Riwaq's - Interruption encounter

Hello morning crowd and distant ones,

Thanks Mais for logging down some of the ideas we shared today down. Your contributions was very valuable, for indeed Interruptions strength stems from the multidisciplinary outlook of its consortium of creative minds, no particular discipline holds a monopoly of intellect over others. So here is to tearing down the boundaries!

I re-framed the ideas we touched on today in a slightly different way. We could expound on them more during our meeting tomorrow evening. I don't think we need to include this part in the invitation though.

-Narrating places - cities and memory (Bilad al Sham).
-Reflection on themes of : Homeland, Belonging and Exile.
-Living and re-inacting states of siege: Artist under occupation/ Artist is diaspora.
-The question of Identity & Citizenship in "Liquid Times".*
-Language and community as space of recovering and maintaining a denied homeland.
-The question of artistic freedom and responsibility when a is nation is under siege.
-Free minds under occupation, censored minds in diaspora; Learning from Riwaq's expererience.

* Zigmunt Bauman

Possible projects:

Web based initiatives; (Art/ Architecture/ Text) to explore and utilize virtual space as the a means of countering occupation. We could even propose a project under the title of "Un-Occupied Territories". A space where hypothetically unbound freedom exits and the citizen artist (in the larger sense of the word) have an opportunity to re- create a new reality.

Exploring cross-border collaboration, points of intersection or simultaneous installations in multiple and distant locations stretching the concept of a nationhood across the boundaries.


Proposed modification to invitation text:
You are invited to join a candid encounter between Riwaq (Ramallah based organization representing the first Palestinian participation ever at the Venice Biennale) & Interruptions ( Amman based architecture- art- culture) Initiative. The informal "Hiwar" will be an evening of unedited exchanges, reflections and interruptions within the framework of art & architecture on the themes of Homeland, Exile, Belonging, Citizenship, Identity and Collective memory among other topics.

Do we need to have more text for the invitation than what is in the paragraph in the italic?

Eman, 30.05.09

Riwaq & Interruptions encounter

Hey guys,
Just like Khaled was watweting.... Eman, Daria and Rula met... and I was the writer to document their work ( You know because i'm not an architect to speak!) :p so i tried not to interrupt their intellectual communication... and be the usual passive person i am (smiling face)... so here is a draft of what we propose as outline... please feel free to edit language... comment ... amend ... delete parts... suggest parts... it's all subject to interruptions... from all sorts....
words & phrases that were raised :

EXILE

city Narratives

Third Space in terms of virtual mental escapes

question of HOMELAND Space BELONGing

Question of Citizenship

Palestinian Art Unconcious pain

the exile conference of 2010 in montereal - Montereal- Jordan- Palestine exile project

Freeing artists freeing art

Free Minds Interrupted thoughts

talking Cliche

crazy Distance & Time?!!


and here is a proposed invitation

Join an encounter between Riwaq from Palestine & Interruptions Inititaive. An invitation to Interrupt the cliches & cross new borders in observing how we view culture, architecture, identity, mobility, belonging, homeland, and citizenship differently.
an attempt for Riwaq to inspire interruptions.... and for the interruptionists to interrupt thought & wondering ideas....


please suggest names to invite people....
suggested list already
Samar dudin- important for the identity & exile part
Dr. Rami Daher
ISmail Tahhan
Bilal
Dr. Farouk Yaghmour
7iber- to exchange the 3rd space concept


and khaled will be responsilbe for creating an event on interruptions group on Facebook... since he has the monopoly of the administration there... :p

i will be responsible for booking Alballad theatre
Rula will bring the data show
Daria & Khaled will prepare interruptions presentation

I added mobility :) (smiling face) it comes with the package of safar suggesting this encounter.... do you mind? anyhow... there'so much of safar's influence on the draft above... added to the fact that the above is coming from a non architect ;p so please go ahead and revise...



hugs,
Mais irqsusi

Miraculous Damascus!

Urban cuts.... Damascus, a miraculous city that contains all cities. Walking down its alleys within the wall is an experience shaped by series of unending interruptions that pulsate with life.
Eman 28.05. 2009

A ride to Damascus

Surprise Friday blog that will make some of you green with ???
I found myself a ride to Damascus tomorrow, yes on the back of a horse inside a toonbur, it just doesn't get any better than this. All sorts of things happen when you interrupt people's journey's from the window of a moving car.
cheers, Eman

An unforgettable place from our latest interruptionist walk!

After all visual creatures like us are supposed to be in their element outside language.
Think of it, what person with such a sensibility would not be stopped in their track if they were to come across such a sight in the midst of an orderly streetscape. The place - a truly preplexing junkyard- seemed to belong to a different world and time altogether and was more surreal than an invented setting in a movie scene. Just the car alone held many secrets in its presence.
What could the story behind this place be.

