Awoke with a start before 06:00 and decided that my originally planned 07:00 wake-up time was a little late. Quietly gathered up my things and drug them into the bathroom to get them packed up for the flight back to Istanbul. Managed to get everything, including all of the stuff that Liz and Pete were kind enough to send along and all of my purchases from London, into the two bags I had brought. I was happy at the prospect of not having to check any luggage, but again a little worried about my pocketknife.
Bid goodbye to Kristen and Duane at 06:30 and headed for the Gloucester Street station. Got my ticket and down to the platform in time to catch the Circle line train which arrived a few minutes later. Got into Paddington Station and grabbed some bagels before getting on the Heathrow Express at 07:05. Took 20 minutes to get to Terminal 4 which I thought was were all of the International flights for British Airways departed. Turkey seemed to be considered part of Europe by BA, so I had to get back to Terminal 1. Got my boarding card from the self check-in. Headed over to the departure lounge and settled in to work on the computer and wait for my gate to be announced.
Finally got the announcement for the gate at 09:15. Didn't have to wait very long before boarding started and being seated near the back of the plane, I was in the first group called. Had a window seat with no one sitting next to me. A girl seated behind me would spend half the trip kicking the back of my seat until she and her mother switched places and she kicked the vacant seat next to me, which I also felt. There was inclement weather to the South where our route was to take us. We spent 30 minutes passed our departure time sitting at the gate and a further 30 minutes holding on the tarmac waiting for another take-off slot. We finally got underway just before 11:00. Had another good vegan meal on the flight. Only the British Airways flights outside of Europe had any food service, as their catering contractor was on strike. Watched a very small bit of Bewitched with my meal and turned back to my computer once I was done eating.
Got into Ataturk Airport at 16:30. Had a little better understanding of the visa situation and got in the appropriate lines in the appropriate order. Was on my way towards Ortaköy by 16:45. It took an hour and a half to slowly make it to the house. Grabbed a quick dinner of mercemek çorba (lentil soup) and patlican (egglant) at Memet Usta. Had a piping hot shower and threw my stuff together for the gig at Indigo.
There had been some mayhem in front of the parking garage and the street was blocked off with police tape. We left the car and hiked over to Indigo. There were no projectors installed and the sound board that had appeared in our space the previous week was still there. We got set up and waited for the projectors to be hooked up. One of the DVD players hooked up to the plasma screen behind us was not working, nor was the line to the screen. It remained dark for the night along with the second projector which they could not figure how to get lit up.
The police were conducting an investigation in front of the parking garage we leave Michael's car at.
There was a brief glimmer of hope for Onur Özer's set as he broke out some new material for the sound check. This was short lived as he went right back into the same material we had heard on our two previous outings with him. He was either shaking off his minimal techno sound in favor of a new form of breakbeat, or just having a horrible evening. It was hard to figure which way it was going, but there were a couple of instances where everything went silent as he missed his cues and far too many times where the mixing left us just shaking our heads. Michael and I did our set for him with all of our footage run through a filter that made everything into green dots that looked like an array of LEDs.
Our four computer set-up running 3L our realtime 3D software and three copies of Grid Pro. Onur Özer washed in green dots for two hours.
One of our students, Burçu, came by at 11:30 to see what we were up to. She brought a couple of friends with her, one of which was interested in taking our course. They hung out in the booth for quite a while. Carl Craig, one of the pioneers of the Detroit Techno movement, came on around 01:30 and played a really good set with a 12" Powerbook running Traktor through Final Scratch. Our set for him started with some crash test dummy and timelapse motorway footage. We quickly devolved into a psychotronic look and revisited the LEDs from earlier in the evening in full color. Gökçe, another of our students, came by around 03:00 and stayed with us until the end of the evening. Carl finished up around 04:30 and we were graced with Onur once again. We finally cut our video signal around 05:30 and Onur shut down soon thereafter to the chagrin of the gaggle of fans surrounding him on stage.
Carl Craig performed a solid set to a packed house with Stanton's Final Scratch.
Looking out from the stage, over Carl Craig and the crowd to our booth in the back. Onur playing for the last few stragglers in the wee hours of the morning.
