It would seem that people in Eastern Europe may be a lot more receptive to my work on gentleness and enclosure than people in Ireland. I suppose this isn’t surprising, as the post-socialist experience means that various personal, social, and political enclosures seem to be more obviously and keenly felt. I suppose it’s a little bit more of the boiling frog syndrome back home - developments have been so steady and incremental that people didn’t really notice all of the toxic ways of thinking and doing that now pervade our lives, at least until last year and the shock and awe of the euphemistically named ‘credit crunch’. In Eastern Europe it seems the changes have been rushing in over the last twenty years, and the physical enclosures within cities are about as visible as they come. With fewer protections and perhaps more corruption, local communities seem to find themselves more often the victims of major structural changes imposed from city hall.
It’s also interesting that my music and copyright work, pretty much ignored in Ireland, is also resonating very strongly with people here. Turns out that what happened in Ireland 10-15 years ago is happening more aggressively in Slovenia, Croatia and other places … the aggressive expansion of performing rights organisations, declaring ‘obey us, pay us money, or else!’ I’ll be speaking about what I see as the injustices of it all on Monday night in Ljubljana. Already 70 people have said they will attend, and 400 said they might. Now, facebook stats aren’t always reliable when it comes to projected attendance, but the level of interest is exciting. Slovenian national TV are also interested, which is a little daunting, but again, exciting. Maybe I should have got my hair cut like me mummy said! (never mind my glasses, which are currently held together with sellotape!!)
