Stylewalker » Art

Fluxus and me

Thomas — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:25:18 +0000

Next friday I’ll be playing at an event with some legends from the 60ies Fluxus art movement. I am thrilled!

Come around to see Ben Patterson, one of the Fluxus founders, Iput, Eric Andersen and Willem de Ridder at the Schau Fenster Gallery at Lobeckstr.30, from 8pm. A good way to end the week and start the friday night!

The opening party is part of the “Fluxus Today” conference by the Akademie der Künste and the exhibition “The lunatics are on the loose“.

Pretty cool to see my name in such an arty environment. Let alone the question: What am I supposed to play?! Well, I have some days to think left, I guess. Suggestions for songs are welcome in the comments.

Super Job in Wien: Kulturkommunikation

Thomas — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 18:54:40 +0000

brut, das Koproduktionshaus Wien, sucht eine/n Leitende MitarbeiterIn im Bereich Kommunikation, Schwerpunkt Pressearbeit, Vollzeit

Via einer Mailingliste hat mich dieses Angebot erreicht, dass ich hier gerne posten wollte, da ich glaube, dass meine Blogleser genau das richtige Publikum für diese Ausschreibung sind. Das folgende ist der Wortlaut der Ausschreibung. Persönlich kenne ich dort (noch) niemanden.

brut ist ein internationales Koproduktionshaus, das interdisziplinäre Formen zeitgenössischer darstellender Kunst, zwischen Performance, Tanz, Theater und Musik produziert oder präsentiert. brut ist seit seiner Gründung 2007 zum wichtigen Impulsgeber in der Wiener Kultur und weit darüber hinaus geworden. Der abwechslungsreiche, auch viele Sonderveranstaltungen von Lesungen bis zu Screenings und Partys umfassende Ensuite-Spielplan stellt die Abteilung Kommunikation immer wieder vor neue und spannende Aufgaben. Neben den zwei festen Spielstätten brut im Künstlerhaus und brut im Konzerthaus werden auch alternative Orte und der öffentliche Raum alternierend bespielt. Mehr zu unserem Programm erfahren Sie unter: www.brut-wien.at

Die Aufgaben sind:

• Abteilungs- und Budgetverantwortung für den gesamten Kommunikationsbereich
• Allgemeine Pressearbeit
• Kontaktpflege und Aufbau von neuen Kontakten zu nationalen und internationalen Medien- und Kooperationspartnern
• Organisation und Durchführung von Pressegesprächen
• Erstellen von Programmtexten und Imagetexten
• Koordination der E-Marketing-Aktivitäten sowie von Maßnahmen zur Publikumsbindung
• Öffentlichkeitsarbeit
• Multiplikatorenarbeit
• Marketing- und Medienplanung gemeinsam mit der Geschäftsführung
• laufende Evaluation der Kommunikationsmaßnahmen

Wir erwarten

• Mehrjährige Erfahrung in ähnlichen Positionen im Veranstaltungsbereich
• Identifikation mit der künstlerischen Ausrichtung von brut
• Verständnis für künstlerische Belange und Anforderungen
• gute Branchenkenntnisse
• Kommunikationsstärke
• gute Englischkenntnisse
• Belastbarkeit und zeitliche Flexibilität

Bewerbungsfrist: 30. Dezember 2010
Dienstbeginn: spätestens März 2011

Wir freuen uns auf Ihre Bewerbung mit Angabe der Gehaltsvorstellung.
Bitte senden Sie Ihre Unterlagen an:

brut
Koproduktionshaus Wien GmbH
Karlsplatz 5
A-1010 Wien

Tel.: (+43-1) 587 87 74
E-Mail: piplits@brut-wien.at

Animago Awards 2010 Winners

Thomas — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 16:42:06 +0000

Gestern war ich auf der Animago Conference und der anschließenden Verleihung des Animago Awards. Animago bringt Spezialisten aus der Animationsfilm- und Special Effects Szene zusammen und zeichnet herausragende Arbeiten aus. Ein richtig guter Nachmittag im Potsdamer fx Center mit erhellenden Vorträgen zum Beispiel zur Visualisierung von Architekturprojekten, zum Worksflow beim Aninmieren und Special Effects, vom Unterschied zwischen Modelling, Composing und Shading, zur Produktionspipeline von Pixar Pictures und vielen beeindruckenden Beispielen aktueller Produktionen wie Moby Dick oder dem neuen Eastwood Film “Hereafter”.

Besonders der Vortrag von Thomas Zauner, von ScanlineVFX, eine der bekanntesten FX Firmen der Welt, die sich besonders auf die visuelle Simulation von Flüssigkeiten, Feuer und Rauch spezialisiert haben, war fantastisch. Tatsächlich ist es für den Zuschauer inzwischen überhaupt nicht mehr zu erkennen, was realer Film und was nachträgliche eingebaute Effekte sind.

Abends wurden die Animago Awards verliehen und auch hier gab es einige herausragende Arbeiten zu sehen. Wenn möglich, habe ich hier die Filme eingebaut, leider sind nicht alle online zu sehen oder haben nur Trailer.

Hier ist der offizielle Award-Trailer, toll geschnitten, der einen Überblick über die Einreichungen vermittelt, nach dem Klick dann alle Gewinner-Filme.

