Once in a while, something worthwhile can be seen on television. Yesterday, Canvas not only aired the quirky love story “Steve + Sky“, but  also several pretty good short films. In my opinion, it’s something they should do more often.  Even though shorts are perfect for the internet, they are not always easy to track down.

Passion

One short I did manage to find on the net was actually the Oscar nominated “Tanghi Argentini” (subtitles). It is not the first tango short film I’ve mentioned here, but I guess it’s a subject that lends itself well to telling short passionate stories.

In Tanghi Argentini, an office clerk, after having landed himself a date with a woman he met on the internet,  finds he has only two weeks to learn the tango if he want to make an impression on her. Having never danced before, he enlists the help of one of his colleagues to help him learn the dance of passion. The big question is: will he be able to convince his date he has been a Tango dancer all his life? As with all good shorts, it ends with a twist. So watch it here.

Learning the Tango

While two weeks is indeed very short to master this dance, this is in many ways how it was taught 19th century.  Only, it usually took a bit longer than just two fortnights. Before a young boy could actually step on the dance floor and impress the ladies, he would first have to find a more experienced male dancer to teach him. First he would have to watch and observe the more skilled dancers, than learn how to follow (the woman’s part), and only when he got that down could he be taught to lead. Once he got all that down, a process that could take up to three years, would he now be able to dance with an actual real woman.

You can choose your friends.

Of one of the other shorts shown yesterday, “De Onbaatzuchtigen” (The Altruists / no subtitles), I was only able to find a fragment. You might have heard of the phrase: “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family”. Well, in this short film, you can. As a matter of fact, every member of the family can be sold or bought as long as the rest of the family agrees. Though never explicitly mentioned, in this society, prestige and wealth is exhibited by the size of a family unit and the qualities of each member. Showing off to the other families is done by the daily walks on the street with the entire family together.

A member of one family, who like the rest, constantly lives in fear that the others will tire of him and sell him off, decides to play his cards in such a way, that only he is left. After realizing he is now alone, he gets himself a dog for companionship. Someone he can trust won’t sell him off if they ever disagree.

Play the Modern Times Game! The idea for this game came to me in a dream. It is based on a scene from Modern Times, a Charlie Chaplin film. It’s the one where Chaplin is working on an assembly line, mind numbingly screwing in bolts with a spanner until he finally goes mad.

What inspired me most is the fact that reality simulation games are ever so popular nowadays, especially on Facebook. I can understand that running your own virtual farm can be considered challenging and rewarding is some way. Having to regularly clean your online aquarium on the other hand is starting to move in Tamagotchi land.

But when I saw my sister the other day playing a game where you have to make hamburgers in a fast food restaurant, that too me just seemed a tad absurd. Nobody enjoys doing this demeaning tasks in real life, yet once it is moved into the virtual realm, it all of sudden becomes fun and games.

And so I’ve created the ultimate reality game. Yes, like Charlie Chaplin in the film, you too can become a factory worker on an assembly line at the time of the depression. In order to play this game, you need to switch your mind to zero and get to work.

Like a real job, each level takes 12 hours to complete. You are however afforded a break half way through during each working day. So it does take some endurance to complete each shift in one go, but keep in mind that you are rewarded for your hard work. I believe the pay is about ten dollars an hour. But the last time I played, the work pace was upped meaning you’ll probably earn more if you don’t get fired for slacking. So it’s not like your earning minimum wage here and it may even be worth giving up your day job just to play it.

Ironically, it takes longer to play a single shift of this game than it took me to actually create it.

Have fun. ;)

As one Belgian – the first European to do so – handed over the command of the ISS back to the Americans, and will be returning to earth shortly after a six month stint in space; another Belgian was handing in his government back to the king, so he can prepare to become the first president of Europe in January.

And I would, for the first time, be visiting the European Parliament in Brussels. As this event pales in comparison to what my fellow countrymen have lately achieved, don’t expect to find my little excursion mentioned in any history book; not even as a small obscure footnote on page 527 or other. But I was there for a reason though. The TEDx Brussels event, also a first, was being held there, an independent spin-off the TED events that have brought world inspiration since… well, since its inception. While the official TED event is by invitation only, they do post videos online of some of their most inspirational speakers and their ideas about the world. Definitely worth a visit if you haven’t heard of it yet.

