in march i filmed a 10minute video whilst sitting on an uptown 1 train, above are 22 screenshots from that video. (filmed from just before 23rd street until 66th street station)

handwriting and hopes for the future.

moving from a backup of the old computer to my new computer was made really easy by the newest buzz word: “the cloud”. most of my data now is stored somewhere else – my email resides on gmail, photos backed up to flickr, i’m totally in love with dropbox, recently became slightly obsessed with mobileme, more and more music coming through spotify. all these things holding onto (my) data out there somewhere – in some random collection of servers in some server farms in some random country around the world. redownloading games from steam, redownloading purchased apps from the mac app store and so on. there you go.

absolute perfection.

a few months back i gave myself the task of going somewhere based on 20+ year old memories. as a kid i would visit my grandaunt & uncle who lived in london. i think the last time i was there was when i was about 12 or so. i had vague recollections of the area; a bridge, a park, another smaller park with a fence, the house had a wonderous garden to the front and to the back – but i cant remember seeing any photos of the house or area since i had last been there so my mind might have been misremembering it all.

i took the tube to the stop, i got off and walked for a few minutes not recognising anything – i was still a little unsure as to if i got off at the right stop (there are three tube stations with ‘hounslow’ in the name). after a few minutes i get to a pedestrian street and my brain remembers it. i walk down the street recognising nothing, but knowing that soon i’d have to turn right and take a shortcut through an alleyway. that thought pushed me down a random alley way. the next thing i knew was that i’d have to find a park, which i got to a few minutes later. looking around i didn’t see anything that rang a bell for a few minutes, then i saw a fenced off path way that i went to. i walked down the path and into a area with some hedgerows and then i saw a bridge – then i knew for sure i was on the right way. i got to the bridge and as i did a plane rumbled nearby, it was taking off from heathrow. i stood on the bridge and looked at the conveyor belt of planes flying over me. i remembered as a kiddo standing on that bridge looking at the lines of planes coming in to land at heathrow – their lights making them so easy to spot. i kept going and passed through some streets before finding the streets where my relations lived (and where i too lived for a bit just after being born). my brain says there was a garden to the front, but i cant actually remember any – but regardless there is now just concrete paving and a strange feeling about all the work put into a garden for years only to see it concreted over for convenience. the house looked a little bit emptier and like it was just 2d. i rang my mother to tell her where i was. i kept walking, seeing things like the second smaller park – even smaller than i remembered, the house nearby where we stayed once whilst visiting for a wedding.

i left, walking slowly back to the tube station.

a photo series by photographer will amlot called “tracks” that i found and lost and just found again – from a magazine called “the space between” that a friend put out a few years back.

a quote by the photographer from the article:

“a track is a place where people have put their mark on the landscape – where people have trodden. it could be a vanishing pathway in the sand, or a trail work by pilgrims over centuries”

“i’m a professional photographer, and i produce a lot of digital work very quickly. this project is the antithesis to that. it takes weeks to set up the shoot – to recce the place, to choose a patway, and to wait for the right light

london, helsinki, turku. 2004 – 2010

i bought a book in nyc in ’98 or ’99, a book on the works of japanese architect shin takamatsu. i’d never heard of the architect before so i’m not sure why i bought the book, but buy it i did. looking through it later i became captivated by a building called ‘Origin I’. the elevations of the building felt like something i had never seen before – i used to stare at it – trying to figure out why it was the way it was. the front elevation (pictured above) seemed like it took its inspiration from the same places that elements of ‘blade runner’ took its from.

when i was in japan in october 2008, we had some time in kyoto. not too much time though, but i remembered that the building was somewhere near the parts of the city we would be going to. our final day in kyoto involved us taking our luggage to the train station – getting the tickets organised and then rambling around the city for a few hours. despite me wanting to see the building, i had done almost no research on where it was in the city – i had a vague idea that it was north of the train station. so off we ventured walking north on the street i knew it to be on (but no idea where on the street it was).

at the same time i was asking a japanese friend (via email) and some friends back in helsinki (via twitter i think) about its address/location. one of the replies came via email and was a google maps link – which didnt work on my phone because of the characters not being recognised. on we continued northwards before i noticed that the google maps link (pictured above) had the gps coordinates of the building. so i was able to get a good idea of where we were going based on the coordinates in comparison to the position. on we walked, almost 4,5km north before we found the builiding.

the route is us starting at the train station, walking north for about 4,5km, then finding the building (and taking the pictures below) before a cab journey to the kyoto imperial palace.

below are some of my pictures of the building. the building was smaller than i expected but still very odd – especially in its context, i think i remember that there was a school nearby.

umbrellas left outside, i love little things like this – like dogs waiting outside shops – the sign of a person feeling comfortable in their environment.

more pictures that i took of shin takamatsu buildings here on flickr.

attaching it made sense at the time.