Project B-05

The Local
Project B-05

Some of the world’s most prominent modern artists have been brought together in a unique exhibition at complex of Cold War bunkers outside Koblenz. Michael Woodhead reports.

The woods surrounding Montabaur in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate have become an unusual cultural centre for artists. Instead of housing NATO’s nuclear warheads as it once did, a complex of abandoned bunkers is now home to a nascent artist colony. 

Dubbed Project B-05, the centre has even attracted the likes of legendary German director Werner Herzog, who is known to be picky over where his art is shown. His short film on the hellish scenes of burning oil wells after the first Gulf War was the centre piece of the exhibition ‘Traces of the Sun,’ subtitled ‘An Apocalyptic Opera.’

“He was reluctant to allow us to have it at first and asked for a five figure sum,” said the curator Oliver Zybok. “Then when the concept of the bunkers now becoming a centre for art was explained to him it caught his imagination. After all his film is about the horrors of war, so he let us have it for what I can only say was a nominal sum.”

Zybok has also put together the current exhibition ‘Optical Shift – The Pleasure of Illusion and Deception.’

“People said they liked the first two shows which were serious and weighty themes dealing with melancholy and the apocalypse and told us what they now wanted was to have a bit fun. So I had the idea of showing the many aspects of the art of illusion,” he said. 

For the first time at B-05 some twenty artists have been brought together covering an international field. They include Adolf Luther, Thomas Ruff, Anthony McDonald and Bridget Riley.

All play with the notion of deceiving the onlooker into believing what they are seeing when in reality the object of their fascination is not what it appears. For example, the work of Rowena Dring, who studied at Chelsea College of Art and Goldsmiths College, looks like a landscape painting but is in fact an incredible patchwork of thousands of cloth pieces sown together. 

“I grew up in a family of needle workers, so I value the art of sowing and thought of a way of bringing this skill into my art,” she said. “When I began doing this in the late nineties it was actually quite a difficult time to be a painter. I began with patchwork of cottages around my home town in Bedfordshire, which I thought would be amusing to portray.”

Since then her work has become dramatically more complex and intricate. “Without a computer it would be almost impossible to work out the size, shape and colour of each piece,” she said.

The bunkers were part of a network of secret NATO munitions depots, some housing nuclear warheads, built under American supervision, to counter the threat of a Soviet attack on Western Europe. They are so massive that demolishing them was financially ruinous so they were left in place and the entire camp locked and deserted.

“I remembered the camp as a child as a mysterious place in the forest where nobody was allowed to go. And when I returned to Germany after living in Los Angeles for much of my adult life I came and looked having heard it was desolate and dilapidated and nobody had any idea what to do with it apart from let nature run riot,” said Jan Nebgen.

It was on his initiative that led to the creation of B-05, with ‘B’ standing for bunker and ‘05’ the year he had the vision to begin the project. Training as a designer, he had been instrumental in setting up exhibitions in California, which he admits with a smile somehow had, unintentionally, bunkers as a theme.

“It was raining and there was fog,” he said, recalling his first sight of the Montabaur munitions camp. “It felt very eerie as I reached the big main gates and saw the warning sign still there that said you would be shot if you came too close. I went around the site and the bunkers emerged one by one out of the mist still camouflaged and now overgrown with vegetation.”

Through sheer persistence and conviction Nebgen managed to persuade skeptical regional officials in Mainz and Montabaur to allow him to fulfill his dream of a creating an artist’s colony. The state of Rhineland-Palatinate eventually gave the project support through its ministry for education, science and culture.

“I think what appeals to anyone who comes here and everyone I have explained the concept to, is the notion that a place that was once used to store weapons of mass destruction is now a place where we celebrate life and culture instead of human destruction,” he said.

It took almost two years of hard work to clear the undergrowth and renovate the camp. During this time Nebgen persuaded several companies to sponsor the centre. His breakthrough came when Skoda Deutschland agreed to become the lead benefactor and partner.

