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Annotations to a qualitative study of media

In a culture of no distances, it makes no difference, in principle, where we live. With satellites, cell phones, palmtops and the Internet, our location has little significance, because we can connect with any other place. In principle. But what if you cannot receive the usual channels – when all you get is called TV2, which has only Hungarian programmes? How to write e-mails to friends left behind at home, when the computer you use does not have Chinese fonts installed?

Those people who collaborated with me on the Biennale project were interested, among other things, in the spaces and objects used by the Chinese community that lives in Hungary temporarily or permanently. How does this colony inhabit the busy or less frequented parts and niches of Budapest? I took a look at a less palpable yet omnipresent fabric, now continuous, now full of gaps and holes. My interest lay in how the media space, created by the many channels of communication, is used by the Chinese living in Hungary. What are the peculiarities that follow from the cultural gap, the technological and social disadvantages? (...)

Updated on 2006/08/04 15:16:47

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  • samu
  • 2006/08/04 14:47:43

Interview fragments

Wang

(We meet with Wang, a very beautiful girl, who is fascinated by everything and constantly laughing, in a trendy Budapest café.)

“I don’t feel all that comfortable with speaking Hungarian right now, because I only spoke English in Holland”. (She had just returned from the Netherlands, where she continues the studies she started at a Hungarian university.)

“I spent a year in Eger as an exchange student, but I learnt no Hungarian: I just hung around. But when I went back to Hong Kong, I started missing the place very much, and decided to come back”.

“What did you study in Eger?”

“I went to high school in Eger, and there were Hungarian classes, of course, but we couldn’t be bothered. So I went back to Hong Kong, to work, and stayed there for nine months”.

“What did you do?”

“I was sous-chef in an Italian restaurant. … It is much easier to make money in Hong Kong, so I could come back after a short while. I found another high school, and graduated from there. Then I started to study for a B.A. in English at ELTE, and worked as an interpreter for two and a half years. And I’m a certified fitness trainer, so I did that too. I also worked in a hotel”. (...)

Updated on 2006/08/04 15:04:16

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  • samu
  • 2006/08/04 14:40:28

Presentation @ EASA006

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Presentation at EASA006

RE:ORIENT migrating architectures http://www.reorient.hu

01 RESEARCH how to cooperate in an interdisciplinary context

  • Budapest - Chinatown
  • Sound Spaces
  • Do it yourself!
  • The fragments of architecture
  • Guanxi
  • After the economy of place
  • Cherries and silence
  • Made in China
  • The history of the transitory
  • Chinese, Hungarians, Generations, Cities

02 INSTALLATION in Venice experiment for building pieces of an alternative contemporary space pinguins, cats, fern, cars, speakers, spirals, ...

how to work with a wider spectrum of media and skills defining spaces how to use innovation, mindmapping, etc

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03 MEDIATED SPACES emerging practices for prototyping spaces

# why? social change MAKE, tired of drafted visions

interested in space surrounding our activities, architecture, spaces for the socal constructs

but sociality is achieved increasingly through technological media. Hard to make the spartan old aesthetics of architecture (flash and stone, silence) compatible with modern sociality. Though not looking for silence, but i am also annoyed by mouse-keyboard based friendships. (...)

Updated on 2006/07/31 11:35:02

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  • samu
  • 2006/07/28 21:08:42