Here is the link for the grand final? of the 2004 Jokkmokk S?mi Winter Market. A concert of great beauty, diversity and talent. Enjoy!
Update: Our license to broadcast the stream has now expired, and therefore the above link doesn’t work anymore. Questions? Contact the blogging team.
Good news! We will soon be able to provide a streamed version of the great Livja concert that we could not broadcast this past weekend. It is one of the cultural events that we have discussed most in this blog and I am very much looking forward to watching/listening myself. More information later (and many references/discussions/accounts in previous entries in this blog).
This weekend in Jokkmokk has been a great experience. We have had an opportunity to take part in numerous activities and to meet several interesting people (probably more so than one would have as a ?normal? visitor to the market). We have learnt much ? both about S?mi culture and about the affordances and limits of technology.
Before we left, Anton had warned us that it would be impossible to get wireless access throughout the whole market area. Still, it was a bit frustrating to not always be as mobile as we would have liked to have been. Also, all the multi-media content needed to be uploaded through the lap-top. Even though lap-tops are portable, they are not easily carried around in -20 and typed on simultaneously? Instead we had to walk back to a hotspot (preferably indoors) to upload things to the blog, and as a result many of the posts became less immediate. For a future project of this kind it would be useful to be able to create different types of multi-media content (audio, video, still images and text) with one and the same device (preferably a small, easily portable one ? is there such a thing?), and to be able to upload it from there immediately. Also, making better use of GPRS technology might be a solution to the mobility issue, as long as the telephone network doesn?t crash.
As far as the coverage of the market activities is concerned we didn?t really plan in detail what each person should cover. Had we done that we might have been able to get a better exposure of the whole market and all the different activities. At the same time, I would say that we almost had too much planned at times ? instead of taking the time to write entries and reflect on what we had just been doing, we ran off to the next activity. One important thing which should differentiate this type of reporting from traditional media coverage is the way in which the writers themselves participate in the different activities and report on experiences. The pressure to be immediate and to send updates continuously may lead to less personal/reflective and more journal style reporting. Also, had we planned things more in advance many of the spontaneous reports from activities that were suggested to us by other visitors would have been lost.
If we were to carry out a similar project in the future it would be important to keep in mind that experiencing things and delivering those experiences is more important than taking part in each and every activity. It would also be valuable to have more bloggers on the team (locals, other visitors) to be able to cover larger parts of the market and to get a wider perspective on things. Also, I think it is important to consider the audience of the blog when planning for potential future projects. If we want international readers, in order to spread information about the market outside the borders of Sweden (which I think is a good intention), we need to find a way to attract that audience. If a majority of the audience is going to be Swedish (as was the case this year) I think we should reconsider the choice of writing all posts in English.
Since I have had very little time to blog about the technical parts involved in this project, I thought that it would be suitable to mention something about it at this point. I will here summarize the work with the wireless LAN put up in Jokkmokk.
In order to prepare for the rest of the blogging team I set off from Ume? on Wednesday with the 6:00 am bus. With me I brought wireless access points, cables, a pocket PC and a tablet PC. I arrived in Jokkmokk seven hours later at 1:00 pm. I there met with the people from Jokkmokks IT-department.
With the access points that were provided (3 Cisco AP:s, 2 Intel and 4 D-link) it is not possible to cover the entire market area. A few areas with a lot of activity had instead been picked out to become so-called hotspots where files could be uploaded and downloaded. Jokkmokks IT department provided us with several network connection points. After investigating the area along with Andreas from the IT-department we started building the net.
The first net was located in and around the tourist office. This was thought to be a got point since it?s in the heart of the market area with market streets on all sides. The tourist office is also a very natural place to visit now and then to warm up in cold weather. The building is made of wood which is easier to penetrate with radio than for example concrete. Two points were placed on each side of the building.
The second network located at the museum became the most difficult to set up. The point where we could get access to the network was placed in a nearby building meaning that a link had to be established across an inner yard. I started by using a directional antenna for this purpose. The building seamed to have some serious damping effect on the signal so I was instantly forced to reinforce the link with several repeaters. But even then the link could only be maintained during short periods. After having tried every possible configuration and placement of access points and antennas I had to give it up for the day. The bad experiences continued the next day and I soon started to suspect some source of interference.
