A new large scale German drama series has been making the rounds on Twitter this week called ‘Unsere Mütter, Unsere Väter’ and it is interesting though flawed. I haven’t seen a production with these production values on German television before and I think we should see more of it.

The series is somewhat schmaltzy (see the screen capture above of bullet casings landing in slow motion on a group portrait) but that is to be expected from a mainstream production.

What I found problematic is the sharp division drawn between the group of five main characters and the other actors in wartime Germany. The main characters are idealized figures who are supposed to symbolize their generation and its moral choices during the war. These choices mostly center on the small evils of oversight, looking away, following orders and opportunism. The real capital letter evils are perpetrated by others, mostly those of another generation, whose appearance and motivations are far more sinister.

I know there are several opinions about this (but I am not alone if I read all the critiques in German papers), but this portrayal to me seems to exceptionalize evil which is probably not the best idea. A more naturalistic and flat treatment of the systems of the war would have been immensely more difficult but also immensely better.

Update: Now that I’ve seen the last episode I would like to discourage anybody from watching this series. Any suspense and pace that was in the first episode was gone by the end. Moreover the writing and drama was absurdly poor by then. I know that properly ending stories is hard, but how a modern dramaturg and script writer signed off on this clusterfuck is beyond me. If this was the last hope for German public broadcasting to be relevant then that hope is in vain and the entire institution should be burnt down as quickly as possible.

Here in the Berlin office we grind by hand:

Last week I presented at the Berlin Ignite. I had been present at the last one and greatly enjoyed, so I looked what I could add to the mix.

I threw most of the thinking in the studios for the past 1-2 years on the floor with post-its and distilled the pertinent threads from that. As it happens ‘New Games for New Cities’ was the title of a presentation Kars gave some time ago to which I had contributed but had forgotten about.

Leafing through the older presentations, it is good to see that the thinking has evolved over the years. The old points still hold, but time and experience has refined our opinions and forced us to refocus here and there.

Putting the presentation together was a fair amount of work (and not something I was particularly looking forward to the week before a holiday) but all of the positive responses were more than worth it. I can highly recommend Ignite for the mix of topics it touches on, the fun and light delivery and the varied and open crowd it attracts.

Yesterday we went to see Werner Herzog read from his own work in ‘Erroberung des Nutzlosen’ at the Volksbühne. While an impressive display of authorship my enjoyment of the performance was hampered by me having no knowledge of his movies and a recent aversion towards the theater.

With some heavy German, Herzog reads his diary notes from the production of Fitzcarraldo (trailer below), a massive undertaking to make a movie of a massive undertaking. The whole protracted shooting in the jungle sounds a lot like how Apocalypse Now was made.

The passages Herzog reads are gripping and contain lots of absurdities and events that happen when you are shooting a motion picture in the jungle (also rather reminiscent of También la Lluvia) as well as reflections on the nature of being and emotional turmoil.

The evening is turned into theater by adding evocative background projections of jungle scenes (nice!) and music by a jazz improvisation duo, a Sardinian choir of men and a Senegalese singer. They interject protracted bits of singing in between Herzog’s reading turning the whole thing into something like a Werner Herzog mixtape.

The music is where I lost it. Firstly: I keep forgetting how much I loathe jazz improvisation until its too late and I’m already in the middle of one. It may be fun to do, but I don’t see improvisations go anywhere dramatically. Added to that the music doesn’t fit well with Herzog’s reading. This created a lot of dissonance for me that forced me to interpret all of the musical intermezzi as kitsch. Funnily after Herzog was done reading —during the encore— the music was far more enjoyable.

This is probably a must-see (another probably sold out show tonight) if you’re into Herzog and/or improvisational jazz and/or world music. I couldn’t check those boxes but still enjoyed seeing the man read.

I biked over tonight to see the installation PIVOT by Jacob Kirkegaard at the leap in Berlin before it finishes tomorrow.

You can read what the author wrote and see his or my pictures. It is a very nicely done curved projection from the Fernsehturm with recorded sound from the pivot mechanics of that same tower. Impressive and imposing.

What struck me most was that the whole thing seems to move so very slowly, deceptively so. When you allow yourself to get engrossed with one part of the video, one part of Berlin before you know it you have lost track of where you were and the entire thing has moved on. So much of Berlin to see in there.

Tomorrow it’s off to the opening of the Casey Reas show at DAM.

De serie video’s Blind Sequence Trust van kunstenaar Joan Leandre speelt in DAM nog tot en met 5 mei.

Leandre is een kunstenaar die al decennia lang bezig is met het gebruiken van computer 3D engines van allerlei vormen om verhalen te vertellen en emoties op te roepen. Het werk zoals dat in DAM te zien is, is lastig te plaatsen, maar zowel de beelden als de muziek zijn bijzonder goed uitgevoerd waardoor dingen die niets met elkaar te maken lijken te hebben, toch weten te boeien.

De geavanceerde 3D engines die nu beschikbaar zijn maken het ogenschijnlijk makkelijk om complete werelden te schetsen en te manipuleren. Werelden die zich alleen niet houden aan de regels van de werkelijkheid maar er zelf eentje creëeren waarin alles kan. Leandre put uit science-fiction en de natuur voor zijn werk en maakt daar uitgebreide bewegende collages van.

Het hergebruiken van deze 3D engines zorgt voor een verwarrend resultaat. De artefacten van 3D engines zijn terug te zien net zoals de billboards waarmee bomen worden gerendered en de particle systems die normaal gesproken zorgen voor explosies, rook en vuur. Buiten de game-logica geplaatst krijgen deze effecten een totaal andere lading.

De artiest zelf geeft in dit Rhizome-interview allerhande verklaringen voor zijn werk maar zoals zo vaak bij dit soort dingen, klinkt het naar wartaal. Beter is het om zelf naar het werk te kijken en je te laten meevoeren.