“Every big city has its museum which makes these bunkers totally different,” said curator Zybok. “The area is perfect for showing every kind of media and here you see art in human and natural setting.” (The Local, 2010)

Optical Shift – Illusion und Täusching: June 27 – October 17, B-05 in Montabaur

Thurs 11:00 am – 6:00 pm; Sat 2:00 pm – 7:00 pm; Sun 11:00 am – 6.00 pm

Admission: €5 adults, €4 pensioners, €3 students

Woodhead, M. (2010) Bunkers Trade NATO Nukes for Art. [Online] http://www.thelocal.de/society/20100625-28107.html?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=134 [29/07/2010]

Hasseröder

Hasseröder Hasseroeder was first founded in 1872 as "Zum Auerhahn" in Wernigerode, a town in the Harz region of what today is the eastern German state Saxony-Anhalt. During communist times, Hasseröder was very popular in the Harz region. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the beer became the market leader in eastern Germany. Now, Dito says, Hasseröder has its sites set on seducing western German beer drinkers. (Lawton, 2009)

...the key to Hasseröder's success – it is the sixth most popular beer in Germany and the undisputed leader in the eastern part of the country – is possibly its regional origin. 

In communist East Germany, beers often could only be sold in their immediate area, and none was allowed to dominate. Good ones were often exported to the West for hard currency. But Hasseröder – brewed in the small town of Wernigerode – was the main beer in the mountainous Harz region of eastern Germany, a favourite holiday resort. 

"Because of the many holidaymakers that came to the Harz, a lot of outsiders found out about the beer,” Klehr explains. “Hasseröder became a favourite present to bring back."

Like many East German brands, Hasseröder struggled for a few years following the reunification, as people flocked towards West German products. But old East German favourites soon regained their hold, and an apocryphal story tells how football and Hasseröder came together in serendipitous union for the UEFA Cup Final in Turin, Italy in 1993.

"The actual sponsor pulled out at short notice, and a truck with Hasseröder placards on its way to another event happened to be nearby," says Klehr. "An East German beer at the UEFA cup final was a real bombshell, and a source of great pride for East German consumers." 

And now AB InBev is hoping Hasseröder’s exposure at this year’s World Cup will help make it a nationwide favourite. (Knight, 2010)

Knight, B. (2010) Brewer banishes Bud to crown Hasseröder official World Cup beer. [Online] http://www.thelocal.de/society/20100623-28047.html?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=134 [29/07/2010]
Lawton, C. (2009) Ditching the 'Dishwater': Eastern German Beer Scores with World Cup Sponsorship. [Online] http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,657877,00.html [29/07/2010]

The Forgiveness Engine

The Forgiveness Engine is a place to make amends. Tell us what you're sorry for or what you're ready to forgive. Your story will be anonymous, but you'll have to log in so we can let people know you've apologized for something or forgiven something—but we'll never say what for. Then other users can match up stories of apology and forgiveness that resonate with them, so three strangers will make a new story together that means something different to everyone. The Forgiveness Engine is based on the idea that online, like in real life, we're not all "friends" and there should be a place online for our bad relationships, as well as our good. [The Forgiveness Engine, 2010]

Websites providing users connections to another, sometimes anonymously, establishing kinds of relation unique to online culture. Individual lifestyles and perceptions could possibly be influenced, as well as their identity, and how they react to social variables.

The Forgiveness Engine [2010] About. [Online]
http://www.theforgivenessengine.com/about [28/07/2010]
The Forgiveness Engine [2010] Coming Soon. [Online]
http://www.theforgivenessengine.com/match [28/07/2010]

Foursquare, Gowalla and Google Latitude

[Gowalla and Foursquare] pioneered the then-uncharted territory of location-based social networking. On Foursquare, a user "checks in" to locations (as pinpointed via satellite) to invite along friends, leave tips glued to GPS coordinates (like ordering advice at restaurants), and compete for digital rewards in the form of badges, or titles like "mayor" (for the user who checks in the most at a venue). Similarly, Gowalla asked users to check in places in order to collect digital goodies, akin to virtual geocaching." (Snow, 2010) 

"When we set out to build Gowalla, we simply wanted to use collectibles and a lightweight game to reward users for exploring the world around them." (Williams, in Snow, 2010).

"Google Latitude broadcasts your location from your mobile phone, letting your friends know where you are and allowing you to keep tabs on them. Latitude shares your current location with your friends by using Google Maps’ My Location feature. Like the iPhone’s built-in geo tools, My Location uses the signals from nearby cellphone towers to plot your whereabouts." (Gilbertson, 2009)

Social networking sites give new ways for its users to interact with one another. Geotagging, which is potentially useful for my project, has been seen as a new privacy concern. People's ideas over privacy has also changed over time, and many don't perceive it as a problem, too. 

