Yearly Archives: 2009

London, Wanderer

c r o w d f u n d i n g

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[ 23:33 wednesday 19 august – haggerston road, london ]

when trampoline raised three million pounds in 2007 the business plan anticipated raising further investment at the start of 2009. i duly started speaking to venture capital firms this spring. trampoline is widely respected and the field of social analytics is gaining attention. but the financial crisis has led firms to cut back on investing, allocate more money to their existing portfolios and focus new investment on ventures that are either tiny or close to profitability. businesses like trampoline which have completed product development but are just starting commercialisation are finding it impossible to raise finance from conventional sources. one fund after another turned us away.

the realisation that we weren’t going to be able to raise more capital was terrifying. i’m responsible for a dozen people’s livelihoods and the trust that my friends placed in me when they invested at the beginning. it was particularly galling to think that six years’s effort would be thrown away just as we were on the cusp of seeing the payoff. the orthodox choices in this situation would be to sack most of the workforce or try to sell the business for anything we could get. i felt trapped at the centre of a dimishing set of choices.

then one evening, after dinner with my friend eric, i had a wild idea. i’d heard of a technique called “crowdfunding” where the internet is used to raise small sums (generally below a hundred thousand pounds) from thousands of people. it’s been used in the film and music industry, but never to finance a technology business. why shouldn’t trampoline be the first to do it?

the next morning i scribbled down a one-page outline describing my idea and sent it round the management team. i half expected people to tell me i was insane. but they didn’t. several days later, after thinking through the details, we assembled the whole company and told them we were setting out to raise one million pounds from up to a hundred investors with a minimum stake of ten thousand pounds.

i spent most of july with lawyers working out how to could operate the crowdfunding process within the regulations policed by britain’s financial services authority. a breach could result in criminal charges being brought against me and craig as directors so there was a strong incentive to get it right.

finally on the twenty-ninth of july we unveiled the scheme to the world and it immediately started attracting attention. the financial times wrote a feature when we made the announcement and quoted me in another article a few days later. the sunday telegraph published a feature examining the implications of what we were doing. last week the venture capital and start-up blog techcrunch posted a story about us which brought several thousand people to our website. most importantly we started to be contacted by people wanting to find out more about the company with a view to investing.

like any innovation it’s impossible to predict how the process will unfold. but we already have commitments for a third of the sum we’re seeking to raise. i’m hopeful we will be successful.

all the details of trampoline’s crowdfunding initiative are on the web at http://crowdfunding.trampolinesystems.com.

: c :

In transit, UK, Wanderer

r i v e r b o r n e

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[ 18:56 sunday 2 august – river stort, roydon, essex ]

sitting in the saloon of volker’s barge as the evening sun filters through the trees and sparkles on the river outside. it’s an old dutch barge to which a superstructure was added in the seventies. there’s lots of light and space. most of the time volker lives on a mooring at springfield marina on the river lea at clapton in east london. when he gets sick of london he just unties and takes the boat somewhere else for a week or two. in the nineteenth century railways were often built close to the routes of canals constucted in the eighteenth century. as a result it’s generally possible for volker to moor close to a station and commute back to london for his work lecturing at university college london. it’s an excellent way to accommodate elements of nomadism within the vicissitudes of urban life.

yesterday afternoon i took a train through the grimy north london suburbs and out to cheshunt in hertfordshire. from there a short bike ride brought me to the river and volker’s boat. we chugged upriver for the next few hours. the leaden sky became progressively heavier and heavier as we went. finally they opened and unleashed a downpour. volker sprang out on the foredeck and scrubbed it down in the rain, getting soaked in the process. i always loved to be by water in the rain.

near hoddesdon we turned onto the river stort which quickly became narrower and wilder. many of britain’s rivers were canalised in the late eighteenth century. in some cases the natural character of the river survives more or less intact. in others the imposition of man was more intense and the river feels like an artificial creation. we went a little way then moored under some trees. then we walked a little way to a secluded lake where we stripped and swam. it was bliss.

this morning we continued up to roydon in essex until a modern railway bridge thwarted us. the coach-house roof was just a couple of centimetres too high to pass beneath. we considered inviting some plump fellows from a pub to clamber aboard or opening the cocks and letting water into the bilge to lower the boat so we could pass beneath. but finally we admitted defeat, moored by the railway station and continued our exploration by bike. by this time the sky had cleared and the sun was shining so it was a pleasure to unhitch our bikes from the taffrail and set off across the fields.

we just returned to the boat and opened a couple of peronis. later this evening i’ll get the train back to london.

this trip marks my first outing with a new solid state video camera i had shipped from tokyo. it’s been interesting to use it in parallel with my stills camera. it will take a while for me to develop habits and style with it but already i find myself starting to parse subjects for still or moving capture. it will be interesting to see the results back in london.