Maybe we could imagine several possible scenarios about this place for an article....
Another blind owl blog!
Eman

Compelling Stories- Interrupted Walks

Here is another synopsis of what I have thought about writing for the next edition and beyond, under working title
"Compelling Stories- Interrupted Walks"; It will be structured like a photo essay with the text of the conversation with characters I met walking down the streets of Weibdeh. A magnetic pull made me interrupt my walk, stop and carry a conversation with some of the street inhabitants only to gain a glimpse of their shared world, and be graciously permitted to photograph them and their contexual setting.

For the upcoming edition I propose my the essay to be about a tailor and men's barber who operated thier store for nearly 50 years in the same street.

Will disappear in Ma'in for two days without my computer (yeeey) think about it until our walk next Friday.

cheers
Eman

A visual thread from the white laundry rope project!

Blind owl nightly interruptions.

Here is a toast for the laundry rope project... the city is full of them.
We can go around and photograph the wide variations of these sun drenched hanging art and make a big mural of out of the chaos of these colors and patterns that fill the city.

Eman

for Paula

Paula:

I remember an article that you wrote in the previous issue , -as I understood – I thin it was about two actions that happen in the same time but one depends on the other at some point but not vis versa!
Well , I think that this time you are trying to do the opposite, when you have action A overlapping the happening of action B. in the example of the farting dog it actually stops the importance of the funeral! and exclude the poetic importance of its nature! Our MR. Farting dog if you allow me to use your example is only important because it happens on the time of the funeral or a religious ceremony! So looking back at your previous article Action A here depends on Action B! I can imagine the priest shock being interrupted by the sound of the fart as a notion of un-respect! Well that makes me think what if a regular person farts! Will he still be shocked or mad! If you want objects to object! I think we have to investigate in the POWERING presence of the objected hence the interrupter!

IT'S ON!

Hello.

I'm the guy that had the great idea about lucid dreams and interruptions, as it turned out; great ideas aren't that easy to turn out on paper the way the way you think you've seen them in your head! So, good for me!

This article? well it's kinda like a writer trying to write about "writer's block", his own case of writer's block to be more exact.

So yes, it is confusing, somewhat frustrating, but to write about what it is I'm writing about i had to go through it, be my own case study as absurd as that might sound, because I would've loved to get some help but it was hard to actually write my notes on a blog (nothing is clear, my ideas could only be written on paper, and also i need that one thing you all talked about, to be in the same room talking, seeing every facial expression, letting the nonsensical ramblings lead the way for the conversation to end someplace you can actually gain from rather than sitting and talking to yourself.)

Anyway, I'll try my best to post something, anything, but for now here is the simple definition of lucid dreaming:

dreaming while knowing that you are dreaming.

To be aware that you're in a lucid dream you mostly need to be interrupted by a certain trigger, a physical act or a visual indication.

Like some of you said about the many different ways of interrupting someone, I'm wondering what if that someone is a designer, and somehow the interruption is coming from him, and he has to realize it, and run with it, because of he didn't he'd stay in a state of perpetuating dream. 

Because realizing good ideas are good is one thing, knowing what those ideas can be is another, and finally getting to the moment when you can simply point at an object and say this was my idea, my dream, well, this is in a way what I'm writing about.

Talking to yourself helps sometimes :)

To NADER, on the last post...and anybody else mildly interested in the subject of my article in cyberspace

whim⋅si⋅cal 
1.
given to whimsy or fanciful notions; capricious: a pixyish, whimsical fellow.
2.
of the nature of or proceeding from whimsy, as thoughts or actions: Her writing showed whimsical notions of human behavior.
3.
erratic; unpredictable: He was too whimsical with regard to his work.

....

Hi there. thank you for your feedback it was both helpful and confusing... i dont understand why you described the examples i said as whimsical, when you are suggesting a more constructive interruption and then use nude borat as an example??? maybe it´s cos i dont remember the scene fully, ( or the complete nudity for that matter haha) but how is borat in that state, constructive vs. the examples i mentioned??

i definitely concur with the thought that you mention of the interruption as an art form and not as a mere primitive division factor of context.(at least as a subject matter in my article) im not really sure how to bring that idea down to earth fully yet... but maybe i can explain it better with images...
i have to still read loads and think think think! ( havent had much time for that)

http://www.manodepapel.com/tomate/index.html
at this link you will find another link bienvenido ( the version in english isnt done yet)then at the bottom "proyectos" then"arte" and then a video. play it ,its called SUBTE and was mentioned in interruptions last issue in my article.... the object in this video : the bubble may help convey my feelings... and maybe somebody can help me out with the words.. hahaha i am a woman of images. how ironic how you people make me write!

thanks! ;)

reply to the 'dunno maybe but maybe i dunno' post

Hello. I think it is a fabulous intention that you conduct an observational narrative on metamorphic male/female relationship (I'm speaking from a totally abstract sense). May I suggest, in accommodation to you narrative, an informative outlook on 'constructive' interruptions (maybe not the more whimsical examples you which you have most vividly displayed) that can offer some clarity on the execution of effective interruption, weather on a social engagement or physiological level. An interruption that comes to mind is Borat's nude intrusion on a convention in the 'Borat' movie.

