Seeing the Invisible: Documenting and Interpreting China’s Cultural Presence in Uzbekistan
Toolkit
Alex Ulko
1. Touch: wet marble chips on the wall of a freshly renovated colonial building
2. Smell: the first drops of rain hitting the dust and dried leaves in mid-September
3. Taste: crispy and puffed bread, baked in the oven and eaten hot with oblong amber-like grapes
4. Sound: a blackbird singing in the tall elm tree at dawn; the humming of a distant train slowly fading and then fading out
5. Image: after the rain, the buildings in the Old Town are suddenly aglow with the last rays of the sun against the indigo sky
6. Sensation: walking around the green hills of the ancient Samarkand ruins, being transposed thousands of years back in time
Bor
Toolkit
Hu Yun
The toolkit I would like to share is a cooking recipe from Chef Qiu. Together with him we are going to find a popular dish, which enjoyed by both Chinese and Serbian customers at his restaurant in Bor. And the dish will be easily local resourced globally and not too difficult to make.
Infrastructuring the Region. Materiality and Intangibility of the New Silk Road in Serbia
Toolkit
Jelica Jovanovic
– Toolkit material (tools for listening, seeing, tasting, smelling, and you touching related to your research/locality that could overcome our physical distance)
Listening: the sounds of the roundabout on the furthest southern point in Bor, where the miner’s statue is positioned on the rotating base – videos (by J. Jovanović, October 2020) enclosed on the link
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/emb9vr47o2naahu/AAAsH2RQQKUvGhPBhdIBQDcLa?dl=0
Seeing: color of the CuO (Copper oxide, copper carbonate) RGB: 119, 190, 160 or HSB: 155, 37, 160 besides seeing the color of the patina of the aged copper, to the north-east of the Jama excavation site, towards the Krivelj village, there is a vast flotation lake, colored the same shade of cyan, dominating the landscape.
The photo of the lake, taken from the road, Jelica Jovanović, August 2020.
Smelling: SO2 pollution of the air smells like nitric acid once the odorless toxic fume hits the atmosphere and mixes with the particles of water.
Tasting: sheep cheese, forest honey, forest berries jam. Paradoxically, the nature surrounding Bor is beautiful and its products tasty and abundant, hence the villagers are producing and selling the delicacies that cannot be easily found elsewhere in Serbia. However, one could bot help but wonder whether they are safe for consumption, given the constant reports on the airborne pollution.
Performativity of a Guarded Globalization – How is the Maritime Silk Road represented in China’s Public Museums?
Toolkit
Nikita Yingqian Cai
· Try to get hold of a Manila shawl and wear it for half an hour
· Try to find Shunde and Sze Yap on google map
· Find a Cantonese restaurant in your city and order something that is not sweet and sour
· Check out the latest blockchain price and imagine thousands of chickens running around in a farm of rural China
· Watch the video “How to quickly destroy the world’s forests?” on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-wiSqZeDhc)
· Read the book by Lisa Lowe, The Intimacies of Four Continents(Durham, NC: Duke University Press 2015)
Logistical Worlds, or, Research before the Pandemic
Brett Neilson
Logistical Worlds Toolkit
This is the game we made with friends in Athens about the COSCO terminal at Piraeus port, shown and discussed at various events including DIGRA, Transmediale and documenta14:
http://cargonauts.net
There is a video on the site that may be viewed as an overview of the game, but alternatively, we encourage you to download it and wander through the port space.
Stories from the Room –
Jasphy Zheng
Challenge yourself to keep journaling for 7 days.
Invite your friends to do this challenge with you.
Here are some writing prompts:
– What would a perfect day be like for you?
– Write about a friend who you haven’t talked to for more than 3 years.
– Describe a stranger you met last time.
– List out everything you do in the day and mark the time as well.
– Come out of 10 pet names and 5 band names to be used one day.
– Something you realized to be useless recently.
– Design a game that could be played using pen and paper only.
THE CULTURAL INTERWEAVING OF CHINA AND THE BALKANS
Marija Glavas
Touch: Your bicycle handles
Smell: The smell of strong, double boiled, and unfiltered coffee made in turkish coffee pots (cezve)
Taste: Burek (a specific type of savoury pie), a beloved Balkan dish often eaten with plain yoghurt on the side https://www.whats4eats.com/meats/bosanski-burek-recipe
Sound: Sounds in the city of Ljubljana during curfew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CHJWJER1Dc
Images: Protest graffiti saying “shame” in front of Ljubljana’s museums, galleries, a cinema and (former) NGO buildings https://www.mladina.si/203867/fotogalerija-sramota/
Sensation: Joining a protest of thousands on your bicycle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMHhTEBwzgk
The Danger of Ambition and Neglect: The Case of Beautifying Sheger Project
Aziza Abdulfetah
Networks of rivers flowing all through the city
Like blood vessels does in human body
Touching every neighborhood always at the back
Never in the front
Runny when it rains
Smelly when the sun shines
Serving multipurpose
Carrying away trashes
Poor vessels urging for treatment
Without damaging other parts
Addis Ababa Structure Plan 2017
Photo by Sinkneh
The many secret scapes of Balkhash Lake: a travelogue of the crossboundary contexts, communities and ecosystem
Aigerim Kapar
Sound: “Balkhash Dreaming” by Anuar Dussenbinov https://balkhashdreaming.bandcamp.com/track/–4
Taste: water and dried or smoked fish
Smell: fresh and warm air
Touch: a handful of salt or sand
Follow the link and press play.
If you are in such a place and time where you have dried or smoked fish, take one and bring it with you. Find a place or a space that is somewhere and everywhere at the same time.
We are to go some place other than here. Travel with me.
I encourage you to be outside, in the warmth with the breeze
sand between your toes or salt between your fingertips
If you have it water
Take a sip
.
.
.
listen
.
Now another
.
.
keep listening
.
If you have perhaps been able to get your fish, take a bite
keep listening
– – –
Don’t stop listening
Inhale the air
Take a deep breath with me
Deeper still
now, e x h a l e
.
.
.
And breathe once more,
Be there and here at the same time
Breathing in (one-two-three) and out (four-fix-six)
Filling your lungs
Water on your tongue, or the smoke of the fish filling your mouth
With sand between your toes or salt between your fingertips
never forgetting to b r e a t h e the air
Score written by Bea Rubio-Gabriel