: c :

Germany, Wanderer

a n g e l a

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[ 20:30 monday 8 june – liberdastrasse, berlin, germany ]

the front room of timur’s house is a cross between a bicycle repair workshop and a bohemian salon. on one side of the room there’s a big shop window onto the street, currently displaying a selection of linus’ mumpelmonster booklets, badges and political pamphlets. behind this five bicycles stand in various states of undress, two upright, two upside down, one on its side. the other half of the room is occupied by two desks, a sofa (my bed), book shelves and assorted computer and audio machines.

my previous visits to berlin have been in the midwinter fastness. now the snow and heavy skies are replaced with vibrant foliage and street culture. the transformation is marvelous. yesterday i went cycling with timur, weaving around the backstreets from kreuzberg up to mitte and into the north of the city; lapping up his observations and commentary as we went; darting off occasionally to explore an alleyway or buildings that caught my eye. we stopped to visit the courtyard of humboldt university where timur is (supposedly) studying. there we were surprised to find ourselves confronted by a dozen tv cameras and journalists huddled with a solitary figure dressed in a monk’s cowl with a placard on which was written “europa: der kontinent der melancholie”. nothing was really happening. it looked like everybody was waiting for something. the scene was somewhat difficult to understand.

then in a moment of inspiration timur proclaimed “maybe angela merkel is coming here to cast her vote in the european elections!”. scarcely were the words out of his mouth then the lady herself ambled in, flanked by a couple of bored-looking security guards. i grabbed my camera and started snapping. merkel passed the protesting monk and through a door. timur and i were right behind her. a porter muttered at us in german but didn’t seem particularly bothered when we pushed past. so we watched as she collected her ballot paper, went to a booth, cast her vote and reemerged. then she walked past, just a foot away from me, gave a brief statement to the journalists outside in the courtyard, and was gone. i’ve never had any strong feelings about mrs merkel but i found her overwhelming sense of ordinariness rather charming. there was also something friendly about the lack of heavy security or protocol. i couldn’t help but reflect how different it would have been in london.

by some fortunate synchronicity mako and vajra were both visiting berlin (from massachusetts and california respectively). i met mako in an anarchist bar at two in the morning, talked intensely about the struggle between scientific method and intuition, then went off to dance with jan, claire, timur and adeline in a pink-fur-lined gay club in kreuzberg until dawn. vajra i found at a cafe in the north of the city and we cycled out together to the eye-popping soviet war memorial in treptower park.

each time i come to berlin i’m struck by the sheer civilisedness of the place. this afternoon timur, linus and i biked out to go swimming at badeschiff, an open air swimming pool stuck out in the middle of the river spree. what a magical idea. after a chilly swim we reclined on deck chairs, observed warily by a heron and some ducks, and absorbed the comings and goings of the city around us.

: c :

London, Photography

f o t o s : london ii – iii 2009

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[ 17:00 saturday 23 may – haggerston road, london ]
i’ve uploaded a set of twenty-three photos from london taken during february and march. the aerial views were on a return flight from california when the flight path, time of day and weather conditions conspired to give me perfect views of the whole city from east to west.

the snow came at the beginning of february and lasted almost a week, by far the best snowfall i’ve experienced in london. the shots at columbia road market were taken over an hour and show the changing light as the weather changed and the snow started to fall.

sergio, pradeep and i spent several glorious hours on london fields constructing an enormous snow totem which was taller than us.

meanwhile my roof terrace was transformed.

view the rest of the photos here.

: c :

Italy, Wanderer

a s i n a r a

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[ 22:37 sunday 3 may – asinara, sardegna, italy ]

seated on a rock in the mirror-flat sea several feet from the shore. i leapt here from the white sand beach of cala sabina, ghostly pale under the half moon. the limbs of the bay stretch in from either side, silhouetted against the star-spattered sky. the nearest artificial lights twinkle on the coast of sardegna twenty-five miles away. i can make out the town of porto torres by the concentration. the only sound is the gentle shush and heave of the water moving against the rock and sand.

this island of asinara is one of the most strange and beautiful places i’ve been. it’s ten miles long and five miles wide with a human population of no more than forty. in 1885 the freshly-minted italian government designated it as a high security prison and relocated its community of five hundred shepherds and farmers across the water to sardegna’s nurra peninsular. shortly afterwards a quarantine station was opened for mariners with contagious diseases.

during the great war austro-hungarian prisoners of war were interned on asinara. five thousand of them died here. the ethiopean imperial family was incarcerated on the island during the italian occupation of their country from 1936 to 1942. during the 1970s the facility was used to intern high-level mafia criminals. with poetic irony certain of the judges leading the prosecutions against these same figures also took up residence on asinara for their own safety. in 1991 the island was designated a national park. in 1997, after one hundred and twelve years, the penitentiary facilities were closed down and people started being permitted to visit under strict controls.

