Friday 19 November 2010

Back to Paris


Tomorrow, I’ll take the plane to fly back to Paris, my first trip back after six months; six months which will take their full meaning once I am back in Paris. Maybe six months that will look like they never happened.
I’m still at the Cloud Gate studio in BaLi, with Ah-Kun and Deserts, to finalise the robots part in the music of Symphony Project. But we – or they, still have a long distance to go. A full month at least or more is necessary, but the premiere is next week. The robots are hardly operational. Each note the instruments play requires hours of work and programming and I wonder if we’ll ever see the end of it. I won’t, because I’m leaving tomorrow. 
The elections are over. At long last. 
The weather today is just perfect: crisp and cool, blue sky and no extreme heat and humidity. I love Taipei in winter. Outside, the wind is blowing hard and the bamboo trees branches rattle incessantly against the wall of the studio, like someone desperate to get in. But there are only the four of us sitting in the middle of this big rehearsal studio. Maybe we stress up for nothing. Huang Yi, it’s a work in progress. Behind their apparent calm and smiling composure, I know Ah-Kun and his assistant are dead nervous. But I won’t be there to know. 

The mechanical violin prototype


Four months in Taipei and I don’t seem to notice any obvious improvement regarding my life here. I still don’t have my papers; as a result, I can’t open a bank account nor can I stay longer than thirty days. It seemed that something was resisting, certainly not the smooth move I imagined months ago. I’m not being fair to myself when I say that. When I stop complaining and look at things as they are, I know a lot has changed. Inside me.
A friend told me about a simple and efficient way to solve that problem: found a company. Nicolas had been telling me that as well a few months ago. The company would have to be set in Hong Kong, after which I can open a branch in Taiwan. It would cost some money, but the idea made sense to me. Suddenly, I had an aim and could concentrate my energy and efforts into that single goal. I was reminded that staying in Taipei wasn’t an aim in itself, only a means to develop my life and my work. How worries fogged my mind and distracted me from my real purpose.
It makes sense. Finally.

No comments:

Post a Comment