Gilbertson, S. (2009) Google Latitude Broadcasts Your Location. [Online] http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/02/google-latitude/ [28/07/2010]

Snow, S. (2010) Foursquare vs. Gowalla: Inside the Check-In Wars. [Online] http://www.fastcompany.com/article/foursquare-vs-gowalla-who-will-rule-the-check-in-at-sxsw [28/07/2010]

Gundotra, V. (2009) See where your friends are with Google Latitude. [Online] 

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/see-where-your-friends-are-with-google.html [28/07/2010]
Kiss, J. (2010) Battling it out on the streets: Gowalla v Foursquare. [Online] 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/mar/24/digital-media-startups [28/07/2010]

Fall of Berlin Wall was a hot moment for conservation - environment - 28 July 2010 - New Scientist

After the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, it was only a matter of time before Germany would be reunified and its internal borders redrawn. Over the following 10 months, one man, Michael Succow seized the moment to set aside large chunks of land as nature reserves.

Propelled into the East German government in its dying days, the peatland ecologist managed to get 4.5 per cent of the state's land set aside as national parks and biosphere reserves. These were East Germany's first protected areas... Succow's historic intervention has now been shown to be part of a general trend: countries tend to set aside vast tracts of land for conservation in "hot moments", rather than building protected areas slowly over time.

...

These hot moments often coincided with periods of dramatic social or political change. For many African countries, this was in the 1960s and 1970s, at the end of the colonial era; in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the peak of activity was in the early 1990s. "Both outgoing and incoming governments are prone to design new protected areas," [Volker] Radeloff told the meeting.

Succow, who had long opposed the East German regime, realised that he had the chance to change history only after he was appointed deputy to environment and water minister Hans Reichelt.

Reichelt, a convinced supporter of the regime, was devastated by its end, but seems to have seen in Succow a chance to correct its dismal environmental record. "He said: 'I have made many mistakes. You must make it better,'" recalls Succow, who was moved into offices in the ministry once occupied by the Stasi secret police and given freedom to employ like-minded colleagues. "In one week, I had a staff of highly motivated people."

On military land, security zones along the border with West Germany and hunting areas set aside for the amusement of the governing elite, Succow's team found that East Germany had jewels of undisturbed biodiversity. A huge chunk was set aside as one of the final acts of its government. And after reunification, other areas prioritised by Succow were also protected, bringing the total to 12 per cent of the land area of the former East Germany.

Radeloff warns that more work is needed to identify the precise combination of circumstances that create hot moments for conservation. He hopes other researchers will study the phenomenon, so that conservationists can effectively target the "when" as well as the "where" of protecting biodiversity. "We need to identify the right moment to strike," he says.

Aldhous, P. (2010) Fall of Berlin Wall was a Hot Moment for Conservation. [Online] http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19233-fall-of-berlin-wall-was-a-hot-moment-for-conservation.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news [28/07/2010]

Gowalla

Users "check-in" to locations, which can be monitored by their online friends. Geotagging and similar ideas can connect individuals in ways unseen before social networking sites boomed, but raises ethical concerns also.

Gowalla [2010] http://gowalla.com/ [28/07/2010]

IS Parade

"Twitter visualisations come in many forms, but IS Parade is arguably the most inventive yet", notes Kiss (2010), where participants can start a visual parade on screen based on their Twitter ID or keyword.

"You can set up your own real-time parade by getting friends to tweet the same keyword, and then setting up a parade to follow it. Not the most fuctional Twitter tool yet, but it does draw you in. All done by a Japanese agency to promote Sharp's new IS series Android netbook/smartphone." (Kiss, 2010)

A visualisation of tweets filtered through keywords. The image above is that of "berlin wall", showing result after a search.