what remains is an environment of astonishingly pure nature punctuated by grim abandoned penal structures. the combination is jarring, emotionally confusing.

just two days ago, sitting in the trampery, i decided to escape from london for the weekend and impulsively acquired a return flight to alghero in north-west sardegna. i made no plans for what i’d do once i arrived. claudia kindly sent me a message with a few suggestions. as soon as i arrived i became curious about asinara. in alghera i asked people if there was somewhere i could stay on the island. a lady in the council office said she thought visitors could stay in the old barracks.

so i rented a car and drove fifty miles to the tip of the nurra peninsular where i stood looking across to asinara. there was no sign of a quay or ferry so i drove back south to the nearest town, stintino, and picked my way down to the compact harbour. i learned that there was one boat each morning crossing to the southern tip of asinara. someone also had a mobile phone number for one of the people working at the barracks on asinara. it took several attempts to get through but when i did i was told i could stay.

not wishing to spend the night in stintino (which felt one-dimensionally touristic) i continued south and arbitrarily took a side road to a tiny hamlet with the fabulous name of noddigheddu. this consisted of seven single-storey stone houses arranged around a green. one of the houses was abandoned and the roof had caved in. an elderly lady called giovanna had two rooms where people could stay. i dropped my bags and continued down the dirt track to the coast. just before sunset i was walking on the long deserted beach when thirteen flamingos appeared magically and noiselessly in the azure sky above me, wheeled slowly around where i stood watching, then returned the way they’d come.

this morning giovanna plied me with sardo biscuits and told me some of her family history. her great-grandfather had been a farmer on asinara, part of the community forcibly depopulated by the state in the 1880s. after breakfast i drove back up to stintino and down the track to the quay. the boat was waiting for me. i leapt aboard and we were away across the sparkling water. arriving at fornelli i hitched a lift up to cala d’oliva at the north of the island and dropped my rucksack at the barracks. then i set out on foot and spent the rest of the day walking. except for the three staff at the barracks i haven’t seen another soul.

this is a tough landscape of granite outcrops and hardy low shrubs populated by wild donkeys, goats and birds. about five miles north from the barracks i crested a hill to find a jaw-droppingly beautiful view spread in front of me. a shallow white-sand beach with turquoise sea breaking against it, low woodland behind the beach, a headland extending to the east surmounted by a crumbling genoese watch tower. this was cala d’arena. i picked my way down through the scrub and reached the beach. there was no sign anyone had been there in weeks. the only footprints were from birds and donkeys. the detritus washed up over the winter remained undisturbed.

my excitement at the opportunity to explore and photograph was in conflict with my reluctance to disturb the pristine environment. i trod lightly and sparingly with my heart in my throat. i remembered the excitement in kirmo’s eyes when we walked through ancient untouched forest in lapland. after exploring the beach and the lagoon behind it i picked my way along the rocks to the watch tower then came back over the scrubby headland to the beach. i discarded my clothes and swam in the chill clear water. my first swim of the year. the current was quite fast at the edge of the beach so i did not go out far.

later on, back at barracks, i was served dinner alone in the mess. nobody else is staying. then i walked out to the rock where i sit and write now. tomorrow i want to hitch a lift down to cala reale to explore the cluster of old prison buildings there.

: c :

Egypt, London, Photography, USA

f o t o s : i – ii 2009

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[ 01:38 tuesday 28 april – haggerston road, london ]

another five sets containing one hundred and twenty four pictures. this brings me up to date with everything i’ve  got scanned. needless to say another shelf of exposed films has accumulated meanwhile, begging to be sent to the lab.

: karnak :

25 photos wandering round the overwhelming temple complex during the afternoon into the twilight when all the tourists were gone.

: valley of the kings :

15 photos biking out from the west bank with ahmed to the collossi of memnon and up and through the edges of the western desert to the valley of the kings. climbing up to the ridge above the valley to be rewarded with amazing views over luxor and the desert.

: california :

36 photos in san diego to collect an award for trampoline, with shemoel and his friends in san francisco, walking with vajra above muir beach and musical experiments at point reyes .

: bil conference :

33 photos of the bil conference in long beach with quinn, asheesh and friends.

: noisebridge :

15 photos at the noisebridge hacker space in san francisco with quinn and shemoel.

: c :

London, Stromboli, Wanderer

n e t t u n o

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[ 14:55 sunday 26 april – haggerston road, london ]

last weekend i made a stretcher for antonio’s splendid painting and got it mounted. then yesterday i hung it on the wall above the piano where it seems to fit quite comfortably. evidence beneath. you can see stromboli at the top right with the god eolo blowing over it. on the rock an octopus, a hermit crab and a salamander. neptune’s symbolic trident hovers at his side and he holds a piece of coral in his hand. a ghostly dolphin jumps behind him.

: c :

antonio's nettuno stromboli painting hanging at haggerston road

antonio's nettuno stromboli painting