Beste technische Realisierung: Pixels von Patrick Jean, Autour de Minuit, Frankreich

Visualisierung: History of Poland, Platige Image, Polen

Werbefilm: Mercedes G Class Fireworks, INFECTED Postproduction, Deutschland

Bester Kurzfilm: Babioles, Matray, Autour de Minuit, Frankreich
– hier ist noch ein Trailer mit dem kleinen Kerl und außerdem das Extra-Dankeschön für den animago Award.
und
Logorama, H5, Autour de Minuit, Frankreich

Bestes Game Design: Red Dead Redemption

Bestes Mobile Feature: iDough iPad App

Beste interaktive Produktion: aLife 1.0, q-bus Mediatektur, Deutschland
Website

Nachwuchspreis: Mobile, Verena Fels
Leider gibt es dazu nichts online, aus mir nicht verständlichen Gründen.

Sonderpreis der Jury: Loom, Polynoid, Deutschland

Purpular: Kreativnetzwerk und Kunstmarktplatz

Thomas — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:19:24 +0000

Purpular ist eine ganze Menge: Kreativnetzwerk, Ausschreibungsplattform, Agentur, Marktplatz. Fast könnte man etwas Sorge bekommen dass die Mannheimer etwas zu viel wollen, aber die Liebe zu ihrem Produkt und ihrer Idee macht das wieder wettLinda Dröge hat die Seite im Februar gelauncht und ist jetzt auf der Suche nach kreativen Dienstleistern und Künstlern um ihr Netzwerk zum Wachsen zu bringen. Da stehen sie natürlich großer Konkurrenz gegenüber, aber die Musik spielt bei der Kreativität bekanntlich in der Nische und wer auf der Suche nach Illustratoren, Videokünstlern oder schönen Drucken ist, sollte mal einen Blick darauf werfen: purpular.com

My videos from the last three weeks

Thomas — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 16:59:49 +0000

I gotta say, I reignited my love for filmmaking. Documenting nice stuff with my camera and cut it together nicely (which usually takes more time than expected). So, here are the videos I shot within the last three weeks: A video documentary from the Picnic festival in Amsterdam, an event for creative entrepreneurs with lots of fun, interviews and technology which I did for Netzpiloten. Last week I did an interview with Jan Kage aka Yaneq who is the mastermind behind the Party Arty series who saw its 33rd issue this saturday. And finally a clip from the Party Arty which shows a massive moshpit going on during the Foreign Beggars show while performing their hit “Contact”. Watch enjoy and give me comments so I can improve my skills!

Interactive touch display DJ console

Thomas — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 14:08:22 +0000

Unfortunately, this is only an interaction mockup. But hell, what a great idea! The American designer Gerg Werk put together an ideal digital system to install in clubs so DJs would only have to bring a flash drive with their setup and music and plug it in. It’s a touchscreen that emulates several decks and is controlled by different finger gestures to perform the most important DJ functions, like pitching, cue points, equalizing, mixing and even looping. Watch this very juicy and goodlooking project presentation:

Interview with Creative Director Marcel Kampman at Picnic10

Thomas — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 15:11:18 +0000

A short talk about the style of the Location and the festival itself and its importance to Picnic10. Also a teaser for my upcoming movie summary of this year’s Picnic. Stay tuned!

Paint the streets at Rosenthaler Platz

Thomas — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:47:44 +0000

A very simple, yet effective idea to paint the streets: Just put some kilos pigment on a very frequented crossing and the bikes and cars will do the painting. As seen yesterday at Rosenthaler Platz, Berlin, a yet to be named group of streetartists used the popular place in Berlin Mitte to install their spontaneous piece of art.

Here are some impressions via Flickr:

Not surprisingly, the story soon got twittered and blogged and some newspapers caught up the news as well:

“Minutes before, bikers had poured paint from big boxes in front of cars that waited for green lights. So the cars and their wheels, if the driver wanted it or not, became the brush tool for this guerilla public art piece.”
by The ambassador

I caught the fotos from Just Blogsport you can watch a video on Kraftfuttermischwerk, even De Telegraaf from the Netherlands had it as news, and Berlins daily newspaper BZ states:
“Die Autos verteilten die Farbe auf der Fahrbahn, bis eine überdimensionale Trikolore aus bunten Streifen enstand.”
by BZ

It is unclear who is behind this project, I have a guess and will research a bit more.

Wie Wired auf dem iPad aussehen wird

Thomas — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 10:24:29 +0000

Hier stellen Wired Redakteure und Designer voller Enthusiasmus die Möglichkeiten vor, die Magazinmacher mit Geräten wie dem iPad bekommen werden. Die Texte werden mit Videos und Schnittstellen zu Social Networks angereichtert, Werbung wird zu Produktvorstellungen als 3D Modell. Man darf gespannt sein, wie andere Zeitungen und Zeitschriften damit umgehen werden, vor allem solche, die nach wie vor Redakteure mit einer ganz klaren Printdenke beschäftigen und die ist, auch und sogar bei jungen Journalisten nach wie vor äußerst ausgeprägt. Vor allem die Sprache der Wired-Macher zeigt ihre Einstellung zu ihrer Arbeit: “Storytelling, Communicating ideas and creations” ist der Kern der Arbeit laut Scott Dadich, Creative Director bei Wired. Ein Ansatz, den ich mir von viel mehr Journalismusmachern wünschen, trotz oder gerade wegen des andauernden Medienwandels, der ihre Branche so durcheinander schüttelt.

