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A delayed picture in picture from me presenting in Helsinki:

In the performance “Ten Billion” at La Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lès-Avignon Stephen Emmott, a scientist, performed a soliloquy about the state of the world and the environment. He took a message we already have known since the Club of Rome and rehashed that in front of a theater audience over the course of ninety minutes.

I am repeating regularly these days that I am through with theater. I thought I’d see a couple of plays here at the Festival d’Avignon and then decide for myself whether this position is justified. Avignon has the reputation for programming the best theater of Europe. A reputation that turns out to be mostly unfounded.

Ever since the recent re-enactment of Hamlet by Luk Perceval, I have wanted to see something by the Hamburg Thalia theater. Last year I saw Luk Perceval stage Disgrace at TA which was a good display by itself, but still the Thalia remained elusive.

I just went to see “The Coming Storm” at the Festival d’Avignon. In an interesting open setup, bits and pieces of stories are performed by the ensemble who continually interrupt each other. While one actor is telling a story the others perform variety like diversions using props, music and each other.

A busy week after a quiet weekend. Monday evening I attended a preliminary meeting with fellow coaches for the Berlin Python classes. After that I attended the Iron Blogger regular meetup to have beer with my fellow Berlin bloggers. Later that week I also attended the regular Campus Party drinks.

A rather interesting capitalist reflection on Facebook by Rob Horning at The New Inquiry and why online activism never changes anything.

The Willem de Kooning Academy published an ebook that contains the lecture I gave there about digital design and the new aesthetic. I’m quite pleased that little piece of conceptual remix is getting so much airtime.

It took a bit to get going again back from Greece.

A couple of days ago I got an answer on behalf of Ms. Neelie Kroes with regards to my inquiry about computational literacy (which I asked during her visit to Berlin during re:publica):

The week before last I spent in Athens mostly hanging out, going to the beach and getting some work done.

I spent last week in Athens because Lea was at work at the Athens & Epidaurus festival where the Schaubühne staged two plays. I spent the week relaxing, working and taking in the Athens air.

During my visit to Copenhagen I tried to make use of the Copenhagen City Bike system. Although eventually successful, it turns out bicycle sharing systems without a digital component can lead to frustrations.

On Monday I got back into work after the couple of days in Copenhagen. I also discovered that the talk I gave in Rotterdam “Designing in the Face of Defeat” about the New Aesthetic has been recorded and you can watch it above.

This article by Good about people my age and younger driving less strikes me as very true. Just one point: I have a driving license, but I’ve never owned a car. My brother does not even have a driving license because if you never leave Amsterdam having a car is ludicrous. I try to minimize my driving except for the occasional road trip because I think my time is too valuable to spend many hours doing something unnecessary.

I’ve been into something of a speculative realism binge lately reading quite some books and even more blogs from the field of current day philosophy. Last Monday I finished Ian Bogost’s Alien Phenomenology which is highly recommended if you want to read up on object oriented ontology.

A nice and quiet week in which I got a lot of stuff done that needed doing for a while.

Last weekend I finished the Prince of Networks (which is in fact available for free online and I recommend you read it, though Alien Phenomenology may be a more concise and lighter introduction into speculative realism) by Graham Harman.

This interview with Graham Harman is filled with valuable tidbits, some of which I wanted to collect and share for your reading pleasure as much as mine:

Today I wandered over to the rent increase protest camp on Kottbusser Tor. Some initial unformed thoughts.

Quickly this last week. Work on our own iPhone transit application is progressing nicely. The iPhone has an exquisite palette of operations to work with.

Last week was a week for some work in the Netherlands and some much deserved catchup with friends and colleagues over there.

The Hybrid Talk I gave the week before is up on Soundcloud. You can listen to it here and see if you agree with our ideas about how a client driven organization can operate without being rubbish.

This week was marked by a massive sprint on saba which made me miss this year’s Myfest in Kreuzberg, which is annoying but survivable. I did manage to see Ryoji Ikeda’s Data Anatomy on its last day in Tresor. A visually spectacular but thematically flat affair.

I lost my Fitbit today. This was bound to happen and I’m surprised I managed to hold on to it as long as I did. So one minute I was getting off the tram and the next I didn’t have it anymore.

I got a bunch of accessories for the office among which a bike stand:

A long week sprinting on saba. On Monday I got a nice desk chair:

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.

Jan Chipchase’s ‘Red Mat’ design experiment is brilliant by itself, but is goes much further than being just a design experiment.

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.

Last week commenced with preparing my presentation for the CrossLab event in Rotterdam. On Tuesday I took the train from Berlin and got there nicely in time.

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.

Culture flat rates are named both in the Netherlands and in Germany as a solution to the problem of copyright piracy.

The train just had its stop in Bad Bentheim entering Germany. At that stop we usually get a short break, a new locomotive and the German border police checking the train. Border police? Didn’t the Schengen Agreement abolish checks at the signing countries’ borders?

The week started with development on saba in phonegap. I got that to work with backbone.

Running behind two weeks and off to the Netherlands tomorrow (for a talk at a Crosslab event in the Unie). Oh how time flies! This was a fun week.

Work continues apace. New websites are forthcoming.

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.

Yesterday evening I saw The Day Before the Last Day in die Schaubühne as a part of the F.I.N.D. festival.

Briefly written notes for last week. It was one of the first proper weeks at the office for which I am grateful. German administration remains a challenging affair as my blog post and quoted Times article also testify.

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.

Writing these notes on a Sunday afternoon wit a mug of steaming coffee within reach as they are meant to be written.

We’re seeing this more and more among the edgiest of shops. The Netherlands has already had a massive shift towards freelancers (ZZP’ers). It is only natural that they would band together regularly to accomplish company level work but without the ties and inertia normally associated with employment.