Yes, I have been to Experimenta again, and yet again I managed to get a few words with Mark during the weekend. Poor love, he's not very well, seems to be going down with the seasonal lurgee. He also seems to growing a beard. It seems to suit him. He looks more an aging academic than an aging pop star, which is no bad thing in his case.
The films were weird and wonderful and there was a brilliant live animation performance from a guy called Daniel Barrows, which employed an overhead projector, like at school, which was kind of cool.
Only two complaints really. One of the programs, though it presented very beautiful screen images, had an unfortunate soporific effect on me, and the seating arrangements in NFT3 are a bit cramped. I swear the muscles in my right leg have almost atrophied and sometimes I got a bit concertina'd on all sides.
It was worth it, just to speak with Mark for a few minutes and just to put the cherry on the top of the cake, for the first time since I first met him 1998, he addressed me by my first name.
SQUEEEEEE!!!
I am so fizzy! Anyway, we had a little chat. Mark was doing some curating in Japan earlier in the year and I asked him how he celebrated his 40th. All he said was that he did celebrate it because it was significant, but he doesn't really celebrate his birthday really,to the words that it's just a day in his life like any other.
