STEIM

Amsterdam is so wonderful. 

People smile, they ride bicycles, they drink good beer and there is sunlight. 

Kevin and I are here for a residency at STEIM and to make a presentation on the Digital Poplar Consort, a set of electronic instruments we made together in his mom's kitchen. 

We haven't been doing much touring because of the preparations for the lecture but I have been taking little breaks to play with my camera.

Portrait of Kevin and Carmen in Holland

I was trying to make myself stay inside and work.

Can you guys guess which one is me? 

Kevin and Butch and Ulrich rocked the house- really! look at this--- a man bowing a guitar, a man bowing a cello and a man bowing a clarinet- SO HOT!

Here we are at the lecture. Thanks to Butch for taking the picture. 
There are so  many pictures of me looking like this at presentations. You don't have to tell me I look like a buffy- I know it. I hate it -but there is also something totally satisfying about making a presentation on some really esoteric topic like in this case nonreferential gestural interfaces for music performance- in latina academic artist buffy biodrag which of course includes a set of rhinestone hair pins and extra lipstick. 

But this wasn't the weirdest incarnation of ethnodrag gone awry. Look at this-what the hell!?!?

This was in the window of a Mexican restaurant.

I can say with certainty that there are no polar bears in Mexico.

Apparently the Dutch don't know that.

We saw a concert of augmented instruments in a converted hospital.  This is the entryway to the Smart Project Space. 

 The main gallery and concert hall is housed in what used to be the Anatomy and Pathophysiology wing of the hospital.  (Please don't click the following link if you are easily  affected by medical imagery.) I was really distracted by what I know used to happen here.  

It was a heavy space. 

This is Robert playing a set in the concert hall.

Here is the second, smaller gallery space. 

The main gallery was closed for installation at the time.

They have a hip bar with fresh flowers on the tables and techno on the sound system. 

Amsterdam was good. 

                                            We got so much work done.                                             

We saw old friends

When it was time go it didn't feel like we were going back to Paris. It felt like we were leaving Amsterdam. Boo hoo!