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.
Last Saturday I made it out to the penultimate day of the exhibition of the Selim Varol Collection in the me collectors room here in Berlin. I’m glad I did. This was one of the most complete and stunning collections of contemporary toys and subversive art on display anywhere.
A massively eventful week that for me took place mostly in Amsterdam where I had tons of catching up to do after a holiday absence of I believe over two months. In between moving offices and traveling, work on kohi moved on apace. We may have something usable by a slightly wider audience somewhere in the next week.
I’ll include here Hubbub’s two reasons for celebration which were also reasons for me to celebrate and I’ll add a third in a bit. These really are the weeks when a lot of stuff is happening, being built and delivered. Not that much time for idle talk and reflection, though that too will return.
Geconfronteerd met het feit dat de meeste dertigers die in de stad wonen geen auto meer willen hebben en veel twintigers niet eens meer hun rijbewijs halen, zetten automakers zichzelf opnieuw in de markt. Ze zijn niet meer verkopers van een statussymbool, maar aanbieders van vervoersoplossingen in een toekomstvisie waarin de auto een plek heeft naast de fiets, het openbaar vervoer en alle andere dingen die steden leuk maken. Audi komt in Londen binnenkort met haar Audicity en BMW toert in samenwerking met het Guggenheim langs de wereld met haar lab. Eerst New York, nu Berlijn en straks in Mumbai. (Daimler is MIA.)
The week before last (I’m running one week behind), was a good weak. Easter Monday was spent cleaning up the house which is now finally fully operational and fit to live in.
Yesterday night I went to see Maß für Maß (Measure for Measure by Shakespeare) at die Schaubühne here in Berlin and it marked the first occasion where I saw a play directed by the intendant of that theater Thomas Ostermeier himself (see this Guardian piece for a bit of background).
A week or two ago I attended a discussion at the Deutsches Theater ‘Holland in Not’ that was organized because of a recently published book “Der Kulturinfarkt, vom Allem zu viel und überall das Gleiche” that proposed to close half of all theaters in Germany.
Last week was crazy hectic, notwithstanding the fact that I was ill at the same time. Sickness and deadlines are not fun, but thankfully both were survived.
We live in perhaps one of the nicest parts of Berlin I am finding out. It has every thinkable amenity: highly specialized stores, a diverse assortment of restaurants and cafés with some real gems. Our house is smack in the center of this in walking distance of three major U lines. If you talked to me recently you probably know where this is at, but for the purpose of this blogpost I’m going to play mum.
Last weekend I saw Husbands by Toneelgroep Amsterdam director Ivo van Hove in the Schaubühne in Berlin. I was not unequivocally enthusiastic about the play, though it has a boisterous quality that has stayed with me these past days.
Last week Peter Robinett sent me a link to this Times article that would seem a bit far fetched if it wasn’t mostly true. The headline (“a Limp Domestic Economy”) doesn’t really cover the article because it describes how massively things have improved in Germany. If I can believe stories, the situation here used to be far far worse. That however is no excuse.
Last Wednesday I was at a gathering by the Institue for Internet and Society here in Berlin in collaboration with Deutschlandfunk called “Berliner Gespräche” about how the internet influences society.
I’m reading up on German tax and trade rules because I’m going to incorporate here this month and most of the things I read do not make me very happy. They look like they are more suited to a 19th century gentry than to creative workers in the multipolar 21st.
Talking to two young theater makers yesterday, I remarked that the majority of the Dutch plays I see don’t deliver the relevant and socially engaged experiences I would want them to. To which they asked why I still bothered going to the theater, a question I hear regularly from those in the more modern performing arts. They themselves hardly ever go and they make participatory theater, not the stage dramas that first come to mind. That is a response I get more often: that theater is boring, irrelevant and really ‘Why would anybody want to go?’
When I just got into Germany we managed to pin point something I had noticed before. It is striking how conservative people in Germany are when it comes to the internet and especially people who work in cultural positions. Compared to that, the Netherlands of the past five years has gone through a rather tumultuous revolution.
In the beginning of the week I spotted an interesting dataset on Sargasso, requested to play with it and got the following visual published the next day (our write-up).
I think most of the thinking around The Filter Bubble comes from people who are not very procedurally literate to begin with. That is to say they are not very adept at understanding the rules that govern interactive systems nor are they well equipped at reconfiguring them to suit their ends. I touch on this because the same tired argument was parroted in this Zeit interview with Miriam Meckel, a leading German communication scientist 1. It starts off with some very sensible sentiments but then it quickly derails on the topic of algorithms and concludes on several sidelines.
I have been in Berlin for a couple of hectic days now and I’m trying to come to terms with my surroundings. I have got a new working theory to use for the foreseeable future. Let’s see how well this holds up:
Another week and another change at the office. One thing that does define the Open Coop is that everything is in a constant state of flux adding jitter so none of us remain stuck in a local optimum. The global optimum we are shooting for in and around our location in North is rather ridiculous but best not shared in public.
I was at an event organized by ARCAM tonight concerning co-operative housing projects which are already very popular in Berlin but are rapidly expanding to other cities. Amsterdam is busy launching its own initiative and Michael LaFond from Berlin presented their experiences with this way of building.
We spent last weekend having a veritable blast at the Cognitive Cities conference. It was a great spectacle of familiar faces, a nicely curated program and full frontal confrontations with the city of Berlin.
Ik hou van veel en lekker eten en ik merk dat ik daarmee in het buitenland beter terecht kan dan in Amsterdam. Hier een paar restaurant-tips die voor mij in Amsterdam ontbreken en waarvan ik denk dat ze weleens een succes kunnen worden.
Een tijdje geleden had ik een site gezien met de Lavazza 2008 kalender “The Most Majestic”erop met exuberante koninklijke dames die Lavazza espresso drinken geschoten door Finlay Mackay 1 2.
Het is hier wat rustig, nadat ik een week ben weggeweest. Het weekje Berlijn afgesloten met twee dagen Maastricht 1 op de batizado van onze goede vriend Vulcão en zijn groep Capoeira Interação.
Ik ga eind deze maand naar Berlijn om Eelke te bezoeken en acte de présence te geven op de Web 2.0 Expo en Barcamp Berlin. Nu dacht ik dat het wel leuk zou zijn om met de trein te gaan. Ik heb pas ook een Railplus Kaart bij mijn kortingskaart gekocht. Daar zou ik iets aan moeten hebben.
Ik moest vandaag onwillekeurig denken aan de werken van Richter die ik van de zomer in Berlijn heb gezien. Grote indrukwekkende zwart-wit afdrukken en echt bizar.