In a previous experience with setting up a wireless LAN I observed a similar problem. That time the range of the access points was seriously reduced. The cause proved to be an RF video link causing interference. That time problem could easily be solved by changing the radio channel in use. This time however changing the channel did not seem to have any affect which I think indicated a spread spectrum source of interference. After a great deal of work the link through the inner yard was made up of mostly cable with only a few short jumps of wireless radio. The good news was that once I got into the museum main building the interference seamed to disappear. Still the network could sometimes be unreachable due to changing interference on the link in the yard.
Network number three was put up in our market office. This installation took no more that ten minutes, once we had solved the problem of finding the right key for the premises. A forth network was available at the school were the concert on Saturday night was to be held. Since the school already had a wireless network the only work here involved strengthening the network just before the concert. We needed a really good network in this case so that the streaming client not accidentally would disconnect from the streaming server in Ume?.
Numerous conclusions could be made from the Jokkmokk experience with regard to wireless lan. One that we immediately made was that the hot spots we put up would only give us good coverage during day time. In the evenings the market activities moved away from the, during day time, most densely populated areas.
As far as the equipment goes my opinion is that far too much time went into configuring the devices. I would guess that there in the future will be wireless equipment available that specialises on the kind of temporary networks we were building here. Such equipment would perhaps have simple buttons on then to configure them as client, repeater or access points. They could perhaps also have features such as battery packs for power supply on places where no regular power could be found.
Of the different brands of access points that were available I would rate the Dlink as the number one for building temporary wireless network. The Dlink:s got the same flexibility at for example the Cisco AP?s but when it comes to fast configuring they are superior. The Intel AP?s are easy to configure as well but lack the abilities to configure the device as repeater or client. Intel AP?s also makes a lot of noise which made them unfit for placing in for example the museum library. If you also consider the price of the equipment the Dlink equipment gains even more points. You could get ten Dlink AP?s for the price of one Cisco AP. That means that I could have gotten as many as thirty Dlink AP?s, instead of the three Cisco AP?s I brought. In temporary wireless networks there is often a greater risk of theft since you have less time hide the equipment in temporary installations. With cheaper equipment the risk of theft as well as the loss from theft will be less.
As you already have been informed the network connection from Jokkmokk went down completely just two hours before the live concert with Livia were to take place on Saturday night. After several days of preparation this was a rather irritating experience to say the least.
The problem, occurring outside out control, was cause by a malfunctioning router in Telia?s network in Lule? (thank you Telia). Telia made attempts to repair the router during the night but the new circuits inserted were unfortunately faulty as well. The network in and around Jokkmokk was as a result down until Monday morning.
For this reason we were unable to post any updates other than audio blogs until we arrived in Ume?. On our way back we also experienced some problems with gas pumps that didn?t accept our credit cards possible also in relation to the network problem (listen to Jim audio blog about that).
by Anton
I was amazed at what this group has created in just a few days. These musicians have come from all over the world, collaborated and made *music*. Their music, I must say, is beautiful?
The performance started with the didgeridoo, played by our very own Jim. It gave a sacred aura to the beginning, and foreshadowed the music to come.
This concert included music from all over the world, but the music that Seth plays is the type I grew up listening to. Coming from the South, I have heard a lot of bluegrass and I feel somewhat qualified to say that he is wonderful. There are not too many singers that can really make you feel the blues. He has a great ability to express the heart of the song, or more importantly, the soul of music. Seth is indeed one of those few. Tonight, he played the fiddle, the banjo, and when he sang, he made you feel the music!
The level of professionalism was apparent as the musicians changed with the songs. They mixed and played off each other in a variety of genres and tempos, all with grace and seeming ease. I have to say it again, it was a wonderful concert! The blogging group and I have dubbed Nigel Shaw and Carolyn Hillyer?s song, Legend of the Solar Tambourine, our Jokkmokk theme song, as it was the song that we ended up singing the rest of our stay. It is off their Ancestors CD and proceeds of this CD go to Survival International, a group that supports the rights of indigenous tribal people in the Siberian Arctic.
by Stephanie
I am going to briefly finish my trip to Jokkmokk and tell you about what I did the afternoon the network crashed. After having decided that we were missing stories that lay with the Jokkmokk inhabitants, I decided to go and search for native Jokkmokkians and listen to what they had to say.
The first video clip I took in a local arts and crafts store. The woman in the clip had lived in Jokkmokk since a small child and tells of how the market has changed throughout her lifetime. (This is in Swedish)?For those of you who do not speak Swedish, the women in the clip mentions that long ago the market contained mainly handcrafted goods, later it changed to very generic (dare I say it?) traditional junk. She said that the one thing that she has noticed in these last years is the return to the importance of handcrafted goods at the market.
