EASA006

(the shoes exposition was kind of funny for those not involved, huh?... And we know who did it! Blame it on the Baltics...)

The last look-a-like couple! Toms, our paparazzi, and Moby, the musical doctor of our broken hearts, are meant for each other..

Macedonian corner 4

Esernyö Friday, 08.04

The sexion from last issue’s Dr.Love’s ramblings... We kind of lost it before. Sorry. Some nights still left!

Last, but not least

This is the end, my friends.

And we don’t intend to make you sad. You should be already at the moment. But smile, because the memories of these two crazy weeks will warm you up all year long or even longer.

Yesterday’s rain sadly ruined some intentions, but in the end it turned to be a very successful night. “LED attack” organized a small happening in a nice pool nearby, where they let artificial flowers and other thingies covered in LEDs to flow. Sadly it started to rain heavily, so…

We were stuck in Kassa for quite a long time, and people were improvising fun with random iPod parties etc. “Outside the Box” workshop crew were quite sad, because they hadn’t had the chance to finish their work before it started to rain. Organisers preferred showing the movies, as the electricity would crash if EVERYTHING was connected. Anyhow, when the night was at its peak and everyone got bored drinking, the lads, mostly Irish or wannabe Irish, went off to work again. And they did it – with the physical and moral help of many participants. Red paint on Kotryna’s jumper is the best proof, huh? :-) Working at 5:30 a.m. is an interesting experience.

We are busy, you are busy, so let’s just end the last editorial like that. Thanks for being interesting, inventive, crazy, happy, angry, lucky, sad, young, architects.

There would be no “Ummm…brella” without EASA. Despite some weirdorganizational things, this was a really perfect event. With a perfect newspaper crew! See you in Greece?

Kotryna (Editor) Agne (Editor) Andri (Dr. Love) Hugo (Irish) Joris (Special agent) Toms (Paparazzi) Paul (Rockstar) Gleb (Ghost) The French (French Corner) - freelance Dijana & Irina (Macedonian Fashion corner) - freelance

All the editions of “Ummm...

B(r)ella” can be found in the official EASA blog @ http:// easa.antville.org , thanks to Marko from Austria.

Quotes from the bittersweet end “They’ve been dutched for the very first time” - The Dirty Dutch “You are pregnant?” Guido from Holland “It’s something with sausages, yes?” Anonymous “Oy oy oy, lots of bodies downstairs!” - Team rain party

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GREECE - COME ON ...

Conor O’Brien Out of the box

Elefsina is a maritime city of 25.000 residents and it is characterized by its complexity. The strong history of the place, the development of the fields of production and services, as well as its natural topography is elements of the identity of Elefsina.

Elefsina is a 3-layered city. The first layer relates to the ancient period. The area has been inhabited since the 18th century BC. It constituted the connecting link between Athens, North and South, as well as the most important religious center of the ancient world. The conjunctive artery that exists till nowadays is called ‘Iera Odos’ and had been not only the main commercial artery of the territory, but also the street of the procession of the ‘Great Mysteries’, which was starting from Acropolis and ending at Elefsina.

Greece: full of good looking girls

Yury Loginov the airflag

The 2nd layer relates to the industrial period, when Elefsina becomes an industrial center. Many units were attracted due to the connection by railway to Athens and to the South. Disposing a commercial harbor the products were exported to the other Mediterranean countries. Gradually, the character of the city was changing. The sea and air were severely polluted and the expanding industries were trampling on the archeological sites.

Finally, the 3rd layer refers to the contemporary city. Today, Elefsina combines the fields of production and services. Big storage companies are located to the city space and from that point products are distributed to several countries. The direct connection with the national airport through the new highway helps the transfer of products. The city now relates to the information processing.

The new evolutions situate Elefsina into transition. Now the identity of the place is not clearly defined, but a series of facts suggests a new role for the city: Elefsina is a satellite city.

Yury says he came here to pick up hardcore stuff, and he got it. By hardcore stuff he means the unexpected (including difficulties and shit), which makes one feel good. EASA should maintain the unexpected, keep injecting it. But it should be of a different nature: This years hardcore was natural, it should be more synthetic / artistic.

The dormitories where you’ll be having sex

Elefsina is multilayered and consists of a system of layers and networks of information. It is a strategic space in which different flows, grids and structures interlink; a complex system of simultaneous relationships and events. Our proposal is to explore the interaction between the different layers.

The city-content will be organized on a digital map, which will be the main concept of our site. The selected spots of action, combined with their related info [photos, plans, texts ] will appear on the open, interactive map.

We invite you to read, interpret, comment and propose ideas for workshops and actions. All the participants can reinforce or ignore the given information through comments, also to add new spots.

The data base can also be loaded with the experience of the residents. So the tutor pack will be collaboratively created.

Elefsina will become the field of our action. The results will form a catalogue of options, a menu of events, movements and opportunities, all interlinked and organized as a city_index.

Conor is very happy with the participants of his workshop. They show a lot of dedication by working through a thunderstorm and until 4:30 into the night, this despite the workshop running into a string of bad luck. A major issue that sadly cannot be discussed in tonight’s big NC meeting as it’s cancelled. It was planned parallel to the final events of a few workshops, in which a lot of NC’s are participating.

In general Conor feels the next EASA should be more about workshops and less about partying, politics and the Maaayh-trix.

Lovely waterfront views ...

Arvid Woelfel, Renee Tribble, Hicham Bou Akl Small interventions The tutors of small interventions are really happy they attracted the right kind of participants, and kept them committed. For most it is the first time they’re making something on scale 1:1 which real people will be using, and the tutors are really happy with the effort and dedication the participants are putting in. Some setbacks were that a lot of participants didn’t know how to use the tools, and that the woodshop had not been available and organized from the start.

