GlobalAlien is global, because its members have various nationalities. The group was started by students of a Rebecca Horn class and students of a Katharina Sieverding class, as one learned during Lizza May David incredibly boring presentation. How come that, had I imagined how a group of students of Rebecca Horn and Katharina Sieverding would present itself, I would probably have come up with exactly the kind unmotivated high school girl style of presentation that Lizza May David delivered. Choose your gurus wisely and don’t team up with other disciples, they are likely to have similar deficits as you have.

Andrea Knobloch und Silke Riechert form “Salon des Belles Utopistes” a group of two. They talked mostly about how they organize their collaboration and a little bit about the dynamics of collaborating. Their work may be interesting, there collaboration is very conventional. They are a Team and that’s fine, but who cares?

Only FiloArt gave an inspiring presentation in form of a narrative that played with the question of identity. It is not clear how many members FiloArt has and who they are. The Presentation was given by a synthetic voice and questions were answered via email. The story told in the presentation suggests that the group might consist of only one person’s various roles and aspects, but that is kept obscure.

FiloArt does not seem to have a website. This page has some information about the group. It would be great, if they would publish the presentation online.

One would have liked to see a group on the panel that truly works as a group and uses and investigates strategies of teaming up. One of the more interesting groups of the last 15 years, Superflex has shown how forming a group and using techniques and strategies from the corporate world can make a difference. Unlike Superflex the groups on the panel, maybe with the exception of FiloArt, seem to feel perfectly comfortable inside the art context and conventional exhibition practice. Their attempts to break out of it, if they exist, seem halfhearted, not thought through and naive.

After the premiere on Wednesday I will post the video here.

Probably not, I’d say.

The place, with its waiting room, the interior design from the post war era and the exhibits is a truly inspiring. It shows how the history of art that is generally never questioned is just one possible and (admittedly) plausible construction amongst others. Of course it’s a common place the history is constructed, yet, it’s good to see such a well researched - and of course well constructed - exhibition.

Besides all that it must be said that the concept such a Gesamtkunstwerk, not connected to a gallery or an institution is brilliant. By far the best art experience in a long time.

The result is “3 Generations of Happiness“. It shows young man with a british accent explain the art market according to Park West.

Last week an article in the New York Times gave an overview over Park West’s activities and strategies. Shady, of course. Thinking about it the business model is brilliant: On cruise ships national law is not applicable, the clientele often has spare money to spend and is just as often comparatively uneducated and it is very hard to tell the value of works of art, because it is highly speculative.

Inspired by an idea that a group of artists from Rio de Janeiro came up with, Literaturwerkstatt invited more than 40 graffiti artists from Berlin, Rio and Barcelona to collaborate with poets from Berlin. The canvas was an old shopping center in Lichtenberg (alter Kaufhof at Anton-Saefkow-Platz). The building is a perfect urban gallery: It has an almost windowless wall that goes all around the building and the upper part of the building is wider than the lower part forming a roof that protected artists and visitors from the rain.

Despite heavy rain many people showed up for the event, amongst them many locals. The works ranged from figurative paintings to stylish calligraphy and experimental arrangements of text images. Most works were illustrations of poems and the were painted on the walls right next to them. On one hand it was a bit disappointing that so many artist respected that pattern, on the other hand the works were quite accessible that way.

It’s going to be interesting how local graffiti artists will react to these works that are officially not only tolerated but even welcome.

Preparing to hijack the stereo at a party with an iPod shuffle. The challenge is to do it smoothly enough so no one notices.

Waiting for my food and a not having anything to read with me a picked up one of the Tacheles Programs (I never see them anywhere else. Is it possible that they only manage to distribute it in their direct neighborhood?). The first sentence that caught my attention translates “scrap and bankruptcy aren’t art”. In a short text on the front page Tacheles e.V. distances itself from the scrap in their backyard. They claim that Fundus, the investor who bought the building a long time ago, tries to damage the reputation of Tacheles and teams up with small-time criminals to do so. According to Tacheles e.V. “Drug dealers and worse” use the territory for “deployment”.

I don’t know the latest details about the Fundus / Tacheles case, but using the kind of terminology Techeles e.V. uses on their flyer is certainly not helpful. It is of course fine to make a conflict public, even toward tourists who can not be familiar with the situation, only that by talking about scrap and art in one phrase one implies a fascist understanding of art. Of course scrap can be art and wether the the scrap in the back yard of Tacheles is art or not and wether anyone claims it is art or not has nothing to do with the conflict they are having. I can see that Tacheles e.V. wants to provoke an get attention with this kind os a statement. Probably they also thought that distancing themselves from scrap as art and from the junkyard next to the building (which probably adds quite a bit to the touristic potential of the place) they can show that they are a serious organization that should get permanent funding from the city. This kind of opportunism mixed with the paranoia that sees conspiracy seems to have become the mode of operation at Tacheles.

