Skype: 7 December 2015....

NZ>>>><<<<EU

Clare, Marnie, Liz and Rachel

Rachel has her tickets booked for a epic Christchurch trip-ski.

Clare to try to hook up Stunts VIP for RO to attend CAG opening. Schimouse.

Things to do in Christchurch:

- Time how long it takes to walk from North Projects to the Physics Room.

- Look for places where posters go.

- Take images in the interiors that you visit.

- Mel has suggested a few people for RO to meet up with.

- Meet North Projects

- Women's Center

http://womenscentre.co.nz/
http://womenscentre.co.nz/lesbian-events
- Agender Christchurch

http://www.agender.org.nz/4322/246922.html
http://www.agender.org.nz/4322/index.html

Michelle Smeation, mobile: 027 465-9582, foxyms23@gmail.com

What would we talk to the Women's Center and Agender about?

- Say hello and introduce our collaboration/project. 

- Ask what their organisation do in the city.

- What kind of issues are important to their communities in the rebuild process?

- How do the networks in Christchurch communicate with each other? Thinking about reaching out to potential audiences for the project.

- Does your organisation have an archive? A collection of your visual material from the past?

- What kind of design processes do you use for your organisation's visual identity?

- What associations or connotations does Manchester Street have for you?

- Are there public spaces that you enjoy? And what kind of public spaces (if any) in Christchurch do you feel comfortable being 'out' in?

- Gay bars? Trans bars? Lesbian bars?

- Seen any good movies lately?

RO needs a short text or narrative for the project to take with her on the trip:

LA suggests:

We are making a poster series to be put up along the part of Manchester Street that links the Physics Room with North Projects. The posters will generate visibility for a new AtCS video project, and secondarily, create a pink zone (where the film's main character is being represented through a queering process) in the red.

RO: It would be good to indicate in the text that Manchester Street is "A loaded site." That Manchester street has an interesting or contentious position in the city.

LA: The only loaded thing that I can seem to see is that there is a mix use in the street, between sex work, churches, private property, libraries and commercial activities. 

RO: But post-quake, the shrinking or the re-purposing of the city has left streets like this very changed, but also contested in a new way. Are we choosing to work outside of an interest in this contested zone?

LA: I think we were invited to broach that complicated territory, but I have become a bit wary of it. Because to have an informed conversion about this, I think there is a huge amount of research to be done in order to have that conversation. We can also go in as outsiders, and connect in our own way with the site, and this is fine, but we should be clear about that as a position.

MS: I don't understand why there are only two options: No research, or research. What about the possibility of asking specific questions that come through the lens of our practice? 

RO: We talked about the idea of a confessional tone, and developing a single character through the four of us. Is there a way to talk about research this way?

LA: Well the process of making this work at the moment is so blurry to me. There are so many focusses. I know we have certain threads, but they are many. In the past we were always much more focussed.

RO: We normally work with sites and contexts that have a 'reality' we can work with in a playful way -- we use our knowledge of a context, but in this situation we are trying to work with a site that we don't really have a handle on.

LA: I have no reality for this site, only representations and mediations.

RO: For this project, we have the movie poster, the magazine cover...... so far, this is what we have been posting.

LA: Maybe we start doing an edit of the material. I don't like the idea of two posters, but I like the idea of more than one. There is quite a lot of interest for me seeing this character emerge over more than one style of platform (for example, women's mag, and hipster zine...). And there was also the newspaper headline. I was confused by the zebra in your collages RO, because it is such an exotic animal for Christchurch. I am quite keen to see a body represented, but a body that's not a body.

RO: Could you explain that body that is not a body thing?

LA: Like in the goose image, the body is partial, so you fill in the absence with your desire. And then it is funny because the goose is both here (hair) and there at the same time. Like someone has cut the film reel at the wrong moment.

CN: The spoonerism film poster is missing a spoon. Or maybe a fork. Ala Alanis Morissette. 

LA: This image makes me want to ask you to take images of interiors in Christchurch.

LA: From what I have gathered from research so far, the only lesbian spaces are in women's centers (this is from American theorists mainly). 

I went to a gay bar in Rotterdam recently, I arrived at 12 and there was no body there. Weird. But then my friend took me into a bar room, and then there were like 17 people all watching a porn film together.

NEXT SKYPE?

- Possibly while RO is in Christchurch, if it is going to work with timing.

- Or when RO comes back to Wellington.]

>>>>>TBC>>>>>>