Playing among the Ruins

"While the Wall stood, the people longed for liberation and Berlin came to symbolize their fight for freedom. This enthusiasm still remains and the free spaces dotted throughout the city are what make the present Berlin such a ‘special place’. The micro-utopias presented ‘here’, these special places that we are permitted today, are expressed through videos, paintings, performances, etc., by 18 artists and projects that have gathered together from around the world to base themselves in Berlin. The history of society that replaces ideology, the reconstruction of stories, the relationship between spaces and identity brought about by intervention with the city, are questioned through performances, art, information, bodies, and urban spaces, demonstrating a spectacular creativity with a new phase of sensibility." [MOT, 2011]

Nevin Aladağ
John Bock
Phil Collins
Omer Fast
Fuji Re-United (Simon Fujiwara & Kan Fujiwara)
Isa Genzken
Katharina GrosseAlicja Kwade
Simon Dybbroe Møller
Kirstine Roepstorff
Anri Sala
Matthias Wermke & Mischa Leinkauf
Ming Wong
Haegue Yang

Saâdane Afif
Jay Chung & Q Takeki Maeda
Christian Jankowski
Institute for Spatial Experiments
 (founded by Olafur Eliasson)

MOT [2011] Berlin 2000-2011: Playing among the Ruins. [Online]
 http://www.mot-art-museum.jp/eng/2011/berlin/ [22/09/2011]

DDR Disneyland

The giant Ferris wheel at Spreepark was erected in October 1989 for the 40th anniversary of the foundation of Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR) - a month before the Berlin Wall was breached. "The borders were opened, and the whole of West Berlin became the preferred playground of the colour-hungry East Berliners." (Alas, 2010).

Alas, Joel (2010) Berlin’s Ruined Theme Park. [Online]
 http://joeldullroy.blogspot.com/2010/11/berlins-ruined-theme-park.html [23/09/2011]

Berlin, weekend, always at dawn

"In the sallow morning light, Berlin's makeup seems about to crumble, and a transformation happens: things, buildings, places you have seen a thousand times before appear strange and new. In a while, nothing will look the same. The urban landscapes in these photographs are mostly places in transition, waiting for their reshaping. This leaves the chance for a sequel: how will these places look in a conceivable future?" (Schirrmeister, 2010)

In a photo series Plain City, Frank Schirrmeister attempts "preserve a particular vision of Berlin... as the city reinvents itself with dizzying speed" (Schirrmeister, 2010). He scrutinizes the popular image of the city "beyond the facade, delve into the deeper layers". He has been photographing the cityscape since 2006 with a large format camera, always at dawn during weekends to capture traces of life through the emptiness. 

Frank Schirrmeister (2010) Plain City. [Online]
 http://places.designobserver.com/feature/plain-city/22469/ [23/09/2011]

Happiness gap between East and West

Is the glass half full?

Happiness Atlas shows people in West German states feel happier. Life satisfaction of men and women in the East are lower than in the West, which the survey claims is caused by the income gap between two regions and higher unemployment in the East. The survey also points out a slightly lower level of health and cultural activity.

Income based

The "Glückslücke" - or the happiness gap - is narrowing, according to the survey. In 1991 East Germany's satisfaction score was 6.0 compared to 7.3 points of the West Germans - the gap of 1.3 points. Today, it stands at its lowest since unification at 0.3.

Deutsche Post AG (2011) DPDHL Glücksatlas [Online] http://www.gluecksatlas.de/cms/index.html [21/09/2011]

Raffelhüschen, Bernd., Moog, Stefan., Vatter, Johannes., Köcher, Renate. & Oswald, Andrew J. (2011) Glücksatlas Deutschland 2011 (2011), p.34. Bonn and Munich: Deutsche Post AG and Albrecht Knaus Verlag. 