The European Parliament

The first Parliament building I have ever visited was in Dhaka Bangladesh as child. It was during a school trip shortly after it was completed. It’s an amazing building that probably got me interested in modern architecture. But the European Parliament (EP) doesn’t fail to impress either. As we walked through the Leopold park towards it, a huge complex of post-modern glass and steel emerged from behind the trees. Once inside, it was understandable why our ministers are always so enthusiastic about being seated in the EP. The place has an open, transparent and organic feel to it with rich details and enhancements everywhere. Nothing seems to have been left to chance here and is almost a city in itself. As we were guided thru its labyrinth from one building to the other, I couldn’t help but think: I wouldn’t mind chatting in one of the many open spaces with colleagues about trading tariffs with East Tuvalu if I could work here. Maybe explains why the British tabloids are so green with envy when it comes to the EU. :-)

Due to heavy traffic interfering our journey as we headed to Brussels, we missed the speakers and weren’t allowed in until after the first break. The conference itself was held in one of the smaller hemicycles, but still able to fit in more than 400 guests. The room was surrounded by almost 30 translation booths, seating two interpreters each. It’s an impressive amount just to manage all the different official languages spoken in Europe. Within the half circles center of attention, a simple stage was erected where speakers would advocate their points.

Many guests were apparently TED addicts who seem to live on a regular diet of the inspirational talks you can view on their site. So expectations were high. Many were expecting to be blown out of their minds, or as one of the visitors put it: he wanted to be kept awake at night.

TEDx Brussels

The first session I saw focused mainly on the problems of Africa. While I had the impression that for most, this was a far-from-my-bed-show*, I found the first speaker, Dambisa Moyo, quite interesting. She went on to explain something I had long suspected. That aid to Africa was in fact not helping it, but actually making things worse. The way I see it, anything that is advocated from the top down has no long term benefit. Those at the bottom will eventually become disenfranchised. I believe this is true in politics, urban planning, business and also aid. A bottom up approach has better chance of success. And from my experience when I was last in Malawi, it was from the individuals who were starting to take responsibility for their own future that gave me hope that things will and can get better. But the road is long and the problems faced still plenty.

One good thing about the TED sessions is that they are kept short. Each speaker has twenty minutes to get their point across. Unfortunately, not everyone was able to put together a coherent message and pretty much left their audience behind more puzzled then inspired.

So some of the more memorable talks were from Conrad Wolfram – creator of the Wolfram Alpha search engine – about his vision on how mathematics should be taught. Catherine Verfaillie gave us a down to earth explanation on the state of stem-cell research, the difficulties still faced, and how it will and will not help us in the future once we are able to regenerate cells of our own choosing.
The sessions I found most inspirational was that of time travel by Serguei Krasnikov, which now has gotten me pondering on how to build my very own time machine and how to test it, if it is ever completed.

The second session was by Marc Millis and his search for habitable worlds. That one was a real eye opener. The time, distances, resources and energy needed to reach other planets outside our own solar system is staggering. If you look what we’ve already accomplished with the ISS, we’re still in our baby-shoes*. So simply packing up our bags, and starting a new life on another planet – after we’ve completely messed things up over here – is not really an option right now. And hopping over to the next closest solar system in a timely fashion would require so much energy, we would have to sacrifice our own sun just to have enough fuel. In a way, it is hard to say if this talk was inspirational or more of a disillusion popped by a reality check. I therefore regret to inform you that it looks like we are going to be stuck on this rock a little longer than planned. In the mean time, be patient, make yourself comfortable and just try to make the best of it all.

*I’m finding that translating common Dutch phrases into English has a strange yet lovely appeal to it.

It’s finally out: The Strange Maps book by Frank Jacobs, the man behind the wonderful Strange Maps blog. The book itself has become a hefty anti-atlas bringing together some of the strangest, weirdest and interesting maps ever created or found.

I’m also glad to say that it contains two maps of my own.

Fitting for a complex little country as Belgium, it hosts some of the most absurd national borders you’ll find on this planet. When it comes to enclaves, exclaves and counter-enclaves, it’s only outdone by the border mess in Cooch Behar on the Indian/Bangladeshi border.

