the morning, only ours after our gig at club underground. Now after some ours of sleep in the cabin I share with Zavoloka and a woman travelling with her teenage daughter, we have settled down in the restaurant wagon serving extremely cheap and nice food & beverages. I guess sleeping, eating and drinking are the few things you are able to do on a 24 our train trip. Greskja, a type of grain that feels like something between cuscus and porridge is really good; think I will try to bring some packages of that stuff back home. My heartbeat seems to be adapting to the rhythm from the train, as my mind is aware but in waiting modus. Zavoloka have been speaking with the woman in our cabin, and it seems she have some tips about where to stay in the Carpathian Mountains.

i’m so happy…..

Tobias — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:53:05 +0000

There have been made a lot of horrible music in the world. Somehow we are haunted by mad popular music on this journey, and somehow I feel it is polluting my ears stronger here in Ukraine. Today I heard a trance remix of nirvanas lithium, in our minibus on our way home from the studio. I believe Kurt Cobain would turned around in his grave if he was able to hear it…

Have spent all day working, and in two days we are having a gig in a club here in Dnepropetrovsk. We have discussed fort and back on how setting a structure for our performance, because it is somehow complicated finding a balance between a stage performance and a concert in this club environment. We now feel that music and the visual may be in the centre, and maybe Lotta and Sasha will play a different role than on a propper stage. Maybe a more ongoing and loose performance in their characters will fit, rather than a fixed dance structure. Zavoloka, Johannes and I believe we have somehow found a plan in how to deal with our collaboration in music and video. Improvisations over a set of themes, connected to our research period in Vilkovo and Kiev. I feel like a lighting designer without lamps, as my role is more and more connected to video. I feel excitement in dealing and performing with live video clips in real-time, since I am not a very experienced VJ, but I feel thrust in my material and in my improvisation skills.

Dnepropetrovsk

Tobias — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 16:16:02 +0000

By first sight Dnepropetrovsk might not seem as eye-catching or exotic as Odessa. But after a while when you get to learn her better, she becomes more and more like a trusted friend you can speak with. Hear beauty is reviled little by little, and maybe it’s a relationship that will last for longer…..

Dnepropetrovsk is really superb. By only its name I was imagining an industrial and grey city, but my preconceptions are once again turning out to be wrong. The city seems really green and inviting, with an relaxed atmosphere. Trees and parks all over, interesting architecture, and the river Dnepr flowing like a snake through the city. The city is not filthy at all; it seems fresh and appealing with a slight nostalgic touch of the Soviet Union days. We rent an apartment somehow central in the city, through some of Zavolokas friends in the experimental music scene of the city.

Today out Russian team member Sasha arrived from Moscow. At last move project are united, and the work can somehow be structured more precisely toward stage performance. We also have access to a great studio now in town, a place we all found reliving to have as working ground.

Our first trough session in studio was established by me presenting two video clips from the material I have been working on from our stay in the trance pop city. The idea was that I feed the others with the material and somehow explain my feelings and thoughts through them. The others were supposed to respond, somehow creating a short individual piece influenced by mine. It is really interesting how different expressions as music and movements may fit so well together. As a working method it feels effective in communicating over such different fields of art, and I am looking forward to get input from the others in developing video loops and images with light.

Later we went to the club were we are supposed to perform later this week together with local artist and Dj from the experiment scene in Dnepropetrovsk. The club environment may become challenging to deal with, especially for me when it comes to the technical issues and how working within the space, but I hope we will manage to do something interesting about it.

Tonight we have spent time walking around in the parks and by the riverbank of Dnepro, together with Zavoloka’s friends from the area, some of them artists in the experimental electronic scene, and two dancers taking part in a workshop Lotta and Sasha are holding in during the week. Really great people, but again I only wished I knew the language better, because English is not quite the second language here. By the way, and an interesting fact, Ukraine seems more and more divided when it comes to language. In Dnepropetrovsk they seem to speak more Russian than Ukrainian. I still find it strange how cultural identity and language may differ within a country.

Cigarette and shrimps – Odessa fantasies

Tobias — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 19:58:26 +0000

Odessa is a beautiful but dangerous woman. Dark haired, raw and with temper, she is yet sensual and attractive. I think she speaks fast and swears a lot.
I could somehow feel it in the air when we were stepping out of our marshrutka in downtown. There is something fascinating about this city. It feels more southern in the spirit than any other place I have seen on our journey so far. The smell of sea, the mysterious history and culture lie deep in these dirty streets around the central station. People look more different; having darker skins, as cultures have met during times in this harbour by black sea. I even spotted people of African origin, not a very normal sight to be in this country. People speak differently in Odessa than most of Ukraine I heard, a bastard dialect of Russian, Ukrainian, Hebron and others tongues mixed together during centuries. Zavoloka told me Odessa people are like foxes, always trying to fool you. I better watch my pockets.

