LPM 001 – Lost Highway

„The same procedure as every year…“ the trip to the Live Performers Meeting in Rome staarts with chaos…

…after Ryan Air had cancelled our flight tickets for some strange reason, a meeting was scheduled at Café Gorki Park to discuss further proceedings. A few cigarettes, debates, calculations and desperate phone-calls later the decision was made to turn the LPM visit into a transcontinental road trip…On the next day, all of us met to buy the last essential gadgets for the planned visual narrative performance and struggled with our tape-munching camcorder, peripheral work deadlines and frustrations. Eventually, we managed to shoot some scenes and while fRED spent a lot of time capturing, compositing and editing clips afterwards, Bram and Flux returned to the desks to finish due freelance work.

Wednesday afternoon, fRED and Flux finished filming some more clips and crammed the Audi A4 with loads of cables, computers and the usual nerdcore visualists equipment. Bram was picked up and we started our trip towards West-Berlin, searching for some more environments to capture final Berlin shots for our live-set.

The Autobahn was hit around 6pm and the cruise-controlled Audi rolled south. Although the roads were fairly clear, several construction sites and a lot of trucks slowed us down a bit, and six hours later, we finally arrived at Flux’s parents home in Heidelberg to chill in front of the TV, fill our stomaches and take a few hours of sleep.

The next morning started with a few more chaotic issues. Flux didn’t hear his alarm clock, and we got up an hour later than planned. The shower was freezing cold, but refreshing (the heater didn’t work for some reason) and within only a few minutes, we found ourselves back in the car. The morning sun was enjoyed (and filmed) on the garden terrace of the famous Heidelberg castle, but soon, our hunger and caffeine addiction forced us to continue to find a bakery and a supermarket to hunt some breakfast and nurture to survive the upcoming passing of the Alps. Our primary survival needs got satisfied very soon and we brought our weels back on the freeway.

The ride to and through Switzerland was calm and quick and the huge mountains and crystal clear lakes around us very imressive. After we slipped through the pinhole of the Gotthard tunnel, holiday feelings came up because it got warmer and the first palm and pine trees appeared as we approached the Italian border. fRED safely drove us to the beautiful refuge villa of his aunt and uncle in the idyllic mountainsite where we were heartly welcomed and even spoilt with pasta, coffee, cake and fresh grapes that grew above our heads on the terrace. It was hard, having to leave the beautiful place again, but two hours later we returned to the messy car seats to start the final stage of the roadtrip.

The last hours went by very quickly – the Audi dove through the night, through a lot of construction sites, where workers crossed the road like scared deer in the headlights, maniac drivers passed by with insane speeds, and glowing bright pimped up trucks ruled the highway all the way down to Roma. We fortunately found the right exit in Rome and arrived rightaway at the Linux Club. The expected chaos surrounded us when we walked in, recognizing known faces and totally flashed by the loudness and bright video flickering. We were still in the driving mood and not quite used to the sudden party atmosphere, so we waited outside the club for Valeria and her friends who had organized a sleeping place for us…