The Baarle-Nassau & Baarle-Hertog Enclaves/Exclaves

The most famous of our crazy borders is the situation in the town of Baarle which is split into several Dutch parts (Baale-Nassau) and Belgian parts (Baarle-Hertog). Most sane people when creating borders would simply draw a line with one side going to one country and the other side to the other. The British were famous for this approach and divided the world using only straight rulers, rarely taking in to account the situation on the ground. In Baarle however, rather than just drawing border lines, plots of land were assigned to either one of the two nations depending on old treaties that went way back. The result is a town that has become a patchwork of enclaves and counter-enclaves. Borders run straight through houses and buildings. It’s not uncommon to find yourself in a café or other room where half of it is in Belgium and the other in the Netherlands. This resulted in the front door policy. Any house in Baarle falls under the jurisdiction of whatever country the front door opens to. So it’s not uncommon to change your front door if the laws of the other country would happen to favor you better at that time.

Legend: Black border is the main border between the two countries. Red borders are Belgian enclaves within the Netherlands mainland. Blue borders are Dutch counter-enclaves inside Belgian enclaves. And the green border is the only Dutch enclave within the Belgian mainland. Each enclave is assigned a number. H numbers belong to Baarle-Hertog. N numbers belong to Baarle Nassau.

And if things weren’t crazy enough, more than a hundred years after the final border treaties were signed, someone apparently discovered an overlooked plot of land (H22). During all that time, it had practically been a no man’s land without anyone realizing it. In 1996, it was finally assigned to Belgium bringing its exclave count to 22.

The VennBahn Enclaves

Less known, but equally as absurd is the Vennbahn border. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Germans build a railroad that ran from Aachen all the way to down to Luxemburg and called it the Vennbahn. All seemed fine until silly little Franz Ferdinand got himself shot, setting off a dangerous domino effect into motion that finally led to World War One. Germany decided to invade Belgium on its way to to France, but got bogged down for four years and ultimately lost.

Belgium then demanded war reparations in the form of annexed German land which they finally got without too much trouble. It was then the Belgium must have realized that in doing so, they had also inherited the Vennbahn, or at least just parts of it. At several different locations, the railroad would cross back into Germany before reentering Belgium again. Rather than dealing with an array of border controls along this route, the Belgians came up with a brilliant plan. They decided to annex the land underneath the railroad as well. The results are several long thin areas of Belgian land, just a few meters wide, winding through the German landscape, and here and there even straight through villages and towns. And in doing so, it also created five new German exclaves, separated by a railroad from the mainland. In the mean time, the railroad has long fallen in to disuse, and is now being converted to bicycle tracks.

When I learnt about the Vennbahn, I immediately notified Strange Maps about this, but Frank replied that he already knew about it; he just couldn’t find a descent map of the place. After an exhaustive search of the internet, I came to the same conclusion. The best maps I could find only highlighted small sections of the Vennbahn. Because the land between the borders are just a few meters wide, they rarely appear on large scale maps. For the time being, you won’t even find them on the maps of Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft. Though I’m glad to see that the wiki like OpenStreetsMap.org has included them.

And so I decided to create my own map that illustrates the situation rather than trying to depict an accurate representation of the borders. As I’ve said before, the latter is impossible at that scale.

By the time I had concluded my research and finished my map and sent it in, Frank had started working on his book and asked if I could also have a look at the Baarle situation. I gladly obliged and created the second map.

Another surprise was when I sent in my copyright release forms for the maps. We realized that until recently, before he had just moved to London, we both lived in the same town. For years, as I regularly followed the Strange Maps blog and wondered who the mystery man behind it was, and where he was from; he was apparently just a few streets away, collecting maps and posting his findings to the internet. The world truly is a strange and small place.

As for the book: If you love maps like I do, you definitely want this in your library.  I know its going to be keeping me busy for a while.

First Powered Flight at Kitty Hawk
Date: December 17th, 1903
Place: Kitty Hawk, North Carolina
Photographer: John T. Daniels

The Shooting of a Loyalist Militiaman
Spanish civil war: Federico Borrell García, was shot to death the instant this photograph was taken.

Date: September 5, 1936
Place: Cordoba Front, Spain
Photographer: Robert Capa

Hindenburg Disaster
Date: May 6, 1937
Place: Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey
Photographer: Sam Shere

Mounting the Soviet Flag over the Reichstag
Date: May 2, 1945
Place: Berlin, Germany
Photographer: Yevgeny Khaldei

Celebrating the end of WWII: Kiss at Time Square
After you’ve had a big fight, you make up with a kiss.