Amazing Prezi demonstration

Thomas — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:26:06 +0000

If you haven’t seen Prezi in action, this is an awesome illustration. Watch first the video which gives you an impression about how to work with Prezi (speed is 10x) and then the result, a Prezi which sums up a class by Howard Rheingold on Social Media in Stanford last october, done pretty much simultaneously by Adam Somlai-Fischer, artist and Prezi co-founder.

Click ‘play’, ‘wait’, click ‘more’, ‘fullscreen’, keep clicking.

Continuity Game

Thomas — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:57:30 +0000

This is a great game, small, fast, and easy to get into. Not always easy to solve and not supereasy to understand. You are the little man and need to collect the key to open the door and get top the next level. Zoom in with space and jump and run within the given square. Zoom out and reorder the squares to be able to walk from square to square in case they fit together. It’s intriguing and comes with good music. Enjoy th continuitygame.

What is Beck’s Gold Urban Experiences?

Thomas — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:24:32 +0000

Starting from tonight, “Beck’s Gold Urban Experiences” will be exploring urban ways of customizing reality today. It is sponsored by Beck’s Gold and supposed to reach out to artists and creative people for producing ideas and lots of beautiful content to put the spotlight on interesting approaches and enrich an entertaining discussion within this field.

The campaign will be lasting at least during 2010 and consists of several events and online documentation and interaction. First, there will be three so-called “workspaces” in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, starting tonight in Berlin. Artists are invited to shape their vision of customizing reality and to present them to an audience which hopefully interacts with the created pieces. The artists, like e.g. Kim Köster, Klub7, Tracknfield or Balestra Berlin create a room filled with pieces which exist, shine or interact with the people. All of the artists have a background of creating art in a modern, reflecting and urban way in a sense of technology and interaction. Tonight, there will be a breadbaking experiment, lifesound recordings and lots of visual approaches to shaping urban environments. Check out some impressions from the preparations:

My role in the campaign is and was to find ways for interaction, preparation and documentation online, including a community for artists, social media profiles like Flickr, YouTube and the Urban Blog urban.becks.de. Together with Silk relations, Coma and the Beck’s team we put together lots of ideas which will become reality in the next 14 months. Follow @becksurban on Twitter to get updates and get the Urban Blog RSS. The blog is curated by Nilzenburger and will feature a ton of writers who will put together their vision of urban reality today.

MyLifestyleblog has a good overview in German about Beck’s Urban Experiences too.

eRockit: An electric bike to race cars with

Thomas — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:46:07 +0000

The eRockit is a mixture between bike and electric motorcycle. You still use your legs to get it in motion but merely use your power as a trigger for the electric speed. It goes up to 80km/h so it can even be used on the autobahn. Moreover it looks fantastic and sounds like future (in this case the furture is noiseless). Of course, it’s a prototype and if you want to get one your own, it would be a toy worth 25000 EUR. But to be able to accelerate faster than a car on a traffic sign could be worth it.

Next weekend in Berlin: Atoms&Bits festival

Thomas — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:47:11 +0000

Next weekend, a bunch of friends of mine will organize the atoms&bits Camp, a weekend full of making, doing, questioning and understanding. It’s part of the Atoms & Bits festival, a decentralized event that stretches over 10 days (September 18-27th), taking place in different locations from Berlin to Brooklyn, from Munich to Montreal.

atoms&bits Camp is one of the central points of the a&b Festival. Around 400 participants will meet to discuss, plan projects, and to network. Borrowing from the Barcamp format, all participants will actively engage in the event; the presentations (“sessions”) are interactive and created by the participants themselves. In the open “Barcamp” area, participants will organize completely free sessions. Moreover, the 5 central themes of atoms&bits Festival will be addressed and discussed in designated and curated rooms. Spatial proximity and thematic ties will ensure intensive crossover among these topics.

Join us and be party of a creative party! For now, go ahead and join the A&B mixxt network! It’s free!

The 3 circles of want, skill and money

Thomas — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:02:06 +0000

As a company, freelancer or whatever economic subject, here is some great strategy tool that helps you categorize and put a structure in what you want to do, what you are good at and what you get paid for. And how all of these areas work together.

By the brilliant kick ass designer Bud Cadell.

A 3D business card

Thomas — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 18:42:52 +0000

Ok, now here we are with augmented reality, it is starting. We have the tools like webcams and Actionscript and in flow the impressive examples.

AR Business Card from James Alliban on Vimeo.

You can try it too! Print this and go here and be amazed!

It’s done by James Aliban, an artist-developer-scientist who likes to experiment and build stuff with all sorts of hardware and flash. Here is how to build a multitouch screen very easily on your own. And he has many more examples.

(via Michael)

Update: Thanks to Konrad here is another augmented reality example by GE

The best Michael Jackson remixes

Thomas — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:10:59 +0000

A true Stylewalker leans back. And waits and reads all the Michael Jackson posts and remixes and then selects the best for the reader. (the picture ist taken by the brilliant Ralph Uetzelhöffer who does very nice textportraits) Here we go:

LehtMoeJoe’s Beat it remix – in your face!

