Disappointing Reunification: How the East Was Lost

The West German currency Deutsche Mark of was introduced in East Germany 20 years ago today, although "the eastern German economy is still in a sorry state, and there are no indications that the situation will change" (Neubacher & Sauga, 2010).

"I would have sharply increased taxes and would not have pursued reunification with borrowed funds. There is quite a bit of self-deception in the notion that now, in the year of the 20th anniversary of reunification, we are congratulating ourselves on how wonderfully everything has turned out. The facts say otherwise: the high unemployment, the depopulated areas. And the phenomenon that people call "the Wall in our minds" still exists." (Grass, 2010)

Grass, G. (2010) SPIEGEL Interview with Günter Grass: 'The Nobel Prize Doesn't Inhibit Me in My Writing'. [Online] http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,712715-3,00.html [01/07/2011]

Neubacher, A. & Sauga, M. (2010) Germany's Disappointing Reunification: How the East Was Lost. [Online] http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,703802,00.html [01/07/2011]

clips 30 June, 2011

I have made a clip which would be played on 2 screens, based on a discussion I had with Terry and Nick, that sound of one screen can connect to the other or imply that it is somehow linked to the other. There will be some clips which will crossover 2 screens.

without perspex

This could be the answer to the column/plinth idea, without using perspex sheets. It combines ideas of travel and freedom of movement, one of the issues closely related to the opening of the Wall, as well as restrictions and authority. It would compromise the sense of time I would like to create by using an archived display with perspex, but would creates a frame and physical space with direction.

The top section (control unit) could host Mac minis, hang screens, and the electricity cable coming off from the base of the gate.

Dimensions of walk-through metal detector gates

The control unit should hold over 10kgs (Mac minis 1.37kg × 2, screens 3.5kg × 2, 2 perspex sheets, cables).

more clips 26/06/11

Adverts on rotating column, just on the Eastern side of Oberbaum bridge, once a border crossing. East Berlin did not have adverts during the divide, but it was interesting to have 3 adverts with human torsos.

Another clip made of still images taken in Mauerpark. Flights take off from Tegel in West, and fly over to East. It reminded me of The Wall Jumper by Peter Schneider. Having 2 planes at different speeds to illustrate the still divided aspects of 2 Germanys.

more clips 02

Reflection of Federal Chancellery on Paul Löbe Haus.

A Soviet tank and a statue of a Red Army soldier, on Strasse des 17. Juni, a West Berlin street named after the East Berlin uprising in 1953. The street lead up to the Brandenburg Gate, and stopped. 

Sunset at Lufthansa Transfer Center in Düsseldorf airport. 

This is an older clip of the one below, which I've changed the timing of merging, and has a slightly faster transition. This park was the border strip between East and West Berlin before the Wall was breached. Flea market, beer, karaoke, and May Day demonstrations. 

A documentary of the park by Sally Mumby-Croft

4 more clips, and a sound meeting

At the meeting Terry and Nick have suggested ideas on the relation of images and sound on two screens (I plan to have one screen for the clips I've been creating, and the other for interviews of Berliners). One idea is to have sound and the clips on both screens linked and have a single sound track to be played on 4 headphones: the other is to have quiet sound from the other screen playing in the background, but not sufficiently loud enough and thus encouraging the audience to pick up one of the other two headphones.

We have also worked out how Nick would work on composition/music and Terry on editing and mixing. Nick will start once I confirm which clips would be used, as well as the final sequences of the clips. Which could also lead to changes on transitions of the clips later on.

more clips

This clip shows a metal gate on the Wall, and Berliners cycling or walking by. The perspective changes from viewing West, and then East.

Observation of the river Spree.

Photographs of sunset on Spree are used against the grain of time, with the sun rising and appearing in two.

Scenes shot from a boat on the river Spree, as it cruised by sites in Berlin.

A park with a border guard tower.

Reflections of buildings in East Berlin, and the TV tower.

plastic, sound and other issues

I find out that 4 plastic sheets for my column/vitrine design would cost around £100, or £400 to have the edges polished for the corners and assembled. I will redesign the column with less plastic, or with alternative material.

I have talk to Carl for headphones and Mac minis, and it looked hopeful I'd be able to use 4 headphones and 2 minis.

I've also been creating clips.

There was a wedding party on a boat on the river Spree, and the group had just got off onto the riverbank. The Wall and the TV tower are in the background. The clip starts with a post-celebration image, and the balloons come back into people's hands. I'm planning on making a another clip with images taken at the same location, but subtly different, to portray uncertainty of memories.

These images were also shot on the riverbank which used to divide East and West. On the building that was once used by the East German border guards is an advert for Sky, which reads, I do not watch TV. I see something better ["Ich guck keine Fernsehen. Ich seh was Besseres." ]

Although this isn't visibly too clear.

Red phone and images of Lola Rennt. The film was shot in Berlin, where Lola fights with time and changes what was supposedly her destiny in the changing city, with multiple experiences of parallel timelimes. 

blind critique

This is the draft clip I made for the blind crit session today, with sound I added [not by Terry and Nick]. I'll make further considerations, tests and adjustments regarding the following points.