Date: August 14, 1945
Place: Manhattan, New York City
Photographer: Alfred Eisenstaedt

Hiroshima Aftermath
Date: September 7, 1945
Place: Hiroshima, Japan
Photographer: Stanley Troutman

The Most Beautiful Suicide
Evelyn McHale threw herself from the observation deck of the Empire State Building and died immediately upon landing on a car down below. Before she jumped, she left behind a note: ‘He is much better off without me … I wouldn’t make a good wife for anybody,’

Date: May 1, 1947
Place: Manhattan, New York City
Photographer: Robert Wiles

Segregated Water Fountains
Date: 1950
Place: North Carolina
Photographer: Elliott Erwitt

Atomic Explosion Split Nanoseconds after Detonation
Nuclear test site: Because the explosions happened so fast, special ‘rapatronic’ cameras were built to capture the blast immediately after detonation. The last image is from a video to measure the damage done by a blast in an urban setting.

Date: Spring, 1956
Place: Nevada
Photographer: Harold Edgerton

Hans Conrad Shuman Leaping to the West
Date: August 15, 1961
Place: Berlin, Germany
Photographer: Peter Leibing

Monk Sets Himself on Fire
A Buddhist monk protesting the poor reforms of the South Vietnam government of the time, poured gazoline over his body and then set himself on fire.

Date: June 10, 1963
Place: Saigon, South Vietnam
Photographer: Malcolm Browne

Police Chief Executes a Viet Cong Captain
During the Tet Offensive, Viet Cong captain Nguyễn Văn Lém was captured after targeting the families of South Vietnam’s police officers. South Vietnam’s national police chief  Nguyen Ngoc Loan was caught on film the moment he executed Lém personally.

Date: February 1, 1968
Place: Saigon, South Vietnam
Photographer: Eddie Adams

‘Too Hot! Too Hot!’
The words Phan Thị Kim Phúc screamed as she fled a village that had just been destroyed by a napalm bomb.

Date: June 8, 1972
Place: Trang Bang, South Vietnam
Photographer: Nick Út

Fall of Saigon
Americans and Vietnam citizens who had been loyal to the US were airlifted out of Saigon as the Viet Cong approached the city. This was taken at the US embassy as people scrambled to the roof in the hopes of catching a helicopter out.

Date: April 29, 1975
Place: Saigon, South Vietnam
Photographer: Hubert van Es

Challenger Disaster
This would be the first mission a teacher would go up into space and as such got a lot of attention at school before the Challenger was launched. It was a shock when we say it go up in flames.

Date: January 28, 1986
Place: Cape Canaveral, Florida
Photographer: Unknown

Man Holds off Tanks
This is probably one of the most powerful images of a single man trying to make a difference.

Date: June 5, 1989
Place: Near Tiananmen Square in Bejing, China
Photographer: Jeff Widener

United Colors of Benetton
This photo is the odd one out, it being an advertisement for Benetton, but it defied all rules at the time by carrying a political message instead of just selling clothes. This was one of the first ones in a series of advertisements that tried to break taboos.

Date: 1989
Place: Italy
Photographer: Oliviero Toscani

Highway of Death
Iraqi soldier scorched to death when an escaping convoy was obliviated by attacking US planes. Until then, the first Gulf War had been portrayed as an almost clinical operation with precision bombings and surgical strikes. It was only in the aftermath of the war that another image started to appear.

Date: March, 1991
Place: Kuwait
Photographer: Kenneth Jarecke.

Falling Man
During the 9/11 attacks, many of those on the top floors of the twin towers were trapped. Trying to escape from the heat, many of them had no choice but to jump.

Date: September 11, 2001
Place: Manhattan, New York City
Photographer: Richard Drew

Mourning a relative after the Tsunami
Date: December 28, 2004
Place: Cuddalore, India
Photographer: Arko Datta

After the Bombs have Fallen
One of the strangest pictures here depicting that our times have changed. We’re using to seeing the after math of war as one of suffering and pain. Not of young hipsters driving around driving around tricked out cars and taking pictures of the damage with their mobiles.