Bird Petersons Thriller remix – also very funky face

The Hood Internet / Ratatat Remix to Billie Jean – some kind of Roulé feely music sounds better with you’ish floor smoother

And finally a nice mash of “I want you back” with Lil’ Wayne (find more MJ mashs at Kickin Peanuts)

Boyz Noize – Eat it remix -heavy rock disco

Thriller Disco Tech Remix
- Prins Tomas space disco style, very close to the original

Louis La Roche Thriller remix
- another very compressed, tight floor filler with some fragments and happy moments

Thank you Hype Machine, Popwreckoning, Aimt.us, Chromekids

Looking back at Reboot11

Thomas — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 02:51:44 +0000

Danish is a funny language. Let alone pronouncing the Reboot11‘s venue “Kedelhallen” correctly is a command of its own. It’s something like “cahilhäln” but we never got it right. Said it, looked into puzzled faces, wrote it down and were told “oh, you mean cahilhäln!” Finally got there, were amazed.

An old industrial building with several rooms, the walls covered with handwritten paper and plans and rooms and talks, with small wooden chairs outside and a 3d printer which can repair its 3d printer brother and a supercreative crowd who didn’t care about business cards and seemed to be really interested in answers (not the kind of people that ask “so, what do you do?” and then look the other way).

And: Whenever talks mentioned the word “crisis”, they never meant the financial crisis but were talking about the climate crisis ahead and how to adress it with smart technology and will. Most of the sessions I found interesting, but I was surprisingly dissapointed by two internet legends who seemed not to care so much about inspiring people: Dave Winer who just let the audience talk and produced a lot of unstructred noise (nothing against open mic but without some outlines there will be nothing of substance) and Stowe Boyd who told us to use our rights on the net. Yeah, thanks.

But some stuff was truly amazing, there was a hellride through all sorts of geo location examples and tools by Andrew Turner, a very dark yet humorous speech by Bruce Sterling (“get the best bed you can get!”) and again, the Placebo of tech festivals, David Weinberger about Cyberutopianism. Not to mention Tor Nørretranders who showed us how literally sharing your shit makes things better.

Look for more posts about reboot11, thank you again Peter for suggesting me to go!

Körpervermischungs-Installation

Thomas — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:10:01 +0000

Samstag wird Tine Papendick ein Testsetup einer Körpervermischungs-Installation im Spielraumschaufenster aufbauen. Ihr könnt euch mit anderen Leute verdrehen, vermischen, überlagern oder auch einfach nur ein Bier mit uns trinken. Keine Party sondern das TO-DO bevor es in die Nacht geht. Das ganze findet statt im Spielraum (Tataaa!).

SAMSTAG, 16.05.2009
ab 21 Uhr
Reichenberger Straße 28
Berlin Kreuzberg

Moneyprinting, party of friends, Politcamp

Thomas — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:59:53 +0000

It’s going to be a pretty active weekend, I am not talking about riots. But there is lots of cool stuff going on in Berlin this weekend: Tonight, thursday, there is the money printing contest which will take place at Mariannenplatz 21 in Kreuzberg 36. (“Who hasn’t thought about it? The perfect solution in this time of global meltdown and financial disaster! We need to make our own money!”) Great, arty and subversive idea by Czentrifuga.

Tomorrow night, I will be playing at CRACKERS, Heidestrasse 5, a friend is organizing a party for friends, come if you’re a friend! (see the flyer to the left).

Then, saturday and sunday, I will be attending Politcamp09, a barcamp about politics. I’ll try to post an English summary here.

Notic Nastic’s blogmesite

Thomas — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:16:40 +0000

It’s all in a little, tiny, universe! Yes, Berlin based art-music-club-community Notic Nastic put it all in a widget: their outer space of secrets, fans, music, videos and other crazy hidden stuff. And every month, there will be something else, people can become part of the collective and submit stuff which will then be featured on the little widgetothingy. So this time there is actually a reason to embed this piece of code to your whatever blog or profile. Do and love or don’t and recieve nothing back either, bitches.

My DLD09 summary

Thomas — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 15:11:45 +0000

First, you can get an overview of all articles published on the DLD live blog here.

After three days of intense blogging, live blogging(!), there should be a little resumée. Must be a personal one, naturally, although I aim to grasp some of that spirit hopefully many people sensed in these days of Digital, Life, Design 09.

In the position of being confronted with so many ideas, witted people, diverse subjects, opinions, trends and conversations I felt intectually challenged almost all the time. Plus, trying to find my own “art of live blogging” I was in a constant state of concentration, in search of the essence of the panels I focused on to cover. Now I feel tired and inspired, with the “Black swan” beside my bed and “What would Google do” on my desk. And with many images still in mind that make it hard just to say “DLD was awesome!”. But it certainly was.

We had economics, design, psychology, neurobiology, architecture, technology, education, fashion, music.. DLD was so diverse and at the same time deep in concern of the arguments of the people and mostly entertaining by the performance. And this inspirationally broad deepness certainly had effects on the talks in the hallway which I personal did not have. Because I had to blog. Because I was honoured to blog!

My thanks go to the whole team, all those fast and motivated people who made this conference so smooth, so you would not notice the organization, just the flow. And especially to my blogger colleagues Nicole, Oliver and Andrea. We came up with some nice techniques to cover people’s talk with live writing which include Google Docs, hand signs, twitter search, mobile photo uploads and the help of people who plug the laptops, know about details, give comments.
So thank you all, team, speakers, participants and especially to the cute coffee machine in the team room.

