Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen | solitude.dk

Scene: It's Tuesday and I'm visiting a med-clinic because I had been throwing up all day and my head felt like it was about to explode.

Nurse

You have a virus infection. Stay in bed, drink fluids and take Mucinex.

Me

Sounds like fun.

Nurse

I am not going to charge you for this visit.

Me

You've seen my health insurance card so you know I'm European. It is absolute hell to get reimbursed for these visits.

Nurse

We must be nice to our neighbours.

There is hope for the American healthcare system yet!

Living in Boston means that I have been bombarded with political ads on tv due to Tuesday's primary election in New Hampshire. These extremely long campaigns is something very foreign to me. I'm used to 3-week sprints when election time rolls around, not year long marathons. Brittany asked if I wanted to attend a rally for Hillary Clinton who she believes strongly is the best choice for the next American President. The rally was in Manchester, NH only an hour's drive from here and I couldn't turn down a chance to see Hillary and Bill Clinton in person.

Having never attended a political rally in Denmark—Danish politicians just don't have the same star quality—I am not the best person to make a comparison between the two. The rally was as expected on some fronts and surprising on others. It was located in what seemed to be an airport hangar turned sports arena turned rally at Manchester Airport. Due to the massive traffic jams we arrived 45 minutes late, just at the rock band played their last song before Hillary went on stage. The place was packed.

Anyone entering the rally was offered a big blue poster that read "Hillary" in big letters. I politely declined as I wanted to take pictures during the speech and I still wanted to feel more like a spectator than a participant. After all, I am not a voter. With regular intervals people would start cheering loudly and wave their posters energetically over their heads. While these frequent breaks are a massive annoyance when watching televised speeches they are actually kind of fun when you're there. It doesn't matter much that your view is completely blocked by a sea of blue.

As I imagine any serious contender for the presidency is, Hillary showed to be a rock solid speaker. Her speech was a typical bullet point description of her political program, a speech I'm sure she's given over a hundred times now. There was no room for improvisation, even as a young man close to us finished Hillary's sentence "What American needs now is…" by loudly screaming "A WOMAN" (making the whole arena laugh) she didn't miss a beat.

Her speech was very predictable with a few surprises thrown in (to keep us on our toes I'm sure). My biggest surprise was that Hillary took time to talk about the Iraqi translators and other locals who are aiding the American war effort in Iraq. She underlined that it is the responsibility of the United States to take care of these people as American troops withdraw. A sensible policy in my mind, but not something I expected her to devote time to at a rally like this. Denmark adopted a similar policy when Danish troops withdrew, but not until after the media brought the issue to the public.

I had hoped that Bill Clinton would say some nice words about his wife, but that wish wasn't granted. Last week on tv I saw him talk about Hillary at a different rally, but Monday night was all Hillary. He kept in the background, alternating between sporting a giant grin and folding his hands almost praying. He looked like the uncle who was just happy to be there. I imagine it's very relaxing for the previous leader of the free world to be on the campaign without having any actual responsibilities.

It's hard for me to imagine anyone changing their vote based on one of these rallies. At the same time I don't think that's the purpose of them. They do give a strong sense of belonging to those attendees who are solid Hillary supporters. What matters is not what Hillary says, but that she took the time to show up and talk to them in person. That connection is important when trying to campaign in a country as big as the USA where it's easy for people to feel a disconnect with what's happening in Washington DC. In much the same way hardly anyone in Denmark knows or feel connected to the members of the European Parliament and the work they do.

See more of my photos from the rally on 23.

As I'm writing this I have just added two more lumiere videos to the lumiere project. This brings the total amount of videos up to 523 videos from 78 different participants. The volume of videos is striking and it's not something I expected when Brittany and I began posting these videos back in late May. I'm thrilled and I'm looking forward to the next milestones of 750 and 1,000 videos posted.

I thought I had more time to write the update on video number 500, but Michael has introduced the lumiere videos to art students from Leeds and they posted a great number of them quickly. You can see them at Leeds Vlog where they are posting many videos, not just lumieres. Video collections from courses and classes are always fun to go through just because you get so many different types of videos.

It would be very wrong to talk about the lumiere project with mentioning Sam Rensiew from patalab. This elusive Dane has posted almost 70 lumiere videos and is showing no signs of stopping soon.

One thing I think has helped the success of the lumiere project is that the whole thing is completely de-centralized. We don't host your videos, there's no special upload process. The project page is just a collection of links and you participate by just posting on your own blog. This makes sure each participant is still in full control of his submission (just delete your video if you don't want it anymore) and it also gets the word out because people are posting their videos where they usually post videos. Spreading the word person-by-person has lead to many new people posting lumiere videos - I know that from the people who have e-mailed us. Unlike our mention on BoingBoing in late September which led to very few new videos (but a lot of anonymous visitors who never came back).

If you are a new-comer and interested in participating just follow the "Submit" link on the video collection page to add your video. You need to post it to your blog first though. The rules are simple meaning anyone can record, off-load from their camera and post:

• 60 seconds max.
• Fixed camera
• No audio
• No zoom
• No edit
• No effects

In a public attempt at reflection here are the first two lumiere videos I recorded during a bike ride to the beach this past spring:

• Rust
• Crops+Artifacts (challenging the no effects rule by showing the effects of video compression)