My friend just put this boat up for sale, it has room for 4 sleeping guests. It’s less than 6000 USD! Since most of Denmark is surrounded by sea and I live 5 min. walk from the marina and beach, I was seriously contemplating purchasing this boat. I don’t know the first thing on how to actually operate this thing, but I could learn. One day. One day. I would name the boat “The Good Life”.
Since this blog is about things that inspire me, I must mention that the greatest inspiration in life is… love.
“He who love touches walks not in darkness” - Plato
“If you want to know where you heart is, look where your mind goes when it wanders” – Bernard Byer
“That love is all there is. Is all we know of love” – Emily Dickinson
“To get the full value of joy - You must have someone to divide it with” Mark Twain
“My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me” – Winston Churchill
“One man by himself is nothing. Two people who belong together make a world” - Hans Margolius
“Love is the poetry of the senses” - Honore de Balzac
“May you live as long as you wish and love as long as you live” - Robert A. Heinlein
“Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time… It tells us to tell each other right now that we love each other” - Leo Buscaglia
If you’re interested in the musical aspects of digital design – here’s a short 5 page paper in English I recently wrote for the university* on live coding performances. Enjoy! Feel free to email me, if you have any questions.
LIVE CODING PERFORMANCES – The Interrelations Between Notation of Code and Code As an Instrument
*Aarhus University now ranks 79 out of 17.000 universities worldwide – that’s cool. See the list here. Am surprised they didn’t mention this around campus.
Uploaded one of my songs, “One Hundred Percent” which I mentioned in a previous post. Still love the lyrics to this song. Working on a lot of new material, which is still soul, but a lot more uptempo & dirty. Enjoy!
It has been stated over and over again. Denmark is the happiest place on earth continuously ranking number one in Gallup World polls. Forbes examined 155 countries and Denmark came out on top. Click the Forbes link to see, where your country ranks. According to 60 minutes on CBS this small country of only 6 mill (2012) has had the privilege of being named the happiest place on earth for the past 30 years.
Not much new there, however what is new is the fact that Aarhus, the second biggest city in Denmark is in the top 4 of happiest cities on earth. Not too shabby… Dan Buettner, author of “Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zone Way”, states that “The residents of Aarhus cheerfully part with 68% of their income in taxes, knowing that in return they will be guaranteed free healthcare, free daycare, and a topnotch education for their children. A robust city of 300,000 with a vibrant cultural scene and a diverse number of religions represented, the sense of community and equality (the range in incomes is narrow), as well as easy access to the nearby sea and surrounding countryside, make Aarhus seem more like a small town. “We believe that a rich person is not necessarily the one with a lot of money,” Jørgen Carlsen, an Aarhus school headmaster told Buettner. “It’s the one who really has a lot to be grateful for: nature, the company of other people, the ability to enjoy a good book.”
I must correct one of the facts in this excerpt – taxes are between 38% and 50% depending on your income after your personal tax allowance, making the number somewhat smaller than it seems. Also Aarhus is a young city in terms of its habitants. 40.000 attend university, not counting all other institutions, making the mean age very low. But for sure, Aarhus is definitely worth a visit, if you haven’t been here yet. I live in the old Latin Quarter with cobble stoned streets, and when I step out my front door, I have an array of cafés, bars, clubs, designer shops, and art galleries to my left, and to my right there’s two forests, four beaches, two ports, and two marinas.
“In a recent programme aired on American television, Talk show host Oprah Winfrey reconfirmed the Danes to be “the happiest people on Earth”. The 1 hour programme follows Oprah’s visit to Denmark in early October, where the television star was duly impressed with the achievements of Danish society.“
Now I’m done with this shameless plug about Aarhus. Come see for yourself. Oops I did it again…
Had a truly great trip to Phnom Penh and just got back. Starting classes next week but promise to post from my recent trip. Until then – be good.
Happy New Year everybody! May all of your dreams come true.
I’ve only tried Korean food once – in Phnom Penh in 1992. I’m pretty sure both the owners of the restaurant and the chef weren’t Korean. After a terrible meal, I held off trying Korean food for a long time. It’s impossible to find a Korean restaurant in Aarhus, Denmark but since I’m going to Phnom Penh again in 2012, I figured it only fitting that I try some Korean dishes – 20 years later. Looking forward to sampling some of these dishes:
pic from koreanfest
Any suggestions as to which dishes I should try, would be greatly appreciated.
