I was asked by my work to go to Infosys Confluence EMEA at Geneva this year and was to see what was the current feelings around AI. Obviously I took my camera with me so I could go and have a wander in the down times between the speeches and networking sessions.
I took a couple of photos on the Easyjet flight from Manchester to Geneva but didn’t break out the Leica Q3 until later in the evening once the activities were done for the day. We had a registration session from 5pm and then networking drinks and food on the terrace of the Hilton Hotel and Conference Centre at Geneva Airport until 9:30 pm when I returned to my room and got changed before heading out to the bus stop as described by the hotel concierge and two of my workmates.
On The Buses
At Grand Sacconex, Place I awaited the number 8 bus and caught this into the Geneva Central SARL. One the way to the bus stop I walked past a few interesting scenes and noticed a multistorey car park uner Palexpo that I would revisit later.
I had originally planned to visit some brutalist architectural landmarks in the city but felt it was too late to make it out there and get back before the last bus at 1am. `I chose instead to wander down to the waterfront of the Lake Geneva and see if I could spot the famous fountain Jet d’Eau. Alas it was not running, but it was past 10pm so I couldn’t really expect it to be on and jetting up into the sky,
I stopped and took a few photos of the waterfront at night with my Leica Q3 and wandered through the city, but it was a Tuesday night and seemingly very quiet. There were some photos of trams and taxis that I enjoy capturing in most big cities I travel to. There was not a great deal happening though so I headed back to the bus stop but as I was getting there I spotted the number 8 bus leaving so I would need to wait until the 23:59 bus.
Another Car Park?
After the 30 minutes, free, bus ride back to Palexpo direction and the Hilton hotel, I alighted and walked back down the road to the hotel and the creepy car park. The floors of the multi-storey had different colour schemes with Pink on the upper level and Blue on the level below. I didn’t go further down as it was very dark and I thought I could hear a couple of voices that I felt it better to steer clear of. I was trying hard to use a longer shutter speed and keep the ISO as low as possible and make myself as stable as possible for each photograph.
Chocolate, Bike, Knife, Watch or Walk?
The next day we had a full programme of talks between CEO’s of large businesses, famous leaders, authors and businesses all discussing AI. The late afternoon would be a networking opportunity to go out with organised activities such as a visit to the Patek Phillip watch museum, a visit to make chocolate that you could take home, a cycle ride through Geneva and also a session where you can make your own Swiss Army Knife. I was too late to get onto any of these sessions but wasn’t overly gutted as I am not a big fan of networking with many people I don’t know. My own plan was to get changed yet again and head out solo, into the city to capture some more photos, this time in the daylight.
Back to the bus stop again and this time I was going to visit a couple of Brutalist icons so I alighted from the bus at Nations, which is near the United Nations campus. From here I got onto the train to reach Plateau de Champel and was fascinated by a glass floor above my head which allowed you to see the footprints of other passengers making their way to and from the trains. I spent a good 25-20 minutes in here with the lens pointing straight up.
Not From Amsterdam
Coming out of the station I followed my google maps saved place to the Fondation Pour Recherches Medicales at La Tulipe. Inaugurated in 1972 it was designed by Jack Bertoli and follows Le Corbusier’s ideas of Form Defining Function. It is connected by an underground tunnel to the hospital nearby and is a large cube on a narrow base. It’s easy to see how it became known as the Tulip and the coloured glass is heat reflective, and gives the panels different mirror colours as some of the windows in Shrewsbury’s own Shirehall. It is a laboratory space that can be reconfigured due to the way the insides are structured. Again this is something that the Shirehall in Shrewsbury was configured to be able to do also.
Back To Uni
After capturing a few different angles here, some that were tricky due to the 28mm lens not being wide enough as close as I was, I headed for a walk to the University Of Geneva’s campus known as Uni Dufour. Another brutalist building in the city and inaugurated in 1974 it was designed by Werner-Charles Francesco, Gilbert Paux, and Jacques Vicari in a Le Corbusier inspired design.
It was a blocky building with interesting windows that would look like a zig zag from above. On each square opening was also mounted a shiny metallic object that had a 7 Segment Red or Green LED display. It looked like an art work to me but only after getting home did I research it and find out that it was a work by Tatsuo Miyajima in which 222 number producing displays, some Red and some green are affixed to the externals of the building. The work is called “Forteresse des droits de l’homme” (Fortress of Human Rights) and each of the counting number displays had a speed chosen by individual students. Interestingly, the numbers cycle 1 through 9 and never ever show the number 0 (Zero) as this is represents nothingness and is antithetical to the artists feelings about life.
I captured a few images of the exterior but it was difficult as there is not much space around it. I then made the brazen choice to walk in through the front doors, as I noticed there were no badge entry scanners. I walked up the many staircases up onto the top floor where I sat and stayed in the dry for a while. It was hammering it down with rain outside and my arms ached from holding aloft my umbrella. I was glad I wasn’t on a bike in the pouring rain, with no way of being able to stop to take photographs.
There were sone great skylights in here too and I spent about 20 minutes in here capturing photos before heading back downstairs and off to the next stop that I’d calculated on Google Maps to be not far away. With the next place reportedly closing in 40 mins though I knew I had to get a wiggle on.
