The Berlin Wall and Kristallnacht

Berlin is staging the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Mauer (wall) demolition today.(Berlintwitterwall) Theme park-like (re) constructions steer tourists through the cold war topography. The “Festival of freedom” and daily fireworks are under way privatising various public spaces. Cavalcades of black idling limousines lined Bernauer street today. Mauer mobs recreate the wall on social media. A spectacle of remembrance.

Amnesia seems to have befallen the public consciousness about another historical anniversary: The Kristallnacht. Today is the date that commemorates the Crystal night pogrom. On the 9 to 10 November 1938 "eliminationism" became sanctioned by the German state. Mob law ruled in the Night of Broken Glass, wrecking 1,400 synagogues (video), homes, shops and human lives. Hordes indulged in an orgy of destruction, destroying sacred places, demolishing shops and homes leading to the final 'assault on humanity': the holocaust.

Today the 'death strip' is walled in acoustic assault from mega building projects, the new conflict scape. Howling chainsaws eradicate the trees as obstacles to lucrative real estate. Broken party glass litter the streets and powerful fireworks detonations pollute and fill the dark sky with disoriented birds.

Meanwhile walls are being constructed around the world.

Zeitkunst - Chamber Music and Contemporary Literature

The Festival Zeitkunst für Kammermusik und Gegenwartsliteratur (Contemporary art, chamber music and contemporary literature) is on. An ensemble of chamber musicians actors and authors perform music and texts for two days in Villa Elisabeth, Mitte.

The delightful Ardeo Quartet's performance of György Ligeti: String Quartet Nº 1 Métamorphoses Nocturnes was stunning. (Video)
Bela Bartók was performed by Christoph Ehrenfellner, Sergey Malov

The multilingual texts seem to concern themselves with mental states, family and existential orientations ("Dasein", "Befindlichkeit"). Ubiquitous offspring and prams lingered through the texts . Zeitgeist Mitte?

Update: 7 pm session:
Arnold Schoenberg and unintentional sounds of a toddler sounded incompatible.
Christoph Ehrenfellner, Gustav Mahler and and Anton Webern were performed passionately well.

The collaborate team effort of all and the place provided a good ambiance.

Clearing Berlin Mitte 07 - 08

Made with Slideshow Embed Tool

More eradicationg trees in 2007

Transmediale.08 - a customer interface experience

Hand over the data
The Berlin "House of World Cultures" featured this year's interdisciplinary digital art and culture 'festival'. Having travelled from the other side of the globe we joined the queue to get tickets for the whole event. The condition of purchase of this (5 day) ticket was to divulge our personal data. Oh well, we thought this was maybe a 'German thing', part of 'a normal customer transaction'. Other participants also entered into tacit agreements to en-trust their data in exchange for entering the event space. Despite suspending disbelief and trusting in good data practice, the disproportionality was disturbing. On various occasions participants challenged the collection of their data in discussion times.

Once disenfranchised, we received plastic barcodes to be worn around the neck to identify us when accessing the different spaces. Additionally a stack of dead tree materials was handed over as the 'tickets' for the day.

It appears an irony that one of the main sponsors of the event, The Federal Agency for Civic Education (Die Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung), has as its mission to 'facilitate democratic consciousness and facilitate active political participation'. Being in the business of media literacies, the incongruity of the practice of enabling and containing seems striking.

Customers navigating management-centred logistics
For the opening session in the auditorium, a massive crowd piled up. When the floodgate opened there were 4-5 staff standing at the door and o n e person with o n e handheld scanner (with reading problems). As with most sessions, this one was late too.

On enquiry we were told that “we are trialling a new ticketing system”. This guinea pig factor did not aid the flow of the digitally-branded customers. The environments of "questionable hierarchies” seemed to take very little consideration of the customers' requirements but seemed to be designed for the convenience of management.

Each human gatekeeper interpreted the code of logistics in their own idiosyncratic mode. This in turn dis-oriented the guest into an erratic array of Kafkaesque way-finding. The inconsistencies in the conditions of entry ranged from no identification at all, to most of the time 'the bar code is ok on its own', to rarely barcode plus pulp-version of a ticket.

The human factor - access denied
On the last day, in the final hours, the electronically readable identification was all of a sudden insufficient after 5 days and the human door-management decided to prevent visitors from accessing an exhibition space. Appealing to the humanoid's reason was ineffective as he continuously parroted “I have my orders!”. He insisted we obtain additional paper proof (ticket) and that our barcode alone was invalid. An abundance of additional human door-personnel rushed to do the face-work. All colluded to not recognize their own identity tag which we had purchased and had brought us into all sessions. In the end, access was denied to paying guests.

Not only was customer relationship management an alien concept, but also to

• evict people from their chosen seats, as “we forgot to reserve them”,
• be forced to hand over additional photo identification to obtain a translation gadget,
• assault the senses with a humming, vibrating sound-system (during the Maturana session)

The architecture of conferencing was frontal and hardly facilitated discourse. Missing presenters was another aspects to conspire to irritate the 'audience'. At least this time, unlike TM 07 one didn't have to bring their own chair.