Date: August 15, 2006
Place: South Beirut, Lebanon
Photographer: Spencer Platt

Rebel Leader Laurent Nkunda
Date: 2007
Place: Kichanga, Democratic Republic of Congo
Photographer: Cédric Gerbehaye

It must be quite a feat, trying to imagine what the world will look like in 90 years from now. A French illustrator did just that in 1910 when he drew up these illustrations. They depict the world as he believed it would look like in the year 2000. Keeping in mind that fashions have changed, he did get some things right. As for other predictions… well, we’re still waiting for our personal flying devices. But there are also other notable things to be seen in these illustrations. Or to be more precise, what is not seen. It’s a testiment to Apples tight secrecy prior to new product launches that even in 1910, no one could possibly predict the coming of the iPod.

I came across this touching animation of a couple reliving their glory days as tango performers. A time before the ‘accidente tragico’. En Tus Brazos is a French production, but with Spannish spoken.

Though I never did enjoye any glory days as a tango dansers myself (let alone that I can actually dance the tango), it did bring back some memories of my trip to Argentina two years ago.

A Tango Show in Buenos Aires

It was never my intention to spend more than two nights in Buenos Aires. But somehow, the weather gods seemed to favor me, letting me complete my travels through southern Patagonia in just two weeks instead of three. With days to spare, I decided to return to Buenos Aires early. At first, I regretted my choice. I felt alienated by the beautiful facades of this old city, but also by the cold welcome I had received from the others back at the hostel. It was as if the life had been sucked out of them and as a result preferred to keep to themselves. Traveling on your own, can sometimes be lonely.

The next day, I learnt that most of them had left, traveling to numerous other destinations far far away. They were replaced by a new crop of backpackers; a much more livelier bunch this time around. Things were starting to look up. By the end of the second day, I had made a lot of new friends. And with them, I started to discover Buenos Aires beyond its facades. A city that had a lot more to offer than met the eye. The stories I could tell…

But lets not get carried away. This post is about tango.

BA is known for its long tango tradition. It’s where it was born. During my visit, there were plenty of opportunities to see the locals dancing it. Even in the main shopping street, one could regularly run into street artists tangoing away. I just had the unlucky misfortune of bumping into them every time as they were about to commence with their last dance act: a guy doing the tango with a doll. While funny to watch, it wasn’t exactly what I had imagined the dance to be. I could not leave this city without having seen the most passionate dance invented by man in its propper form. And judging from all the lovers I witnessed openly kissing in the streets and parks of BA, I could only conclude that the Argentineans are very passionate people. They’ve made it into an art form.

On my fourth day there, I decided to go to a tango show with Annabelle, a wonderful and remarkable person I had met at our hostel. She was an Irish/German girl studying in London and living in Ibiza with aspirations of becoming a fashion designer. One couldn’t dream of better company.

We had made some last minute reservations earlier that day after hearing it would be the last show of the season. And after taking a short taxi ride, we arrived at the venue just in the nick of time. As a hostess escorted us to our place, we quickly realized that this was no ordinary theatre. Instead of just rows and rows of chairs like everywhere else, we found ourselves seated in front of a table for two with a small lamp shade on it. Placed there just to give us that extra touch of atmosphere in an otherwise darkened venue. All very cozy. Moments later, our exotic cocktails were served. It was like being invited to an exclusive ballroom party. You felt special, just by sitting here. Soon afterwards, our lampshades dimmed. All eyes turned towards the stage. The show was about to begin.

It was a dance musical, an Argentinean West Side Story as it were. In fact, there was a time when Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world, with emigrants arriving from all over. They came with their hopes and dreams for a better future. Some would make it big. Most probably didn’t. It was amongst the poor of lower class Buenos Aires that tango would see the light of day. It was a dance that somehow unified the emigrants of different nationalities; a dance  that took on many styles and variations, but also took years and dedication to learn and master. For men at the time, it was a way of meeting women. And with women in the minority in this new found world, they danced only with those whom they felt mastered it well enough.

In the musical, we were introduced to an immigrant family arriving in BA: Girl meets boy. Boy falls in love. Is poor, but tries to win her heart. Meanwhile, rich underworld figure falls for the same girl. Jealousy ensues. Knives are drawn. Things get out of hand. People die. All in the name of love. But the dancing was superb. I always had this cliché image of Tango being danced between two lovers, slow and passionate one moment, swift and almost cold the next. What I saw here was something completely different. The leg work alone was amazing to watch. Two dancers: their legs locking, clicking, kicking and unlocking again, all at the blink of an eye. As they danced, we were treated to extremely fast, yet graceful movements. These were pros and tango was much more then what I had imagined it to be. I was impressed.

