I met with a friend who is a psychology student to interview him about dialogue in his work and research. He’s particularly interested in the lack of dialogue and oppression of individuals, particularly women, in British culture. I’ll write up the interview as a separate blog post but there were also some interesting dialogue with the cafe staff about what the phrase in the coffee saucer translated as. I was going to google the translation and my friend asked the server. The server didn’t know so asked his boss who told him to tell us it meant “enjoy your coffee”. The whole sequence of dialogue then led onto a conversation about where everyone was from, native and second languages and the social role of drinks and cafe culture. This exemplified one of the points my friend made earlier about the over-reliance on technology to ‘connect us’ making us further away from human connection and dialogue than ever before.
Enjoy your coffee.
Dwell Time was at the Northern Community Rail Conference at the Hilton Leeds on Monday. We had a ‘market stall’ with some Issue 1 copies and we were there to tell people about the project and future plans with the plan to roll out Dwell Time across the North in Year 3. We met lots of interesting and interested people and had plenty of dialogues centred on potential collaborations. What was noticeable towards the end of the day was how exhausting this sustained level of conversation and networking is, and the intensity of the noise level. Even over lunch we sat with a potential future collaborator and continued dialogue. There is then the follow up email dialogue and meetings for more dialogue in the typical ‘work breeds work’ pattern: ‘Dialogue breeds dialogue’.
About Parley who I’m working with currently: “Parley derives from the old french verb “parler” to speak. Parley is a discussion, conference, debate, sometimes used to bring about truce or change. We chose the name because we like it and because we think good relationships, ideas, learning and progress occurs when time and space is created for quality conversation.”
Dialogue comes from French as does conversation, communication, discussion and critique.
Space and echo are also French.
Market is derived from the French marché and transaction is also French.
Sound is sonore in French and words are les mot or les paroles.
Echoes of a Market had the soft launch on Friday.
The space looks great and I had a chat with Vicki who runs Parley about how my visual response to the recordings might manifest in the space. Having a conversation in a space about responding to that space is a really important process for me. Thoughts and ideas operate in a much more direct and visual way when I have that kind of dialogue opportunity. I’m also planning some prep work sitting in the space and making notes or scribbles in response. I’m not sure about leaving them in the space or making them for my own development yet but looking forward to being the process.
I went to the Fourth World Congress of Psychogeography at the University of Huddersfield. Before it started I had a really interesting exchange with someone who used to be a carpenter by trade and lives down the road from the Uni. He spoke about not having the opportunity for critical dialogue in his locality and everyday life where his peers and neighbours are discussing football and TV. Whilst he talks about football and TV with them, he also thrives on critical dialogue. I told him about my work and he honed in on Dwell Time and we reflected on reasons why mental health is so poor for many people at the moment. He asked if I’d done any comparative studies with other cultures such as in the east. I haven’t and only really know the World Happiness Report which I have no idea on the reliability of the data and if the measures can be consistent across the world. A very interesting exchange.
I also bumped into a artist friend who I’ve never met in real life before, Robyn Woolston, and her friend Tanya Meditzky. We discussed the conference and respective works/current projects and life in general. I mentioned in a previous post about another conference, that whilst the conference itself is interesting and inspiring, it seems the dialogue that takes place incidentally and around the edges of the thing that brings us together is the stuff of most value. The dialogue happens and is formed by the context of the conference or event and wouldn’t happen in that way or at all if it wasn’t for the mutual purpose of being there.
