"Ich bin ein Wordler"

These are similar to the ideas I have about projecting texts onto the Wall. This is a Wordle image of John F.Kennedy's 1963 speech, where he claimed:

"All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner'" (BBC, 2003).

Wordle is a website where it translates texts into "word clouds". Words that are frequently used are represented bigger than the ones less used (Wordle, 2009). The image below is created from the 1987 speech by Ronald Reagan, where he called "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" (American Rhetoric, 2009).

Little has changed over 24 years: Berlin, city and freedom are the key words regularly used. Both presidents were also criticized for being too confrontational, although some claim they were ahead of their time (Dolan, 2009, and Mann, 2009). This following is a prepared speech of senator Barack Obama, when he visited Berlin during his presidential campaign in 2008. The words world, people and Berlin are most frequently used.

American Rhetoric (2009) Ronald Reagan: Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate. [online] 
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ronaldreaganbrandenburggate.htm
BBC (2003) Text: Kennedy's Berlin Speech. [online] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3022166.stm
Dolan, A.R. (2009) Four Little Words. [online] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704795604574522163362062796.html
Mann, J. (2009) Reagan at the Berlin Wall. [online] http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-mann6-2009nov06,0,5455746.story
New york Times (2008) Transcript: Obama’s Speech in Berlin. [online] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/us/politics/24text-obama.html
Wordle (2009) http://www.wordle.net/

Vardit Goldner Photographs Israel/Palestine

Vardit Goldner is a documentary photographer who focusses on social and human rights issues. The image above is taken in the occupied territory of Hebron, located in a Palestinian city (Goldner, 2009).

Goldner, V. (2009) My Art: Vardit Goldner. [online] http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/stuart/ViewArtWorks/ast_id/82811

Walled In by Sara Farrell Okamura

Detail of Walled In

Sara Farrell Okamura has been inspired by division walls of 20th and 21st centuries, and has created No One Owns the Sky, Getting Over the Top, and Walled In [Okamura, 2009].

Okamura, S.F. [2009] Exhibitions. [online] http://www.wooloo.org/artists/10696

ABCD Repetition of Squares

This video focuses on the cultural pattern of repetition created by timetables, maps and GPRS [Lemeh42, 2009].

Lemeh42 [2009] ABCD. [online] http://lemeh42.indivia.net/videography.html

Torn and Hackescher Markt

Hans Feyerabend's work Torn was displayed at Rise & Fall, an event commemorating the opening of the Wall [Feyerabend, 2009].

In 1997, the artist worked around the Hackescher Markt station in Berlin, in the central district of former East Berlin, recording images of buildings, signs and materials in the night.

Debris, Berlin 1997, Bahnhof Hackescher Markt

Feyerabend, H. [2009a] http://www.feyerabend.com/media/000000_2009/rise-fall.jpg

Feyerabend, H. [2009b] Photography Series Berlin - Bahnhof Hackescher Hof, Winter of 1997. [online] http://www.feyerabend.com/pages/photo.html

The Twinity Wall

Trinity has reconstructed the Wall in virtual Berlin (Trinity, 2009).

Trinity (2009) The Berlin Wall in Trinity. [online] http://www.twinity.com/en/wall

Spacewar

The Space Race and the Berlin Wall (1961-1989) overlaps chronologically - and this is due to both frontiers being fuelled by the Cold War, a political and economic warfare lead by the US and the USSR. Spacewars, "the world's first video game" (Colson, 2007, p.14) was also developed in 1961, by Steve Russell at MIT. The events of 1989 brought down the Wall, the ideology behind it, and the USSR.

"The day will have to contend with an imaginative universe that is very different from the one we inhabited in the space age" (Benjamin, 2003). Both science and science fiction have changed from the "hyperrealist tales of cybernetic intrigue" on rockets and space travel of the 1950s and 1960s - or space operas - have been replaced by "sword and sorcery - wizards in alternative universes" (Benjamin, 2003).