Kiss, J. (2010) IS Parade: Turn your Twitter stream into a people parade. [Online] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/pda/2010/jul/28/twitter-isparade [28/07/2010]

IS Parade [2010] About. [Online]

http://isparade.jp/ [28/07/2010]

Foursquare

"Foursquare shows a random grid of 50 pictures of users who most-recently checked in at that location — no matter what their privacy settings. When a new check-in occurs, the site includes that person’s photo somewhere in the grid." (Singel, 2010)

"Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and Bebo have all come before it, but Foursquare promises something new. After a decade of false dawns for the industry, it leads the way in a wave of new "geolocative" social networking tools. Unofficially, at least, 2010 has been labelled by many within the technology world as the "year of location". In addition to offering the communal connectivity of Twitter and Facebook, Foursquare also uses your smartphone's global positioning system (GPS) to broadcast your precise location to your "friends" and, should you so wish, to the wider world. Users are encouraged to "check in" on their phone whenever they arrive at a point of interest – a shop, a cafe, a museum, a nightclub, an office – so that fellow users know where they are. A great way supposedly to see if any of your friends are around and about. Glance down at your phone and – as I did with Louise – see the names of all the other users around you within a mile or so and, crucially, exactly where they are and which fellow users they are with. (I was drawn to Louise because she was in a cluster of Foursquare users – albeit still rare, even somewhere such as London – and she was the user allowing a stranger such as myself access to the most personal information – photograph, full name, Twitter feed etc.) Visit somewhere a lot and you can even vie with other users to become its virtual "mayor". If you feel so inclined, you can also leave a tip or review in the digital ether – "hey, order the bacon burger, it's great!" – so others following can benefit from your experience." (Hickman, 2010)

A tool which creates buzz in cyber culture (in this instance, by providing the users location publically) can be a threat, partly to do with uninformed users. The image below is a visualisation of Gowalla and Foursquare, illustrating user experiences also.

Singel, R. (2010) White Hat Uses Foursquare Privacy Hole to Capture 875K Check-Ins. [Online] 
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/foursquare-privacy/ [28/07/2010]

Hickman, L. (2010) How I became a Foursquare Cyberstalker. [Online] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jul/23/foursquare [28/07/2010]

Kiss, J. (2010) Foursquare: One million users and an imminent deal... [Online]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/apr/26/location-foursquare-acquisition [28/07/2010]

Is Germany's Left Party a Threat to Democracy?

Siobhán Dowling

Spiegel Online

A top court in Germany has ruled that the country's domestic intelligence agency may monitor the far-left Left Party. Commentators on Thursday argue that the party may have many failings, but a desire to overthrow democracy isn't one of them.

The far-left Left Party has long strived to rid itself of its pariah status in German politics. Slowly but surely the amalgamation of former East German communists, disaffected former Social Democrats and western German Marxists has turned itself into an important fixture on the political landscape.

In the last national election it garnered 12 percent of the vote, it is the most popular party in eastern Germany, and is in coalitions with the Social Democrats in the regional governments of Berlin and Brandenburg. But at a national level, potential allies still regard it as not fit to govern.

On Wednesday the party suffered a blow to its attempt to forge a more moderate image when a top court ruled that Germany's domestic intelligence agency had the right to monitor a prominent member. The Federal Administrative Court ruled that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) could continue to observe Bodo Ramelow, leader of the Left Party in the eastern state of Thuringia. The agency is charged with observing the activities of those deemed a threat to the constitution, including neo-Nazis and Islamists.

The Left Party is furious to have been tarred with the same brush. While the court noted that it did not believe that Ramelow himself wanted to overthrow the state, it argued that there were extreme-left groupings within the party, such as the Communist Platform or the Marxist Forum, which had anti-constitutional tendencies. The court was also concerned that the party tolerates extreme-left violence. The BfV observation does not include spying but rather allows the agency to monitor Ramelow's public statements and writings. The court also ruled that other members of the party could be similarly observed. (The Left Party is also kept under observation at the state level, but only in some states, mostly in western Germany.)

'Throwback to the Cold War'

Upon hearing the judgement Ramelow said he was "deeply disappointed," adding that this was a "victory for the snooping state." On Thursday he confirmed that he would be appealing the ruling at the Constitutional Court. Speaking to RBB radio he said that the court's decision was "scandalous" and a "throwback to the Cold War."

On Wednesday Ole Schröder, state secretary in the Interior Ministry and a member of the ruling conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), greeted the ruling saying it was a "good day for our well-fortified democracy." The decision was also welcomed by Wolfgang Bosbach, the CDU domestic policy expert. He told the MDR radio station on Thursday that he had never heard the Left Party arguing that the far-right NPD should no longer be observed, "just because the NPD has also been elected to state parliaments in democratic elections."

The view from the left of the political spectrum was somewhat different. Matthias Machning, Thuringia's economy minister and a member of the SPD, called the ruling "absurd," saying that Ramelow was a politician of integrity and a democrat. "Obviously the BfV doesn't have enough to do and is now tilting at windmills."