"... ideas that are born in their consciousness play an insignificant part in the march of events. History is dominated and determined by the tool and the production." I read this bit in Joseph Conrad's 'The Secret Agent' just before attending to your post. I figured upon understanding this quote (which may serve as relevant to what you may or may not be trying to channel to the readers), we can start to understand interruption not as a blunt form of 'in-your-face' explanations, but more as an expressive art form. no? objections your honor?

Happy Birthday Wishes

Interruptionists wish Mais a happy birthday which she'll surely celebrate well in Beirut!

FADI GHANDOUR (ARAMEX, CEO) FINDS OUR ONE WEEK OLD BLOG AND POSTS A COMMENT!!

keefak Khaled? It was great spending time with you at dinner last night... good luck wiht the rest of the program! Fadi Ghandour

...

http://www.zinderellasoy2.blogspot.com/

if i put a porn link up somehow i think the interruption would last longer...

dunno maybe but maybe i dunno

the title has to do with my complete lack of knowledge of my subject for the banana issue ( cracking my knuckles and smiling an embarrased grin)....
anyway.. maybe just maybe it might be along the lines of ego vs. interruption. and vice versa..


and so in that tone i leave a picture of what.... of mE!
how egocentrical? dont you think? i think ill interrupt your philosophical ,political and profound feelings thoughts and posts by posting .... ME.


AHEM AHEM yes me its me with the hand in the air.. i would like to say something that is probably feverishly more important than what you have to say.



im also thinking about those interruptions, that result like a fresh blast of air. those moments that are apart from some solemn context: a congress, a religious event, a funeral, a symphony concert.. and then somebody farts, a dog walks in, a kid vomits, a dove flies, a balloon floats in...
objects that interrupt its context by intruding by their mere presence AHA!!!!!! i know what i want!

i have just remembered an idea that i had had before... I will speak about the intrusional presence of an object in a context that dictates otherwhise. acoompanied by a series of photographs of these objects. objects objections?

Mayor Omar Maani comments on 360east regarding the Sanaya Amman skyscraper ads

(refer to 360east) post by Ahmad Humeid, Syntax
http://www.360east.com/?p=1136

Mayor Omar Maani comments on 360east regarding the Sanaya Amman skyscraper adsApril 28th, 2009 My post about the Sanaya Amman advertising campaign, has attracted the attention of Mayor Omar Maani himself. Commenting on that post he wrote: I must agree the adverts look like the towers are touching the heavens when no other building dared do this. Although more than sixty stories in height, I assure all that it starts at one of the lowest points in Amman, in area A designated for high density mixed use, after a lot of studies, care & attention to the urban fabric of the city & the unique skyline of Amman. I am having a word with the developers on this.I think this is great. It is clear that the mayor has a sensitive understanding of Amman’s identity and urban image, which goes beyond the dealing with the city only as an ‘engineering’ or ‘traffic problem’ to be solved or as an ‘investment promotion’ issue. High rise developments are indeed part of most regional capitals’ future (although with the current financial crisis gripping the world, one wonders how many of the developer’s high rise dreams in Amman or elsewhere will be realized!). What’s important is that our city decision makers in the public and private sector acquire an understanding of Amman that deals with urban identity as a whole, beyond the mere planting of grandiose “icons” all over the place. One little know fact is that when Omar Maani took over as mayor a few years ago (at the hight of the real estate craze), there where a dozen or so approved or semi-approved tower developments, that looked as if they were copied straight from Dubai, planned between the 4th and 8th circle. Without the intervention of the mayor we would today be dealing with several (semi completed eyesores and potential traffic black spot along Zahran street and elsewhere. In Amman, we don’t elect our mayors (yet). One of Amman’s biggest challenges is the lack of public participation. It is encouraging that our mayor is trying to listen, wether through reading blogs (and commenting on them:-) or through listening to what the young people of the city have to say in public meetings like the Amman Centennial Forum recently. I just hope this momentum and spirit continues, as Amman has great challenges to face on every level of its existence..

Reporting on Blog

Dear Interruptionists,
I labeled all of your posts so each of us could find enteries posted by name of the author
so each of you, from now on,
sign each post and 'label' your name
and that who reaches 10 posts first will get a prize! lol

for Interruptionists in Jordan,
I added a 'watwet' badge, each of you can create a watwet accound and post live by texting a cheap sms which goes directly to the blog!!!!
You can all Interrupt now wherever you were, whenever it was-
you can text any idea that crosses your mind which you may elaborate on later!!

draft deadlines are soon so I'm hoping abstracts will start coming in!!

