Existence self-explains

I am different from you. It's not a critique, it's just like that. I sit on a slightly different background, observing from a slightly different angle. Still we share this place and this existence.

Pictures from tiny beach in Sandviken, Bergen, last week.

This is also why bath

Upper right side of sketch: The way I perceive it informal meetings between different cultures/social class/etc. happen in Bergen mostly between boy/girl, typically in a bar/something similar, in the weekends, and many times involves alcohol. It is something about the meeting that happen under influence of alcohol that doesn't justify either. Meetings otherwise within ones sex happens often with people from similar background. This only strengthens ones locked idea of reality, since these people tend to have similar opinions, perceptions etc. as yourself. It's hard to r e a l l y understand that no one a c t u a l l y perceives what you do, although mistakenly it can seam like it on the surface.

Lower right side: A bath is an activity that can attract young, old, sick etc. and they can all use it at the same time! I suggest that the bath is sex segregated. For example Mondays for women, Tuesdays for men, Wednesdays for families.... or something like that.

Lower left side: diagram of division of space in Turkish hamam and Roman thermae. I am also going to check out Japanese bath and the traditional baths in Bergen to create a modern bath.

Body/mind oneness with atmospheric temporality

I grabbed the chance on Saturday to wander on the site in Vågsbunnen (Skostredet) since it was a rainy day, normally what you would expect in Bergen, but what we have had little of the last year. It wasn't raining so much, so I walked without an umbrella. I realized that when the sun is up almost every place is good for staying. However when it's raining it's not so much the water that is falling from the sky that is the problem - it is the low pressure in the atmosphere. Other places with a different typography (not forcing the clouds to crowd down the valley) a rainy day is not so heavy on the body.

Top sketch: Lydgalleriet (The Sound Gallery), exhibition space:

Left side: From the outside it is not possible to see that there is an extensive exhibition on the inside. It has beautiful wooden floors and many large and smaller rooms, including fascinatingly mazed plan with sudden verandas and other unexpected spaces.

Right side: People open up, expand, and fill their bodies with the healing rays of the sun when the sun is up. When it's raining people contract due to air pressure and the dense humid air.

Bottom sketch: Pressure chamber:

Left and lower side: I got an idea about a pressure chamber that would invert the outside pressure. This means that on a rainy day you get a sunny-day air lightness and on a sunny day you get a rainy-day air denseness. It's about realizing the body/mind reaction to atmospheric pressure, and not just in a atmospheric change, but in all other situations too. Getting a clear sense of how your body/mind contract/expand space in different situations. Maybe the space itself could also react physically by actually expanding and contacting according to it's situation .... remembering eternity in temporality.

Right side: In places like Tokyo and LA you can go to special places to drink fresh oxygen, a response to the air pollution.

Understanding ideologies

I made this sketch of some predominant ideologies, how they take shape and manifest. It is related to the last post. They describe hierarchies, political systems and power. Architecture has been used to strengthen political ideas. When we die, our opinions remain in the architecture. Architecture can be mountains, but they can also be more organic and flexible to change. You need dynamite to blow up a mountain, but flowers and other plants grow on the mountain, slowly transforming its shape. When on the mountain side the mountain is not so powerfully present; you experience the plants, the trees, the flowers, the small mushrooms, hear birds, see the sun or the rain, listen to water running...

Segregation - integration - assimilation

Based on Hamburgers continuum segregation - integration - assimilation, I made this graphic to explain these concepts. The word integration is often misused, acting as an agent for segregation or assimilation. If integration is about integrating, to make a whole - it's a two-way process between two or more non-constant objects seeking harmony without use of any kind of violence. Everything is process, and this graphics is simply simplifying the concepts - of course the graphics could go on and on.

Interview with Vincent representing "Wazalendo Kenya" April 20th

Vincent comes from Kenya, now a Norwegian citizen. He studies comparative politics at the University of Bergen and is an active member of Wazalendo Kenya.

Wazalendo Kenya is one of the member organizations at BIKS. It was funded in 2008, and even though there are not so many Kenyans in Bergen, it is an very active organization that often attracts people that come from other African countries and some Norwegians that often have an association to Africa (been there or married an African). This resume is based on my notes from our talk at Café Kaos.

"Wazalendo (which means patriotic in swahili) is a voluntary organisation based in Bergen and covers the whole of Hordaland province in Norway. It serves not only the interest of Kenyans and other foreigners in Norway but it is also allied to other like-minded organisations in the world. Kindly enjoy and visit us frequently!" (from blog).