Siems, Dorothea (2011) Zufriedenheitsstudie: Vom Glück, ledig zu sein und in Hamburg zu wohnen. [Online]
http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article13616435/Vom-Glueck-ledig-zu-sein-und-in-Hamburg-zu-wohnen.html [21/09/2011]
The Local/emh (2011) Happiest Germans live in Hamburg. [Online] http://www.thelocal.de/society/20110920-37707.html [21/09/2011]

Voting trends of East and West Berliners

The Berlin state election result highlights the voting trend of Berliners. The Berliner Morgenpost map shows  constituencies with the most popular party: the centre-right Christian Democrats (black) are based in the West and came out first only in one constituency in the East. The Social Democrats (red) are slightly spread out. All constituencies where the Left (purple) came out first are in the East, showing its roots as the successor of the East German ruling party SED. The interactive map also shows the polling stations where individual parties performed well: The Free Democrats which lost its seats seats in the state parliament is largely a Western party, whereas the far-right NPD performed better in the Eastern parts of the city. Greens and Pirates show strong urban support. It is also possible to see that immigration is largely to the Western side of Berlin on this map.

West Berlin

East Berlin

These infographics by Tagesschau also display how East and West Berliners voted. The SPD gets even support on both sides in contrast to parties such as the CDU and the Greens performing considerably better in the West. The Left picks up five times more support in the East and comes in second.

Results from the district council elections also show a similar East-West divide, although the boundaries have changed slightly since the Wall.

Die Landeswahlleiterin für Berlin (2011) Wahlen zu den Bezirksverordnetenversammlungen 2011: Partei mit dem jeweils hoechsten Stimmenanteil. [Online]

 http://www.wahlen-berlin.de/wahlen/BE2011/ergebnis/karten/Bvv/bvv_bez.asp?sel1=1052&sel2=0651 [20/09/2011]

Tagesschau (2011) Abgeordnetenhauswahl Berlin 2011. [Online]
 http://wahlarchiv.tagesschau.de/wahlen/2011-09-18-LT-DE-BE/index.shtml [20/09/2011]

Tröger, Julius and Pätzold, André (2011) Abgeordnetenhauswahl 2011. [Online]

 http://www.morgenpost.de/berlin-aktuell/article1768373/Ergebnisse-der-Berliner-Abgeordnetenhauswahl-2011.html [20/09/2011]

Berlin election 2001

The direct successors of the East German ruling party the Democratic Socialists won 23% of the vote in the 2001 Berlin election. With more than twice what they won soon after it was reunified in 1990, "they are now eager to form a coalition with the Social Democrats, whose 30% put them ahead of the Christian Democrats in the city for the first time in 26 years" (The Economist, 2001). The Economist noted that Chancellor Gerhard Schröder "is not keen to see his party cosying up to the heirs of the sorry regime that kept Germany—and its capital—divided for 40 years" - and Klaus Wowereit was apparently "keeping his options open".

[Wowereit] would have preferred to prolong his four-month-old coalition with the Greens. But the two parties did not win an overall majority. He has now started talks with the Free Democrats, with a view to a three-party coalition. Even that would give him only a five-seat majority. With the ex-communists, he would be 13 ahead. He is also reluctant to exclude a party supported by nearly half of all who voted in the former Soviet zone of the city. (The Economist, 2001)

East Berliners felt "they are treated as second-class citizens," The Economist claimed. The CDU had scored only 24% (17 points less than in the city elections two years earlier) and "The party's national leader, Angela Merkel, rushed to absolve herself of any blame... to become the centre-right's candidate for the chancellorship in next year's general election" (The Economist, 2001).

The Economist (2001) Berlin's election: Democracy, it's wonderful. [Online]

 http://www.economist.com/node/836021 [19/09/2011]

Full throttle unification

Following the only free election in the GDR history in 1990, the LA Times journalist Tyler Marshall reported "the pace of German unification once again moved toward full throttle" (Marshall, 1990). At his first post-election press conference Lothar de Maiziere announced, "as a clear sign of the growing together of Germany, the wall should be removed as fast as possible". De Maiziere's Christian Democrats had won the election, although short of a clear majority.

De Maiziere also called on the Social Democrats and the Free Democrats for discussions to join his "grand coalition", but did not invite the Democratic Socialist Party which won 16% of the popular vote, possibly reflecting "a level of anxiety among East Germans about the impending political changes" (Marshall, 1990). The Social Democrats seemed ready to compromise on their more measured pace toward unification.