The tutors regret not having theorized about common:space a bit more, and also about allowing individual projects (2-3 participants per project would have been better).

Reference point of this EASA will be an old industrial shell on the seaside. The location serves exhibitions and artistic events mainly during summertime.

Basically, we all know why we’re going there. Greece is full of foxes and ouzo ... need I say more?

A Jonesy vs Johnny Iroquois Collaboration

Old shit

Workshop review Now the workshops are coming to an end, time has come to review the process and results. As part of this reviewing we interview 5 tutors we ran into. We asked them what things they thought had worked really well and what things needed some improvement.

We hope these summaries have remained close to, and still represent the respective tutors real opinion.

C. Alper Derinbogaz Trash’d

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He really likes the hardcore design the workshop resulted in: Trashed was used as it was, and not changed into something different or sleeker.

There were some problems with the organization though: The workshop felt like it was going against the wind, with a new problem every day. “The stolen laptops were the last drop”.

Though it must be said that this easa has been the starting platform for further collaborations between the three tutors from trash’d that are from three different countries.

Edwin Gardner Led attack The thing Edwin liked most was the fact a lot of people joined into the attacks, as spectators and collaborators, this gave the workshop a broad impact.

Also the delivery of material was direct, having material to work with from the start was a luxury compared to other workshops.

What didn’t work out so well was the fact that the tutors had expected too much initiative from their participants, so in possible future workshops they will have to be stimulated more. Another note from these tutors is that they feel EASA should be shorter; if it would only last for one week, things could be more intense, and people wouldn’t get bored and tired that much. But then the organization also should be a lot better and tighter, because the room for error would be a lot smaller.

Dr Breakup “Dear baby, welcome to loserville, population one - You” Haha! Welcome to the dark side my lovely readers, the place where things reverse on themselves and become unrecognisable - time for some heavy thoughts and tears...EASA 2006 is about to break up, as well as many “international relations” but never fear, Dr Breakup is here to help you with some advice in this dark time.

1. To have loved and lost is better than to have never loved at all...

2. Keep taking chances, otherwise it ain’t gonna happen on it’s own...

3. There are so many mis-understandings in this world, you can be sure you carry a few...question them.

4. To err is human, to forgive is divine...

5. We share so many of the same hopes and dreams...why do you think we’re all here?

We.are.your.friends.

My god, what an appropriate piece of music - yome hate it, some love it, but the lyrics sum up our situation pretty well don’t you think? Some general and unconnected thoughts now folllow; If we were Accountants or Lawyers would we be here now, doing this?

Not likely - I think we all question our past, present and future in architecture from time to time, but it’s times like these when we are reminded of it’s special nature, and of the kind of person it seems to attract: sensitive, thoughtful, creative people with very cool trainers and an interest in everything, especially alcohol. Everyone here brings something large or small to EASA - which might sound cheesy - but it’s true, what would happen if just a few people didn’t turn up? For many of us this is our first EASA (myself included) and I am so surprised I that I didn’t know about it what a cool idea, and another fine export from the UK! So, what else, our bizarre boats (although Kassa is really quite smart) sitting at the end of a long line of shitty “entertainment” boats - ours are much more fun for sure, filled with our many unique conversations, bad-ass dancing, dirty electro music, table football antics, bed swapping, shoe stealing, eyewinking, hard-working, long-sleeping, games-playing, soul-searching, fucked up, made up, snakes and ladders, Peri “200” scaffolding, piles of clothes, a jumble of life-vests, a mess of cables, a huge selection of many many drinks, 400 beautiful people, 800 ugly feet, smelly this, dirty that, southern european bazaar to the left, northern european forest to the right - we don’t really need to remind you how much our boats and their occupants rock, or do we? You want more? What about the hollywood night bathing, the virtual wave crashing, the cold/hot water, our human pyramid, those creative LEDS, the sunsets, the elusive sunrise, all that workshopping, shopping, and the life of the East and West sides of the Danube. What about that National Evening? What the hell was that? I’ll tell you what; absolute madness, for those of us who can remember it. The 1 thousand mis-understandings, the many more realisations and new ideas, all that fucking white bread, the stew, that brown brown stew, the Romanian Death-Palinka, early rise, bleary eyes and some tearful goodbyes (we come back Agne!). And of course our Insane Irish, Gorgeous Georgians, Greek Goddesses, Profound Polish, Bizarre British, Fine French, Serious Swiss, Soulful South Americans, Randy Romanians, Dirty Dutch (in the best way possible) Lovely Lithuanians, Luscious Latvians, Sincere Spaniards, Dangerous Danes, Sophisticated Swedes, Iconic Italians, Cavorting Croations, Gracious Germans, Beautiful Bulgarians, Bonkers Belarussions, Fun Fins, No-nonsense Norwegians, Social Serbians, Sexy Slovakians, Super Slovenians, Total Turks, Useful Ukranians, Miraculous Macedonians, Amorous Armenians and finally our very special, Hard-working Hungarians. What are we left with? Some crazy dreams, new hopes, better understandings, fewer braincells, and about 400 better lives - You’ll Never Be Alone Again - (Come on Greece!)

So, I hope those little nuggest help you out even just a little as you say goodbye to new loves, and old friends...

It’s been a pleasure attempting (and generally failing) to help you guys with matters of the heart and other organs of the body (oh dear) and the interest shown in my column and lover corner has been...heartwarming (ba dum-tiss!) I have over the past few days helped create no fewer than 0 couples, which is not bad considering my closest rival (alcohol) has only managed about 100. You can be sure that the love doctor will return, as long as he can get a job in Greece ;-) Take care guys...

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