Even though I spend practically every tuesday and wednesday in Leeuwarden at the Academy for Pop Culture, I rarely write about it. Mostly because to me it has been such a steady everyday thing, that I sometimes fail to realize how special it is. The clip that Kevin Geurts made, reminded me that it definitely isn’t.

The Academy for Pop Culture has sent me to Latvia two times now and even though I couldn’t make it this year, I have had a hand in selecting students that could go. We asked Kia, Seat and Volkswagen to each sponsor a team, and each team to battle eachother in an Online Exposure Rally. Get from the Netherlands to Latvia in your car and rack up as many ‘likes’, ‘comments’ and ‘views’ along the way.

So far both Team Seat and the Kia Team: Rio Rollers have been disturbingly quiet, but Team Bluemotion has some funny videos on ‘The Perfect Roadtrip’. Go and have a look.

About twice a month someone asks me how my book is getting along. I generally have to tell people that it’s not going anywhere fast. I have refocused a few times, added on some chapters, but have not found the form yet, nor enough time to solve that particular problem. Yesterday I spoke about my book with Lykle de Vries, Ronnie Zeemering and Ronald Mulder and that has kickstarted the process once again. I have now made a nice map overview of the book to work with, which revolves around two things: building creative capital and finetuning your creative process. A small step for mankind, a giant leap for me.

For the second time I visited the Latvian city of Liepaja to coordinate a workshop at the iweek of Liepaja University’s New Media Art study. The simple task we were given was: make a billboard. After two days of brainstorming, discussing and sketching the students came up with the idea to ask Liepaja: what makes you happy? Or ‘Kas padara Liepaja laimigu?’ (what makes Liepaja happy in Latvian). A billboard was made that was empty but for this sentence and four big markers were attached to give the Liepajans an opportunity to answer the question.

So we paraded the billboard across the streets, chanting the question and drumming on buckets, to arrive at the destination and place the billboard. Within minutes people had filled the billboard with all sorts of answers. Within an hour all four markers were stolen. Within 12 hours someone had used a spraycan to paint his mobile number all over the billboard. Seems we asked a relevant question. And we made a Latvian newspaper (latvian link / google translate english).

Student Michiel de Koning was inspired by another workshop about RFID, tagging and other developments. He explains it in this brief video.

More photos are on facebook and Flickr.

Right now I am sitting in a basement in Liepaja (Latvia) with four latvians, a lithuanian and two dutch students. We’re working on some ideas for an exhibition at the international week at Liepaja University. So far I’ve heard about the extinction of happiness, hands growing from the soil and collective umbrellas. So I will have to keep you posted.

I visited Leuven with the international house of productions I’m leading at the Academy for Pop Culture. We had a blast. Non-descript random video below that captures none of what has happened and a bit of the atmosphere.

iHop goes Leuven from Rutger Middendorp on Vimeo.

Week 1 at the Academie voor Popcultuur and we’re back at full thrust. I revised my first concepting lecture to a more sustainable tempo which seemed to go down nicely. And I picked the 18 students for the international productiehuis I will be running with Cor Giesing.

Now all that’s left to be done is revise the other 9 concepting lectures, organise a trip with the students and create a program for an afternoon on the subject of branding for artists. So mark october 20th on your calendars if you’re interested, cause it will be open to the public.

P.S. not open to the public, but nice to mention. At the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, BA Arts, Culture and Media I will be lecturing about Concepting this friday.

A couple of days in Paris with the Academy for Pop Culture’s students and teachers.

Roger at Schwung Visuell was his nice self in offering to make a videoregistration of the Concept to Creation get-together we recently had at the Academy for Pop Culture. The Schwung Visuell intern made himself useful by cutting out the totally incomprehensible conversations where the microphone got lost in the process.

So enjoy:

Deel 1 Concept naar ontwerp from SchwungVisuell on Vimeo.

Deel 2 Concept naar ontwerp from SchwungVisuell on Vimeo.

Deel 3 Concept naar ontwerp from SchwungVisuell on Vimeo.

Deel 4 Concept naar ontwerp from SchwungVisuell on Vimeo.

It’s not what you think it is: I haven’t been fired and rehired at another position, I wasn’t casted for a movie, nor have I hired personel and installed a professional kitchen in my house. This is me and Wieger Jan at the Academy for Pop Culture working the cafetaria like there’s no tomorrow. Story is, we promised Sjoeke who runs the cafetaria that we’d help her some day. So she got us those lovely red shirts and put us to work. Now that’s not the reason I post this story here. The reason’s the fantastic photo Marije Kuiper made. Keep an eye on her.

Marije Kuiper Flickr photostream.