ICT - Dongtan ik village
By Soren | June 4, 2008
Due to admin problems we could not get this video online on this site. We did though find an other way to upload it. check-out the adventure of the Dongtan sustainable city by clicking this link!http://sorenbosteendahl.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/one-day-in-shanghai/it´s made by Jakob Ipland & Christian Stoltze
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Culture chok
By Nanna | May 3, 2008
I walked down Strøget in Århus yesterday. With out thinking about it I constantly seek the places with most people. When I got the option I pumped into them a little bit. I tried to get eye contact with everyone on the way or at least stare so much at them that they found it odd. When the light turned green at the crossing I looked to both sides before I walked. I tried to get almost hit by a bike and encouraged people in their cars to use the horn more. In Salling I tried to barging on the price of a pair of shoes and I couldn’t understand why there were no brown eggs and a funky smell left at 7eleven… God I miss Shanghai.
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Time goes by - Thoughts from a KaosPilot
By Daniel | April 26, 2008
To say that the time has passed by quickly would be an understatement. For me, it almost feels like yesterday when we arrived at Pudong Internaional Airport, greated a freezing Shanghai and later on, checking in at Donghua Hotel after an interesting bussdrive with an even more interesting speach from the one and only: Mr John Alexander.
At the same time it feels like years ago. Since a lot of impressions has been attacking my little head, my mind is obviously dealing with it by saying that it has to be more then 3 months back since a shorter time for all those impressions, feelings, new knowledge, experiments etc would be unrealistic.
Now (and by looking in my calender confirming that 3 months actually have past) I am sitting on my nice little balcony in my wonderful little apartment at Zhongtan Lu (in my nice but not so little 400 000 people compound) and I can only state that in 2 days, I’ll be packing the last parts of my life here in Shanghai and head back to good old Scandinavia. As my thoughts runs through my mind I get a certain feeling of warmth and contempt. The frequence of my heartbeats increases and an inner smile is shown by a deep, calm breath saying: “I am going home…”
Life in Shanghai has been amazing! It has opened up a world of new possibilities and the ones who continuously preach about the booming city in the east called Shanghai should have a drink on the house because they are soooooooooo right! Countless opportunities and massive potential in a part of the world completely new to me. I had to ask myself: Have I been re-bourne? Learning chinese would have been “the easy solution”. Instead I have insisted on communicating with body language, using tools and parcels where I have found them to make a small act in front of a confused local who keeps wondering about those white people from the west that playes theater on the street without putting down a hat on the ground for some financial support. “Do they do it for the fun of it cause I simply dont get it”, they might ask themselves. Thanks to my little note with my home address in Chinese, I managed to get home by taxi every night without having to destroy my throat and splashing the windows in the car with my saliva while trying to pronounce my street name.
Cultural diversity has been challenging a lot of times but what a great learning experience it has been! Even though we spent 3 days reflecting in Hangzhou with great facilitation of the Queen herself: Her Majesty; Karrin “The Leader” Barreth, I think my learings will come when finding peace and space at the place called home.Checking out from one world - Cheking in by coming home.
Daniel
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Gearing up for the exhibition
By Sky | April 16, 2008
On Monday the groups gathered at the home base to give presentations to one of three panels in order to receive feedback on our art pieces. Our workspace has never experienced so much life! Ideas buzzing, nerves rising, creation in the air. Together we visited the location of the exhibition and mapped out where we felt our pieces could best be displayed. It’s going to be amazing to see all of this come together. Just two days now…
…photos by November Sky Freyss-Cole…
p.s. see the invitation posted below!
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Name dropping in Shanghai…
By Thomas | April 15, 2008
Im sitting here doing the late night show with Jacob K. and a bottle of Bourgogne 2001. Life is good and we are smiling in the haze from a package of West Blue. The topic is “brilliant names chosen by a lot of nice Chinese people we have met here in Shanghai”.
We would like to say thanks to:
Ice, Toxicat, Alfa, Best, Rambo, Iverson, Yo Yo, Kiki, Dragon, Sifer, Speedy, Candy, Sunday, Ben Stone, Rocky (formerly known as Jack, but it was too boring), Chesterfield and Pony.
The list just goes on and on and on and on and on…
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In da tube!!!
By Thomas | April 15, 2008
Here is a short version of a real-world experience I posted on my own Danish blog a while ago.
