The Machine is Us/ing Us - a final ? version...

As mentioned previously, the interactivity between the medium and user is continously developing. The latest update on the machine is here:

Rapid cascading climate change

Talk about rapid collapse of the Arctic ice and an associated cascading climate change are on the agenda. The Northern Hemisphere has had the warmest winter since 1880. Expressed concern is not so much the loss of biodiversity of an icy niche, or agricultural areas – but will the European ski industry survive.

The increase in temperature seems to be wholeheartedly welcome here: Each urban park is packed with sun-seekers rolling on the ground (Liegewiese). Smoking parents wheel their asthmatic kids out more. Leisure-time driving is more fun, Berlin-style parking too. The most common flower seems to be an array of orchids on window sills and in shopping windows. Flown in from distant tropical lands where it is claimed that they are threatened or endangered.

Programmers to generate rapid news

Journalists in the business of gathering, editing and disseminating news are being supplemented/ replaced by “news programmers” . As dead-tree editions go, web 2.0 programmers are needed to be the editorial staff.
Via Radar
Graffiti: Berlin Mitte

The bottom-up participatory motorised community

The global motorised community is desperately searching for technological fixes to be able to continue (driving) as before. In Berlin and other cities they are having themselves on by stuffing the rainforest into the tank, employing mobile GIS/GPS to navigate the clogged arteries, mobiles sensing buidling sites. Web 2.0 will help to fight for 'cheap fuel'. Streetscapes gets auctioned to drivers looking to put their motorised tin on public land. The bottom-up 'massive public objection' of the motorised community in London against 'pay-as-you-drive' regulation sends a clear signal of 'the people's' will regarding climate change and urban life. The right to speed is fiercely defended.

More and bigger cars means that emissions, causing death and sickness in the cities, have actually risen. ”Despite improvements in vehicle technology, more and bigger cars mean that emissions from road transport actually rose by 26% between 1990 and 2004.”

Every cm of the city gets penetrated 24/7 by desperate automobiles drivers. Hinderances, like curbs, greenery, playgrounds etc get conquered by large 4x4. Pedestrians are chased by them on the pavement. Most courtyards (Höfe) have their green lung eliminated and turned into chimneys. The German fetish for “ the German's dearest child” makes non-motorised living creatures “..the largest single obstacle to free traffic movement."

The bottom-up participants in mobility seem to have no interest in 'stopping the planet from burning'. The 'love affair' with private and unsustainable mobility will come to a grinding halt. The Lumpenleisure will be in for a long emergence. Peak oil will bring about different living arrangements. Relearning to do everything very differently.
Graffiti, Berlin, Mitte
Cartoons summing it all up

Smoke-free restaurants/cafes in Berlin

Some cafes and restaurants in Berlin where on can breathe not so toxic air: (updates will continue)

Cafes:
- Swingdiele, Charlottenburg - 30s/40s ambience, events (0307)
- Cafe Menge,Mitte, August Str./ Cnr. Grosse Hamburger Str, down to Earth cup and not so sweet cake. (0407)

Restaurants:
- Lulla, Spandau, Havelstr. 21 - Italian in the Altstadt (06)
-MITTEeins, Johannisstr. 20, Mitte 'Energie & Vitality'

Other:
-La Focacceria, Fehrbelliner Str/Cnr Zionskirche
-Viv-Lounge, Schönhauser Alle 10-11, Prenzelberg - Bio stuff (07)

Partial rights to breathe:
-PAPPA E CICCIA, Mitte, Schwedter Str. 18 - no smoking before 6pm, Italian (0407)

see also:
Nichtraucherfuehrer
The international scene - one day even Germany might make it.

Australian Desert Dreaming exhibition

Off to the Australian Traumzeit/Dreaming exhibition. Once past the smoked out foyer there they were, caught in a glass and steel box, three levels of wonderful Central and Western Desert Art. Their iconography links the producers to the topography of the Earth and Lifeforces. The screened film showed the bearers of the oldest continuing living culture on Earth re-enacting the flow of space/time. Rupture is brought about through colonialisation and dislocation.Through this the nexus of land/country and human order is exchanged for an interchangable life 'like ants' in Paris, Berlin, N.Y. etc. converting all to stuff and stuff to cash in a space/time-machinery of seemingly 'unlimited resources'. Mentally taking off, first into a global hyperreal fantasy-land and later conquering New Found planets, just to do the same thing over and over again.
More images of Papunyatula production
Berlin Exhibition here

Participatory tree-mapping tool for urban landscapes

Logging Berlin seems to coincide with developmental needs rather than moths or dead-wood-dangers in this urban environment.

In some cities bottom-up organisations look after their urban landcape by planting and caring for trees. Residents get involved in improving their immediate habitat, enhancing the value of their homes and doing something about climate change. Friends of the Urban Forest in San Francisco have now launched an open-source tree-mapping tool (MapGuide)for all to participate in. Through various electronic fieldguides the neighbourhood can access the database of public trees through “an interface a la Google Maps - color illustrations over aerial photography that's easily recognizable and packed with information. “ The economic or environmental benefits of maintaining green streetscapes can be directly translated though Stratum (for Street Tree Resource Analysis Tool for Urban Forest Managers) . Each tree can get a monetary value attached to it. The software can be linked to Google Earth and Wikipedia.

And here in Berlin? There are enough geeks innovating, often the First Life is not deemed to be a field worth doing things with. Maybe one day when toddlers in Mitte are being taught not the car brands but get to name a tree or a bird in their habitat, - then...

Logging Berlin

A look at Berlin from above shows the perpetual buildingsite made of cement and stuff. Green spaces are rare (or are converted). The few urban trees are chopped and no one seems to notice. These are some views of Wilmersdorf (Well-being arcades!),Mitte (logged parks) and Friedrichstraße.