And Cem Özdemir, co-leader of the Green Party, also leapt to Ramelow's defense. "I find equating the Left Party with the NPD or other extremist parties to be mistaken," he told the Berliner Zeitung. He said that the Left Party was not conspiratorial and even the communists within the party were open about their opinions.

On Thursday the German press take a look at the ruling and most commentators argue that while there may certainly be extreme views within the Left Party, it does not pose a threat to democracy.

Süddeutsche Zeitung

"The NPD is an anti-constitutional party through and through. The Left Party is not. It may well criticize capitalism. But capitalism is not one of the things that the constitution is designed to protect."

"There are indeed strange small groups of Trotskyites, Maoists and other crackpots in the Left Party, but they have hardly any influence. … The BfV should be clever enough not to lump together all of the party. It should concentrate on individuals instead of generalizing. The BfV knows that the Left Party of 2010 is a completely different party to the SED/PDS of 1990."

"One can get annoyed at (Left Party leaders), one can think their policies are half-baked or absurd. But political irritation should not be an excuse to set the people from the BfV on them. Those who denounce the Left Party as anti-democrats in this way should question their own understanding of democracy."

The Financial Times Deutschland

"There are a lot of things one can hold against the Left Party: the self-righteous stance of their top people, their nostalgia for East Germany, their blind faith in the state. But that does not justify by a long shot the decision by the Federal Administrative Court to allow top politicians in the Left Party to be observed by the BfV."

"One can say a lot about Ramelow, (Gregor) Gysi or (Oskar) Lafontaine, but not that they are anti-democrats. They use legitimate methods in election campaigns, on talk shows and in parliaments to promote their controversial views -- and they should only be fought in these arenas too."

"According to the ruling, the Left Party politicians are to be listed alongside neo-Nazis and Islamists in the BfV report. This stigmatization threatens the freedom of the Left Party representatives and their party to take part in the political process unhindered."

Berliner Zeitung

"The decision to allow the observation of Thuringia's Left Party boss Bodo Ramelow is not just wrong, it's abysmal…. There is not one statement by Ramelow from the past that would justify his observation by the BfV. He is regarded, not just within his own party, as a politician with integrity who works very successfully toward changing the balance of power, and certainly not toward overthrowing those in power. And the same can be said for his party."

"There may well be more nutcases in this party than others, including revolutionary dreamers and Stone Age Marxists, but on the whole, no one cannot deny that the Left Party has, for a long time, accepted parliamentarianism, party democracy and the constitutional state. To ignore that is a remarkable failure on the part of the court. It has obviously not understood that there has always been a place within the German constitution for criticism of capitalism."

Frankfurter Allgemeine

"In most states, the party is no longer observed and it is only a matter of time before Germany's remaining states succumb to the charms (of the party). The contradiction whereby the party is seen as extreme in one state but not in the next state will ultimately be resolved by the naive belief that the party has become democratic. Bodo Ramelow's protestations of innocence are emblematic."

Dowling, S. (2010) Is Germany's Left Party a Threat to Democracy? [Online] http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,707888,00.html#ref=nlint [28/07/2010]

"Just wing it and chat with someone new"

Chat with your travel companions in other rows, join chat rooms, or just wing it and chat with someone new.  Go ahead, you know you want to. (Virgin America, 2010)

Another tool which provides its users new interpersonal connections, as well as to the internet, that could also affect individual behaviour. The incident reported in the article below, where the airline claims it was used to improve passenger experience, shows that some people feel more comfortable voicing their opinion through this tool, than to speak face to face. This seat-to-seat idea is based on that fact.

Barbara S. Peterson
12/07/2010
New York Times Business

On a flight from Newark to the West Coast not long ago, Jeff Jarvis, author of the book “What Would Google Do?” fell into a conversation with a fellow passenger familiar with his work. But it was not a face-to-face chat. Rather, it started as an exchange of Twitter posts at the boarding gate.

When the plane landed, Mr. Jarvis recalled, the conversation resumed. “It was as if someone had recognized you and come up to say, ‘hello,’ on the flight.” He said it reminded him of the days when passengers could socialize in airborne lounges, “except now it’s happening digitally.”

The mobile phone and laptop are not just tools to stay in touch with the office or home anymore. As Mr. Jarvis can attest, a growing number of frequent fliers are using their mobile devices to create an informal travelers’ community in airports and aloft.

