Interlab Cairo-Dresden

D-Caf Festival

13-04-06

Some of us finalize the work at Medrar, the rest is cleaning up Viennoise – music room team: we discover the reason for the noise while transmitting sound over light to the solar panel, the torches are causing it, we buy LEDs, they are jumping on a local, white-twisted cable through the dark room, the laser finds its way with much effort over four mirrors to the solar panel.

At 5pm is the opening of our exhibition, at 5pm everything is somehow done – the dining tables look marvelous, visitors ask a lot of questions – it is the most fun to control a car in a distant flat, unfortunately the connection got lost quickly – the family portrait is improved, many visitors create pictures with multiples of themselves .

Outside youths call up for demonstrations - taxi to Medar: interview with TVmedrar - we are together on the go, enjoying the successful exhibition start and the silence after the storm - saying goodbye - I would have loved to stay longer.

13-04-05

Viennese waltz on the radio - transport of the electronics to Hotel Viennoise: getting lost in Downtown - carpenter chaos: boxes get screwed down on a random place on the floor, if you screw them out and put them aside, they will just be screwed down there again :D - the rooms next to our exhibition show impressive drawings.

We are working on torches which play MP3 sounds over their voltage the whole day.

13-04-04

Move Medrar -> Viennoise: backwards over the highway - speaker test: i wanna dance - exploring the room with the bricks: building a turret with Kareem, does not pass our quality demands - sandwich - clearing mirrors, optimizing laser routes - fancy D-Caf press center: taking pictures for the artist passes, I have a smile on my face like a drunken monkey - spotted: Mona Lisa Brigades

Two days to go, some are working on new ideas, the rest is trying to get at least half of the original plan running - illuminated vases can be remotely controlled as well as the related cutlery sounds - conclusion of the day: lasers are reflecting on melons - we miss the opening of the festival.

13-04-03

Breakfast in the apartment is still the best start of the day - Spacebrew-Bridge is working - tinkering with LED strips and torch synthesizers - video stream Medrar <-> Viennoise appears to be in good quality - the Teaboy does not want you to drink beer - midday-fries at 6pm, the sun already sunk.

A bottle of freshly squeezed orange juice costs 14EGP and a metro ticket - nonstop soldering | beating | rethinking, concentration is a dear possession. Sand storm during the night: maybe every storm here is a sand storm.

13-04-02

Start at 10 means not till 1pm - Viennoise (I can finally write it without looking it up): more room than expected - evacuating carpets and transporting mirrors old-Egypt-style - short, tiring lunch: we are quite numerous by now.

Laser games - conversations are productive, having fun with the people from OLE (Open Lab Egypt) - exploration of the electronic district: getting a big solar panel, buttons, mice and mono-plugs - Medrar: funny laser string music instrument is funny - Spacebrew-Bridge is quite simple and should work, but wastes a lot of CPU, openFrameworks cannot run in command-line-only mode :( - really tired. Good night to Germany, especially to my love.

13-04-01

Stood up early - Taxi into the desert - eternal traffic jam and police control, right in the middle of it the pyramids - sand storm and fog - outside of Cairo, desert | lake | pretty cottages | sheep flocks | desert - changing the car: all-wheel drive.

In the middle of nowhere: lake, swimming, sun, non-jellyfishs - sandboarding - unimpressive bones of whales with feet - return about 9pm and finally being able to work: Spacebrew-openFrameworks-Bridge.

13-03-31

Happy Easter! We just thought of that after breakfast - today we are discussing the big concept of the upcoming exhibition.

13-03-30

Lie-in - Walk to metro - orange juice (tourist price) - M.Naguib - Egyptian market: street of kitchen appliances, street of meat, street of cloth - alley of caskets - Al-Azhar Park - completely black veiled women who get photographed in front of palms - view over the city.

Taxi: tunnel, traffic jam, who brakes loses, we destroy the taxi - Medrar: meeting Kareem, Interview - changing clothes - Di-Egy Fest 1.0: meeting Yasmin, playing the emotion orchestra made by her and destroying Ahmeds concept in his arcade game - eating Koshary - electronic concert: Maurice Loca at Townhouse Factory Space, everyone sits and claps in step when the music is awwsome - Greek restaurant: a big moose head, sparkling tinsel in the windows, an elderly man sings Spice Girls, we drink beer and start to get to know each other.

13-03-29

Lie-in - someone wants a lot of money to take the garbage with him - Carl, the organizer of the D-Caf festival, provides us with delicious Egyptian pancakes - a wall is separating Garden City from Downtown to complicate demonstrations.

Walking to/through Downtown: Friday prayers over many speakers at the street - Grapefruit-Mango juice - "Welcome to Egypt" - cats - crazy traffic: run, run, run - sun, sun, palms, dust - sitting, praying men - Hotel Viennoise: impassable balconies, colored walls, writings on walls and floors - demonstrators - Tahrir.

Cheap subway tickets - Saad Zaghloul - Medrar: meeting Dia, rest, water, wifi :), meeting Youssef, eating a lot nuts - Vietnamese Restaurant: meeting Ahmed - Medrar: watching Perfect Sense - collapsing into bed.

13-03-28

Berlin - Warshaw - Cairo - View from above: huge, swarming, glowing like a big anthill - 3am airport: many overly nice taxi drivers - heat - first trip through the city - badly damaged concrete blocks, illuminated windows suggest people living there - Garden City - Arabic graffitis - apartment - bed.