General

Quiet observations of everyday things, poetic, dreamy, subtle

Some surprises, revealing the hidden

Need to specify what the message is. How ambiguous or descriptive should it be, for the audience in England to understand

Don't overload messages (subjective nature of memory, on top of nostalgia, divide and loss) 

Repetition of images were unnecessary, and some images dragged on

Length (7 minutes) seemed okay [this will be different once it's looped]

Sound

Sound at the end of the clip wasn't prominent enough [this would change when it's on loop]

Letting sound be sound works with images

Should relate directly to images, which will clarify the message

Some of these were surprising for me to hear, as my intentions were perceived in a different way (for example, repetition of images with different background sound was to enhance the sense of subjective memory). I thought it might seem too long and too subtle, but that didn't seemed to be a problem with the group I met today.

Considerations on Planer LC15 ANN 1000

Issues I will consider in using Planer LC15 ANN 1000 for the MA Show are:

• ratio/resolution of screen, from laptop or DVD player to the screen, 
• how to hang it inside the vitrine, and
• resolving the reflection of the screen.

I will also contact Sandlant again, to ask if the plastic sheets could be cut to size, and mitred on some of the edges.

I am working on the design of the column/vitrine:

• on how to hang the screen, 
• on connecting cables, and
• where to place the speakers.

A column would allow me to hang the screen inside, which a NUCA vitrine (below) wouldn't.

Measurements of a NUCA vitrine

Joseph Beuys, vitrines, politics

"Filled with with urban detritus, the vitrine memorializes the remains of a 1972 action performed by Beuys in Berlin following the left-wing May Day demonstration; he and two students used a red broom to sweep up the rubbish in Karl-Marx-Platz." (Barron, 2009)

In 1960s Joseph Beuys satirised the Wall by suggesting that it should be raised by 5cm "for better proportion" [Tate Modern, 2011].

Barron, Stephanie. (2009) "Blurred Boundaries: The Art of Two Germanys between Myth and History" in Art of Two Germanys: Cold War Cultures, pp.12-33. 

Curiger, B. & Whiteread, R. (2010) The Process of Drawing is Like Writing a Diary" [Online]

http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue20/rachelwhiteread.htm 

Tate Modern [2011] Track 6: Lightning with Stag in its Glare, Beuys and the Berlin Wall. [Online] http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/beuys/mp3/06_berlin_wall.mp3

Beuys and the Berlin Wall

Joseph Beuys' "entire artistic career was spent in its shadow. He'd satirised the wall in the 1960s by suggesting that it should be raised by 5cm, 'for better proportion'... Lightning with Stag in its Glare, came directly out of an installation that Beuys made in Berlin, in 1982, in the Martin Gropius Bau - notable for its close proximity to the wall and therefore a symbol of divided Germany. Beuys spent a week grouping objects together in the gallery's courtyard, as part of a temporary exhibition called 'Zeitgeist', 'Spirit of the Times'".

Tate Modern [2011] Track 6: Lightning with Stag in its Glare, Beuys and the Berlin Wall. [Online]  http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/beuys/transcripts.shtm#track6 [26/05/2011]

Tate Modern [2011] Untitled (Vitrine)  1983. [Online] http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=963 [26/05/2011]

MoMA (2010) Joseph Beuys. (German, 1921-1986) [Online] http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A540&page_number=14&template_id=1&sort_order=1 [26/05/2011]
Tate Modern [2011] An audio tour of Tate Modern. [Online]  http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/tours/materialslibrary/artwork14.shtm [26/05/2011]

Planer LC15 ANN 1000

Specification: http://www.planar.com/products/docs/IBU/current_manual/amlcd/mn-planar-lc15-ann-1000.pdf [27/05/2011]
http://www.planar.com/products/docs/IBU/current_drawing/amlcd/076-0534-00B_MECH_OL_LC15.pdf [27/05/2011]

Displaying images

How can I best display the images I create - is it with a projector, or a glass screen? After talking to Terry and Nick, I have been trying to determine how I should show my work. Without having a set environment for my work, it seemed impossible to design the accompanying soundscape.

I have in mind a plinth/column with glass, a vitrine, or something in between, to place a screen within. This seems more suitable than the large plastic-sheet projection idea I had previously,  as I want bright images. My intention is also to show the screen as part of the exhibit, to give emphasis on the observational nature of my work, and a sense of archived documentation and reflection on history. The vitrine would be used if I am to combine a book in displaying the clips, and I'm also looking into a display column with glass windows.

Next week I will get measurements of the NUCA vitrine, and the screens (as well as weighing them, to evaluate how I could hoist them), and discussing it with Nick and Terry. I am intrigued about how we could design the sound scape for images behing a glass or plastic. I'll also check the control menu of the screens to see if there is a timer setting.