Interface design of an event must allow for heteroglossia, contestation and it must offer more than an irritated central nervous system. Providing access to the services purchased and refraining from 'information-sharing' without consent would constitute a sustainable practice.

> More on the usability-bungle in "Getting A ticket For Transmediale Takes Longer Than Opening A Bank Account" by Joaoflux

transmediale

Women in Art animation

via Eggman913

Frankfurt

Time in Frankfurt (or Bank-furt, home of the Frankfurters and the Frankfurter School) in full-on asparagus & strawberry time at the market (Bornheim Mitte). All trees seem to be in full flower. Lilacs scent the streets.Trees are well protected with iron bars from cars here.
Sleeping near the zoo, incorporates the exotic screams of the night into true urban 'wilderness' dreaming.
Delighted that Cafe Kante is finally free of toxic fumes.(Update: No it is not, staff are now standing in the door, puffing it in)
Image:Graffiti, Frankfurt

Re:publica in Berlin

Attending sporadically events at the re:publica in Berlin. 'Living in web 2.0” is organised by Markus Beckdahl (Open Net-politics), Johnny Hauser (Spreeblick), many unconferencing helpers and sponsors.
A regional web 2.0 is coming of age and offering their services to the mainstream (enterprise). Many of the 'participatory' fora are frontal lectures and podium discussions.

'How to blog in a company without becoming a company blog'...by Jörg Möllenkamp, an encouraged Sun blogger was a spot-on presentation. Integrity and a clearly defined usage are important in staff blogs. Unlike traditional corporate communication strategies social media can remedy an emerging crisis immediately. Press release blogs, or 'old school' communications are out.

A stark contrast was this un-presentation, 25 min. to get the pc set up on stage. This 'humour'-based cultural presentation allowed the participatory crowd to shout off-the-top-of-the-head captions to shown images. A hit with the audience, raging applause after the 60 min.were over.

The mystery of it is that at the following session in the same space, a migration occurred out of the room progressively. The Belgian Regine Debatty from 'We make money not art' was (as far as I know) the only presenter in English. She had an open and very engaging style of interacting with the people in the room. Love her blog, work and presentation. Only explanation I could come up with that so many left is: a) she links her work to issues in first life, un-sexy? b) intolerance to European multililingualism? (not the local vernacular).There should be an audience/mob appreciation as well as instantaneous comment to presentations.

The German bookmarking service Mr.Wong claimed to have overtaken del.icio.us. Intending to cater for a local clientel (only), it now aims to become global. Why not Mr. Cabbage?

Was in some of 'How web 2.0 changes political communication'. The strain to get the mainstream political process and parties to adopt other modes of thinking and communicating. Within the blogsphere Lumma mentioned the gaping absence of substantial chains of discourse as is common in the Anglo-centric social media scene.
Back tomorrow for the last day, happy that such a thing is staged...

Good work on OSS by New thinking
Informative stuff in German: Netzpolitik
re-publica
Important stuff being 'twittered' during presentations
Update: 130407 more post re-publica thoughts on place-blogging here.

History walk in Berlin, Dorotheen Graveyard

A walk in a graveyard in Berlin, Mitte (the middle of Berlin):
History has its presence there:
The philosophers Fichte, Hegel and Marcuse
The writers Brecht, Mann, Seghers, and actor Weigel
The musicians/composers Dessau, Dohnanyi, Eisler
The German resistance fighters Bonhoeffer and Dohnanyi
The visual artist fighting Nazi Germany with political collages: Heartfield
The industrialist Borsig and the inventor of the ubiquitous free-standing cylindrical advertising columns all over Berlin, Colonne Morris: Litfass
The agriculturist Hartig inventing sustainable forest management in 1790.
And many others

The Dorotheen Graveyard is in Chausseestr.126 next to the Brecht-House/Restaurant (smoky) and opposite the Borsig-house. There is a pleasant, well-kept atmosphere in the place.

The machine IS us

The global 'megamachine' of a hierarchically organised conglomerate of homo sapiens and their technology constitutes their power over the Earth. Usurping every niche on this planet this hybrid swarm appears omnipotent against 'nature'.
The American historian and sociologist of technology Lewis Mumford provided the terms 'megamachine' and 'technics' amongst others in his investigations into civilisation.
Erich Fromm points out (To Have or to Be?,1976) how the symbiotic reliance on such a social/technical machine leads to actual impotence of the individual. As long as s/he is integrated in it, power is bestowed onto the person, in the degree of hierarchical participation. At the margins of this web, reliant on ones own powers, one seems to be helpless 'like a child'. But don't they adore the hierarchical machinery and their machines: their petrol motors, the ICT strands/rays connecting all, the intelligent agents as interlocutors – the entire noosphere...They provide the self-assurance to be 'great', omnipotent, without it one feels disabled.
After-thought to 'The Machine is Us/ing us'
Image: Sculpture in Berlin, Mitte

Logging Berlin (Mitte) continued...

Unfortunately more of the same: More trees have to go: Weinberg Park,(stumps in 'protected public green space': 080407, trees go whilest more space is privatised) Tieck str.,Acker Str. (2 stumps in front of new development).