I know n o t h i n g about Korean cuisine 
As a young child in the seventies I grew up listening to my parents record collection consisting of: The Carpenters, Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and Bob Dylan etc.. Songs like “Close to You”, “Woman”, and “Jealous Guy” take me right back to early childhood. As a musical composer I do miss songs with a good melody line – so I try to make up for it in my own music. I’ll try to get around to uploading some newer songs of mine soon. Do take a look at my myspace page – still love the lyrics to my song One Hundred Percent.
Growing up in Paris in the eighties I was exposed to hip hop culture, in its early days. Tags, graffiti, breakdance, and hip hops sports-oriented fashion sense left a huge impression on me. I spent the nineties going to jams, discovering the five elements of hip hop: MC’ing, DJ’ing, breakdancing, graffitiing, and the one – that’s often forgotten – human beat boxing. The rappers flow has changed a lot since the seventies and eighties. Two of my favorite rappers are Talib Kweli and Dre3000 of Outcast. I did try my hand at scratching. But these days, I seldom find time for it. I still know how to dance electric boogie though. And if the time and place is right for it, I’ll still work that dance floor.
I love hip hop the way it used to be and the ideology and message that it encompassed and promoted – that of peace.
Today is my birthday, and it’s the day of the Saint Lucia. December 13th was presumably the longest and darkest night of the year and the feast day of Saint Lucia marks a lighter time ahead. The feast day is celebrated i Scandinavian countries. A procession of young girls dressed in long white gowns sing the Saint Lucia song while holding a lit candle, and one girl – the Lucia would wear a crown with four lit candles, resembling a halo. As a little girl, I used to sing in my local church choir, and I often walked in the procession – at school we had the most elaborately choreographed processions in our large auditorium. Every year each procession would be even more beautiful than the previous year, and my very elderly music teacher Miss Kaalund was in charge – she could compete with the best, when it came to choreography.
I love this feast day, and it’s one of the very few we celebrate in Denmark.
People never quite know what it is I do at the university. I am completing my masters degree in digital design. Digital design covers many aspects, and one of them is media architecture in physical spaces. I’m looking into doing an internship at a university in Phnom Penh – my goal is to learn as much as possible about urban spaces as well as indoor spaces at an architectural department. Anyway this video demonstrates how – by using digital technology – it is possible in an innovative way to communicate with your audience and promote public and commercial enterprises. Imagine a museum using 3D projection to lure people into the building by exposing some of what’s inside on the outside.
The first clip is a simulation – the second a live performance. Both installtions by NuFormer Digital Media
Simulation
The live perfomance
Went to Aros museum this Saturday to see Danish-Islandic installation artist Olafur Eliassons installation “Your Atmospheric Colour Atlas”. This excerpt is from the museums website:
“Your atmospheric colour atlas (2009) consists of a mist lit from above in the colours red, green, and blue. As you move around the installation and enter the borders between the different colour zones, the hues mix to form magenta, cyan, and yellow, and where all the colours meet we find an area of pure, white light. The colourful mist blurs our vision, challenging our ability to orient ourselves and forcing us to navigate the space using our other senses, perhaps by creating our own colour atlas.“
Fancy talk for cool installation for kids of all ages. Speaking of which, it’s pretty hard to spot the kid in the picture. The visibility was 1.5 meter at any given time, when walking around inside the installation.
My faculty IMV (Information and Media Science) recently built a new building and auditorium. Love the new auditorium and the wooden wall panels.
The guest lecturer below is Alex McLean, algorithmic musician, live coder, and PhD student at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He’s showing a clip of some live coding.
I once composed a song using only Java coding, but it’s not something I would ever consider as a work method when writing music myself. There’s just too many obstacles with code errors and it slows down the creative process.
Sorry about the poor quality of the photos. Getting my new iPhone in a few days, that should solve the problem, when I venture out without the Leica..
Passed by this electric cabinet the other day while strolling around my neighborhood in the old Latin Quarter. I like when mundane artifacts suddenly draw your attention using very little means. I hope whoever did this, decides to dress up the entire city center like this.
Time for a foodie post. I usually bake my own bread from a little yeast, different seeds and various organic flours. I always keep a fresh batch of dough in the fridge – ready to pop in the owen. It takes about as long as heating frozen bread from the local supermarket. Only this bread is nutritious and organic. And cheap too. This is my usual breakfast. I make some freshly squeezed spinach/ginger/apple juice to go with it.
