[Postopolis DF, in the courtyard of Museo el Eco, from Aliviane’s twitpic]
Day 1 of Postopolis DF – blogger introductions & two presentations — went well: a full house despite the rain, a palpable sense of excitement, a magically stocked free bar, the whole thing dematerialized and re-transmitted via web streaming and realtime translation. Plus it’s hard to have a bad day that begins with fish like this:
[perch @ Contramar, photo from Wayne&Wax flickr]
I didn’t really introduce myself or my work in my brief self-introduction, but instead took the time to discuss the people I’ve invited to present, and explain my thoughts on vulnerability and discourse: namely that true interdisciplinary communication involves the speakers being outside of their comfort zones (I only-half-joked that this, for me, meant speaking in Spanish). Listening and talking at the edges of how we would ordinarily relate to something. 100% clarity and seamless understanding are not the goals; translation, epiphany, friction, realization of the underspoken boundaries of one’s typical modes of presentation are. (Speaking of friction: the audience at Postopolis was hot, right?)
So a big part of what Postopolis means to me, as an exploded discursive space, a meatspace and tweetspace phenom happening in one of the world’s largest urban centers, is that conversations about our shared situations in cities and beyond – and the delicious possibilities for collection actions, thinking across typical disciplinary or procedural divides – involve listening very carefully. With active patience and the curiosity of the young. Without linga franca or various ‘master’ discourses be it language or other. (Yo <3 espacios Spanglish.) Events like Postopolis allow us to improvise and generate not only discussion, but the very frameworks for that discussion. How far it reaches & who. The edges of things are where (and how) they interface with other things. Welcome to our exploded house. You’ll find windows everywhere.
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The opening party @ Rhodesia unfortunately had one of my least favorite spatial arrangements for a club: the DJ booth about 20 feet above the crowd, completely isolated from the audience. You want to play with the people, not at them, and it’s hard to avoid the latter if you are spinning from a lofty pulpit… This is the same problem with upstairs at Santos Party House in NYC and countless other venues. Architects: never ever design DJ booths in distant corners of the room. This problem – unnecessary separation – served to underscore the realtime pleasures of people meeting and making introductions in the Eco, where, later in the evening (I had to jump out for soundcheck, alas), heavyweight architect Fernando Romero and punk/cumbia singer Ali of Kumbia Queers (check my recent post! can’t wait for their album of originals, out this September) both spoke.
Things kick off at 4pm today and we’ll go until 10pm. Platicando platicando platicando…
I’ll end this post with a tweet-foto of Eco’s courtyard last night, from materia:
Self-organizing system #emergence #postopolis