Schallab??ck and Kurz are of course both very concerned about the erosion of privacy and their disagreements are mostly minor differences in terminilogy. It is however very interesting to look at it from a slightly different angle:

Kurz is a techie and Schallb??ck a jurist. Kurz complained a couple of times how hard it was for her to read court decisions concerning the topic. However, technology today is to a large extend software, hence written in programming languages, which just like judicial texts and laws need to be unambiguous above all. Which is why both are so hard to read for non experts. When thinking about it in these lines one quickly sees that there are more parallels between both systems. Just like agreeing on technological standards, it is often hard to form laws that comply with existing laws and in both areas economical interests of powerful players often lead to sub-optimal solutions. Schallb??ck explained that certain laws which can be expected to not comply with the german constitution and therefore wont pass Bundesverfassungsgericht (the highest german court) get done as european directive instead. In that case Bundesverfassungsgericht is not cognizant. The same practice exists in other european countries.

Someone from the audience pointed out quite aptly that relying on Bundesverfassungsgericht instead of the political system when it comes to protecting privacy, will always lead to bad solutions: Laws that compromise privacy as much as is possible within the frame of the constitution. Is this what we really want?

I am pretty certain that we wont need a bug fix release 8.1.1 and I can guarantee that, no matter what the numbering convention is, we made no compromises about the speakers. What is labeled Pecha Kucha Berlin contains 100% Pecha Kucha Berlin, featuring the most exciting people that applied and the best people we could think of ourselves plus some speakers that our partners suggested. Don’t expect that there will only be Designers, just because it’s DMY. The general idea might be called “l’extension du domaine du design”.

Vertigo was definitely a small talk topic while people were chilling and even dancing up there. Of course the live performances were loud enough for tourists as well as cops patrolling Oranienburger Stra??e to hear it and get curious. My expectations were not disappointed when looking in the face of the first cop, who entered the terrace and saw the crowd hanging out on that roof. After the first shock and after seeing that nobody protested when they were asked to get off the roof, the cops were pretty laid back and were even interested in what kind of a web start up would be organizing this funky event. Very Berlin.

Besides the (anticipated) cop incident, there were great performances and live music:

Mesak (FI), Fabio Genito (IT), Cornelia (SE, Live), Le Choix (SE, Live), Little Jinder (SE, Live), Bookhouse Boys (SE, Live), Kalle Kuts (GER), Snax (US, Live PA), Trickski (GER), Quarion (CH), Jack Migger (GER, Live), Ben Mono (GER), Michelle Owen (AUS), Noema (GER), Dirk Rumpff (GER), Andre Lodemann (GER), Hunee (GER), Hauke Freer (GER), DJ Humus (IL), Cloud (SE), Barbara Hallama (GER), Yeah Fool! (SE/US), Der Klaus (GER), Exit Ghost (GER), SoundCloud DJ team (SE-GER)

The list may not be entirely up to date. You need to be a Soundcloud member to listen to the music (currently invitation only).

More photos

I was a bit disappointed that he did not mention a third notion of the term, which is common in software desigen and refers to the openness towards other systems. Especially when talking about online worlds where residents can acquire possessions, it seems to a logical question to ask, if and how items can be transferred to other worlds. I would even go as far as looking at the general system of capitalist economy (including legislation) as just one more virtual world. Interoperability with it should in my opinion be seen as part of the game design.

Unfortunately the panel did not go into discussing any aspect of openness at all. This was of course not much of a surprise considering who was on the panel: Frank Campbell, Chief Business Officer (CBO) at MindArk PE AB, Swedish creators of Entropia Universe, Dr. Mirko Caspar, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Metaversum, Dirk Weyel, Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Frogster Interactive (responsible for Marketing, Sales und Business Development).

The Moderator, Prof. Ulrich Weinberg of Hasso Plattner Institute, who otherwise failed to ask a single interesting question, amused himself by making fun of everybody’s titles when introducing the panel (”a C and an O with some other letter inbetween”). Looking at the titles bit more critically before inviting them might have been a good idea. This way the chief officers only gave their little marketing loop (Mirko Caspar of Metaversum getting nervous every time a question touched the topic “business model”).

