Sunday 26 August 2012

To show or to tell

If I had put a picture in this post it would have been of a large piece of concrete with the graffitied face of a king on it.

Actually it would have been four large pieces of concrete with two kings: one smiling and the other grim and foreboding.

I think it would have been an impressive photo; each piece of concrete stands about 4 meters high and is housed in an imposing glass structure inside a steel pavilion. There's no doubt as to the talent of the artist who painted the two figures; they're vibrant, colourful, evocative and engaging.

But the impact these four pieces of concrete had on me had little to do with their visual appeal or their imposing size. This wasn't primarily a visual experience so much as a narrative one. What I was looking at seemed vaguely familiar and when I read the label on the glass the sharp crack of recognition took me back to Berlin in 1991 and a New Year's Eve spent amongst people celebrating the destruction of these same pieces of concrete.

No photo can show the complexity of what these four pieces of concrete represent. The Berlin Wall is so burdened with historical significance that knowledge clouds any attempt to view it simply as an object.

How utterly incongruous, after twenty one years, to walk out of my new apartment in Singapore, cross the road, and find my former self standing rugged-up and shivering in the last hours of a Berlin, December night.

Monday 20 August 2012

In praise of garbage chutes


There are many things to miss about Australia. I miss the quiet in the evenings; the stunning clarity of the sky at sunset; the sound and texture of the sand at my local beach. I almost miss the possums that wake me up at 2:00 in the morning running up and down the gutter and fighting over women.

What I don’t miss is taking out the rubbish. Once a week the outside bin has to be wheeled down the drive to the spot by the letterbox where, early the next morning, a truck will come and hoist it up and over and deposit it back down emptied. I usually forget and Sharon either reminds me or does it herself and I end up either rushing out into the cold or feeling guilty.

What a pleasure as we move up into the world of high-rise Singapore to discover the garbage chute. Just a little tilt of a hatch, in goes the rubbish, and with a very satisfying whoosh, it disappears, no longer my responsibility. Height has bred ease and a reduced sense of responsibility; the effluence of affluence is no longer such a chore.

Thursday 16 August 2012

A beginning

Using blogs is new to me. I'm the generation that first wrote letters and then wrote emails so when I go to communicate with friends or family, it's email I now turn to by habit. I'm used to sharing my ideas with a very defined audience who I choose - not an audience who might choose me. So I'm a little daunted and challenged by the concept of throwing my ideas out there to the world and I wonder whether the ripples they make have any particular value or resonance. It's not that I question the value of my opinion, it's just that I wonder about the enormity of the ocean into which my ideas splash.

But I also believe passionately in the power of ideas to make the world. Web 2.0 is a place where apathy and conformity can sometimes be challenged; where the sluggish momentum for social change can sometimes be given a little sting in the tail by one careful word or image that comes seemingly from nowhere and invites us all to imagine a different and better world.

This is something worth being a part of.