joaoflux / digital / analog / culture

A while ago I a caught a fragment of a conversation between two elderly ladies in a public swimming pool: “My husband also died when he was in his forties. And? Did he miss much?”

Probably not, I’d say.

This is how the guide and master of ceremony at the Museum of American Art describes the history of modernism in art.
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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.
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Preparing to hijack the stereo at a party with an iPod shuffle. The challenge is to do it smoothly enough so no one notices.

A couple of days ago I had lunch across the street from good old Tachels, the former squat that became famous in the 90s. After a rather traumatic experience I had organizing an exhibition there back in 2001, I did not follow the development of the situation there during the last couple of years.

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”.

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On May 22 we will organize a Pecha Kucha Night at the DMY Festival in Berlin. The weird edition number (Vol. 8.1) is because we don’t want to count the Pecha Kucha Night we organize with or for partners in one line with the ones we do on our own. I actually don’t remember ever discussing the numbering convention with the team. Anyway, someone came up with it and it sure looks hip.

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”.