In Buenos Aires to our surprise getting online as a traveler is probably easier than in Berlin. We found free WiFi basically anywhere including our hotel. Free Wifi seems to be the standard for hotels, which is noticeable, because in Europe that is not at all the case. In fact in Europe you find your self terrorized by expensive and malfunctioning services that force you to think about the best minute packages. It’s actually a scandal and one should boycott hotels that don’t have free WiFi.

Anyway, there are also strange things when it comes to hotels in Argentine. Because of a traffic jam on the highway, we missed a plain and needed to stay in hotel near the airport. At the information desk they had addresses of three hotels only. The one we chose turned out not to accept credit cards!! We had been warned that the whole airport is under control of mafia like structures and the hotel story supports this view.

Buenos Aires competes with Berlin not only when it comes to free internet access, but also when it comes to fashion and shopping. Certain areas of Palermo make Alte Sch??nhauser look look boring. Traveling with Euros on your bank account, it’s hard to resist filling your bags. Trying to catch cabs we must have looked like nouveau riche chicks a week before christmas in Manhattan.

PS: Fotos will follow, I mostly used my iPod touch to write this, in fact I even left my laptop in Porto Alegre, because I did not expect that Buenos Aires is so good for web junkies like myself.

Also read (german): Reisebericht: Cardoso, Pecha Kucha Porto Alegre

I really don’t know how a professional in the area of web development can be that clueless. No one who had looked at the technology of Second Life could seriously believe that the platform was good for large corporation business. I was convinced all the time that all the advertising agencies and virtual reality developers knew that all along and just understood that they could use the media hype to rip off corporate clients. Which I of course think is a completely legitimate business strategy. After all it was a misunderstanding that an open economy in a virtual world means that it is a place for making business on a scale that goes beyond the level of small companies and free lance work. It was naive at any time to believe that, but of course pushing that mixup was very attractive for main stream media, since it made great stories.

I am not a very regular user of SL nowadays and I think it actually works quiet well for the sporadic user. I just participated in an art festival (New Berlin Artfestival) and I attended a couple of live events inside of SL. During the art festival the organizers invited people on a “Rundgang” where they discussed some of the works. I followed the conversation and was quiet impressed by the open discussion that would be quite rare in real world art. Of course much of it sounded naive for an art world resident like myself, but that just shows that people who would normally not attend art events or not feel comfortable and welcome there take the chance to attend such an event when the can send their avatar instead their actual body.

Last week while researching new possibilities for film making in SL, I found out about a modified SL client that allows lip syncing using the voice chat function that was introduced last year and that works very well. It seems to me that Second Life has become a more interesting place in many ways. This
morning I read an article on we make money not art that seems to support this view. In the well researched article Regine states that there is still a stable growth in registered and concurrent users. Apparently only boring corporate islands are abandoned. Something one often wishes for in the real world.

Check out this sticker that extends organ donor cards. I filled mine out already. Of course I generally I don’t wait until I die with giving my intellectual property to the public. Anyway, for people who own more valuable intellectual property than I do and who don’t share it while walking on the planet, it’s probably a good idea to keep their mouths shut about having decided to become an intellectual property donor.

Maybe there should be an option specifying that you donate your intellectual property only in case of a natural death.

I write this despite generally being pissed at apple for their policies concerning digital property and their tendency to create locked systems and to mock customers (as they did when not putting all the software that the iPhone comes with on the iPod Touch). They get away with all that, because the seem to have a monopoly on usability. Don’t ask how that is possible.

The exact opposite experience when it comes to usability is this years Transmediale. Just like in the last two years buying a ticket is the ultimate challenge of ones patience. Today I waited 30 minutes with only 5 visitors in front of me. It takes averagely 6 minutes to process one person, the maximum can be over 10 minutes. The reason is not only the large number of different tickets, but also that everybody who buys a pass that is valid for more than one event needs to register with name, address and phone number or email address, so the ticket can not be passed on. Besides that even people who have a pass need to pick up tickets at the same counter, because they want to make certain that that all people who buy individual tickets get a seat. Last year the problem was even worse because at the location (Akademie der K????nste) there was not enough room for the long waiting lines. Fortunately Haus der Kulturen der Welt offers more room. Nevertheless I am in disbelieve how the organizers can be so ignorant of the fact that their system is not working out and annoys everybody. I was one minute from just leaving and boycotting the whole festival for for the next ten years.

Have you heard of wristbands? What about abandoning the system with tickets for singel events and introducing half day or evening tickets? It works for other festivals and after all making enough money on tickets is only a question of a good mixed calculation. How hard can it be?