Before I go and polish my posts and clean up all the typos, here are my personal Top9::

9. With the Zuckerberg appearance I found the controversial twitter conversation as interesting as what was said on stage.
8. The Varsavsky – Obermann talk
7. Simplicity (mostly)
6. Fashion
5. The paddle symphony
4. Internet politics
3. Reflection on a crisis
2. The robots!
1. Predictably Irrational

And here are fotos! We love fotos. (all Flickr pics tagged with dld09)

“Captured” – documenting Clayton Patterson’s work

Thomas — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:06:49 +0000

On saturday I had the chance to see the European premier of “Captured” at Babylon Berlin, as part of the American independent film fest “Unknown Pleasures“.

“Captured” is a film about the New York artist Clayton Patterson and a film about the change in the Lower East side, Manhattan, during the last 20 years. Patterson has tons of foto and video material from the time when the Lower East side was a dirty, cheap, chaotic, independent, arty, druggy, anarchic area. Not only with Giuliani this changed into yet another hip and expensive place to live in New York nowadays. “Captured” shows this change and the protagonists around Patterson, e.g. the art scene, the hardcore scene (with Bad Brains e.g.), the queer scene, the squatters.

Filmmakers Den Levin, Ben Solomon and Jenner Furst managed to boil down Pattersons’ hours of film into a consistent, exciting and interesting 90min movie, which literally makes you feel sad you hadn’t been there when it was still rough.

Captured Homepage
Captured MySpace

Dub-step into the snow

Thomas — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:30:52 +0000

Not only because of the impressive pictures (click the movie to view the HD version on YouTube!) but also because of the nice sounds by PantyRaid (song is called “Like That”) this is a great video. Enjoy some super slomo-, helicopter-, powder-, the world-is-ok-we-still-have-snow-action.

[found via Pointkilla]

What you can do with Arduino

Thomas — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:24:14 +0000

“Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.”

Hm, so what does that mean? Basically what you can with the little Arduino board is easily bring lots of input in and turn it into certain outputs. Sounds easy and maybe trivial but really is not. Because Arduino can process many different signals and trigger many different outputs. Kiss a door and it opens. Step close to a mirror and a video starts playing with the mirror talking to you. Turn TV picture into LED-signals. Connect it to the Wii and In general one might say it’s very nerdy and looks a little unready still. But it’s definetly the start into a development of selfbuilt robots and machines.

Below are some video examples. I particularly like the TV to LED part because it’s kind of what a friend and I did for a party once. We put 16 toilet paper rolls covered with translucent paper in fornt a tv and thus reduced the pictures to a 16×16 pixel screen. We taped it to video and had a nice party light installation. The posted below is slightly more elegant but, really, less charming.

Arduino introduction by Make magazine editors Joe Grand and Bre Pettis

Turn a video into simple LED output

A little robot controlled via the Wii nunchuck

Streetart in Lofoten, Norway

Thomas — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:04:05 +0000

There are not many streets there. Still, in the very north of Norway, on the archipelago Lofoten two of the most known Norwegian street artists, Dolk and Pøbel have painted some house walls. Poppy, stencil-like paintings in black and white with few colour highlights and some surreal motives like superman with Dialyse, at old wooden houses in the middle of nowhere. Certainly one more reason to travel to Lofoten despite the breath taking nature. [via Elsbe]
Watch more pictures at Nrk.no or watch a slideshow with Lofoten pictures from Flickr

Berliner Straße exhibition

Thomas — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:48:50 +0000

The most exciting moment of Berlin Art Forum is already over? Probably. Because the furious and multicreative festival that international artists put up yesterday at the opening of Berliner Straße at .BHC has been a firework of wonderful moments. Rooms, so many impossible to count, each one especially designed by a an artist or a group with painted walls, installations, videos, bands, performances.. It was a blast: A man playing drums in big yellow box, faces out of rotten potatoes, concerts with looped beatbox and casio guitars and many photographies, grafitti like street art pieces and last but not least a big and arty looking crowd hanging out in a party atmosphere with drinks, talks, dance. Enjoy a little slide show of impressions.

70200 samples in 30 seconds

Thomas — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:31:08 +0000

The artist Johannes Kreidler created 33 seconds of music, using 70200 samples. On 12 Sept 08 he will register the musical work at GEMA (Germany’s RIAA) – using a truck full of standard forms. If you want to register a song at GEMA you have to fill in a form for each sample you use, even the tiniest bit. Watch a very fun telephone conversation between Johannes and the GEMA (in German):

IFA-Links

Thomas — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:38:08 +0000

Sony hall on IFA by HolgerEI went to IFA last week and apart from the vacuum cleaning robot (cute!), the 3DTV screens by LG and Samsung (no link found) and the vast Sony hall, I especially liked the science part of the trade fair. I talked to two scientists from DFKI Saarbrücken and tried the Wii fit board they hacked to surf Google Earth. Fun! In general, I think it’s a big chance for IFA to strengthen this part to be ever more successful in the future. Here, Matthieu and Simon demonstrate their invention:

Tom14 – streetartist Barcelona interview

Thomas — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:41:17 +0000

I was pointed out to a really great interview, done by Pretty Cool People Interviews. Tom takes us along Barcelona, shows some sites and pieces and alongway talks about his philosophy. It’s a good feeling to understand how little, pretty things can and should make a difference in a often harsh urban world.