In April 1961, Vostok I sends Yuri Gagarin, first human into the Earth's orbit.

Benjamin, M, (2003) The End of the Space Age. [online] http://www.newstatesman.com/200302100019


Colson, R. The Fundamentals of Digital Art. Lausanne: AVA Book.


See also:
Benjamin, M. (2003) Rocket Dreams: How the Space Age Shaped Our Vision of a World Beyond. New York: Free Press.
Conputer History Museum [2009] Spacewar! [online] http://pdp-1.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/?f=theme&s=4&ss=3
MIT Museum (2009) Spacewar! [online] http://museum.mit.edu/150/entries/1437
NASA 50th Anniversary of the Space Age: 1957-2007. [online] http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/SpaceAge/index.html
Silverman, B., Silverman, B. & Gerasimov, V. [2009] The History of Computer Games - Spacewar. [online] http://creativetechnology.salford.ac.uk/fuchs/modules/game_design/Spacewar.htm

Space Race and the Wall

The Berlin Wall and the Space Race - both frontlines of the Cold War - have developed within similar chronical span. The Space Race started in 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched a satellite into the Earth's orbit, and "while the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the space age and the U.S.-U.S.S.R space race" (Garber, 2007). The United States launches Explorer I and established NASA in 1958.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced that "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth" was a goal America should commit to (Kennedy, 1961). 

"This nation will move forward, with the full speed of freedom, in the exciting adventure of space." (Kennedy, 1961)

The speech was made on May 25. In less than 3 months, the Berlin Wall was built. His view that "freedom shall survive and succeed" is also reflected in the speech he delivers in Berlin, after the Wall was built.

Garber, S. (2007) Sputnik and The Dawn of the Space Age. [online] http://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/

Kennedy, J.F. (1961) Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs Page 4. [online] http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/Urgent+National+Needs+Page+4.htm

See also:

NASA (2009) The Apollo Missions: Fourty Years Later. [online] http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/index.html

The Wall Under Starlight

"On the night of 12 August 1961, armed units of Communist police and militiamen began cordoning off the eastern sectors of Berlin with barbed wire, and started reinforcing the divide with hastily erected breezeblock barriers." (Paterson, 2006).

On the following night, West Berliners marched in protest with torches made by newspaper and magazines, singing the German anthem (Times, 1961). This was the beginning of the Berlin Wall, the concrete and barbed wire Cold War barrier that divided Germany's biggest city for 28 years until its fall in the winter of 1989. The Wall divided East and West Berlin and Berliners' lives until it was opened up on 9 November, also in the night.

20 years on, a BBC correspondent Brian Hanrahan recalls the night he was reporting from Berlin:

"A day before, we would have been shot for being here - now people were knocking off pieces to take home as a souvenir of an unforgettable night... Just as I finished describing the scene to the camera, I heard somebody behind me say: 'I want to be an astronaut.'

And why not - it was the night when dreams were coming true." (Hanrahan, 2009)

Hanrahan, B. (2009) The Night the Berlin Wall Fell. [online] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8347695.stm

Paterson, T. (2006) Revealed: Tragic Victims of the Berlin Wall. [online]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/revealed-tragic-victims-of-the-berlin-wall-411504.html
Times (1961) Communists Seal the Berlin Border: Tanks and Troops to Hold Refugees Back: Hundreds Still Filter Through Barricades. [online] http://archive.timesonline.co.uk/tol/viewArticle.arc?articleId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1961-08-14-08-001&pageId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1961-08-14-08

SMS Guerrilla Projector by Troika

http://www.preoccupations.org/2005/04/sms_guerrilla_p.html

SMS Guerrilla Projecter is a homemade device that projects text messages its integrated mobile phone receives, and encourages participation on a mass scale as well as enabling people to "share their reflections in an unexpected and versatile way" (Freyer et al, 2008). It emerged as a reaction to constant exposure to adverts and the aim to "re-appropriate" this field at grass-roots.