The next clip is from an arts and crafts booth at V?stra Skolan. This clip is of Nina Sparr, an artist who makes things from human hair?everything from underwear to wedding crowns. In her video clip, she says that customers leave the hair with her (no shower drain searching), and she makes what they order. She also mentions that the age of the hair is not a factor. She sat and weaved the hair as we spoke, not missing a stroke in her circular pattern. The result from the hair weaving is a thick, strong rope with which she bends into different shapes.
by Stephanie
Top 10
1. Dance house
2. Stephanie at the reindeer race
3. The Livja concert
4. Jim?s ability to stay calm in stressful situations
5. Breakfast and nice talks with our hosts the Sandstr?ms
6. Dancing in the red barn in the woods
7. Friendly salesmen
8. Nice art work
9. Mamma Dalton?s burgers
10. Story telling
Bottom 5
1. Network down
2. Stress!
3. General technology problems
4. Lost without gas in -20
5. Extreme cold
I’ll return with some more thorough reflections once I’ve had time to reflect some more…
by Therese
The perhaps most beautiful tune of the evening is quite clean. The contributing sounds are the didgeridoo, the flute, the drums (here the drums played a minor role) plus a female and a male voice, describing the journey of a bird. We get to follow the bird as it flies high and low and the musicians capture the speed of the bird in the different passages of the song. The lyrics of the song (which are in Swedish) are stylistically interesting and full of word play. All words of the lyrics begin with an ?f?, and there are several contradictions in the song (for instance the two last words of the song are ?fridfullt” (peaceful), “fartfyllt? (speedful). This tune is written by Kristina Andersson who also did a very good job as the female voice in the performance of it.
Download a video taped sample here (5,9MB) (thanks to Anton and Jon for helping me with the clip!).
by Therese
Something I really enjoyed about the Livia concert was the way in which music from all corners of the world was combined to form a varied and lively performance. However, what intrigued me the most was the way in which certain sounds seem to be universal. As I was listening to ?The Hunter?, by Carolyn Hillyer and Nigel Shaw, I was struck by how it in many ways resembled the traditional S?mi music with drums and jojking that I?ve been hearing so much of lately. The drums are what fascinate me the most, and it?s easy to see why drums have always played an important role in meditative music.
by Therese
Before the concert on Saturday I went to the music caf? Aja by the museum to listen to Margareta Granvik tell stories, talk about her paintings which decorate the walls in that room, and to hear her sing songs which were written for a multi-media show involving these paintings. After her performance I had a chance to talk to her for a while, about art, inspirations, symbolics and S?mi mythology. To read more about this and view some of her art, click on the extended entry link below.
Margareta Granvik is an artist and a jazz singer, and she has often had the jazz as an inspiration for her painting (the bluebird which appears in many of her paintings is the “freedombird of the jazz” and also represents the freedom of nature). She has always been interested in S?mi mythology, but it was not until 1997 that she started painting motifs from that. In June that year she went hiking in the mountains in north Sweden, and all of a sudden there was a snow storm, causing great anxiety. When she got back to civilization again, she bought a record by the musician and poet Valkeap?, and she was struck by how much the sounds that were on there reminded her of the sounds she had encountered on her hike. Drums also made up an important part of the record, and while listening, she imagined what a shaman would look like, and decided to paint it. She later heard rumours that Valkeap? was a shaman himself, something which she didn?t know at the time.
In many of Margareta?s paintings the following figure appears:
The words comprising this figure can be read in any direction, and according to Margareta, it was first used by Christians. The meanings of the different words are as follows:
SATOR = ruler
AREPO = openness
TENET = stable, impossible to disturb
OPERA = occasion, activity
ROTAS = rotation, change
TENET, as you can see reads as a cross in the middle of the figure. This has been a great inspiration for Margareta. In her own words she claims that it has influenced her to ?believe in what I do, and use the powers of creativity to stand firm against evil. To dare moving on, but not always believe that the easy way is the right one, and not to be afraid of struggling.?