One was the lecture/performance “Manifest Destiny” by Pablo Helguera, which consisted of a power point presentation mixing four stories around the idea that the US should expand their territory, which was popular in 19th century. The presentation was half caricature half serious and it worked quite well. I only found out later, when I googled Pablo Helguera, that he was also the author of a book I recently had a look at when I was standing around, waiting for a film screening to start at new gallery show about the art world. The book is called “Manual of Contemporary Art Style” and is a very helpful beginners guide to the art world not only for practitioners. It’s of course a bit childish, but nevertheless very entertaining and mostly quite well observed.

The other was a concert hardly dressed cross dressers punk combo. I could not even find the name of the band anywhere, because as it turned out it was only the starting act. The main act sucked. If anybody knows the name of the band, please leave a comment.

What is interesting is that the idea of using a map as a frame relates to the famous panorama at the Queens Museum of Art where another New York show, “New York States of Mind” opened on Sunday, just two days after the Show at Flux Factory. The States of Mind show was put together by Shaheen Merali of House of World Cultures in Berlin, where it was quite a success a couple of months ago.

Merali’s Show is far from being conventional in form and choice of artists and makes good use of the architecture at the QMA and there is a certain playfulness in the installation. However, there are few works one could imagine in both shows. Interestingly enough the work that seems to be misplaced in QMA and would have fit better in the exhibition at Flux Factory is Hans Haacke’s minimalist installation which makes use of the panoram of New York. It consists of a what Card Bord of which two columns have been cut out. The card board is suspended above the World Trade Center in the panorama (where it still exists, because it was last updated in 1992). The work seems a bit flat for the State of Mind exhibition, that is otherwise rich in ambiguous works that go beyond the kind of quick art joke that one can appreciate in a show like the one at Flux Factory, which obviously does not have the pretense that a show in a major museum automatically has. Anyway, it is not a big surprise that Haake delivers such a cheap piece, given that his more recent works often seem to be obvious choices that don’t hit the nail on the head as brilliantly as his installation at the german parliament (”Der Bev????lkerung”).

Anyway, despite finding Haakes contribution boring, I must admit that it made me think about how they are going to deal with the twin towers when the panorama updated the next time. It’s a catch - one cannot really keep them when the rest of the panorama is updated, but it also seems quite tough remove them. One can imagine protests when such a plan becomes public.

This is nothing less than a scandal. After all, those magazines are bought for their event calendars. Looked at it from this perspective, event organizers in Berlin are free content providers. Charging them and the reader is daylight robbery and one wonders how they could ever think to get away with it. It also seems questionable, if forming such a cartel can be legal. Admittedly there is less money in this market than in markets where the national anti trust agency usually gets active, but nevertheless it will reduce the consumer’s choice considerably.

Of course on the other hand the cartel is under pressure because many potential readers get their information from other sources today, namely from mailing lists and alternative online communities. For exclusive party information restrealitaet.de is probably a better choice than Zitty. But that just makes the magazine’s strategy look even more stupid. Instead of trying to come up with ideas of how to compete with the diversity that the innumerable mailing lists offer they seek refuge in the mainstream. Charging for event notifications and unifying formally competing event calendars will necessarily lead to an over-representation of the mainstream. It is quite obvious that this will just make them less attractive to the demanding urban reader. The day is not far when one will assume that some reading Tip or Zitty in the subway or a caf???? must be a tourist or new in the city.

Anyway, I don’t remember when I last bought Tip or City. It looks like in the future there will be less reason to fear that I’m missing out on something.

This is the statement that Boris Nitzsche of Literaturwerkstatt sent out this morning:

Statement der Literaturveranstalter Berlins

In einem Brief vom November 2007 informierten die traditionsreichen Berliner Stadtmagazine zitty und tip dar????ber, den Veranstaltern/B????hnenpartnern in Berlin “weiterhin den Service anzubieten, kostenlos Veranstaltungshinweise zu ver????ffentlichen.” Allerdings werde die an die CineMarketing GmbH abgegebene “Digitalisierung und Aufbereitung” der Daten “leider nicht mehr v????llig kostenlos m????glich sein”. Es folgen ein paar S????tze der Beruhigung, es seien “so niedrige Beitr????ge ausgehandelt, dass niemand benachteiligt wird” etc. Allerdings k????nnen die Beitr????ge bis zu 400 ??????? im Jahr betragen. Der Brief liegt im Wortlaut diesem Statement bei.