Freyer, C., Noel, S. & Rucki, E. (2008) Design by Digital: Crafting Technology for Products and Environments. London: Thames & Hudson.

Counter Void by Tatsuo Miyajima

This is a installation in a form of wall outside a TV station in Tokyo, and also has a theme linked to night, and day.

"The wall is made with neon light as background of digital counters and it changes in day and night. In daytime, background's neon light is turned off and digital counters of white neon light are displayed. It turns over the scenery in nighttime. It displays black digital counters on background of white bright light" (Miyajima, 2003).

Miyajima (2003) claims that Counter Void shows a contrast of day and night; and life and death. The image below is another installation on a wall titled Mega Death (Kim, 2005).

Kim, S.-J. (2005) Tatsuo Miyajima. [online] http://www.cacsa.org.au/cvapsa/2005/8_Miyajima/miyajima.html

Miyajima, T. (2003) Counter Void. [online] http://www.tatsuomiyajima.com/en/text/void.html

Bit.Fall by Julius Popp

Julius Popp is at "the cross-roads between art and Science" (Freyer et al, 2008, p.116). Bit.fall is an installation in 320 nozzles, controlled by computer software and electromagnetic valves, creates waterdrops which creates words. The display of this "giant water printer" is 8 metres wide, and can be interpreted as a critical perspective towards "our society's permanent quest to achieve an objectifiable representation of reality by means of technological advances" (Freyer et al, 2008, p.116).

"As each message drips into a collection tank, its feeds back into the cycle, creating a metaphor for the impermanence and flux of the perception of ‘reality’ [Saatchi Gallery, 2009].

Bit.flow is Popp's second installation which immiscible liquids are pumped into a 45 metre long tube on a wall. A Computer program sets out a pattern which only at certain points form readible image, and each image "disintegrates in to chaos" (Freyer et al, 2008, p.116).

Freyer, C., Noel, S. & Rucki, E. (2008) Design by Digital: Crafting Technology for Products and Environments. London: Thames & Hudson.

Saatchi Gallery [2009] Selected Works by Julius Popp. [online] http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/julius_popp.htm

See also:

Bit.Fall - Discovery Channel Short Film. [Online] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AICq53U3dl8

Gibbs' Reflective Cycle 2

Gibbs' Reflective Cycle

Portfolio Surgery

The Portfolio Surgery turned out to be helpful for me. I feel that I was unprepared for it (I was) but I am better informed.

Keeping a research portfolio has been a challenging task for me. This is due to:

a) my Digital Transition program: setting a blog, and actually using one, and

b) being organised.

This Digital Transition has been a... progress. I am slowly getting into the habit of keeping record of my research, but it is in various media, such as this blog, notes on WHS refill pads and cafe paper napkins. I tend to store and forget about things too. Since September, I have left my notes at the school I work at (which is 2 hours train journey away), cream cheese and chorizzo sandwich in my NUCA locker, and a USB memory stick in the library. I have found everything apart from my memory stick.

In my Portfolio Surgery, I found out that I am able to submit my research portfolio online. And although at the time I was uncertain about being based in paper-and-paper-napkin media or online/digital, I have found ways to organise my blog pages, and feel confident enough to speed up my Digital Transition.

Photosynth

Photosynth creates dots of perspectives, Point Cloud, which on screen makes the Berlin Wall look like a galaxy. You can vaguely see the Wall at Bernauer Straße and the trees behind it too.

"Creating hyperlinks between images" is one of the features of Photosynth (Aguera y Arcas, 2007) and it can build a 3D space from shared photographic images online. The image/space below was created from photos taken at Checkpoint Charlie.

And you can also select Images, to have the photos that are synthesized, appear in rows.

