Fresh Target - 537729 421693

[Pat McDonald]

This one hasn't been used for viewing before.

Oh, the extra numbers are to do with my random number generator - I flipped a coin 20 times for each one, then converted the binary to a decimal number.

Feedback will be posted First Monday in August.

[Marv]

Brilliant, Pat, thankyou. I look forward to viewing this one. 

[mjo]

http://www.dojopsi.com/tkr/goview.cfm?id=226255&P=8Q9HXYC8H4

[Marv]

http://www.dojopsi.com/tkr/goview.cfm?ID=226802&P=2N65JNC782

[sonny5085]

http://www.dojopsi.com/tkr/goview.cfm?ID=227057&P=U25ZP4V393
http://www.dojopsi.com/tkr/goview.cfm?ID=226679&P=P6845W8BK6

[Glyn]

My effort.

http://www.dojopsi.com/tkr/goview.cfm?ID=227081&P=A6EL6STW24

[Pat McDonald]

Cue for RV target 537729-421693 for rv-uk.com

Describe the building pictured at the time the images were recorded. Also identify the logo of the former owner shown in the image labelled "Front View". Only comprehend the building at the time when then images were recorded, the first few days of June 2000. Do not comprehend the building or the site for any other time except the first few days of June 2000.

Picture captions

Front View

Already described above. Note that there was another doorway, to the north of the shower area, also hiden by the trees. This led to the toilet and washbasin, and also to the main crew rest and cooking area. Just to the side of that was a glassblowing area, used by an American glassblower who was seeking residency in Holland (he succeeded in that). This area was very poorly lit, and lacking any flash equipment I did not bother to waste film on it. Note the blackened area - this was not coal dust (which got everywhere at the site) but was one of the burned areas which had destroyed horticultural equipment on it. Also note the Ford logo marking the building. The door visible to the right side of the building (towards the north) was permanently secured. The direction of shot is roughly north west. The large doors visible on the left of the picture are large enough to admit articulated trucks. Behind them were sunken bay areas (flooded) that led to the flooded basement. Further out of shot and around the corner, running in several vertical rows, were the bullet holes (?) already mentioned.

http://i670.photobucket.com/albums/vv62/PatTheCatMcD/FrontView.jpg

Inside View - Office Spaces around edges

This is a view from two thirds of the distance of the building, looking south westwards, from the edge of the darkenened space towards the illuminated end with roof windows. The interior windows of several former offices are just visible - the outside windows were boarded over. The furthest office was used by one of the squatters as living space. The nearest one I cleaned out for use as a living area but decided not to after having problems with sleeping there. The room in the middle was taken by a female squatter.

http://i670.photobucket.com/albums/vv62/PatTheCatMcD/InsideView-OfficeSpacesaroundedges.jpg

Inside View - Jerry Built Room

This picture was taken at the far western, windowed end of the building. The exterior boards for the windows were removed to give better light. This sleeping area was constructed by a female squatter to give some measure of privacy. Note the empty beer outsize beer cans. Also, the pallettes were delivered to the site by vehicle to give some form of raw materials for building. The viewpoint is roughly directly west.

http://i670.photobucket.com/albums/vv62/PatTheCatMcD/InsideView-JerryBuiltBedroom.jpg

Inside View - Graffiti

Self protrait of the female squatter responsible for the "Jerry Built Room". The other picture relates to a dispute with some of the squatters with a seperate squat 'organisation'. To the left appears to be the remains of the car spray painting area. The panels are high quality steel, as it the mesh above them. The Viewpoint is roughly South West. The green doors lead to a seperate room, brick walls, that could have been used as paint store. Note the green panel with the black horse's head.

http://i670.photobucket.com/albums/vv62/PatTheCatMcD/InsideView-Graffiti.jpg

View from Roof

The direction of the picture is again to the South West, roughly above and to the edge of the building for the picture labelled "Inside View - Office Spaces around the edges". It shows the main waterway giving access to the next door coal depot. A coal barge (empty) is moored. The yellowish streak in the sky is probably a stray piece of tobacco across the lens of the camera, or a film fault.

http://i670.photobucket.com/albums/vv62/PatTheCatMcD/ViewfromRoof.jpg

Inside View - Mostly Dark

The position of the camera was about 1 third of the distance from the edge of the building, facing roughly north west. It shows the scale of the building - note the yellow registration plate of the vehicle in the foreground, and compare with the white Dodge van in the background. The foreground vehicle was a VW camper van (later model) with the cabin cut off, and was used as a general purpose site vehicle. The cut off cab was dragged outside through the vehicular entrance and used as a skip for site clearance. The "Graffiti" area  and "Jerry Built Room" are just visible in the distance. The light source towards the right of the picture is an open vehicular doorway, large enough to admit an articulated truck - beyond and to the left was the skip. Further on from there (counterclockwise) was a scale model of Stonehenge arranged with loose bricks. The white spidery lines just visible above it are the outlines of the roof supports, which had extensive amounts of flourescent tube lighting. In the roof were set circular ventilation ducted fans.