Photography Exhibition
Out of the doors and onto the wet streets once more, I headed towards the Library and the Centre Of Photography to see if there were any interesting exhibitions on. As I walked closer to the building I noticed a large group of cyclists on e-bikes all wearing huge plastic ponchos going past. I really was happy to not be in amongst that.
Into the space and it was an old building that had seen a wooden structure erected to keep any damage from occurring to the original walls and features of the room. There was an exhibition on displaying the work of three photographers. The show was called Minor Tides and featured works by Lina Geoushy, Sarah Jade Sullivan and Farren van Wyk.
The first set of works I noticed was Geoushy’s “Trailblazers” that featured the photographer making self portraits as important female people from history. The artist also includes artefacts, collages and other materials that help tell the story about how women in history have been mistreated, under-represented and generally marginalised. There were some interesting works on display and the requirement of a shelf around this section was needed for the props and other items. The works were mainly on a blue background, why? I can not say but it did tie it all together.
The next work around the wall was Farren van Wyk’s “Mixedness is my Mythology” in which she explains her mixed heritage and explores how she handles her life as a half South African and half Dutch person. There are images of her and her family in portraits and some that have been stylised to play on the stereotypes that she has felt applied over the years. There are images that play on words and appear to be symbolically representing something other than the photo contents. Each of the works is a Black and White photo on dibond hung at irregular patterns on the wall in a sort of salon hang style. These images are very interesting to examine and there appears to be a much deeper story than I can ascertain, maybe it speaks to people in a similar position as the photographer. These photo prints were on a plain white wooden wall but were chopped into groups with a Red Tape border that acts as a separator. It separates from the other two artists and also into smaller groups of images. It’s an interesting technique but one that I’d be uncomfortable using. I don’t really see the relevance of using the red tape.
The last set of images was my least favourite in this show but the works were still good. The prints that were framed were hung on the same white painted walls, without the red tape, but with historical imagery printed on the walls behind. It is the work of Saraj Jade Sullivan “Hairouna” and whilst I see the images are a before and current effect, I think that the partially hidden images detract from the overall impact of the modern works. Some of the photos appear to be on stickers applied to the walls, and some enlarged postage stamps that show the colonial history of Saint Vincent and the Grenadine and how independence was important to the colonised and the relatives of these people. Some of the framed images, unglazed appear to have different colour frames for no perceptible reason and there is also a short video installation on a thin screen mounted on the wall. There are no red lines to segregate the photos but the extras stuck on the walls are too distracting to me. I’m no expert and there is obviously a good reason for them to be there but again it’s something that I msut be missing.
Back To The Jet d’Eau
After this trip around the gallery I headed off into the rain for a walk through the old town to get to the lakeside again, to see if the fountain was still running, it was. On the way though there was a callout of the fire and rescue service to what appeared to be uni accommodation so I hung around here to take some photos of the pompiers and their vehicles.
Once I got to the waterfront I took a look at the water jet, it was massive! A few photos and a walk up to it, then I noticed the yellow water taxis so I headed to the pier and jumped on the M2 taxi to get across the lake. Then when I was there I jumped on the M3 to get back to the Plage de Geneve, or the beach. The light was fading and the Jet d’Eau was now lit with a pink and blue light so I made some images of reflections on the lake and then took a walk back to the Mont Blanc stop for the number 8 bus to head back to the hotel.
As I was on the bus about halfway back, the door opened at a stop and a guy jumped into the bus waving something around like nunchucks and making noises like “hiiiyaaa” and other such stereotypical kung fu noises. He was talking to the passengers as he was behaving erratically and most people got off early to escape his behaviour. At one point he looked straight at me and said something quite lengthy, so i replied with a “Sorry, I did not understand a word you just said”. To which he replied with a deep voice “baaa baaa blah blah ” for a bit to mock my voice. I chose to ignore it and then I noticed that he’d been waving his underpants around, slapping them against windows and seats etc. As I got off the bus at my destination I checked with the bus driver that he would be ok and he looked back to see that the unstable person had also got off the bus. He said he was ok so I headed off to my bed!
The next day the conference finished with a talk by Tennis Champion Boris Becker and then we headed back to the airport and flew back to Manchester. My camera didn’t come out again for the rest of the trip.
Reflection
I learnt that Geneva is a nice city, but it is too full of designer shops that I have zero interest in. There was little to do on a Tuesday and Wednesday evening but I’m certain there are more museums and galleries than I saw on this journey. It is similar to Venice for me in that there is not enough to do for more than three days. There are tonnes of restaurants and bars but I only stopped in one bar for a Peroni 0.0 and there was too much cigarette smoking going on. I’m glad I took only the one camera as any more would have been overkill for the time I was there.
The digital photos came out ok, but as it was exceptionally dark there is a lot of noise as I was having to shoot at high ISO and I would normally use my Canon R5 Mk II for this type fo shoot. The gallery for the photo exhibition was ok, if a bit small, but the photo works appeared to be trying too hard. It felt like me producing the three works and fixing them on a wooden pallet in the early years of my degree, when just fixing them to the wall would have been enough.
I see no reason to go back to Geneva again but was glad that I’d found a multi -storey car park to get stuck in for 20 minutes or so and also a couple of good brutalist buildings to tick off the list.
Would it help my project for the university year? No, probably not but the exhibition may help when thinking more about how I will present my work in the degree show next June.
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