Bernauer Strasse

A clip to experiment with transitions and discordance. I'd like to present a sense of uncertainty - as many Berliners felt throughout the unification process - and to maintain a level of ambiguous air, also a reflection on diversity of perceptions and experiences since 1989.

whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir & Winter Garden by Eve Sussman

I manage to visit the Eve Sussman exhibition at Haunch of Venison on the last day, almost by luck. It's very last-minute organisation as usual, and I have left my camera at work.

Winter Garden by Sussman and Simon Lee changes subtly from one video clip - some as still as a photograph - to another. Windows of pre-fab buildings in former-USSR cities are shown on 3 screens, morphing from one to the next, illustrating the dream that once was being "destroyed in a patchwork of humanity" [Haunch of Venison, 2011]. These images left me standing, waiting for more, just so that I can find out what happens next... or does it? Then I see a passerby. How to tell the future from the past, v.2, by Sussman and Angela Christlieb also uses 3 screens, shot during a 72-hour train journey. The window frames in the screen blurs the sence of time, and I'm left to wonder what documentation/observation defines.

How to tell the future from the past v.2, 2009

Whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir is a film being edited live by a software, combining 2637 video clips with sound, creating "the narrative through unexpected juxtapositions" endless and never repeated (Haunch of Venison London, 2011).

shots from whiteonwhite:algorithmicthriller, 2011

Haunch of Venison [2011] Eve Sussman | Rufus Corporation whiteonwhite:algorithmicthriller  2011. [Online] http://www.haunchofvenison.com/en/#page=london.current.eve_sussman
 [13/04/2011]

Haunch of Venison London (2011) Eve Sussman | Rufus Corporation  whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir. [Information sheet]. p.1.

Christlieb, A. [2011] How to tell the future from the Past, v.2. [Online]
 http://www.angelachristlieb.com/htttfftp.html [15/04/2011]

Rufus Corporation [2011] How to tell the future from the past v.2. [Online]
 http://www.rufuscorporation.com/projects.html#_self [15/04/2011]

Bernauer Strasse

A clip to experiment with transitions and discordance. I'd like to present a sense of uncertainty - as many Berliners felt throughout the unification process - and to maintain a level of ambiguous air, also a reflection on diversity of perceptions and experiences since 1989.

books, memories and smell

Considering formats of presentation. Last week, I was surrounded by personal history files collected by the East German secret police Stasi. These files are now stored at the government archive in an East Berlin district, in a block occupied by Stasi as their HQ. 

The Stasi building complex in Lichtenberg, Berlin

There is a distinctive smell of old paper as I enter one of the storage rooms, of the files that altered many lives,  that brings thoughts about Berlin's history and how it deals with its past, of the people's experiences I have heard in my interviews.

Based on this experience, I plan to try out variations of exhibiting using old books and documents, screens, to link memories, emotions. One idea is to cut out a book to fit a screen into it, so that depending on the pages you turn, different parts of the screen becomes visible. Sound enhances the clips I've been testing, and I could possible use smell also, to engage with the audience better.

I think of photographing the shredded/torn pieces on my next visit. Günter Bormann, who interviewed at the BStU library, says people's interests towards the files are changing after 20 years of unification, and not fading away. Perhaps how people perceive history - and the process of German unification - is changing over time also.

BStU [2011] Öffentliche Führungen. [Online]
 http://www.bstu.bund.de/DE/Archive/OeffentlicheFuehrung/archivfuehrungen_inhalt.html
 [07/05/2011]

Curry, A. (2008) Piecing Together the Dark Legacy of East Germany's Secret Police. [Online]

 http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/16-02/ff_stasi?currentPage=all [07/05/2011]

Faber, M. (2010) Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer – review. [Online]
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/dec/18/tree-codes-safran-foer-review [07/05/2011]
Matas, M. (2011) Mike Matas: A next-generation digital book. [Online]
 http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_matas.html [07/05/2011]
Sinclair, M. (2011) Tree of Codes: the making of a die-cut book [Online]

 http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2011/april/tree-of-codes-making-of [07/05/2011]

Stafford, N. (2007) Anti-shredder aims to stick spy files back together. [Online]

 http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070508/full/news070508-9.html [07/05/2011]

More interviews in Berlin

I've been interviewing more people in Berlin, which have been successful. Out of many emails I send out requesting an interview, I get few replies, and even less that agree to be interviewed. Connections of people have helped me a lot, as a Berliner I speak to would introduce me to another. I've not had enough time to talk to everyone I had contacts for, but hopefully I will have opportunities later on.

My understanding about the divide and how Berliners experienced it (some still do today) expands every time. It's interesting to reflect on the fact I thought more about recording sound of the city when I first planned this visit, and how it has developed into a different experience from what I expected originally.

I have made up for some of the unrecorded interviews.

Interviews in Berlin

I have been interviewing Berliners. Some successfully, some not. I have left the recorder on pause thinking it was recording on two occasions... painful lessons. I'll just have to work on getting more interviews.

On the positive side, the wind jammer I made from a tupperware and tights has been working well, and when I interviewed a singer who was performing on Oberbaumbrücke, a bridge that once was a checkpoint, it didn't pick up any noise from the wind.