Woke up today a bit surprised that we still had power. The apartment's power has gone out five times while we have been here, each time at night while we were in bed and usually when it was rainy. Last night, and all day, it was very windy, wet and cold - yes, not cold by Minnesota standards of arctic blasts - but still very cold for here, yet the power stayed on.
The last time the power went out was Tuesday, very early morning while we were still trying to sleep. Neither of us slept much after that as our anxiety over what we needed to accomplish that day - all by computer and internet that require electricity - was pressing. We had just received the final confirmation that Arthall and Spazju Kreattiv had reached an agreement allowing us to install and present in Arthall and advertise the event scheduled for Friday. Marta was in Spain without her computer while visiting her mother so we needed to co-host a FB event as soon as possible.
Our landlord responded fairly quickly to Jo's Whatsapp message at 6:30 AM and began working on the outage, sending us somewhat accusatory messages that there must be a short originating in our unit as this had never happened before. Finally we received a rather cryptic message that he had isolated the problem "upstairs" and the power went back on. Perhaps our deduction that he had an outside line getting wet in the rain was incorrect, and that is why the power stayed on for today(?).
Sitting at opposite ends of the glass-top dining table, feverishly working at our laptops, we assembled copy and cover photo for the FB event. Paul was unable to post it as his computer lost connection to the internet. Fortunately Jo's still had a connection and we were successful. Then for some breakfast (our morning coffee ritual had been interrupted by the outage which also added to our stress).
Next onto video editing, with each of us working on different sections, before putting them together as one video. The Ghost Room video was completed on Tuesday and the Undercroft on Wednesday (Paul objected to naming it "Shaft" as it recalled the Theme by Isaac Hayes for the movie.) Meanwhile Jo has been busily gluing together her paper with rubbings and prints with various bits of detritus that she has collected (e.g., a dried, used up tube of paint, a toy knight of St John missing its head, a bit of shattered safety glass, etc.). So far she has completed 12 assemblages for the installation/artist talk/open house.
Today we go to Arthall to bring the assemblages, set-up the video projection and sound. We will also, time allowing, photograph another stop-motion video of underground objects "dancing". As is usual for us, we have been very productive during our residence.
This residency has followed a nearly direct opposite trajectory than our previous AiR experiences where we tend to focus upon the environs close by the residence and studio (make-shift or assigned) located in a rural setting. Towards the end, after much focused effort to create work, we have an installation/showing and then feel free to broaden our explorations on a more typical tourist level, taking in cities and sites further away from our AiR base. This time we have been housed in Valletta for a week before moving to Victoria for the primary project, the two biggest cities of the two islands so we began with touring further away from our base before shifting to more local focus (meeting Marta and Tomas and being provided access to Arthall gave us a location for dedicated exploration)
It is going to rain all day, as it has the past two days, so the fact that we are focused on the final push and wouldn't be able to enjoy the outside works well.
The last time the power went out was Tuesday, very early morning while we were still trying to sleep. Neither of us slept much after that as our anxiety over what we needed to accomplish that day - all by computer and internet that require electricity - was pressing. We had just received the final confirmation that Arthall and Spazju Kreattiv had reached an agreement allowing us to install and present in Arthall and advertise the event scheduled for Friday. Marta was in Spain without her computer while visiting her mother so we needed to co-host a FB event as soon as possible.
Our landlord responded fairly quickly to Jo's Whatsapp message at 6:30 AM and began working on the outage, sending us somewhat accusatory messages that there must be a short originating in our unit as this had never happened before. Finally we received a rather cryptic message that he had isolated the problem "upstairs" and the power went back on. Perhaps our deduction that he had an outside line getting wet in the rain was incorrect, and that is why the power stayed on for today(?).
Sitting at opposite ends of the glass-top dining table, feverishly working at our laptops, we assembled copy and cover photo for the FB event. Paul was unable to post it as his computer lost connection to the internet. Fortunately Jo's still had a connection and we were successful. Then for some breakfast (our morning coffee ritual had been interrupted by the outage which also added to our stress).
Next onto video editing, with each of us working on different sections, before putting them together as one video. The Ghost Room video was completed on Tuesday and the Undercroft on Wednesday (Paul objected to naming it "Shaft" as it recalled the Theme by Isaac Hayes for the movie.) Meanwhile Jo has been busily gluing together her paper with rubbings and prints with various bits of detritus that she has collected (e.g., a dried, used up tube of paint, a toy knight of St John missing its head, a bit of shattered safety glass, etc.). So far she has completed 12 assemblages for the installation/artist talk/open house.
Today we go to Arthall to bring the assemblages, set-up the video projection and sound. We will also, time allowing, photograph another stop-motion video of underground objects "dancing". As is usual for us, we have been very productive during our residence.
This residency has followed a nearly direct opposite trajectory than our previous AiR experiences where we tend to focus upon the environs close by the residence and studio (make-shift or assigned) located in a rural setting. Towards the end, after much focused effort to create work, we have an installation/showing and then feel free to broaden our explorations on a more typical tourist level, taking in cities and sites further away from our AiR base. This time we have been housed in Valletta for a week before moving to Victoria for the primary project, the two biggest cities of the two islands so we began with touring further away from our base before shifting to more local focus (meeting Marta and Tomas and being provided access to Arthall gave us a location for dedicated exploration)
It is going to rain all day, as it has the past two days, so the fact that we are focused on the final push and wouldn't be able to enjoy the outside works well.