start

I came with my batteries charged for this minor. These last years I always finish the academic years exhausted. Then I spend the entirety of the summer vacation in Spain and I gain my vitality and energy back. So I came in the first week motived and trying to tell to myself that I had to hold the motivation for the entirety of the course. I was a bit nervous with how the first day was going to go. The word “improvisation” always puts stress on me as I feel like I will do something wrong. In the end, the movement exercise with Connie went pretty well and reminded me of exercises I did in the past in theatre lessons. Next came the slow reading, and here began some of the parts in which I feel out of place. When were reading paragraphs, and tried to explain their meaning, I felt like I could not participate. My mind just blocks and really can’t understand how people can get so many thoughts and explanations on so few words.

Next came the archiving day. For the first part I can only remember that we had to give definitions of some words and even form pairs. I was really surprised by some of the students, and how well they could explain and define certain words without a previous explanation. Second part was the Screening of The Last Angel of History. This is another example of content of which I can’t attach to and for which I feel it does not connect. How ambiguous and abstract the story and structure were, made me loose interest in what was being said. I even remember leaving and talking with some other people how difficult it was to understand the documentary. Finally, we had the planning of the archive. For this part I told myself that I was going to document everyday of the minor. I was really afraid of myself because I know how I am, and I know that if my mood falls and motivation goes away, I was not going to continue. I literally only wrote the following:

For the second week, I enjoyed some of the workshops such as the movement one. I remember enjoying the choreography part. The architecture workshop I remember that it was dividing to me: some parts I remember not agreeing at all with what was being said, but for others it could change my mind, and something funny is that, during a break, we were going to the toilet, but the one for men was occupied, so as a joke, and to apply the contents, some of us entered the women’s toilet.

For the following workshop I remember that with my group we wanted to focus on creating common ground. I was already feeling what the tone and thinking of most of the people were, thus with my group, I tried to go for a different way of thinking. Next, the zine workshop, I just remember going crazy with Frank and Denys with our story. We were going so nuts with our world in which everyone was blind and had the same voice, that in the end, we lost control over any sense our continuity in our story.

Finally, it was the group formation day. Some of the first activities were really nice. Again, it help me to see the behavior and thinking of many people. Again, I have seen a similar way of thinking across many, but the most important thing for me was seeing the way in which people communicated and accepted other opinions. So, I started getting really nervous when the norm that Codarts people couldn’t go together was set, because the projects were really interesting and nothing else convinced me really. Specially, when we the “leftovers” were put together, first, I wasn’t happy with the group and the topics that were coming along were really far away from my interests. This is were I was already losing my nerve cause I was already envisioning a bad experience. Luckily, the climate group wanted someone else, and after begging to Tamara to accept a big group, I could join them. I was really happy because I really liked everyone behavior, and knew that different opinions could be accepted and debated without the fear of being judged.

For this part I will try to sum up my thoughts on each Monday (if I remember something) and talk a bit about the group project and its evolution. I have to say that I did not prepare any material for the Monday lessons. I just tried to be on time and pay attention.

From the 3rd week I can only recall the “sound walk” we had to do across the centrum of Rotterdam. Being silent and just focus on the daily noises and how the city is actually really noisy. Something interesting about this activity is that by being so focused, I could even hear someone sneezing on a balcony in a 4th floor across the street. Also, by being alert to any noise, I started hearing a constant buzz in the room, that annoyed me for the rest of the talk at De Doelen. Later that day we went to Putsebocht, and my group and I went to a bench to start talking about our project.

First of all, we started by giving our thoughts and what we thought about climate change. Theo had prepared a little exercise already, in which we had to answer some questions. I think I was the one in the group with the most positive view on climate and with less worries. This led to a nice discussion. Then, I told them about some news articles I read about how much container ship polluted. Everyone was surprised by this data, and maybe we started thinking of things that pollute and we do not know about. I also remember that evening and night, I spent hours rewatching debates and interventions on climate change, and how I already lost my mind in the first day.

Finally, in our first tutor meeting, if I remember correctly, we talked about the ships and its pollution, and Josué told us about maybe looking into the port of Rotterdam.

In week 4 I made some really small notes of the talks but nothing stuck with me. I just remember having a discussion with Frank on how is it possible that plants could have flowers with shapes that attract bees, as I did not understand how they could evolute. He actually told me that evolution is more about species having changes or mutation in their genes, and the ones that are better, are the ones who survive and reproduce. In the evening, I had some drinks with Chris and Theo, as we were the only ones that could hang out that day, and we started talking about how we could shape our project. That was the they were Theo introduced the Shell topic, how he met a guy in the train that worked for them and how Shell was trying to make changes. From this discussion, we had a new idea, and it was trying to not work for a solution, but rather showing the “complexity” (this is our favorite word, which was introduced by our tutors if I am correct). Finally, with our tutor meeting for this week, our goal was to dive further into the complexity of Shell and see if we could contact with workers to interview them.