Interruption from the WEF

Interruptionists! I'm interrupting our sessions at the World Economic Forum to report to you!
its the second day of the workshop and Fadi Ghandour is here, CEO of Aramex!
amazing things learned here, I need to share it with all of you,,
things that has to do with media, communication ecology.. and many things that would improve Interruptions a lot, I also got to introduce Interruptions to many interesting speakers and hopefuly we'll carry that out of the forum with all Interruptionists!

khaled, interrupting live from WEF!

sound-INTERRUPTION

Paula: you read my mind and u represented exactly what I was thinking about yesterday… -SOUND INTERRUPTION..

Guys, for the past month we have been investigating about the physical interruption and the visual interruption, we interrupt people's life with our walks and interrupted each others lives by – intertwining our lives. But a sound interruption as I chose to call it.. maybe for the lack of a better name is also a vibrant factor in our daily life and it can interrupt our means of understanding and thinking…

I would quote from paula and nodar:
AHEM!!!! ( clearing my throat in an exaggerated way as to interrupt..)
Uh, hello...(tapping microphone, echo reverberating through vast space of the internet, reassuring my 1 in a billion existence, this time virtually).

That was an interruption for the silence vacuum we put ourselves in when reading the blog and getting surprised by the imaginative sound that your mind creates while reading a descriptive form.

Since I started to believe that interruption is a sort of a deformation, how about we deform the soundscape into a written-scape.

darya

ahem..... ahem!!!!

AHEM!!!! ( clearing my throat in an exagerated way as to interrupt..) waving one right hand frantically in the air as to to say... yes i would like to speak. i believe somebody was at the microphone, and yet i cared a bit before, a few posts before but now but now.... i shall say.


an act of interruption is about ego.
yes i sort of care what you are saying BUT ACTUALLY i dont. since i would rather... yes. stop you... STOP YOU AND SAY. excuse me ( although im not being actually polite in saying) EXCUSE ME YES YOU YES ME YES

I WOULD like to speak....


all the way from guadalajara mexico.


-paola

Royksopp

Interesting video concept, if only it could be envisioned with an architectural outlook. Video clip of a band called Royksopp, Remind me. (The site itself maybe of interest too.) enjoy it ya jama3a, enjot it!

Nader

The white page

I couldn't resist bringing the color of the page back to white with so many good ideas are being circulated. It struck me that they can only be fully heard if we still or silence the background even if for a brief duration. Rarley do we see a musician playing his score from a colored page???

One day we could even write our thoughts on a -White on White- page, like a perfect Kazimir Malevich painting, so much could emerge from such a profound expression.

Eman
05.11.2009

Replies 1.1

I liked Rula’s idea to reply everyone at once, it is probably even more visible than comments,,
First it’s beautiful how the blog went, it did create in a sense a source of consistent Interruption for us to grasp on every now and then even while we’re at home.

So I’ll reply each at a time,,

Eman; Initiations
Eman! Well first, as for blogging: I think the experiment has proved worthy thought still fresh, we might prefer spatial exchange as Eman mentioned but also a blog has positives, one of them is linking spatial experiential dialogue with published interpretations to be contained in Interruptions editions, the evolution of idea into published material is a process that is often marginalized and privatized;
We only discuss ideas but never discuss interpretations, expression, representation, and that’s what the blog is offering us.
Maybe that among other things, like connecting us with Interruptionists away from us, Nodar who posted here earlier and others who now have the opportunity to view, comment, post and interact remotely could strengthen our network and radicalize dialogue in various ways.

So here’s the anti-anti blogging manifesto!

And as for our little walk, you mentioned how the roses were a poetic ending, but as a matter of fact it was 8.00 am when the guy gave you the roses, these interruptive incidents are rarely an ending, but rather marks for beginnings

Dina; Art + Interruption
It’s a quite interesting experiment to view art as an [arti:fact]
though we interact with artifacts daily, framing them in public as [arti:acts] or products of the latter sounds like an original experiment-
there’s many ways to implement such experiment, but I’d love to see it happening; so what ideas do you have in mind? I want to hear more

Nader; Roasted Peanuts!
Beautiful man! With you around we’re constantly interrupted with such peanuts!

[rest later…
(I'm at Broadway cafe Abdoun; and apparently you only get a one-hour-internet-voucher when you get a smoother and I'm not in the mood for another one, later!]

khaled

Pause more, see more and "get the girl!" Twix!