Took a lot of pictures on my recent trip to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Absolutely loved it there. In fact I loved it so much, I’m looking into doing an internship in Phnom Penh by next year. Anyway, lately I’ve been obsessed with taking pictures that reflect different backgrounds. No photoshop – just point & shoot and accept the outcome. Old school style.
Just stumbled across the About Nan O Mea section hidden at the very top of this blog. Learn tedious novelty about me. Drop me a line if we have something in common.
Dean & Cindys Wedding Day
It’s been a while since I saw Derek Cianfrances feature film, Blue Valentine starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, but the movie has stuck with me ever since. Like Revolutionary Road the movie centers on the downfall of a married couple as their relationship unravels. What’s remarkable about this movie is it’s honest approach to the breakdown of a relationship. There’s no obvious finger pointing which seems to be common in a lot of Hollywood movies – nobody is to blame. Instead Blue Valentine showcases the flaws and shortcomings of both main characters. Usually it’s given who the audience should sympathize with. Everything is so black & white, so manufactured and rigid. I always feel like major film studios want to control the audiences emotions throughout a movie. Little is left in the hands of the audience, as if they are not to be trusted with forming (or not forming) an opinion of their own. Studio bosses want the audience to reach the same homogeneous opinion by the time you leave the theatre. Though it would be obvious to side with Goslings character, Dean, as he devotes himself to raising a child that isn’t his, his very gesture only serves to rush the main characters into marriage, before even considering if they can indeed form a lasting relationship based on something between just the two of them. Williams character, Cindy, becomes indebted to Dean and she resents him for this later in their marriage. Blue Valentine is such a hauntingly beautiful movie with amazing acting by both Williams and Gosling. How Ryan Gosling wasn’t nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Dean is frankly…unjust.
This is not the movie for you, if you’re into sappy cookie cutter movies. This is real – and beautiful.
I know it has been forever since my last post. I do feel guilty but I’ve been preoccupied with exams etcetera… I now officially hold a bachelor in Digital Design – hooray. I am taking time off to write music before I start my master in either Digital Design or Audio Design. To boost motivation/networking/co writing, I am taking a course in music composition at The Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus.
Ok. Some may know how much I like the works of renowned director, Michael Gondry. As mentioned in a previous post, I like how he imitates digital effects in an analogue way. A great examples of this, is his video “Let Forever Be” by Chemical Brothers. This video is a classic along with “Deadweight” by Beck (my personal favorite O.S.T video).
Anyway, about a year and a half ago, I came across this amazing artwork by Canadian graphic designer Julien Vallée. He works in a similar way as Gondry although Vallée is using cardboard and prints and producing videos and art installation . Vallée has contributed to such books as “Tactile” and Tangible by publisher Gestalten (Buy these – they are amazing). His cardboard work has been featured on MTV as well. I am very intrigued by his work, which could be described as a love child of Art & Design. So I was pleased to find out, that he is coming to my city on November 4th 2009 to lecture on his work. I will blog about his lecture later. In the meantime, do enjoy these videos.
And more at
http://www.vimeo.com/jvallee/videos
I spent most of my childhood huddled up inside reading a book, and if I finally ventured out, it was to go to the library…. to read more books. I loved the fantasy world of books, and although I still enjoy a good read, I must confess, that most of my reading these days involve literature of scientific nature given my life as a design student.
This semester I find myself located to the aesthetics faculty. The library at the faculty is small with narrow staircases and gangways. It a renovated barrack originally built in 1889 and used for artillery. After the bombings during WW II the barracks were finally renovated in 1993.
Ok, after purchasing the iPhone, I have to admit, I have a renewed interest in Twitter. I installed the TwitterFon app for iPhone along with the Facebook app, Skype app, and WordPress app. It’s so much quicker and easier staying updated.
Hit me up on Twitter (nanomea) and myspace.com/nanomea
Here’s a pic from the other day, waiting for brunch. P and I tend to photograph a lot with the iPhones these days.
X-RAY
Everybody will tell you, that I love food. And over the years I’ve had numerous favorite breakfasts. A few years ago, it was spelt pancakes with Canadian maple syrup, but these days I find myself in a fruity mood. The variation might change on a weekly basis (although some do stick), so I thought I’d post a snapshot of my breakfast this morning. It’s delish!
Fresh slices of fruit
Blueberry yoghurt with apple dices, musli and sun flower seeds