Airlines and social media providers are scrambling to catch up. Airlines are beefing up their presence on networking channels, and travelers’ groups like FlyerTalk.com have created new applications that allow members to find one another while on the road. Business travelers can use these services to share cabs to the airport, swap advice or locate colleagues in the same city. As Mr. Jarvis puts it, “finding a like-minded person to travel with lessens the chance of getting stuck next to some talkative bozo” on a long flight.

Increasing availability of Wi-Fi at airports and on planes has made the travel networking possible. A survey of 84 of the world’s largest airports by the Airports Council International earlier this year found that 96 percent offered Wi-Fi connections, and 73 percent had connections throughout their terminals. About 45 percent offer the service free; the rest charge an average of about $8 an hour.

More than 10 airlines in North America, including American, Delta and Southwest, are wiring their planes for Internet access, and major foreign airlines like Lufthansa are introducing new technology that will let customers connect on transoceanic flights. In-flight calls are still forbidden on most flights, although several airlines, including Emirates, have been testing calling on shorter trips.

As many as 1,200 commercial airliners in the United States will have Wi-Fi capability by the end of the year, according to Chris Babb, senior product manager of in-flight entertainment for Delta Air Lines. “It’s a much different world than it was a year ago,” he said, noting that on a recent flight he exchanged e-mail messages with several colleagues who were in the air at the same time.

And Virgin America, which has wired its entire 28-plane fleet for the Internet, said about half of its passengers brought their laptops with them and 17 to 20 percent were online at any given time. On longer flights, about a third of passengers go online. Like airports, most airlines charge a fee for the service, usually ranging from $5 to $13.

Some airline passengers may mourn the loss of their last remaining refuge from e-mail intrusions. But the benefits of staying connected became clear several months ago during the eruption of the Icelandic volcano that grounded thousands of European flights. Facebook and Twitter set up sites for stranded travelers, who swapped ideas and offered rides to ferry terminals, and Twitter had its own thread. Based on anecdotal reports, the sites helped in getting information out quickly.

For those with time at an airport, FlyerTalk.com has an “itineraries” feature that allows travelers to post their coming flights in the hope that other “flier talkers,” as they call themselves, may be heading the same way.

Lufthansa said it consulted with FlyerTalk members in developing its own product to help customers tap into social networking from any location. The application works on iPhones and this fall will be available on BlackBerrys. A built-in GPS allows users to find fellow fliers who might be nearby. It also has a taxi-sharing feature that travelers can activate upon landing.

Users must already be members of the airlines’ loyalty program, and Lufthansa said it had added privacy controls for those who preferred to travel incognito. FlyerTalk’s president, Gary Leff, said that while some members had welcomed the service, others were skeptical. “Some of us just like to keep to ourselves” on the road, he said.

For those who want to connect, few airlines can match Virgin America for mingling opportunities. In addition to its Internet service, it offers seat-to-seat messaging via its seatback video screens. It has also teamed up with match.com to create a party atmosphere on specific flights (reportedly at least one couple who met this way became engaged). But there is also the potential for spurned advances and hurt feelings.

“Seat-to-seat chatting could lead to a negative form of social networking,” said Jeanne Martinet, a social commentator who writes the missmingle.com blog. “What if someone spots another passenger doing something annoying?” she asked. In the past, that person might have simply suffered in silence. Now, Ms. Martinet said, “It would be tempting to message them, ‘Can’t you get your big feet out of the aisle?’ ”

Porter Gale, Virgin’s vice president of marketing, said there were safeguards against abuse and that a passenger could simply turn off the messaging function. And she said that offering Wi-Fi access had benefits for the airline, like the ability to resolve a customer’s problem before a flight lands.

A passenger once sent an e-mail message to the airline from his seat, saying that he was not pleased with the sandwich he had just eaten, she said. A customer service representative on the ground sent a message back to the plane, and shortly thereafter, she said, the passenger was served an acceptable substitute.

This can work against the airline, too, as Virgin discovered when a New York-bound flight was diverted and some passengers sent out messages venting their annoyance with the delay. (Peterson, 2010)

Peterson, B.S. (2010) Social Networking Takes Flight. [Online]
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/business/13social.html [23/07/2010]

Virgin America (2010) What's on Board. [Online] 

http://www.virginamerica.com/inflight/onboard-chat.html [23/07/2010]

Time & Again from Jacques Khouri

time & again from jacques khouri on Vimeo.