By the time we got back to Ortaköy after 06:00 the place we had our morning tost at had finished serving. Managed to find a choice parking spot right across Dereboyu. Finally made it into bed at 07:00, some 23 hours after my day started in London.
Bid goodbye to Kristen and Duane at 06:30 and headed for the Gloucester Street station. Got my ticket and down to the platform in time to catch the Circle line train which arrived a few minutes later. Got into Paddington Station and grabbed some bagels before getting on the Heathrow Express at 07:05. Took 20 minutes to get to Terminal 4 which I thought was were all of the International flights for British Airways departed. Turkey seemed to be considered part of Europe by BA, so I had to get back to Terminal 1. Got my boarding card from the self check-in. Headed over to the departure lounge and settled in to work on the computer and wait for my gate to be announced.
Finally got the announcement for the gate at 09:15. Didn't have to wait very long before boarding started and being seated near the back of the plane, I was in the first group called. Had a window seat with no one sitting next to me. A girl seated behind me would spend half the trip kicking the back of my seat until she and her mother switched places and she kicked the vacant seat next to me, which I also felt. There was inclement weather to the South where our route was to take us. We spent 30 minutes passed our departure time sitting at the gate and a further 30 minutes holding on the tarmac waiting for another take-off slot. We finally got underway just before 11:00. Had another good vegan meal on the flight. Only the British Airways flights outside of Europe had any food service, as their catering contractor was on strike. Watched a very small bit of Bewitched with my meal and turned back to my computer once I was done eating.
Got into Ataturk Airport at 16:30. Had a little better understanding of the visa situation and got in the appropriate lines in the appropriate order. Was on my way towards Ortaköy by 16:45. It took an hour and a half to slowly make it to the house. Grabbed a quick dinner of mercemek çorba (lentil soup) and patlican (egglant) at Memet Usta. Had a piping hot shower and threw my stuff together for the gig at Indigo.
There had been some mayhem in front of the parking garage and the street was blocked off with police tape. We left the car and hiked over to Indigo. There were no projectors installed and the sound board that had appeared in our space the previous week was still there. We got set up and waited for the projectors to be hooked up. One of the DVD players hooked up to the plasma screen behind us was not working, nor was the line to the screen. It remained dark for the night along with the second projector which they could not figure how to get lit up.
The police were conducting an investigation in front of the parking garage we leave Michael's car at.
There was a brief glimmer of hope for Onur Özer's set as he broke out some new material for the sound check. This was short lived as he went right back into the same material we had heard on our two previous outings with him. He was either shaking off his minimal techno sound in favor of a new form of breakbeat, or just having a horrible evening. It was hard to figure which way it was going, but there were a couple of instances where everything went silent as he missed his cues and far too many times where the mixing left us just shaking our heads. Michael and I did our set for him with all of our footage run through a filter that made everything into green dots that looked like an array of LEDs.
Our four computer set-up running 3L our realtime 3D software and three copies of Grid Pro. Onur Özer washed in green dots for two hours.
One of our students, Burçu, came by at 11:30 to see what we were up to. She brought a couple of friends with her, one of which was interested in taking our course. They hung out in the booth for quite a while. Carl Craig, one of the pioneers of the Detroit Techno movement, came on around 01:30 and played a really good set with a 12" Powerbook running Traktor through Final Scratch. Our set for him started with some crash test dummy and timelapse motorway footage. We quickly devolved into a psychotronic look and revisited the LEDs from earlier in the evening in full color. Gökçe, another of our students, came by around 03:00 and stayed with us until the end of the evening. Carl finished up around 04:30 and we were graced with Onur once again. We finally cut our video signal around 05:30 and Onur shut down soon thereafter to the chagrin of the gaggle of fans surrounding him on stage.
Carl Craig performed a solid set to a packed house with Stanton's Final Scratch.
Looking out from the stage, over Carl Craig and the crowd to our booth in the back. Onur playing for the last few stragglers in the wee hours of the morning.
By the time we got back to Ortaköy after 06:00 the place we had our morning tost at had finished serving. Managed to find a choice parking spot right across Dereboyu. Finally made it into bed at 07:00, some 23 hours after my day started in London.
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