Photosynth: http://photosynth.net/
Aguera y Arcas, B. (2007) Talks: Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos Photosynth. [online] http://www.ted.com/talks/blaise_aguera_y_arcas_demos_photosynth.html

Graft and Tuneglue Constellations

The Graft website has a constellation like visual, with white dots on a black background. The site starts off like Big Bang, then the dots move in together to form the Graft logo and into shape the continents which functions as an interactive site map.

The white dots, or the stars float about like waves of an ocean, which its moves have certain organic similarity to Tuneglue. Tuneglue is a music search engine where it connects artist of the genre into a spidergram-like design, also interactive and a little like a constellation.

Graft (2009)  http://www.graftlab.com/
Tuneglue [2009] Music Map. [online] http://audiomap.tuneglue.net/

Floating the Flag of Unity

This installation "Flying the Flag" was created to unite different areas of Germany. A matrix of semi-impact air motion modules allows the work to wander and "flow weightlessly over the country without being fixed to a pole" or any specific geographical location (Graft, 2009). The work dances "over places of memory, marking the felicity of the reunion all over germany" and follow celebrations of the reunification.

Images from: ridhika db (2009)

Graft (2009) German Unity Flag. [online] http://www.graftlab.com/
ridhika db (2009) "Monument of Unity" by Graft Architects. [online] http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/5319/monument-of-unity-by-graft-architects.html

Symbols of Berlin

"Since East & West Berlin were reunited in the late eighties, the streets are once again abuzz with a creative energy and style that is uniquely Berlin. Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this once-divided city of 3.5 million people has successfully reinvented itself as a single entity that embraces its turbulent history." (Coca-ColaArt.com, 2007)

Brandenburg Gate is a symbol of German unity, and the TV tower, Alex, is an icon of the GDR. The strong brand of Coke is often perceived as a representation of Western consumerist culture. Adverts can also be translated into freedom and democracy (Berger, 1972). The image below is a Coca-Cola sign by the Berlin Wall, from a postcard.

Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books.
Coca Cola Art.com (2007) Coca-Cola Side of Berlin. [online] http://coca-cola-art.com/2008/07/05/coca-cola-side-of-berlin/

More Sketches for the BmB Clip

I have gone to the video workshop to work my BmB clip, to be introduced to After Effects, and this is the sketch I took with me. The constellation does not have to be in the shape of Berlin city, but I struggle to find a symbol of Berlin which is neither Easter or Western, and I don't want to say the city is "united"... the shape of the city seem neutral, but how many people can recognise it, without a caption?

Ideas from my sketch book, 25/11/09

John Gossage's Wall

Bell, A. [2009] Putting Back the Wall. [online] http://www.adambbell.com/blog/2007/10/putting-back-wall.html

Katzman, L. (2007) John Gossage's Berlin. [online] http://www.artpapers.org/feature_articles/feature2_2005_0102.htm

Light work (2008) Past Exhibitions: John Gossage. [online] http://www.lightwork.org/exhibitions/past/gossage.html

Muse-ings (2008) Putting Back the Wall - John Gossage. [online] http://photo-muse.blogspot.com/2008/02/putting-back-wall-john-gossage.html

Muse-ings (2006) A New Blog for a New Year. [online] http://photo-muse.blogspot.com/2006/12/new-blog-for-new-year.html

Richard, P. (2005) Depth of Field: John Gossage Tears Down the Wall Between Photography and Art. [online] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32901-2005Apr6.html

Chris De Witt's Wall and Platforms

The Brandenburg Gate, from the Western side, 1986

Viewing Platform at Neiderkirchnerstrasse

Heidelberger Strasse

Viewing platform at Stalschreiber Str

A closer view of the Platform

De Witt, C. [2009] Edition 8 Images. [online] http://www.appropriatesoftware.com/BerlinWall/Images8.html

Opening by Brian Rose

The Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, 1989

Niederkirchnerstrasse, Berlin, 1989

The Bradenburg Gate, Berlin, 1989

Ebertstrasse, Berlin, 1989

Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, 1989

Rose, B. [2009] Opening. [online] http://www.brianrose.com/lostborder/opening.htm