Refering back to the Twix commercial Nadeen mentioned in her post, I havent seen the commercial so I was curious to see it, its a pretty interesting concept, also visual interpretation, they even feature a game on their website where in order to "get the girl" you go through cinematic-like scenarios pausing everynow and then to pick a different scenario, you should be both lucky and "experienced" to select the right scenario to "get the girl"

each interruption here is a turning point, a branching plot for two scenarios, one desired and the other is, well, terrible if you really wanted to "get the girl"!

so do we interrupt randomly towards a rather anarchist state, or do we interrupt "to get the girl"

so far we've been interruption experimentally, this is probably the essence, though with a target at the back of our minds, but there's also this margin for liberating these experiments from a specific goal, so our game is more of a "get 'a' girl" instead of "get 'the' girl"

khaled

Interruption is one of the fundamental methodes of all formgiving. It reaches far beyond the domain of art. it is, to mention just one of its aspects, the origin of the quotation. Quoting a text implies interrupting its context”.– Walter Benjamin


When art becomes a way to experiment peoples behaviors, (their reaction to an intended action) I would love to join u in your project if u allow me, I always tell khalid that we should do such an experiment to create a scene and step out of it letting people react to it differently while we tape the whole thing. My idea was to interrupt the regular scene in the city with unexpected (fantasy scenario) that would force their lives to be INTERRUPTED! Thus introducing a bizarre fact, triggering the act of public thus introducing Art

To the morning nterruptionists :

Dear morning interruptionists: I noticed that during our early morning walks we have interrupted the street with our own existence, we were the audience that moved form one play to the other creating an instant of disruption. How about if we reverse the role we become the play and the passers become the audience. I suggest that we sit in a certain place in the street and interrupt people's journeys, we become their instant play. We might use the downtown or to go to the jabal alqalaa. ( what do u think?)

darya

"the butterfly effect"

Hey everyone,, im finally in! I was having a bad week with every electronic device I own that’s why it took me forever to post this (sry khalid).

I really enjoyed reading all your posts, a bunch of them inspired me with some ideas.

After attending my first "interruptions" meeting the other day, I somehow remembered the movie "the butterfly effect". When we were talking about experimenting more, I sort of imagined creating different scenarios for the same scene,,, this somehow relates to Nadine's post , if we were to freeze a moving instant, as an act of interruption, and somehow imagine different scenarios for the moment that would follow, that would be an interesting experiment, what do u think? Or maybe the interruption could exceed freezing the moment to actually implementing several acts that would interrupt the scene and see how each act of interruption could lead to a different scenario,, just thinking out loud….

the sound manipulation of the word 'interruptions' in Arabic is a very interesting idea and an experiment by itself, I actually believe that these Arabic phrases can actually be the guiding elements or titles throughout the whole edition,, since we're interrupting "بالعربي" maybe each article or topic can be titled with the most suitable phrase of the ones Rula wrote down, again just thinking out loud.

Personally i liked " إن تباين" the most, I believe it could be the title of an article that would compare between 2 similar interruptions having different effects , i've got some ideas for places that would be perfect for such a ""تبايُن
and willing to dig more into this.


Last thing,( I promise :p), someone suggested at the meeting, I think it was rula, that the magazine could include some pages with certain patterns and that only one element would stand out within the pattern or something like that, I think these kinds of graphics represent the magazine the best, maybe for this edition the patterns could be related to Arabic culture , and so on in each edition the patterns would relate to the theme.

sorry if I gave you all a headache going on and on like that :p …

Lama

MY EYES!!!!

Rula you are SO paying for my new glasses! I had to lower screen brightness!!

Teaser

Well done interruptions, you have succeeded again in interrupting the anti blogging patterns some of us have (including myself). And correct me if I’m wrong, but I have noticed that some of us (including myself again) have witnessed some minor blogging –dyslexia symptoms; I couldn’t but notice the beautiful posts we have and the zero comments we have after them, this is why I hate blogging, the reactions you have in daily confrontations are always faster, more genuine and less sophisticated.. anyways I am not going to re-write the anti-blogging manifesto again.. I am posting all my comments in my post.

--After the Bananas?--

ان تعثر- وقف- توقف-----> عثر
After the actual act of slipping on a banana, you rise up. Being the object causing the effect of slipping - a banana- and not any other lame fruit , you stand up and look back smiling at the banana. This is how I see the next interruptions, we should look back at the bananas our bananas and slips and rise up.

--Initiations...--

Eman, your pink interruption has been valuable and enjoyable to all of us, a beautiful post, and a great anti-blogging manifesto introduction. Looking forward to see your visual contributions :)

--Chain of email to brainstorm interruptions in arabic + بلا عنوان و لكن--

Nadin, the brainstorming email chain we had was actually initiated from your previous Arabic contribution, the fact that it was the only Arabic contribution was a frustrating interruption to me.