http://i670.photobucket.com/albums/vv62/PatTheCatMcD/InsideView-MostlyDark.jpg

Shower Area

This is taken close to the building, behind the trees shown in "Front View". It shows the barbecue and shower area (others did this - I can't take credit for this piece of ingenuity). A hose pipe was run to a metal tube in the bath/barbecue - when the fire was lit and the water turned on, the water heated up and was then run to a shower nozzle above the shower area. Privacy was got by opening the pedestrian door to the building (labelled "Ingang") and wiring it to the shower frame.

http://i670.photobucket.com/albums/vv62/PatTheCatMcD/ShowerArea.jpg

[Pat McDonald]

The target depicted in the accompanying photographs shows the Ford Factory, Hemweg 201, Amsterdam, Holland, during the first few days of June 2000. It is located in the western Industrial district of the city, and the North Sea canal is just north of it. To the south of it is the main unloading area for the coal depot that feeds Amsterdam's power station. The picture labelled "Front View" is the eastern side of the building, and is the first side encountered if approaching on land. The area behind the camera viewpoint was a huge pile of destroyed reinforced concrete, some 5 metres high, perhaps 10 deep and 25 metres long. Presumably this was the remains of the building which formerly occupied the site.

At the time, I was living at this location, which was an occupied squat, registered as temporary with the Amsterdam City Council pending a longer time license to allow the squat status to continue. I left the site prior to the outcome of this decision being reached and returned to the UK as I had reached the end of my endurance as far as being homeless was concerned.

The target building had not been in commercial usage since approximately the mid 90s. Large sections of industrial sized hose, timing devices, plant trays and other debris were found burned at multiple locations outside the building. It is probable that the building had been used for the industrial cultivation of cannabis prior to it being squatted. Initially the power supply had been left turned on, but after a week or so of occupation, the power house was resecured by the Port Authority and all power to the building was discontinued.

Although most of the modern building is post war, the far western end, lit by windows, shows evidence of having been from an earlier industrial building. Some of the surviving brickwork was of high quality, although no complete sections of that earlier period were observed. The more modern construction consists of vertical steel i-beams spaced approximately every 5 metres. The outer skin of the building is a lightweight sheath panels - corrugated steel or tin plate seem likely.

At the near end, towards the side marked "Front View" on the southern side of the building, there was at least one, more likely, rows of bullet holes. Each row was near vertical, having 20 holes each. The size of the holes was measured as between 7 and 8 millimetres in diameter. These were observed by several individuals including Port Authority inspectors. It is possible they were created by an illicit weapon between 1995 and 2000. The site's isolated location would have made it ideal to test fire illicit weapons. Some of the lower holes were covered with Floam aerosol filler on the inside.

I spent a total of 2 months at the site. After the 2nd day, I just could not face spending another night at ground level, and constructed my own sleeping area on an overhead steel gantry some 8 metres off the concrete floor. The reason were that the dreams encountered at ground level were of too disturbing a nature for any period of rest. In addition, that new sleeping area gave additiona security; should the building to be re-entered and the other squatters evicted, there would still be one squatter remaining in the building to re-open it after Port Authority had resecured it.

One visitor to the site is worth noting - the brother of the Patriach of Amsterdam, homeless since 1945 as he insisted everyone has the right to a home. The gentleman concerned is something of a legend within the Amsterdam squat community. He seemed familiar enough with the surroundings. He showed a lot of interest in what the people living there were doing at the site in the way of art and expression. Although never explicity stated, it is possible that the site had more than its share of tragedy, and perhaps even was used forced labour camp during the Nazi Occupation of Holland. Or similar during the slave trade. For these reasons, the cue for this target was expressly chosen ONLY to view during the time that the pictures were taken, to avoid excessive emotional trauma to persons attempting to remotely view it at a time other than when the picture was taken. That visitor was much intrigued with the site mascot - the "Terra" bear. This was an oversize teddy bear with a GI's steel helmet, metal fangs, much daubed with red food colouring.

Current status of the building is unknown, but the original plan of the squatters was to turn it into a venue with the largest dancefloor in Europe, as had happened previously with the Westergasfabriek (gas works) industrial complex in Amsterdam.

[Pat McDonald]

Well done everyone! Nobody guessed it was Michael Jackson.

I'll be reading through the session data. Provisional Signal-to-Noise Ratio is over 60% for mjo and Marv, which is (apparently) considered operational level.

See how you get a bigger picture when lots of people try a big target?

And I'm not surprised some of you were sleepy - that's a BIG target.

Here's an overhead courtesy of Google, which shows how close it is to the deep water canal (about 100 yards);-

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&q=map+of+amsterdam&ie=UTF8&split=0&gl=uk&ei=0Mx2SszZAt-ZjAeWsaS9Bw&ll=52.417917,4.817441&spn=0.004528,0.008776&t=h&z=16

[Marv]

Thanks Pat for that thorough and comprehensive feedback. Alas I feel that I was WAY off in my viewing...probably hit target early on but soon skewed off into AOL. Never mind.

Will go check others' sessions now.