Weekend in Tasmania

[finella_c]

Back from a lovely weekend in Hobart, Tasmania. A beautiful, serene, friendly city, and a great place for a rejuvenating break. It reminded M. a bit of Plymouth (although presumably, without Plymouth's pockets of urban grunge, and the notorious post-nightclub brawls between naval officers and local youth). M. was there for a full week, giving a

Comments

[reverancepavane]

Hobart is one of my favourite cities. Or at least it used to be, as no doubt it's changed by now. For instance they have a bridge. The last time I was there for an extended stay they didn't.*
[* Well they had most of a bridge. Some silly ship captain accidently knocked down the middle bit a couple of years earlier). Careless that, if you ask me. Fancy building a bridge in the way of a ship like that.

[finella_c]

I think it's changed a bit since I was last there, ten years ago, but mostly (in what I saw) in positive ways. The area around the wharfs and Salamanca Place has all undergone "urban renewal" and I actually like what they've done.

I still think the harbour in Hobart is possibly the most beautiful I've seen.

[alexwinolj]

I did enjoy visiting MONA (and other bits of Hobart) at the beginning of July. It sounds like the exhibition has changed since then. What I saw was fascinating, but too crowded--I thought it could have been presented more theatrically, and could have better highlighted the unique ambience of the space. It sounds like the pendulum has swung the other way.

How much did you actually use the iPod? I went and handed mine back in after fifteen minutes, when I realised I was spending more time staring at the screen than at the artworks I'd come to view. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon looking at things I didn't know the names of, as if they were artifacts from an alien culture. It was rather pleasant.

[finella_c]

I know what you mean about mindlessly using visitor guides (normally, I avoid them like the plague) but here, I actually used it a fair bit. When I go to museums I like to browse the information that appears on wall captions, and here there were none - the iPod substituted for them. However, I tended to follow a "browse and graze" pattern rather than trying to look at everything in detail, so I used the iPod to explore the works that interested me and that I wanted to know more about.

I didn't submit my email address and itinerary (GPS) data to them in return for allowing them to email me a copy of my itinerary - I'm one of those people who'd prefer to be paid if my data is going to be used for market research!

One of my bugbears was that the iPod only has 'Like' and 'Dislike' buttons (influence of evil Facebook, grrr), which is so inadequate when you're inviting someone to respond to an artwork. How would one register "Repelled, But Intrigued By"? (Answer: You can't).