In the 5th week we had an introduction to scales. For me it was really basic but still learned about the website that allowed creating microtonal scales (probably won’t ever use it, but still interesting). In that Monday evening we were going to have a group reunion, so we went to Chris’ place and first watch the really interesting workshop on sign language and flamenco dancing.

We really enjoyed that one. After the workshops, we started talking on how we would continue our project. This was the meeting where we did a big turn on what we were going to do. Nando was the one that pushed us to go for something more creative. Again, we really liked the concept of bringing people together and seeing if, even with opposite views, there was some middle ground where they could agree on. For the tutor meeting, Claire and Josué were fine with the idea, but started worrying because we were always changing the topic, and time was passing by. On that weekend, we held another meeting. From here is were our project took the final shape. We decided that the best for the project was making subgroups, so that each person could work on the topic that they liked. We were going to connect everything with the “complexity” theme and have a visual representation with a “detective board”.

Week 6 is really vague. I lost full attention to the talks on Monday. For the tutor meeting, we present our new approach. Again, it was a new change, the tutors liked the idea, but were really worried about how we were going to perform. Chris and Theo made the prototype for the 3D board at WdKA. From this point on, its where our group started struggling with the communication and organization of meetings. We were not really structured, and were not going forward. With my subgroup, we decided to go for an academical approach but we were having issues with starting. Tim looked for articles, but reading and making something out of them was really overwhelming.

In week 7 I also zoned out during the first workshop and do not remember much. Then, that day was the symposium day. Theo, made a great pitch presentation for our project and explained everything really good. And unfortunately, with some exceptions, I did not really enjoy others presentations. The way of presenting was not concrete at all for my taste, and using a confusing language, made that for many presentations, I didn’t even know what they were about. In the tutor meeting of this week, we were only Chris and I, so we did our best to explain how it was going. Tutors were satisfied with the idea of the detective board and how we would connect the parts, but were worried again about the contents of our subgroups, and if we were going to have everything on time in less than 2 and half weeks. At the end of the week, I met with Frank to work on the “port subgroup”. This was an important day as Frank showed me an article that debunked the claim that I first said about the container ship pollution. This was perfect to add into the “complexity” of our project as nothing can be believed anymore. Everyone has to do a good research before accepting claims read on newspapers. So we mainly worked on the gathering of data.

Week 8 was the week were we really needed to put in the work. Chris asked me on Monday to buy food for the part were both participants have to agree on creating the same salad. So Tuesday I was there in Putsebocht with Chris and Nando. I helped them organize the location and put the ingredients in plates. Then, I could witness the interview and process, and I have to say that it was a really nice experience. I think that the experiment went really well. Later on in the week, I also met with Tim to work on our subgroup. We finished writing our part for Chris’ monologue.

So our last week (9) before the presentation was really helpful and productive. On Monday we had the feedback moment. After a talk with Tamara, and Theo and Donja separate with Claire, we finally had some structure and a way of working our stuff out for the end of our project. Internally, we’ve discussed every problem there was and how we could focus on the last week. Theo cut out the 3D board and painted it black. I recorded a guitar track for the video for Nando. Tim and I met again to select what parts of the articles where interesting to print and cut out for the board. This part actually took us a lot as we had to read through the articles again. And finally we met on Friday and Sunday to put the final work. Friday was the day to test the board and decide the shape we were going to use. That way we know how the pieces would fit and where we could paste our work.

Sunday was a full grind and really fun. At the beginning we were just playing while we were waiting for people to arrive. With just a ballon and some chairs, we had a blast. (Not a video).

Once everyone that could come was there, we started working: we decided what piece was for each subgroup; we cut out all the printed articles and started sorting them out; finally we pasted together and wired everything like true detectives. This part was really fun. Once we finished the board, we rehearsed our presentation and divided the parts. We were exhausted at the end of the day, but really happy with our result.

For the last day, we did our presentation and were satisfied with how it went. We received a lot of feedback and got many interactions with our board. Personally, same as the symposium day, I did not enjoy most of the presentations as the topics were not really interesting to me, and the way of presenting them neither too.

So, this was my journey through the minor. I really enjoyed the group project and I was really happy with everyone in it. As for the Mondays, sometimes there were interesting talks, but many times I found myself losing focus. I don’t think it is due to a bad way of presenting the workshops, but mainly because of my interests and the time I had in my schedule. This year I really wanted and want to spend time on the composition of songs, and this led to a situation were I never prepared any of the workshops beforehand. Anyway, as everything, there were things that I can keep as experiences, and others that I will forever forget.

Thanks for following this journey with me.

Guillermo Rodriguez Eekman