عنوني كتاباتك بالعربية .. فكتابتك تستحق الوقوف عندها

--To Rula--

Thank you Darya that would be great, if you could email them to me on rulayaghmour@gmail.com
--Art + Interruption--
Dina, Schedule a meeting for us to start working.
---Time Framee---
-
---Roasted Peanuts---
Nader, Keep interrupting us with your witty contributions/ attitude, this is always a plus for the magazine :D
---Proposition for Jabal Al Qala’ Intervention---
I love the photo Eman, the two ladies reflect the state of anticipation, worry and concern this neighborhood is experiencing. We should act fast.

Teaser
As for my photo/ post , don’t worry Khalid this is not the picture I have for the photo-essay contribution, I accidently stopped at the red light of this picture in my mobile, and thought of posting it for you -interruptionists- to brainstorm with me the thoughts you have about a traffic light- not necessarily this traffic light- or about the thoughts that mumble in you head when stopping at a traffic light...

Excuse my messy-reddish blogging experience.

feel free to change it back to black khalid.. or any other color..

Rula

Proposition for Jabal al Qala'a intervention.

After returning from a very emotive visit to Jabal al Qala'a with Rola and Mais last Wednesday, I started to write down a long commentary regarding this most interesting of neighbourhoods in this city. After re-reading the reflections, I decided not to post them on Interruptions blog, knowing fully that the content and tone of what I wrote, could ruffle the feathers of some of the magazine's primary sponsors (stumbled upon accidentally). Being a guest contributor, I thought it is more appropriate to keep my observations private at this point, until I further notice.

On the other hand, I think we can still dedicate a significant part the upcoming Interruption issue to Jabal al Qala'a. The neighbourhood is being fast tracked toward expropriation, without giving the residents adequate time to organize and mount an effective contestation campaign against the municipality's plans, or at least meaningfully participate in shaping the future of their neighbourhood and therefore their own. Interruption could intervene to provide this community with an urgent platform for making their case against these impending collective displacement plans.

Some suggestions on how we can approach this story:
We could spend at least half a day sometime next week in Salama Bin Alakwa3 street. Identify and meet with several key characters or families who have been in the neighbourhood for more than half a century, or for several generations ( Mais's grandmother would be one of them), and split the task of interviewing them amongst those of us interested to contribute to this feature. We meet with them , hear out their stories and try to re-tell it in relation to the place they live in. The idea is to expose how intertwined is the memory of the inhabitants with the urban fabric. The hakayas of the community that shaped the mountain over generations, could raise the readers awareness about the cultural and historic meaning of this neighbourhood, and hopefully raise questions about the merits and implcations of such re-development approach on the lives of many whose stories are literally woven in the landscape of the place.

Munir, you must join us when we plan our next visit to this neigbourhood, the community is really worth making a trip for. So when are you coming to Amman next!!

*One of the most hypnotic books about cities and memory is "Invisible cities" by Italo Calvino.

I encourage you to post your feedback, even if not in favour of this proposition!
Eman 05. 08.2009

Roasted Peanuts

Uh, hello...(tapping microphone, echo reverberating through vast space of the internet, reassuring my 1 in a billion existence, this time virtually). Enough of that talk. I am, an Interruptionist. Yes, so I have become. I 'interrupt', and also on many, many occasions, I have been interrupted. You must travel both ends, one before the other. I had been enlightened by this philosophy recently by an architectural lighting designer. I conducted an interview. Oddly enough, we sat in a dim lit room. There were no lights on except for the glow of 10 am daylight from a single North facing window. An hour into the discussion, I pointed out that we had be conversing in the dark. He said in order to understand light, you must understand the darkness. Cryptic, but inspiring. With that I ask you oh dear 'interruptionists', have you ever been interrupted on a scale on which you will be interrupting? Just some roasted peanuts for thought.

Nader

TIMEFRAME!

Dear Interruptionists,
please submit all drafts and contribution proposals by the end of this week,
draft submission deadline: Sat 16th
except for visual material

finalized written articles Sat 23rd
finalized visuals/illustrations/edition devices Tues 26th

Art + Interruption

This is my first time with a blog, so it might seem for me a if I'm sending an email or something, excuse my ignorance..
I will start with the idea of Art and Interruption and why is art always an alternative in our visual culture?

ACT- FACT- ART

Usually when I walk down the streets, it's always an urge for me to look for the element/object/act of interruption that translates the narratives in the city… it could be a simple piece of burnt newspaper, or the remains of the tree we found clutching into the fence rail… or that mysterious room we discovered frozen in time down Al Salt street..

But in our previous 6:00 am walk, while I was trying to find these interrupters, Rula and I could not help but notice that these moments are finding use, the idea that came to my mind is that maybe we should frame these street interruptions … and create an ART that introduces a FACT and is determined by the ACT of the public, where the public are the actors/spectators of that street ArtAct .