But it wouldn’t be the last time I’d see tango in Buenos Aires…

Tango in La Boca

La Boca, while charming with its colorful buildings, is not the sort of place you want to visit alone. Located in one of the poorer parts of Buenos Aires, it is best described as an oasis surrounded by criminality. Any tourist attempting to leave its confines is surely asking to be robbed. It literary is a tourist trap. But despite the warnings, it’s still a must see destination and so I went together with Ben and Catherine, two Americans students on a short leave in Argentina. Even though it only was a walking distance away from San Telmo, where our hostel was located, we were advised to take the taxi instead. And so we did.

It was a hot and sunny day with the pace of life slow. We strolled around the streets for a while, admiring the colorful architecture and peeping into the little tourist shops. But with La Boca being so small, It didn’t take long before we had seen everything there was to see. At least without venturing off into dangerous territory. So we decided to have lunch instead. La Boca has quite a lot of restaurants to choose from, and each one offers a tango dance display while you enjoy your meal.

We ate outside on the pavement. Between the tables, a couple in full dress played their part and danced the Tango. One could easily believe that this was all part of the ‘couleur locale’, if it were not for the woman dancer who looked strikingly Japanese.

And just like the life around us, the pace of their movements were much slower, but more casual then what I had seen at the theatre a few days earlier. Here were just two people dancing the afternoon away, and not so much to impress, but simply because it was something they just loved to do.

Looking back, I wish I had brought my camera along with me. But by the time I had arrived in Buenos Aires, I was already suffering from photo-fatique. I just wanted to experience things without having to photograph it all. Catherine did bring hers along and we were even given the honour of posing with the dancers that had entertained us thru lunch. (If you’re tourist in a tourist trap, you might aswell act the part). We then returned to San Telmo.

My week soon came to an end, and I left with mostly fond memories. But if I ever return, it might well be worth learning a step or two of tango. How hard could it possibly be?

Belgium has just opened the Princess Elisabeth Station in Antarctica. It’s the first ever zero-emission base on the continent. Not only is it powered by wind and solar energy, but it also recycles its waste products.
But how did the Belgians end up in Antarctica in the first place? Apparently, I don’t have to look much further then my own hometown, Hasselt.

It’s quite possible that there are more statues present in the inner city of Hasselt then people actually living here. The most famous statue known here is that of Hendrik and Katrien. They spend most of their time sitting together in the main square. Though there are many more worth mentioning, it’s something for a later post. But I mention this, because many years ago, I was asked to create a design for the website for the city of Hasselt. At one point, the tourist cell gave me photo’s of some of these statues I could use in my designs. I knew all of them except for one. At first I thought it was an homage to some prominent military figure. But when I dared to ask who he was, I got surprised looks. How could I not know who he was? It was Adrien De Gerlache of course! He was one of the most famous inhabitants of our town. I was still clueless.

It turned out that he organized the first purely scientific expedition to Antarctica in 1898 while commanding the ship the Belgica. What was known of Antarctica up until then, had only been explored by mostly whale and seal hunters who were only interested in the region for economic gain. De Gerlache on the other hand managed to gather together a remarkable team of international experts and scientists; the most notable crewmember being the Norwegian Roald Amundsen. He would eventually become the most famous polar explorer of all time. After his adventures in the Belgica and the experience he gained there, he would later return to Antarctica to become the first man to ever reach the actual South Pole.

Although it’s not known if it was De Gerlaches intention all along (some suspect it was), but the Belgica did manage to get itself stranded in the Antarctic ice. As a result, it would become the first expedition ever to spend a whole winter in the Antarctic south. And despite the pressures and harsh conditions they were subjected too, they meticulously continued doing scientific studies during all these dark months. Isolated from the rest of the world and cramped in closed quarters, it was thanks to the efforts of Frederick Cook, the onboard doctor, that many of the crew survived and kept their sanity.

The area of Antarctica that they surveyed back in the day is the same area where much of the growing Antarctic tourism industry is concentrated today. These mostly consist of cruises along the islands and coasts of the Antarctic peninsula. Trips usually last about ten days. The passangers sleep onboard the ships, but they do get to make landings up to twice a day on the islands, and where possible, on the continent itself. Of course, it is not without danger. Turns out we would be the last to ever sail to Antarctica with the expedition ship: the MS Explorer. On it’s return journey to Antarctica a few months later, it hit an iceberg and sank. Everyone was resqued but cruise ships do regularly get in trouble in this area.