Tom14, “born in Brazil and based in Barcelona”, who “is a street artist in more than one way. He works on the streets, sometimes literally on the surface of the road, but besides this, his work is also deals with the rights on the street. It’s all about reclaiming the streets from real estate investors who make large profits from urban planning projects and do nothing about improving the situation for the local people.”

Check it out: Tom 14, Barcelona street artist interview

Was ist das Vorspiel, Berlin?

Thomas — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:53:35 +0000

I had Yaneq as a protagonist on this blog quite some time and now, after countless Party Artys and Signal festivals he is back with his new baby: Vorspiel. Vorspiel is German and means prelude and foreplay at the same time which is one of the wordplays Yaneq, the lyricist, loves so much.

As much as he likes blending words, he likes to blend cultural styles. He mixes art, music, poetry, party and bar and there we have what he always wanted: The Vorspiel, located at Falkensteinstraße 47 (same house as club 103), open from wednesday to sunday, 18 – 02:00h. At first hand Vorspiel is a gallery that shows contemporary art, from street to comic and even sculptures. At second hand Vorspiel is a place for performances: dance, concerts, films and so on. Plus: These days, all Euro08 games will be shown on a big screen!

A very vibrant place with very urban and vibrant people, always open to ideas and creativity, definitely worth a visit. Here is a short interview with Yaneq by Carpe Berlin and to read more, here is a nice article from Berliner Zeitung about Vorspiel (in German).

Fassadendrucker

Thomas — Mon, 26 May 2008 19:12:56 +0000

Just checked on a comment and found this: A facade printer. Crazy.
[via Big City of Dreams]

Muto: Graffiti gets feet

Thomas — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:52:03 +0000

“An ambiguos animation painted on public walls” – How streetart gets its own life shows this animation by the French crew BluBlub. Made in Buenos Aires and in Baden (fantoche).

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Final days of Hobnox Evolution

Thomas — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:29:39 +0000

The Hobnox evolution has entered its final days and everyday it is more exciting. In three categories, there are a bunch of projects that all still have the chance to enter the final stage of the contest. Three musicians, three short movies and three urban culture projects will be presented on february 28th. Check it out and vote for the projects you think are really the best.

Frozen Grand Central

Thomas — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 11:06:29 +0000

Improvised event flash mob art: Some three hundred people just freeze in NYC’s grand central station and leave all the rest puzzled. Imagine: While you are running to catch the train to your next job, or home, to a meeting, to go shopping, to friends, all stressed out, as usual in New York, and suddenly you are surrounded by people, paralyzed like Lot’s wife looking back on Sodom..

Frozen Grand Central from ImprovEverywhere on Vimeo.

Brandmauer? Brandmauer!

Thomas — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:45:22 +0000

Berlin is full of so called “Brandmauern”, walls that have no windows because originally they had another house close to them. The war bombed them away, or the communists or Adenauer did, who knows. Fact is, it’s not going to change fast (of course in expensive neighborhoods, new houses are built) but in other sites, people will have to live with their ugly and overall badly isolated brandmauer (I believe in english it’s fire division wall).

So here’s the idea: Why not paint them with special materials or even grow plants on them to make everything cosier and prettier and less expensive? Brandmauer.de are a bunch of architects and artists that want to make Berlin a little less grey (and of course, run a fun business). Check it out on Brandmauer.de, especially if you want to have yours painted!

Art fairs in Berlin

Thomas — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 08:42:25 +0000

“Alles Paletti” by Tiny Domingos, Scotty Enterprise at KunstsalonThis weekend, a massive crowd of art people invaded Berlin and you could play games, like who spots the most art items: “O, oh, art glasses, art glasses!” “Art scarf”, “Art hair!!”. It’s the beginning of Berliner Kunstherbst and the overground raises its head even higher than the emerging underground.

Today and tomorrow will be the best days to look for interesting objects, it’s the last days of the fairs and hopefully it will not be as crowded as it was the last days.

The biggest and most prestigious event is the Art Forum Berlin of course. Expect prices up to several hundred thousand € for living contemporary artists like Bisky and such.

But as usual for this kind of big events, the “off-shows” that organize like parasites around a major platform are much more exciting and, since all of this event is about the money making with art, also promise a better return on investment – the artists are simply not as famous yet. If you really want to catch the big stars of tomorrow be sure not to miss Preview Berlin, Berliner Liste and most importantly the Berliner Kunstsalon which takes place in an ex tramway repairing facility.

Heute: Jaybo aka Monk at Circleculture Gallery

Thomas — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 11:06:14 +0000

Tonight will see an interesting exhibition opening at Circle Culture gallery again. Jaybo aka Monk is originally from France but has been living in Berlin for quite some time. He started as a graffiti artist but now uses installations, cut-outs, objects and big sized paintings. We’ll even see some unfinished stuff tonight which is a great idea, taking the perfectionism and insecurity of some artists into account.

The exhibition will run from 27th of September to 16th of November and is called: „OLD SCARS AND NEW INJURIES ARE THE BEAUTY OF THE ETERNAL NOW“. Let’s get hurt then. See you tonight.