The white wolf can also be found in many of Margareta?s paintings. What she didn?t know when she did her paintings was that there is a story that says that the person who teases a n?jd can be turned into a wolf. The outcome of that wolf?s first reindeer hunt is crucial to his future: if he doesn?t catch the reindeer he will have blood in his mouth, and then be turned into a human again. If he, on the contrary, catches the reindeer and eats it, he will be a wolf forever. However, if the wolf which once has been human eats cooked food he will turn into a human again.
All of these paintings are part of the multi-media show ?Bluebird takes off ? about wolves, wilderness, gods and love??. A group of musicians have taken Monika?s paintings as a starting point and composed music to go with them. You can read more about this at Monika?s webpage.
Before I had to leave to go to the concert, she also gave me an old Schaman incantation:
“Ge mig kraft att f?rjaga de svarta andarna.
Ge oss kraften hos tusen vindar
F?r att utpl?na de onda makterna”
(Translates something like: ?Give me the power to chase the black spirits away. Give us the power of thousand winds to obliterate the evil powers?)
by Therese
I received an email from one of our readers in Australia who is also planning a trip to Sweden. She got an email from someone she met at her son’s swimming club recently. They are both interested in Sweden and this other woman sent our reader a link that she had received in a newsletter from Sweden. In this newsletter there was information about a website in Sydney which contained news about Sweden (and the Jokkmokk moblogging project). Our reader summarized the chain as follows: news from Brisbane about news from Sweden about news from Sydney about news in Sweden.
by Patrik
I have quite a bit of information to share. Last night I, like my fellow bloggers, just needed to sleep. Blogging this festival has been an intense experience, and one that I want to share. Today we are all back at work, in one form or another, so the rest of my Jokkmokk blogging will have to wait until 1pm CET or so. Until then, I am happy at the response that this blog has generated. Everything that went right, but more importantly, everything that went wrong, was a learning experience. Until this afternoon
by Stephanie
After an hour or so of driving people and stuff around Umeå I have now arrived at my apartment. It feels great to be home, and to be honest I’m a bit exhausted from what might be called information overload. The posts that I couldn’t publish yesterday will be published tomorrow, so stay patient :).
Also, I had a nice surprise this morning as I received a phonecall from the people selling the best burgers at the market, the Mamma Daltons (well, to be honest I can’t really say that they were the best, since they were the only burgers I tasted, but I did have two of them, and they were really tasteful :).
They had a lottery among their customers, and the winner would get a weekend for two at their Guest Ranch Jonsgården outside of Piteå. Believe it or not: I won! I’ll get to spend a weekend riding horses and throwing lassos and doing other westernlike stuff. It should be a lot of fun! Yeehaa!
by Therese
I have just arrived back in Umeå and found myself wanting to blog. The journey back was uncertain and tense at points due to the network failure of card machines at petrol stations and difficulties in navigating through white-out snow scenery.
What an adventure it has been. I?m now at home listening to a CD by Carolyn and Nigel (Weathered Edge). Here remembering the scenes of Jokkmokk Winter Market, the thousands of faces, the smell of wood smoke and the tones of joik, sounds of music and new friends.
The blog is as memory- layers in time, sharp and cloudy images, scattered thoughts, and occasional observances.
by Jim
Due to lack of network access we could not track their GPS-coordinates on their way home. But we could get an image of their GSM-position.
Anton, Jim, Therese and Stefanie, it has been nice following you this journey.
Your GPS-friend Fredrik (send through the GPS-user)
We have now visited Gun & Stefan (it was Stefan who arranged yesterday’s concert) out in the woods. Almost all members of the band were there, and we had a chance to say good bye to these nice and interesting people that Jim has introduced us to. In a minute we’ll be leaving Jokkmokk, but we hope to be back again… We’ll try to keep you updated during our trip, and when we get home we’ll post the stuff that we didn’t have a chance to post yesterday (the network is still down in Jokkmokk…).
by Therese
The Jokkmokk blog team should be on their way home now (or very soon). We have received positive feedback about our coverage of the concert yesterday evening despite network problems in Jokkmokk beyond our control (city sites still down). We hope to broadcast the concert soon and will post information about that here. This also raises the question of when a blog ends? Does it? When I thought about this experiment earlier I thought of it as very distinct timewise but I have now realized that there is both a before and an after. Also a small community has formed around this blog (much communication has happened in the meetingpage blob). Will people want to come back? Should we have a post-Jokkmokk2004 discussion here? These are things we will need to think about. I also expect the team to post photos, reflections etc. from yesterday evening as soon as they get back to the networked world.
Thanks for your attention!
by Patrik