Die Literaturveranstalter Berlins konstatieren:

1.) Beide Stadtmagazine kennen die Situation vieler Kultureinrichtungen der Stadt gut, wie ihren redaktionellen Beitr????gen zu entnehmen ist. F????r die Literaturveranstalter ebenso wie f????r eine Vielzahl anderer Veranstalter, die in der Regel mit schmalem Etat ein anspruchsvolles und umfangreiches Programm pr????sentieren, sind 400 ??????? viel Geld, keineswegs ein “niedriger Beitrag”. Die Berliner Kulturszene lebt auch und gerade von der Vielzahl und Vielgestalt kleiner Kulturveranstalter, die diese Geb????hr nicht zahlen k????nnen. Dazu kommt, dass die Zahlung keine Garantie f????r den tats????chlichen Abdruck der Veranstaltungshinweise beinhaltet.

2.) Die doch eigentlich um die Leserschaft konkurrierenden Stadtmagazine schlie????en sich zusammen, um unter Ausnutzung ihrer so erhaltenen Monopolstellung die Veranstalter in Zugzwang zu bringen. Veranstalter, die die geforderten Beitr????ge nicht zahlen wollen oder k????nnen, w????ren weder in der Zitty noch in Tip, Tagesspiegel, Berliner Zeitung, [030] sowie den dazugeh????rigen Onlinekalendern pr????sent.

3.) Die Veranstalter sollen f????r einen Service zahlen, der den Stadtmagazinen ihre Existenzberechtigung gibt und eigentlich zum journalistischen Selbstverst????ndnis der betroffenen Zeitungen und Zeitschriften geh????rt. Die Serviceleistung soll also sowohl von den Veranstaltern finanziert als auch nochmals vom K????ufer bezahlt werden. Das ist schlicht und einfach dreist.

4.) Die Veranstalter w????rden mit einer Zahlung einer weiteren Hierarchisierung der Kultureinrichtungen nach Kriterien der Finanzkr????ftigkeit zustimmen.

5.) Die Veranstalter w????rden mit einer Zahlung indirekt dem Abbau von Redaktionsstellen in zumindest einem der Stadtmagazine zustimmen.

Aus allen diesen Gr????nden verwehren sich die Literaturveranstalter Berlins entschieden gegen eine solche Praxis, die sich sowohl gegen das journalistische Selbstverst????ndnis als auch gegen die Vielfalt des Kulturlebens richtet.

Mittlerweile sind die Stadtmagazine von ihrer Position etwas abger????ckt und haben angeboten, dass man Veranstaltungen kostenlos selbst eintragen kann. Dieser Vorschlag ber????hrt aber die Kernpunkte unserer Kritik nicht. Auch so wird eine Monopolstellung genutzt, um die Kernkompetenzen der Stadtmagazine zum Outsourcing freizugeben. Zwar bezahlen die Veranstalter dann nicht CineMarketing, doch sie w????rden den Redaktionen ihre eigene Arbeitskraft kostenlos zur Verf????gung stellen und damit z.B. einen Stellenabbau weiterhin beg????nstigen.

Berlin, 13.12.2007

Unterzeichnet von

Akademie der K????nste
Bastardslam (Poetry Slam)
Berliner K????nstlerprogramm des DAAD
berlinerWald
Brauseboys-Leseb????hne
Der Fr????hschoppen ???????? Leseb????hne im Jazzclub Der Schlot
Kulturprojekte Berlin
LesArt
Der Literarische Salon
Literarisches Colloquium Berlin
Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus
Literaturhaus Berlin
Literaturwerkstatt Berlin
Matthes & Seitz
Querverlag
Schwarze Risse Buchl????den
Spokenwordberlin
Surfpoeten
Tanzwirtschaft Kaffee Burger
Transmediale
Ullstein Verlage
Verlag Assoziation A
Verlag Bertz & Fischer
Verlag Elfenbein
Verlag Klaus Wagenbach
Verlag Lukas
Verlag Rotbuch
Verlag Trescher
Volksb????hne-Berlin

Interview with Fred Poulet

Fred Poulet and Vikash Dhorasoo at the Berlinale 2007 (Interview on YouTube)

A long time ago I used to experiment quite a bit with the absentminded drawings of the kind that people do while on the phone or when killing time. Usually this type of drawing is more or less abstract, maybe with figurative elements, but generally avoiding obvious references to the world outside of the drawing. However, I never thought about how strange it is when a grownup man draws figuratively outside of any professional context and without artistic ambition. Abstract drawing is clearly more acceptable in this context.

Linking to a dynamic map, as I would have preferred, was no option since I could only link to an address, not to a route. I knew that better solutions l