OFFICE BERLIN
GIPSSTRASSE 11
10119 BERLIN MITTE GERMANY

Pechakucha Berlin

Thomas — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 12:45:11 +0000

.. took place yesterday at Tape Gallery and was again a nice get-together of creative people with more or less interesting subjects and more or less well done speeches. But to be honest, I expected a little more. The tow guys from Aka-Aki were impossible to understand, others, like Cosima Reif were so nervous the hysterical laughters produced feedbacks. But I liked very much David Henry Brown Jr’s talk about his personality Alex von Fürstenberg which got him into celebrity parties in New York and of course Tobi X’s Firefox plugin “Timemachine” which turns webpages into a state of like ten years ago: Full of candles, christmas trees, animated gifs, midi melodies and star backgrounds.

Awesome guide in Bode Museum Berlin

Thomas — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 13:31:07 +0000

The Bode Museum is the latest opening on the famous Museumsinsel, protected by the UN world heritage, full of museums, some are yet to be renovated. On 19 October 2006, the Bode Museum was re-opened in its entirety, displaying the Sculpture Collection, the Numismatic Colletion and works from the Gemäldegalerie – Old Master Paintings.
In the video you’ll see a very involved guide telling an interesting story about a mosaic.

Fantastic media usage in Naturkundemuseum Berlin

Thomas — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 13:26:29 +0000

The museum of natural history in Berlin has recently been renovated and now features an impressive amount of interactive use of multimedia stations: 3D-movies that take the environment into account, moving screens, touch sensitive information. It’s full of kids and they seem to have a lot of fun learning.
Here you’ll see an interactive projection about animal families.

Junge Kunst Berlin!

Thomas — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 13:26:09 +0000

ILLUSTRATIVE BERLIN 07 is the leading exhibition showcasing contemporary illustrative art. Held in Berlin from August 31st to September 16th, Illustrative showcases more than 200 works of established European illustrators.

31. August – 16. September 2007
Opening: 31. August 2007 (19.00 Uhr)
Villa Elisabeth
Invalidenstr. 3, 10115 Berlin (Mitte)

Die besten LaFraise-Shirts zur Zeit

Thomas — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 17:13:24 +0000

Hinweis: Dies ist ein von trigami vermittelter bezahlter Eintrag.

La Fraise habe ich ja hier schon ein paar Mal erwähnt, da ist es mir mir nicht besonders schwer gefallen, auf dieses Angebot einzugehen: Drei T-Shirts finden, die mir gut gefallen und darauf verlinken.

Noch ein paar Worte zu LaFraise? Na klar: LaFraise ist eine T-Shirt-Design-Community, die sich schön über die Jahre entwickelt hat, bevor sie unlängst von Spreadshirt gekauft wurde. Angefangen hat alles beim Programmierer und T-Shirt Fan Patrice Cassard in Paris, der seine Freunde einlud, über T-Shirt Designs abzustimmen und sie dann herzustellen. Inzwischen gibt es tausende Besucher täglich und unzählige Designer, die hier ihre Vorschläge für fantasievolle T-Shirts hochladen.

Diese werden zunächst nach Umsetzbarkeit und Qualität geprüft (Als Hilfe für Designer gibt es auch Templates, Designvorlagen für die richtigen Größen, Platzierung etc.). Sind die Kriterien erfüllt, werden sie freigeschaltet, um sieben Tage lang von der Community bewertet zu werden. Aus den am besten bewerteten Designs wählt das LaFraise-Team drei Motive pro Woche aus und produziert sie als T-Shirts. Der Designer erhält 1000€, dafür darf LaFraise das T-Shirt 500 mal verkaufen. Die Rechte am Bild behält aber der Designer.

Das Schöne an LaFraise ist, dass sich über die Zeit ein gewisser, unausgesprochener Stil-Konsens entwickelt hat. Typisch für die eingereichten und produzierten Designs ist, dass sie mal comic-, mal graffitti-artige, illustrative und dabei sehr filigrane Elemente enthalten, die sehr poppig mit Farben spielen. Wenn einem also dieser Stil grundlegend gefällt, kann man sicher sein, bei LaFraise immer mal wieder ein schönes Motiv zu finden. Ich habe dort auf jeden Fall schon einige bestellt und auch mit der Qualität des Stoffs und des Schnitts (American Apparel) bin ich zufrieden.

LaFraise hat auch ein Bonuspunkte-System für Kunden, Fans, Blogger und so weiter. Dafür vergeben sie die niedliche Fantasiewährung “Brouzoufs” (keine Ahnung, wo das herkommt..). Wenn sich z.B. jemand über den Affiliate-Link in meinem Blog (siehe rechts) ein T-Shirt kauft, bekomme ich dafür Bonuspunkte, die ich später wieder in Shirts investieren kann. Ich habe gerade mal in mein Konto geschaut – es wurden tatsächlich Shirts über meinen Link bestellt! Wow! Brouzoufs gibt es auch zum Geburtstag und wenn man Fotos von sich mit LaFraise Shirts hochlädt, die dann veröffentlicht werden.

Hier folgen also meine drei derzeitigen Favoriten aus dem Wettbewerb und dem Shop.

1. Klar, dass mir das hier gefällt, hat es gerade in den Shop geschafft

2. Dieses hier ist gerade im Wettbewerb und repräsentiert ganz gut diesen typischen, filigranen, illustrativen LaFraise-Stil.

3. Und diese Idee finde ich super, (klar, ich mag ja auch das hier) mal sehen, ob es produziert wird. Aber um die 500 Punkte sollte man schon haben..