I dived into my log to make the yearly tally of what I did and saw. All in all 2011 has proven to be a good year.

It was a bit of a slow movie year though. I only saw 56, the best of which were: “Drive”, “Melancholia”, “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia”, “Blue Valentine”, “Norwegian Wood”, “True Grit”, “Almanya”, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and “Kosmos”.

I went to 32 plays in 2011. The best ones:

• “Die Macht der Finsternis” in die Schaubühne
• “Het meisje dat teveel van lucifers hield” by NTGent in Frascati WG
• “Songs at the End of the World” by Wunderbaum in SSBA
• “De Russen!” by Toneelgroep Amsterdam at the Holland Festival
• “This is how you will disappear” by Gisèle Vienne in Stadsschouwburg Utrecht (back at the Kaai in February!)
• “Langs de grote weg” by de Vere in Frascati

I read 21 books in 2011. The most notable of those were:

• “The Life and Death of Great American Cities” by Jane Jacobs
• “The City & The City” by China Miville
• “De kaart en het gebied” by Michel Houellebecq
• “Super Sad True Love Story” by Gary Shteyngart
• “Cloud Atlas” by David Mitchell
• “The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway
• “Unit Operations” by Ian Bogost

I started tracking the games I played around halfway through the year, so this is not an exhaustive list, but five games I really enjoyed last year were: “Where is my Heart?”, “Nidhogg”, “Space Alert”, “The Binding of Isaac” and “The Resistance”.

The weekend before last we were on a fortress (part of the defense works of Amsterdam) to spend a day on hacking civic data for Apps for Noord-Holland.

During that day I was interviewed by Netwerk Democratie about open data and digital democracy. The resulting video is here below:

De film “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” begint met wijdse Anatolische vergezichten over de zo herkenbare landschappen van mijn jeugd waar drie auto’s zich over dorpsweggetjes van bron naar akker begeven.

De kwestie waar het om draait is het vinden van een lijk. De vermeende moordenaar zit in een van de auto’s omringd door een dokter, twee agenten en een chauffeur. De dikkige kale mannen die de auto vullen en hun banale verhalen over yoghurt en andere alledaagsheden zouden het een knusse rit maken als het een ander doel betrof.

De dialogen tijdens de zoektocht en de koddige situaties hier en daar doen denken aan de karakteristieke scène’s die Tarantino en de Coen broers hebben neergezet maar met meer dan een vleugje mystiek. Nuri Bilge Ceylan zet een typisch Turks platteland neer met zinsnedes die er niet om liegen (en matig vertaald zijn). De wijdse shots over het landschap en het licht ‘s nachts zijn indrukwekkend waar de scène’s overdag een beetje flets bij afsteken.

De lijkvinding schiet niet op net zoals de films van Ceylan. Tergende traagheid lijkt zijn handelsmerk, al is dat in deze film nog draaglijk. In langzame shots van dromen, rollende appels of simpelweg close-ups van de hoofdrolspelers worden dingen gevat die niet in woorden uit te drukken zijn.

De missie zelf lijkt hopeloos en verzandt in een dorpsklucht. Ondertussen doodt men de tijd met verhalen, het uiten van klein en groot zeer naar elkaar, het stelen van groente en fruit en het mijmeren over de wendingen die het leven genomen heeft.

Er is een apocrief verhaal dat de naam Anadolu (Anatolië in het Turks) een samenstelling zou zijn van ‘Ana dolu! Dolu Ana!’, wat zoveel betekent als: ‘Moeder vol! Het is vol moedertje!’ Een groep soldaten was naar verluid door dat deel van Turkije aan het trekken toen ze verdwaald en geplaagd door dorst ten einde raad waren. Ze kwamen op een gegeven moment een vrouw tegen die ze hielp en hun flessen zo ver vulde met water (of ayran) dat ze moesten zeggen: ‘Het is al vol moeder.’

Eenzelfde iets gebeurt in deze film waar de dochter van de burgemeester als een engel in de duisternis licht, thee en cola brengt en alle mannen als betoverd achterlaat.

Nadat het lijk gevonden is, verandert de film en verplaatst de focus zich naar de hoofdpersoon. De film krijgt dan iets tergends, wat toepasselijk is gezien de dodelijke vermoeidheid na een nacht doorwerken. Het echte leven gaat door na de nachtmerrie. Alles wordt afgehandeld, er is ruimte voor compassie maar feitelijk verandert er niks.

Gezien zaterdag 20 augustus in Rialto op het World Cinema Amsterdam festival. In de reguliere Cineville te bekijken in het najaar van 2011.

Seeing this presentation in Amsterdam as the culmination of Mobile Monday, was something great. The far reaching vision and reality based optimism Kevin Slavin lays down (his comments) are something we should aspire to. It is worth watching and watching again.

Some choice quotes, though we should just hope that he finishes that essay:

Reality is augmented not when it looks different but when it feels different.

Maybe the aspiration to 3D optical AR starts to feel a little bit like pornography. Like a thin veneer of the actual experience that is flattened for the eye, that’s rendered for the eye which is the one sense most easily fooled to begin with.

Nobody knew better than me and the other people in that room that this was just computer code but it felt like a spirit had moved through the room and knocked all these phones off the table.

For pilots there is no reality except the one right in front of them.

Singular focus in which the eye is looking at rather than around. It diminishes reality. It closes it down. Because as it turns out for the driver as for most everybody here, reality is understood to be the whole world around us, not just that thing in front of us.

They’re inventing new ways to see, rather than new things to look at. And rather than inventing new places to go, they are inventing kind of new ways to travel. Because the whole thing is there’s no shortage of stuff in the world and things to see and enjoy. Reality is plenty, thanks.