"We will not disappoint the expectations of the East German voters," the West German prime minister Helmut Kohl said (Marshall, 1990).

Introducing the West German deutschemark into East Germany was viewed crucial step toward unification and "to halt the flow of East German refugees to the West" (Marshall, 1990) as a West German spokesperson "cautioned" against rapid monetary union. More than 140,000 East Germans had crossed to the West for permanent resettlement since the start of the year.

Share prices on the Frankfurt stock exchange soared 17 points and Deutschemark "strengthed against most major currencies and financial analysts voiced buoyant forecasts," Marshall (1990) wrote, "as municipal employees cleared away the debris of post-election celebrations in East Berlin".

Marshall, Tyler (1990) E. Germans Seek Coalition, Vow to Destroy Berlin Wall. [Online]
 http://articles.latimes.com/1990-03-20/news/mn-650_1_east-german [19/09/2011]

Narratives of lost languages

The Last Silent Movie (excerpt), 2008

Susan Hiller "orchestrates voices of the last speakers of extinct or endangered languages" selected from audio archives in The Last Silent Movie. Apart from subtitles the screen remains black with "the framework for the audience to reflect on the speakers and the conditions that may have prompted the loss of their language". There are 24 etchings created from oscilloscope traces of the voices [Tate, 2011].

The Last Silent Movie 2007
Single channel projection, with sound; 24 etchings on paper
Duration 20 minutes
British Council CollectionX35136


ArtReview (2008) Susan Hiller, The Last Silent Movie. [Online]
 http://www.artreview.com/video/video/show?id=1474022%3AVideo%3A333692 [19/09/2011] 
Tate [2011] The Last Silent Movie. [Online]
 http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/susanhiller/room14.shtm [19/09/2011]


E-flux (2011) Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art. [Online]
http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/10110 [19/09/2011]
Susanhiller.org. [2011] The Last Silent Movie 2007. [Online]
 http://www.susanhiller.org/Info/artworks/artworks-lastsilentmovie.html [19/09/2011]

Compressing time and perceptions

Under a flight path near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Bryon Darby photographed every plane over 90 minutes and added them into a photograph. "Compressing an hour and a half into one apparently single moment" for Seventy Flights in Ninety Minutes, Darby recreated the experience of "living in a flight path" (Darby, 2011). 

Darby also compressed images - 82 photographs captured on a motorway - to create Entire 101 Freeway Loop, 91.2 Miles in 82 Minutes, giving "a glimpse of many different times and places in a single frame" (Darby, 2011).

A method of "querying and aggregating" photographs can be seen at The Color Of, an attempt at answering "a potentially complex and abstract question in an objective manner, by using simple algorithms on data originating from subjective human perceptions" [The Color Of, 2011].

Darby, D. Bryon (2011) Time Frame: 82 Moments on the Freeway, in One Photo. [Online] http://www.good.is/post/time-frame/ [18/09/2011]
Darby, Bryon [2011] Commute. [Online] http://www.bryondarby.com/photos/flight-paths/ [18/09/2011]
The Color Of. http://www.thecolorof.com/#find [18/09/2011]

Berliners go to polls

"It took a while for people to notice. After the brief euphoria of unification in 1990, the West’s subsidised industry and the East’s socialist enterprise collapsed alongside each other." (The Economist, 2011) 

Berlin's "creative richness is inseparable from its economic poverty" (Berliner Zeitung, in The Economist, 2011). The city's unemployment rate remains higher than any other states at 13.3% - national average is 7% - although since 2004 the city has created jobs at a faster pace than the German average. Today in the polls, the incumbent Governing Mayor Klaus Wowereit who has been in office for ten years is expected to be re-elected for another 5 years term, although he could run as a candidate for the federal premier, as did the former West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt did.

The Economist (2011) Berlin’s elections: The cost of cool. [Online] http://www.economist.com/node/21529075 [18/09/2011] 
Kulish, Nicholas (2011) Berlin Hopes Growing Tech Community Will Lift City’s Economy. [Online] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/17/world/europe/berlins-tech-scene-offers-hope-to-economy.html [18/09/2011]