Web Trend Map

extract from Web Trend Map

1 The Stream of Information represents the entirety of articles and data being publishing online.

2. Individuals actively filter the portion of the stream of information passing in front of them. Acting as Micro-Curators, they selectively publish (to services like Twitter, Facebook, etc) the links they consider having highest value.

3. Webtrendmap.com users create Micro-Aggregates of link publishers by choosing highly selective subsets to place on their Web Trend Maps. These maps become representative of subsets of online communities. The maps are also public facing (unlike most RSS readers) and provide a visual summary of links and trends within that community subset. Both the map creator and passive viewers gain insight into the community.

4. Webtrendmap.com collects, summarizes and publishes all of the trending links on individual maps onto a Macro-Aggregate represented as Top Trending Links.

The filtration process facilitated by Web Trend Map (All Information > Micro-Curation > Micro-Aggregation > Macro-Aggregation) means the data rising to the top is "always high quality" [Web Trend Map, 2010].

Web Trend Map [2010] Timely, trending links curated and filtered by an engaged and active community. [Online] http://webtrendmap.com/about/ [18/07/2010]
iA Inc. (2009) What it is. [Online] http://www.flickr.com/photos/formforce/3409362834/sizes/o/ [18/07/2010]

Reiner Klingholz

...we are still a divided country. Because of the emigration of 1.7 million people - mainly young, qualified, and female - from eastern Germany since the fall of the Iron Curtain, which is more than 10 percent of the former population, as well as the enormous drop in the birthrate. This generation is halved, and if you add the emigration of young families, it is even more than half. This generation born in the 1990s will be in the parent age from 2015 on. We will have halved number of newborns again from 2015 on. Of course, this has an enormous effect on schools, infrastructure, and so on.

Between 2015 and 2020, you will have a number of demographic effects in eastern Germany which will put an enormous stress on the system: 50 percent of potential parents, 50 percent of students, 50 percent of job starters. At the same time, you have the baby boomers being pushed into the pension age. That means less people in the workforce, less buying power, and less taxes for the communities. Plus the end of the Solidarity Pact, which runs out in 2019, will mean less transfer money for eastern Germany. 

We are working on a study on the economic future of Europe where we compare 285 regions. There we find that eastern Germany is the demographic crisis area in Europe. There's no other region - including in Romania and Bulgaria - which is affected to such an extent.

Immigration is one alternative, but you still cannot fill the gaps that began thirty years ago. Why do immigrants come? Because there are jobs. The economic situation in eastern Germany does not cry that much for immigration. The second thing is that the experience with immigration is not that high, so you don't have that many foreigners. Foreigners like to come to places where you already have clusters of Turks, Indians, Pakistanis, and so on. If you don't have the clusters, there's no real attraction for others. 

The third thing is that the openness for foreigners is not very expressed in eastern Germany, so this tolerance is not around. It doesn't make it very attractive for clever Indians to come if they read in the papers that Indian people are beaten up. All this is pretty tough, I would say. (Klingholz, in Wish, 2008) 

An article highlighting the divided society of Germany, still affected by the economic and political systems that created the gap, and continues to influence people's lives today.

Wish, V. (ed.) (2008) Germany Demographic Profile Part 6: "We Are Still a Divided Country". [Online] http://knowledge.allianz.com/en/globalissues/demographic_change/country_profiles/germany_demographic_profile_klingholz.html [18/07/2010] 

Berlin Wall Flies for Guinness Record

"We wanted to show the wall flying. It's a symbol of division, but we wanted to turn it into a symbol of freedom." (Mühlenhof, in Kelsey, 2010)

Pastor, East German human rights activist and a nominee for the president Joachim Gauck made a speech "to mark the wall's safe landing" and signed the Wall - this section will be used in a new open-air exhibition on the observation deck about the history of Potsdamer Platz and present day Berlin (Kelsey, 2010).

Kelsey, E. (2010) Sky-High: Berlin Wall Flies for Guinness Record. [Online] http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,706905,00.html#ref=nlint [17/07/2010]

How the East Was Lost

Alexander Neubacher and Michael Sauga
Spiegel Online

July 1 marks the 20th anniversary of the introduction of the deutsche mark in East Germany in the runup to full reunification. But the economic benefits that West German politicians promised failed to materialize. What went wrong?