I am just thinking out loud… doing these installations in different settings of Amman, and document peoples reactions to these interruptions. To sum up, the idea is to create an interface surface of expression between the people and the city through public street art.

I've got some ideas for places I'd like to experiment with, and some ideas for the way we would present it in Interruptions...
any feedback:)

Should I write something in the end, no Regards, no Thanks, nothing??? ;)

Dina

بلا عنوان ولكن...

Good evening my freinds =)
i really "Did" enjoy reading all the posts, Eman's post evoked my imgination from its slience
"Every moving instant we freeze is an act of interruption."

take the photo --- interrupt the moving scene ---- action??
its a two way action, either the reality that takes place right after the scene was interrupted
or
how do you 'personally' wish it to be after the scene 's been interrupted
its all about where you choose to interrupt the scene to virtually create the new world of continuous interruptions

i liked the idea of (poetic interruotion) i believe its here where i can Write

yesterday while i was eating Twix in class, I remebered the slogan from twix's commercail
"pause more see more"

توقَف أكثر
فأنت تتوقف يومياً
لكن توقف أكثر
و تعمَّد هذا الوقوف
اجذب اطرافه لكَ
لترى أكثر

pause more see more ; )

Nadeen

Chain of emails to brainstorm interruptions in Arabic

rula's email attachment!

From Rula Yaghmour sent on Thu 4/23/2009 1:33 PM

Mais, Munir and Friends,
Sorry for not sending this earlier but I have a bad relationship with emails, and it took a while for us to meet! Munir was faster than us and its only fair to share with him from now and on all our brainstorming sessions :)
I have attached a page of interruptions I was thinking on (I have the bad habit of writing on books and publications I have, sorry sedki :). I love توقُّف , it s easy to relate it to the word interruptions, this was hard to achieve with most of the words we came up with..
I tried to play with the ‘sound’ of the word interruptions, to start with ‘أن ‘ and to add a "ت" to other verbs, I found out that the letter "ت" added to a verb can regenerate and revive the word in beautiful ways..Anyways, from the list attached I like"ان تعّثر" I think it relates to banana edition as well, and its beautiful that the word تعّثر comes from عثر .. the relation between the two interesting , since we tend to find things when we slip and trip. I like "ان تقّلب " as well..
Munir it was great pleasure meeting you, the walk was a beautiful - توقّف - , looking forward to doing it again next time you visit us :)
See you today Mais and frieds and let me know what you think…
Rula

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 10:46 PM, Mais <mais@almoultaqa.com> wrote:
Hi Munir & My friends :)
I miss you too…. How’s Carmen? Until you come I should try to make ALL my friends join us for the walk… now I’m brainwashing those who didn’t come to the walk :P!!
Guys, I'm copying you on an email Munir sent… below…
It's an interesting suggestion…. Rula had plenty of interesting suggestions as well…. Not sure when she will reveal her findings but she's working on a very interesting concept…. Linguistically!
Rula I encourage you to reply to this email to tell us your choices… lets brainstorm online… (how horrible is that after having to brainstorm in open air was the beginning, but yet we welcome interruptions! )
Precious Munir, I don’t want you to get very jealous, but we’re meeting today for coffee at 6:30 , and we’ll plan a morning walk through the weekend hopefully….. it’s so unfortunate that you will not be with us….
Hugs,
Mais
-----Original Message-----From: Munir Fasheh [mailto:mfasheh@yahoo.com]Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 12:52 AMTo: 'Mais Irqsusi'Subject: name for interruptions in arabic
dearest Mais
Personal lines deleted
when I get back to amman, we should again walk and talk with your friends
I kept thinking of a name in Arabic for interruptions... the word that I thought captures the spirit of the publication is tawaqquf
توقُّف
what do you think? what do the others think?
until soon
love
munir

Posted by Mais Irqsusi

Munir's Interruption

dearest Mais

::::personal message deleted>>>>


when I get back to amman, we should again walk and talk with your friends

I kept thinking of a name in Arabic for interruptions... the word that I thought captures the spirit of the publication is tawaqquf

توقُّف

what do you think? what do the others think?

until soon
love
munir

email sent by Dr. Munir Fasheh on Thu 4/23/2009 12:52 AM

to Rula

are you still going to experiment with street names.. if you are i have a map with all the street name sand i can get more detialed maps. let me know

Darya

Sign your name!

Dear Interruptionists,
sign your name at the end of your posts! thanks!

khaled

Initiations....

Hi everyone,

I will confess, I am not a blogger and hope not to be converted to one by the Interruptive team anytime soon. I try to guard my technological dis-connectivity fiercely to make room for infinitely richer, more fluid and complex forms of connectivity; the human one. The more time I spend behind my LCD screen, the less time I have for walking the streets of the city, or sitting down in an old coffee houses exchanging random ideas in a spatial manner, an impossible feat to carry over to written text without putting one's own credibility at risk.