Anyway. Belgium would later return to Antarctica in 1957 with their own polar station: The King Boudewijn Base. The mission was led by one of De Gerlache’s sons: Gaston De Gerlache. Unfortunately, the station had to be abandoned just after a few years of use. Because it was built on ice, that not only was slowly drifting out to sea, the heat produced by the base made the ice underneath it melt. As a result, it sank deeper and deeper away. Add to that the layers of new snow that was piling up on top of the base, and it was in real danger of eventually being crushed. It was however thanks to this mission that Belgium became one of the twelve founding members of the Antarctic Treaty. In simple terms, the treaty states that Antarctica belongs to no nation and must be used for peaceful purposes and for the good of mankind. And that any scientific knowledge gained here must freely be exchanged with its member states.

How did the Antarctic Treaty come to be? The members at the time couldn’t come to a settlement as to how to divide the southernmost continent amongst themselves. But because no nation actually had the technology to mine any of the possible resources under the immensely thick layers of ice, they decided to resolve this prickly problem at a later date. And so a fifty year moratorium was initiated and the Antarctic Treaty was born. The moratorium however ends in 2011 at which point the treaty may be changed. With the recent race to clame underwater regions in the North Pole area, it remains to be seen how this will all unfold. But with a bit of luck, Antarctica will remain a protected region.

In the mean time and with the lessons learnt from their previous adventure, the Belgians have returned half a century later with a new base: The Princess Elisabeth polar station. This time, it was built on solid rock much deeper inland in Uststeinen. Because Antarctica is plagued by regular snowstorms, the new station has been aerodynamically designed to prevent snow from heaping up against or over it. In other words, it shouldn’t drift out to sea, sink in the ice or get covered by snow like did the last one. In doing so, it should last at least 25 years after which it will be broken down to be brought back to Belgium.

But they have also gone a step further then just protecting the base from its environment. One of the main goals was to keep the impact on its surroundings as low as possible. It’s basically a passive house that is so well insulated, it remains at a constant temperature of 18 to 20 degrees Celsius. And although there is a backup diesel generator, the station relies on solar panels and wind turbines for energy. This has the added advantage that transporting fuel like anything else to Antarctica is massively expensive. Waste is recycled as much as possible. While this wasn’t always the case, nowdays, its frowned upon to use Antarctica as a waste dump.

The station itself will of course be used for scientific studies and most likely to further measure the effects of global warming on our planet.

If I had the chance, I would return to Antarctica in heart beat. So just in case they should have a spare bed left open, I’m more than willing to fill it. Maybe even as a concierge keeping an eye on the place during the Antarctic winter months perhaps?

Last Friday, Bert asked me to name a few cool projects we had created recently. My mind drew a blank. Not that we hadn’t made anything cool, far from it. It’s just very rare to ever look back. Once a project is delivered, we’re usually already too busy working on the next one to sit down and contemplate on our achievements. As they say over here: Out of sight, out of heart.

For the past fifteen years, I have, as a graphic designer, worked on all kinds of internet projects. And if there is one thing I understand, it’s that a lot of what I create is ephemeral. Some of the designers I know never wanted to make the switch to digital, because when you design for print, you at least have something substantial that you can touch and feel at the end of the day. With digital, everything remains virtual. Add to that, I work in a fast paced sector and much of what I create will soon quickly become outdated or obsolete.

One example of this are those banner ads that annoy website visitors to no end. Banners are probably one of the most visible yet anonymous things I regularly get to create. It’s quite often that I’ll come across creations I myself have worked on while visiting mainstream sites in Belgium, and in lesser part also the European ones. At the same time, I also know that in a week or two, it will disappear without a trace, never to be seen again by the public at large. And chances are, I probably never will too.

There is another dimension to the ephemeral nature of what I do. My field of work is in constant change, always evolving, always in perpetual revolution. It takes quite some effort to keep up, but it also poses a huge problem when archiving my creations. Even if I meticulously backup everything I do and make sure it’s safely stored, there is still no guarantee I’ll be able to access those very same files in ten years from now. Chances are, I probably won’t be able too.

Case in point is my graduation project created just over ten years ago. It’s slowly degrading with every passing year. It was an experiment in interactive storytelling. New media was truly new back then and I wanted a way of telling stories in an immersive way just like books and films still do. Making it was a huge headache as I was constantly hitting against the limits of the hardware and software I had available to me the time. Many problems of which have luckily disappeared since then, in part, thanks to Moores Law.