East London’s first thursdays

Thomas — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 15:27:37 +0000

East london is definitely one of the most creative spots in London, if not even in England or the world. It’s a nucleus for recent music developments like Garage, Grime and urban music in general: (here is a great BBC 1Xtra documentary about London’s east end music, and there’s even an East London Blog).

East London consists of neighbourhoods like Hackney, Shoreditch, Whitechapel, Bow, Bethnal Green and so on. Especially the latter is famous for its galleries, e.g. One in the other where the McNally exhib was at. All in former industrial buildings, hidden in basements and behind metal curtains, focusing on young and raw artists, more the art of tomorrow than the art of today one finds in random and commercial central London galleries.

Every first thursday in a month, there is an event, that holds the whole scene together: firstthursdays – Late night art in East London. Over 80 galleries and museums open until 9pm. So, it is like: Tomorrow! If I’d still be in London I’d definitely check it out.

Robert McNally’s first exhbition

Thomas — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 16:41:27 +0000

Tomorrow I am off to London for four days, yay! The occasion couldn’t be more interesting. One of Britains most promising artists holds his first exhibition at ~~Fred gallery~~One in the Other, 45 Viner St. Why promising? Not because some of the most influentious collectors (does the name Damian Hurst sound familiar e.g.) have options on his work, no: because it is absolutely amazing.

The man spends months (and I mean it: MONTHS) inside, drawing pictures with pencils in such detail and finesse with such dark humour, love and creativity that the bizarre scenes he depicts bound its spectators for a looong time. Some of his work can be seen on his myspace but the format does not do justice to his art at all. I am not a big expert but his work reminds me of MC Escher as well in his way of drawing as in the absurdity of his subjects.

48 Stunden Neukölln

Thomas — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 12:05:55 +0000

Kunst, Kultur, Straßenzeug, Theater, Kreativität, Kiez, Ghetto, Künstler, Grenzgänger, Safaris, Installationen, subtropischer Untergrund, multikultigster Bezirk, Klimazone, Windkanal, Design, Sex, Literatur, Fotografie, Comics, Brücken, Zeíchnungen, Ateliers, Vernissagen, Musik..
22. bis zum 24. Juni
160 ungewöhnliche Orte
48 Stunden Neukölln

Klang der Quadrate

Thomas — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:22:13 +0000

Download audio file (2X8Y.mp3)

Listen to this. It’s the result of an interactive installation residing at Potsdamer Platz at the moment, celebrating Mannheim’s 400th birthday. The city in Germany’s southwest is structured in squares, with streets without names but with letters and numbers. Very Bauhaus indeed. It’s also famous for its pop academy so there’s several associations to the so called “sound of the squares” installation:

“Einzelne Soundelemente des Jubiläumssongs MEINEWELT sind im Klanglabor gespeichert und können im Würfel zu einer individuellen Interpretation arrangiert werden. Jeder Gast von „Klang der Quadrate“, der seine eigene Version kreiert hat, bekommt einen kleinen Würfel mit auf den Weg, der einen Code trägt. Über diesen Code kann der eigene Mix von MEINEWELT später auf www.klangderquadrate.de angehört, herunter geladen und verschickt werden. Auf diese Weise entsteht der Jubiläumssong innerhalb von „Klang der Quadrate“ ständig neu, und es kommt zu einem kreativen Dialog zwischen Mannheim, seiner Musik und allen, die den „Klang der Quadrate“ erleben.”

Webcams gibt es übrigens auch und man kann sich alle hochgeladenen Kreationen anhören.

Ravalejar: Streetart from in Barcelona

Thomas — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 08:28:57 +0000

Here is a great movie about some street art in the barrio of Raval in Barcelona where I used to live. Well almost. My barrio was Sant Antoni and everytime I went to the centre I had to cross Raval. It’s a unique mix of cultures, art and streetlife, dark and shady, chaotic, very lively and inspiring.

The movie is done by Fritz Gnad who is (certainly amongts many other talents) a video artist and lives in Barcelona. He publishes hie videos and other obeservations in his blog feezen//freezen. [via Polylog/Wildpark]

Best logos and logo trends for 2007

Thomas — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 14:41:55 +0000

Descending dots are amongst others a major trend in recent logo design, Logolounge found out in their 2007 trends:

Examples for logos with descending dots, taken from Logolounge

Vivid logos were found by the logo blog: An example for a vivid logo,
taken from Logoblog

A chiseled structure becoming alive is the London 2012 brand that was revealed yesterday. An image movie shows how the logo becomes part of the environment and while the aesthetics of the logo are a matter of taste and I think the idea is pretty unusual and, ehm, edgy, the movie is kind of scary.
London Olypmpics 2012 logo
It might represent the competitive character of the games and the fight to find the best. It might also visualize the mental effects of doping, who knows.

[via Cherryflava]

Felice Varini at Filiale Berlin gallery

Thomas — Tue, 15 May 2007 20:07:59 +0000

“My field of action is architectural space and everything that constitutes such space. These spaces are and remain the original media for my painting. I work “on site” each time in a different space and my work develops itself in relation to the spaces I encounter”, says Felice Varini.

What sounds pretty abstract in theory, in practice is a fascinating experience of room and view. Like at the Filiale Berlin gallery in Brunnenstr. 188. Only from one position in the room, several red lines add to a complete structure which appears even more irritating if people seem to be extra-layers in between the structure. I actually ran into this exhibition today by accident and had to enter twice to find the right corner.

But watch for yourself, pictures should open on click.