I am willing to make text contribution with reasonable infrequency to the magazine, but can be fairly generous with my photo essays. Photography (my adopted art) for me is an activity premised on constant intervention in space and time . For every photograph we take, we cut off the object of our contemplation from the surrounding it is situated in. Every moving instant we freeze is an act of interruption. It is meant to rescue few moments from the gushing river of time, so that traces of ourselves, our presences are kept as foot marks in the desert of oblivion.

How about a positive- negative photo essay, where a sequence of photos would be interrupted with some form of negative space (empty square boxes- to bring the mind's attention to that which is unseen, as much as what is seen .
The reader could be engaged in some form of mind game to the to fill in all possible scenarios.

Another permenant essay we could have, is some sort of a regular story that surfaces from the interruptionists ritualistic walks. At the end of the year we make a map of the areas visited and identify human characters as the iconic markers of the place as opposed to the architectural ones. (The baker who operated his store for 30 years, or the guy who migrated from Jerusalem to open his shoe shine store after the war, the grandmother of Mais who drank coffee with her neighbour across their street balcony over several decades).....

We could also consider a regular introductory article that sets the tone for the broader theme of each issue titled:
"Reflections on Interruptions" ? Possible themes:

Urban Interruptions
Visual Interruptions
Behavioral Interruptions
Social interruptions
Poetic Interruption.

On a last note Khaled after you took off, almost at the tail end of our morning walk today heading back towards the old Abddali bus terminal, we stopped to photograph a beautiful bakery (Alsharaq) and were generously offered sweets by one of the guys there. Later, a couple of curious fellows outside gave a rose to each one of us. Just when we where ready to say our goodbyes, we realized that they gave us a perfect interruptionist gift, even if unknowingly (five roses, four red except mine, it was bright pink). They could not have ended our day on a more poetic note. It was the unearthly sign I have been looking to be officially initiated into the interruptionists world.

This seemed liked a pact with the devil?

Eman
May 4, 2009

todays thought

interruptions>>>> interrupt. Interrupt= verb
Verb= action>>> verb =action+ reaction >>>>>interrupter+ interrupted
the group(us) + street + people's daily routines+ OUR daily routine==== is (US) the interrupter or interrupted!!!!!!!!

to Mais:

upload the e-mail chain!!!

thank you :)

9.45 AM Reporting from JUST

The day starts at 5.00 am
Leave the house at 5.30
Meet everyone at Abdali at 6.00am
Iman, Rula, Mais, Dina, Darya and myself

target: interrupting Abdali at 6.00 am
purpose: undetermained!
idea's IQ level: not much!

This experiment is one of many we are hoping to continue further on as a part of an attempt to understand the city's urban awakening at various nods!

I had to leave the group to catch an exam at JUST! I'm pretty glad I did alright with the exam but pretty sad I missed the breakfast!

Those who were there, Report!

after the Banana?

…so we put a banana on the cover and it starts a controversy! We do exist in a Context which truly requires interruption/s of all sorts!
Almost 30 Bananas were shot for the back cover of the late Edition, which was printed in 1300 copies- that adds up to 39000 Bananas out there making more and more of us slip in to join our ‘interruptionist’ network.

Each individual input makes Interruptions, probably this what the ‘s’ in Interruption/s is for, it is a collective of these individual initiative to locate Interruptions in various levels, disciplines, topics and express them in various ways- it is this particular issue which we chose to experiment with for our next edition.
We are all interruptionists only because each of us share his/her own, unique, personal, elaborative share of interruptions. Each perceives interruptions and is an interruptionist at once. And it’s the second value we aim to stress, active Interruption.

In our last meeting at Muhtaraf al Rimal, each of us told stories of Interruptions, contextual, cultural, social, artistic.. it all added up to different sets of perspective by where to locate these interruptions, analyze them, portray them and express them.

…travelling the city on foot is an invitation to be interrupted, one’s journey is interrupted visually, the attraction and the hidden scenarios of place, and people. Iman mentioned as an example.

Lucid dreams were another example Hadi and Ali are discussing next issue; Lucid dreams as a constructed imagination which you acknowledge when being interrupted/awaken: and the moment of Interruption as the moment when the fate of these dreams is decided.

So after the Banana, we wish to experiment more with Interruptions, the essence/concept of an ‘interruption’- and this constitute our topics.
We also aim to engage ourselves more as interruptionist rather than observant; and this would suggest the process/inverstigation.
And we may also experiment with methods to express these experiments and this may provide us with various forms of visualization, and article presentation.

These are raw thoughts I chose to write quickly as to start our discussions here on the blog which aims to activate an on-line brainstorming/discussion channel
So hope will see your ‘interruptions’ here soon