Ten years later and many of the source files have been lost to hard drive crashes. The source files I do still have can’t be accessed anymore. They were saved on state-of-the-art hard drives of the time, a technology that isn’t supported in this day and age. While the data on them may still be ok, I have no way of hooking them up to a modern computer anymore. Nor is format of the source files supported anymore. The application I created them in has long been discontinued.

While I did find the final release, the CD it was burnt on is also in a state of decay. Despite being protected from light all these years, the CD itself has become scarily transparent. You can see right through it and most CD drives can’t even read it anymore. So while I still could, I made a backup on a computer where it still did work. The next problem I faced was the software I created it in. Not only the source files, but the final output files aren’t supported anymore. The run-time I had created back then won’t run on the newer operating systems that have since followed. After quite some reconfiguring and almost crashing my computer entirely, I finally did get it to run, but only half of it worked. In other words, unless I can get my hands on vintage hardware and software, my graduation project is pretty much lost with time. Or recreate it from scratch.

I did manage to recover some of the videos I had created for my story and remixed them into short you can see above. Without the interactivity and context, it probably doesn’t make much sense. But considered as an abstract form of digital poetry, I think it might just work. The original version was about the city of Qin. In it, we follow four characters who struggle to survive and break free from a highly sanitized and impersonal society. It’s still sad though. If I still had access to the original source files, I could re render the 3D animations in better quality and higher resolution than what was possible at the time.

While I was searching through my archives for more stuff around Qin, my biggest surprise was finding some of papers I had written during my school years. One was about the prairie houses built by Frank Lloyd Write. Another was about an ambitious dream house I had designed for myself. Unlike many of my designs, they had withstood the test of time quite well. Maybe my fellow print designers were right. Not only is paper more tactile, it also has a better chance of outlasting its digital counterparts. And so while I still have the paper versions, even if I do find the digital source files, chances are that I won’t be able to open them either. They are worth posting online, but that does mean retyping everything over again.

Does it bother me? Not really. Just like with everything else in life, nothing lasts forever. The things worth saving will be saved and the rest will be left behind as technology progresses. As a result, I see myself as a designer that creates ephemeral things. I used to worry about not having an up to date portfolio. Now, I would rather concentrate on creating my own things. The Pangaea Expedition is one such example. If it stands the test of time of some of the other things I’ve created, well, that remains to be seen. One can only try.

It can’t be easy creating a film based on a well known historic event. Especially if the audience already knows how it will all play out. For it to succeed therefore, it has to in a way focus less on the historical facts. Instead, it should offer us the story behind the events, even if that story may not be historically accurate. It may even be pure fiction. Case in point is the ‘Last King of Scotland’ were the rule of Idi Amin is seen through the eyes of Dr.Garrigan, a fictional character. The people we meet in this film are engaging. And even though some liberties have been taken to what actually happened, the story does give us a clear picture of how a popular and charismatic boxer turned into one of the world’s most feared dictators. Valkyrie in this sense takes a different approach and unfortunately doesn’t deliver.

As a matter of fact, I found the documentary ‘Stauffenberg, the true story’, which recalls the most famous assassination attempt on Hitler, to be a lot more interesting then the film itself. The film felt more like a remake of the documentary where the details have been replaced by cinematographically rich scenes. While the documentary did a good job of explaining the back story and the character behind Stauffenberg, Tom Cruises portrayal of him felt very cardboard like.  

Other than a few hollow words said here and there, the film doesn’t really bother explaining us why Stauffenburg would risk his life and that of his wife and three children to commit a potentially treasonous act. It tells us nothing of the respect he commanded amongst his men or the suffering he had to endure after he was crippled. It simply conveys the events as they happened and we just have to accept that. The film lacks depth.

This is in total contrast to for example ‘Der Untergang‘. Despite us already knowing what happened in the last days of Hitler’s rule, it succeeded by focuses on the characters and conveying the sense of claustrophobic despair the soldiers and staff underwent in the final days of the Third Reich.

If I had to name one positive thing about this film, then it was the secretary, a role played by the Dutch actress Halina Reijn. Even though her role was small and hardly had any lines in the film, her screen presence said more about their dire situation then all the  dialogs put together. It was one of the few characters one could actually care about.