On my way home from the Homebase one day, I found myself standing in the packed metro train, eyeballing a fat, real-world freedom fighter! The story went down like this…
As the train left one of the stations, I noticed a Chinese man standing 7-8 meters away from me. He was speaking very loud and persistant to the people around him. At first I thought he was a mental case, spilling some sort of verbal waste onto the crowd, but something seemed to make sence to me as he kept on talking. I was a bit overwhelmed as his eyes suddenly froze and locked on to mine. He interupted himself and changed from mandarin to fluent english. “Young man, I am here to tell everybody here to fight corruption because this country (China) is in desperate need of change”. He continued to talk directly to me for a few minutes, and finished by saying “So go and tell all your friends about the fat man from the metro, because the more people who know about me, the more safe I will be!!!”. With perfect timing the train stopped at the next station. The fat man ran out onto the platform and into the train on the opposite side and took off into the darkness of the tube. I was left in the train with mixed emotions being both energized by this powerfull protest and pissed off by the apathy and disconcern displayed by the Chinese people surounding me!
Thomas
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LadyBox from Denmark kick starting the new opened club Anar!
By Soren | April 15, 2008
Nana Dall and Gregers in the crowd.
The ladybox spinning the tunes for full volume
-both photos by Søren Bo Steendahl
Topics: Press Releases & Articles | 1 Comment »
Just give a quick answer!
By Nanna | April 14, 2008
I was asked to answer a couple of questions for one of the Chinese students. She needed it for a video she was going to make. A pen and a paper was put in front of me 10 min before we would start to work in the group. I glanced over the questions – WOW, this is serious business! I had to ask for a couple of days for this.
So now I’m sitting in my bed with my computer in front of me and these 5 questions:
- What does the western world think about the Chinese people?
- What should the western world understand about the Chinese people?
- How do you believe that China contributes to global harmony and prosperity?
- What are the similarities between east and west?
- How can you present a positive image of China to the Western society?
Even though this has added to the to the pile of “things I have to do” I’m actually happy to receive them. I think they could be very inspiring for reflections about this outpost and our publication!
- and I could start earn some serious money if I find the answer…
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Invitation to Shanghai Climax
By admin | April 12, 2008
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A typical day of a kaospilot project leader… :)
By Henrique Vedana | April 10, 2008
I’m the project leader, and my task is very clear, I’m also the only kaospilot, which gives me full autonomy and authority to do the way I want to. I have 3 members in my “team”, two Chinese girls and one English guy. Lots of skills, energy, creativity, and a perfect theme for an easy process and grandiose outcome!
I first met them yesterday at 11.09am, and in less than 10 minutes I had figured out that one Chinese girl barely understand any English (and she is a third year student in a English-speaking school!), the English boy is a teenager that speaks all the time (and I almost didn’t understand his British accent), the two girls want to leave for their classes in the afternoon instead of staying in the group, and they didn’t even understand the word “guanxi” (or the way I pronounced it). All this happening in the middle of an over crawded and over noisy Chinese University cantina. I was hungry, and people know how grumpy I get when I’m hungry just before lunch-time.
It took me another 15 minutes to convince all of them to seat down and EAT. As I finished eating I was able to see myself in that cantina “from the outside”, and I started laughing. I knew everything would be OK…
The English boy, Mike, who is a photography student from UK, is turning 19 tomorrow, and is extremely creative and talented, while being impulsive in sharing his out-of-the-box ideas. The Chinese girls, May and Claire, both 23, found two other friends to be their translators, so our group quickly grew in 50%. They are all Chinese design students at the last year of their studies.
We quickly got to unfold the meaning of the word GUANXI, a Mandarin word for “networks”, “relationships”, which in China is extremely important for virtually everything you do in your life, from finding a girlfriend, a job or a travel agent. We are still in the process of understanding the concept of Social Innovation, a buzz-word in the Western countries which apparently has no translation in Chinese, but their creative minds had already created three pieces for our exhibition next week. Now it’s time to work, get the materials we need, and setup everything on Monday morning…
My group is one of the 29 international, inter-disciplinary and inter-cultural groups of creative students, finding connections to Social Innovation on everything, from health and cultural traditions, from Olympics to Music and prostitution.
The Social Innovation in Shanghai Exhibition project is result of collaboration between 34 Kaospilot (Denmark) students, 29 University of Gloucester (UK) photography students, 8 Shanghai (China) Theatre Academy students, 30 Raffles LaSalle (China) multimedia design students and 30 Raffles LaSalle (China) graphic design students.
The final exhibition will take place on April 18th 2008, at the Shanghai Fashion Hub, 1158 Middle Luochuan Road, Shanghai, China PRC.
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