We only had a couple of ours before the night train to Dnepropetrovsk. Enough time for a tasty dinner and a brief walk around in the city core. It feels like a place I would like to explore more sometime in the future. The rawness, the beggars, the dirty market, the constant stream of people, the dangerous looking wild dogs on the corners; it alerts my senses in some way. I think there are many secrets in these alleys and streets. I hope in time I will get to know some of them better.

Marshrutka

Tobias — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 13:15:07 +0000

We are travelling in our tiny and crowded minibus called marshrutka towards Odessa, were we are supposed to take the night train to Dnepropetrovsk. We must look like a strange company with all our packages we are carrying with us on the trip. These fares are not made for travelling with Johannes’s bass guitar or my enormous backpack.

The bus cuts through the flat landscape on a dusty and narrow road. As far as my eye can see the scenery around me consists of enormous fields, interrupted by tiny villages, cows, scattered vegetation and woodlands. The colour out here feels not as saturated. Even though it’s green, it’s a bleacher green today. There is a straw like yellow tint in the tones of my panorama. It somehow peaceful to watch and it feels like the time must go slower out here.

On our way, the road suddenly turns into Moldavian territory. It feels somehow exotic, as my knowledge of Moldavia only goes as far as: its size, their football matches against Norway in the last qualification for the European championship, and that they are one of the poorest of countries in Europe when it comes to economy.
But the landscape feels the same, and soon the poor road leads us again through the checkpoint and into Ukraine…

Saturday in a pop trance village

Tobias — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 19:46:19 +0000

Woke up with a heavy head, following last night’s exploration in local vodka culture. It felt like the house was about to fall down. A giant storm had somehow arrived from nowhere and shocked our tiny trance pop village. Later the manager at our place remarked he never expired something like this in his life, heaving a storm coming so rapid and suddenly. As the wind faded I went out to get my morning coffee by myself, with a handwritten note from Zavoloka, reading black coffee and pancake with sweet filling in Russian. It feels like I am one of few having sat my foot on this place without knowing a single word of Russian except from thank you; Spasiba, Spasiba. With the lack of English speakers I might as well go on with my Norwegian if I had not been given handwritten notes. After my meal my head and body were slowly feeling better, as I joined in the others working, I started editing video material.

As people went on to the beach after the stormy interruption, they would be amused if the saw us sitting inside with our laptops instead of slumbering at the beach, My roommate Johannes is deeply into his composing on his laptop, and it feels somehow good to work on such a isolated and absurd place like this.

As the night is approaching I am writing these lines hearing the inferno of sounds from the bars and clubs in the distant. It s like a pumping machine of twisted fun, a journey into bad Euro trance and a constructed pleasure, and its hard to think that people actually enjoy this music and these places at this volume. There are elder people here as well, but they do not seem to react on the volume or the Dj’s choice in picking music. It is hard to find a café, or to enjoy a meal and a conversation without having to yell to make the other person hear. And every place seems the same, trying hard to play louder than their neighbours. Like a war in bad taste without anyone raising their eyebrow. It’s funny in a sad way, but the fact is, there are more empty clubs than tourist at this place. And the people spending time here do not seem to have that much fun either…

Saturday night fever

Tobias — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 00:32:04 +0000

As Saturday arrived with sunshine and joy, we prepared for club night at Cinema in the centre of the City.

The first good news beside from our lunch from the local supermarket (exotic indeed), was that Johannes package had shown up from some mysterious airport belt somewhere in in the eastern region of Europe. The exquisite ski sticks were however still gone.

Our co partner in Kiev, Kotra had arranged a atmospheric setting with a two room dance floor with a great line up from the Kvitnu label. Headliner was Dunaewsky69 who released his new album, and we were special guests. As the evening proceeded, people were suddenly roaming in from the streets of Kiev to take part of this exiting event of cross over art, music, and visual enchantment coming from the VJ corner. And as our performance proceeded on, Zavoloka twisted her laptop with her amusing electronic music, as Johannes ruled his bass as Vasterbottens answer to Bootsy Collins, Lotta went in and out of her characters and showed Kiev how moves can unite with progressive music. Included in the set, was the not yet famous hit song “Move Me”, where Lotta appears as a whispering and strange gollum like figure. Yours truly the light boy, also got a chance proving some hidden skills in an improvisatory song and choreographic euphoria that will be developed for sure… I believe my lampfever has left my conscious mind. The response for our first move in Ukraine was overwhelming, the crowd counting to at least 150 paying persons, and it actually seemed like they really liked it…

Afterwards we could chill in the bar with a refreshing soda, enjoying our brief success and the music from Dunaewsky69 filling the more and more crowded dance floor. As Zavoloka started her solo live set, it occurred to me that all my preconceptions about Ukraine and Kiev were running away like the sweat from my forehead. There is a vital electronic music scene in Ukraine, and a friendly atmosphere which I don’t think can be found at clubs in Scandinavia. People seem to care less about dress codes and acting cool, and i felt a truly open minded vibe and curiosity for experimental music and art.

As the night turned into day we left the club in a cab ride from hell, tired but with a smile upon our faces…