Mulanje Massif

the 3rd highest peak in Africa

I am off to climb Mt. Mulanje

September 1^st

Mangochi, Malawi

This morning started fairly usual, I woke up, got out of bed and headed into the living room to watch the morning news on bbc international. I made some tea and started to read my first few chapters of the day. I interrupted these chapters with the completion my laundry: washing, rinsing, and putting it out on the line. When I finished reading those chapters I got up to begin the days explorations on the computer. I began to overlook yesterdays models, in order to give the stamp of approval. When I looked over the “spline slide”, an animation nearly finished but it needed a few things altered. So, I began by changing a few point on the model, when the program crashed. I lost that model and I also lost an Rendering of an Animation I was working on for almost a week now. I had started the first part of it before Andrea and I went on our trip to the national park.

The Animation consisted of a very small organic bean that had a video as a material of all the photographs I had taken while sitting in the back of a truck when I hitched a ride back from the lake. I placed myself and the camera smack dab I the middle of the truck and shot down the center of the road; taking four photographs every second. Once this was stretched across the organic form I became ambient slow moving, organ the pulsing flow of the my surroundings on the road that time. Highlighting and showing the movement of the daily routine of the Malawian countryside.

Those images captured this and the also showed where the hustle and bustle exist as well. In the photographs there was always so many dynamic images of people going to the market, the place of exchange (money for commodity). The people in most noticeable interactions; noticeable because the majority are free to enter and take part if they so wish. The people either come to buy, sell or trade. Throughout all of the images I have taken here in Malawi the ones that have been the most dynamic and intriguing have been these images of the market.

When I got back from our trip to an African Safari resort, which I will talk about next. I found that it was completed and I then could use the video of the animation and place it as a material on another model I created that would be animated to create the final animation. It had about 3 more days to finish the render, but from the images that I has seen thus far, it was a very strong piece. And I lost it. It is gone forever and I will never get it back and if I try to recreate it there is a big chance that it will never be as good as the original. Yet with all of these feelings, I laughed at myself for not saving the files before I took them that close to completion.

Andrea laughed at me because she could not understand why I was not frustrated. She said, “ if that was mine I would be angry and upset and you are just laughing”. I did not care because the speed and th rush for completion, that existed in the states does not exist here. The reason it does not exist here is because I have a different relationship with time. The systems and structures that we have created in the states to construct the working day does not exist in my current environment. I am not saying that type of structures are not here but to the same degree as the US. In the states they are complex and consist of tight clean precise constructions and here they are weak and not well maintained. Things are just a bit slower. There is not the feeling of one must complete this or the need to make, work, eat, sleep, read, and continue as fast as I can. It feels nice to have complete control of ones time. I wonder how much the daily routine and structures of life would change if one had control of their time or even questioned their relationship with time. How is the time structured in our society and is that natural, is it historical, and is it effective?

So the trip....

Mvuu Camp in Liwonde National Parks- Andrea and I stayed for 3 nights at this facilities. The weeks events were unbelievable. We stayed in a beautiful screened cabin along the river. Hippos spent the night grazing outside of our cabin and all throughout the day baboons and vervet monkeys played in the trees in front of our cabin. Every day we went on a boat safari and every night we went on a car safari. We pretty much had a guided tour the entire week, just the two of us because the other party that were there were so large we could not be added. I got to experience elephants eating reeds in a lagoon while I was in a boat less then 16 ft away. I really can not express the intensity of this experience. I will let the photographs do it for me.

August 25th

August 25^th

I am currently reading A HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY by Bertrand Russell. This is a very comprehensive book that is a bit biased towards Russell's mindset and I have to say I love it. I love his approach and the seeds he begins to plant within the text that begin to grow and overtake the book pushing the context, content, and historical perceptions of the time period. He puts philosophical thought as an integral part of social and political life, not a isolated movement for social elite. I recommend it to those who have forgotten some of their root courses in philosophy and especially to those who only read postmodern philosophy without the prior knowledge to fully grasp the true meaning and motivations of the philosophers.

So, I have been reading a lot and creating much more. I have began to feel accustomed to my daily routine and explorations; this has allowed for more a reflective approach to my work- The appreciation I had for the stimulating rendering that I have previously created have moved away from enjoyment to comfortability. They do not feel as relevant as they did to me in the states. I think the root cause of their making and ultimately their existence does not feel a vital in this environment I am currently in. For example, yesterday I wrote a friend of mine who grew up in Indiana. The Midwest, he same Midwest as I but he is bit older them I; so when he was growing up the changes that have occurred through the technological developments such as the internet, had not yet occurred. I mentioned in that letter that if he thinks the Midwest is slow paced that he needs to come here. Malawi make the remotest city in the Midwest and makes it seem like NYC.

The environment truly plays a large role in my pursuits; the people that I observe, the landscape that I explore, and the air I breathe, they all derive the content, style, and design of the my work.

The hard, tight, jagged qualities of the works in Baltimore and NY are beginning to migrate towards soft, smooth, translucent objects. It has taken some time before this transition become clear to me, but I was aware of it because it was clear to me that their was some form of miscommunication that was occurring throughout my process. Recently I have focused on the visual aspects of the process through the rendering of animations and models that I have been working on for about a months and through this process it became clear to me that I need to change and evolve towards my environment and its sensibilities of time and place.

Research for Action Conference: A-Z Abstracts

Research for Action Conference: A-Z Abstracts
A little background on this series,

They stemmed from an idea I had while sitting in this conference listening to people present their findings and information on reproductive health in Malawi. It was mind boggling, due to the amount of common sense information that was presented and the slight misrepresentation of information that could be seen everywhere throughout the majority of presentations and the booklet of abstracts.
This information and its implications that were covered truly effects a lot of people here, and when i say effect I mean that it contributes to the large mortality rate that exists here in Malawi. So while sitting there I started to think about representation, communication, symbols, and language; and the critical role they play,not only on their own but also in combination. So I took the models that I created based off of the 26 letters of the alphabet that represents universals that are seen in all cultures and then brought them into a digital layout program that is strictly used to convey and provide information on design, building, and etc.; and with that... make interesting and stimulating images that truly do not convey anything except the implications of information and importance. Without speaking directly of anything and not just making complete abstractions one can find the ghostly representation of substance but yet the mind acts like a machine to try to make sense and to build up the representations into something more.