"Tell us about the revolutionary changes"

Goethe-Institute (2011) "I was enthused and happy" [Online]
 http://www.goethe.de/ges/pok/dos/dos/mau/enindex.htm [30/09/2011]

an idea for multiple narratives

"Inside the exhibit space, visitors step into a media field composed of 40 seven-foot screens. As the screens come to life, visitors discover a 12-minute immersive film. A kaleidoscope of images and sound surrounds them. They are enveloped in a rich narrative about the pattern of progress, told through awe-inspiring stories of the past and present. They are inspired to think about humankind's quest for progress, and about making our world work better, today." (IBM, 2011)

IBM (2011) An Exploration into Making the World Work Better [Online] 
 http://www.ibm.com/ibm100/us/en/thinkexhibit/ [30/09/2011]

Multiple overlays of non-unified histories

"In November 1989 the wall came down, and West and East Germans began rediscovering each other; but the socialist and capitalist cultures have been slow to merge. Since reunification Germany has been searching for new patterns of self-recognition." (Stih & Schnock, 2009)

The past is present and remains in "multiple overlays" in Berlin. The histories of buildings, sites and people have build up "multiple overlays; street names are changed overnight, structures are reshaped and reborn," they note, and that "spaces without borders" in the city cannot provide the same sense of freedom people felt arriving to the isolated West Berlin surrounded by the physical concrete barrier "that once ruled the lives of Berliners are mostly erased". This creates edifices "to retell the complex story it symbolized" (Stih & Schnock, 2009) that I see as  two sides of a coin.

Stih, Renata & Schnock, Frieder (2009) Open Space: Berlin After Reunification [Online] http://places.designobserver.com/feature/open-space-berlin-after-reunification/11657/ [29/09/2011]

Digital and linear

Monteiro (2011) discusses linear and interrupted narratives, and how multiple media (images, videos) can support the story without fragmenting the flow by giving iPad apps examples. 

Atavist.net (2011), distributing "original nonfiction storytelling" apps, uses Periodic Technology to combine audio, video, photographs, maps and/or timelines to the story.  

Atavist.net (2011) Our Platform [Online] http://atavist.net/licensing/ [29/09/2011]

Monteiro, Pedro (2011) Story, interrupted: why we need new approaches to digital narrative [Online]
 http://www.niemanstoryboard.org/2011/09/08/story-interrupted-why-we-need-new-approaches-to-digital-narrative/ [29/09/2011]

Laurent, Olivier (2011) iPublish: Photojournalists turn to the iPad to tell their stories [Online]
 http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/report/2110147/ipublish-photojournalists-ipad-tell-stories [29/09/2011]
 Laurent, Olivier (2011) National Geographic photographer ditches website, turns to the iPad [Online]
 http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/q-and-a/2111082/national-geographic-photographer-ditches-website-ipad [29/09/2011]

Thoughts, experiences and perceptions

"Philosophy estranges us from the familiar not by supplying new information but by inviting and provoking a new way of seeing… once the familiar turns strange, it's never quite the same again. Self-knowledge is like lost innocence, however unsettling you find it, it can never be unthought or unknown. What makes this enterprise difficult but also riveting, is that moral and political philosophy is a story and you don't know where this story will lead but what you do know is that the story is about you." (Sandel, 2009)

Sandel, Michael (2009) Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do? Episode 01 "The Moral Side of Murder " [Online] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY&feature=player_embedded#! [26/09/2011]

Printed past present

Jasonepowell (2011) Looking Into the Past: Crowd Watching the World Trade Center Burn from the Brooklyn Promenade, September 11, 2001. [Online] http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonepowell/ [26/09/2011]

Memory, repression and a soldier

A cover of the NYTimes Magazine, designed by Nicholas Blechman, hosts both features on Homeland Security, and trauma and repression through a combination of an illustration and a photograph. A soldier drawn with lines is placed over a landscape photograph with a house and a car, with text and the Magazine logo. The landscape photograph is visible only through the semi-transparent soldier.

Blechman, Nicholas (2003) How Far: New York Times Magazine [Online]
 http://www.nicholasblechman.com/illustration [25/09/2011]
Slater, Lauren (2003) Repress Yourself [Online]
 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/magazine/23REPRESSION.html?pagewanted=all [25/09/2011]

Cross-Pacific comparison of narratives

"Westerners are the protagonists of their autobiographical novels... Asians are merely cast members in movies touching on their existences." (Nisbett, in Osnos, 2011)

Developmental psychologists Jessica Han, Michelle Leichtman and Qi Wang asked four- and six-year-old American and Chinese kids about their daily lives and what was on their minds. It was 1988. The results showed that the American kids "had made twice as many references to their internal lives—their likes and dislikes, their moods—as had the Chinese children" (Osnos, 2011).

Peter Hessler claims that the Chinese people "didn’t like to be the center of attention, and they took little pleasure in narrative". This is due to the way that Chinese philosophy devotes a central emphasis to group relationships and context—as distinct from the traditions of individualism passed down from the Greeks, claims Richard Nisbett, who specializes in cross-cultural psychology (Osnos, 2011).

Osnos, Evan (2011) Storytelling in China and America [Online]
 http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2011/09/storytelling-in-china-and-america.html#ixzz1YzIrqlrq [24/09/2011]

The Street of Ambiguous Narratives

"Everyone can talk about their memories of the time and explain a bit about how things were." (Christa Holtei, in Smith, 2011)

A picture book Die Straße ("The Street") illustrates "the history of Germany's turbulent last 100 years through the prism of a single street" with a focus on the Third Reich period, as well as "when the rebuilding of Germany began" after the war (Smith, 2011). Its illustrator Gerda Raidt notes the problem of addressing such event "without directly confronting the children with the horror" and has "tried to incorporate little hints all over the pictures" - a grocery store with its window smashed and shards of glass littering the pavement, a black mourning sash hangs over a portrait of a man, a portrait of Hitler has been stashed away in the attic...

Raidt also notes "it's better if you have to ask for yourself, rather than having everything explained to you" and the prewar political developments depicted in the street scenes are intentionally ambiguous. The idea of depicting the history of the Third Reich without explaining it is a relatively new approach in Germany (Smith, 2011). 

Smith, David Gordon (2011) Where's Adolf? Tackling Germany's Nazi Past in a Children's Book. [Online]
 http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,788117,00.html [25/09/2011]


Holtei, Christa and Haidt, Gerda (2011) Die Strasse: Eine Bilderreise durch 100 Jahre [Online] 
http://www.beltz.de/fileadmin/beltz/leseproben/978-3-407-79444-4.pdf [25/09/2011]

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] 

Trabant, the wall and distinction

I walked to NUCA yesterday to dismantle my installation Edifices of Separation and saw a Trabant drive pass me. I never saw the East German car in England before, and it disappeared surprisingly fast in to a dot. It was like having a four-leaf clover blown away in a gust.

The exhibition was successful and I have a distinction for my MA. I met a political scientist and his partner who liked my work. Ed specialises in former-USSR and East Europe and lent me his book After the Wall: Confessions from an East German Childhood and the Life That Came Next. We agreed to meet for coffee next week. I also received an email from Rory Maclean, the author of Stalin's Nose, although he couldn't make it to my private view.

Being on BBC Radio Norfolk, arguments with the building maintenance section about hiding a fire hydrant and a red horse bucket (to collect rain water leaking through the ceiling) juxtaposed to my work, spending a whole day to find out why my work stopped working, running around town to find headphones NUCA would not lend out... the last month of the course has been a steep wall to climb. I'm now viewing the scenery around it and will talk to Shaun about my path post-MA.