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, 56, is from Bonn, deep in the west of Germany, but his memories of the days between the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and German reunification in 1990 are those of an East German.

Lothar de Maizière, the first and last democratically elected prime minister of East Germany, had asked his cousin whether he wanted a job. Thomas de Maizière agreed, moved into an office on Klosterstrasse in East Berlin and, from then on, sat on the side of the table reserved for East Germans at the negotiations on German reunification.

Thomas de Maizière has often asked himself what went wrong at the time. "Objectively speaking, we didn't have enough time. We were under a great deal of pressure," he says. He compares it to a "sudden political birth."

The emergency delivery happened exactly 20 years ago. Today, as the federal government's commissioner for the "new German states" (as the former East Germany is known), de Maizière's job is to promote the development of eastern Germany. He is the first interior minister and the first West German in a long time to hold the position, but de Maizière downplays his role.

The minister remains reserved in interviews on the subject. And when he does say something, it doesn't sound like what his predecessors said.

He has an aversion to official phrases like "harmonization of living conditions in the east and west." Nor is he keen on the term "Aufbau Ost" ("development of the east"), which German governments have used as shorthand for efforts to promote economic development in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), as East Germany was officially known. "When people from western Germany come to Potsdam, Dresden or Stralsund," he says, referring to three relatively prosperous eastern German cities, "their first impressions prompt them to ask: 'What still needs to be developed here?'"

Overnight Change

It was 20 years ago that then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl made a lonely decision. The Berlin Wall had come down, and thousands of East German citizens were moving to the West every week. Kohl offered Hans Modrow, the interim communist leader of East Germany at the time, a monetary union for the two Germanys. Experts were annoyed by the proposal, and Karl Otto Pöhl, the then-head of West Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank, warned against it. But Kohl had his way. Money transporters began rolling eastward overnight. The West German deutsche mark was named East Germany's currency on July 1, 1990.

Politically speaking, the monetary union was a success. The people were delighted, because they no longer had to travel to the west to get deutsche marks. But the move had a devastating effect on the economy. Overnight, all pensions, wages and savings of up to 6,000 East German marks were exchanged on a one-to-one basis. This was beneficial for East German citizens but not for businesses, many of which went under when they suddenly found themselves having to compete with the highly modern West German economy.

"Although there was no reasonable political alternative to the fixed exchange rate, it was a bad move economically," says de Maizière. "Instead of one to one, the exchange rate should have been one to three or one to four, to reflect the economic reality, but this would have had the devastating political consequence of further migration."

Lagging Behind the West

Today, the eastern German economy is still in a sorry state, and there are no indications that the situation will change. An estimated €1.3 trillion ($1.6 trillion) have flowed from the former West Germany to the former East Germany over the last 20 years. But what has that money achieved? Historic neighborhoods have been restored, new autobahns built and the telephone network brought up to date, but most of the money was spent on social benefits such as welfare payments. The anticipated economic upswing failed to materialize.

Some eastern cities, like Leipzig, Dresden, Jena and Erfurt, have experienced economic development. The state of Thuringia has a relatively robust auto industry, and there are successful high-tech companies in Saxony. Research institutes and universities are doing well, thanks in part to generous government subsidies.

But the success stories are rare. Most of eastern Germany has turned into an economically depressed region that lags behind the west in all respects:

The per capita economic output in the east is only at 71 percent of the western level, with a disproportionately high share of economic output attributable to the public sector. The economic output generated by the private economy is only at 66 percent of the western level.

To close the gap, the eastern German economy would have to grow more rapidly than in western Germany, but precisely the opposite is the case. Germany's leading economic research institutes expect the economy in eastern Germany to grow by 1.1 percent this year, compared with 1.5 percent in the west.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the population of eastern Germany has declined by almost 2 million people, a trend that is continuing unabated.

The proportion of household income derived from welfare payments is 20 percent higher in the east than in the west.

Of Germany's 100 largest industrial companies and 100 largest service providers, not one has its headquarters in eastern Germany.

Politicians across the political spectrum tend to sugarcoat the meager economic results of reunification. Chancellor Angela Merkel, the leader of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), is fond of saying that "a great deal has been achieved" in the development of the east. Former Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), who is also a former commissioner in charge of developing eastern Germany, says jubilantly: "We have successfully made it three-quarters of the way."

"We are firmly convinced that the creative forces of the people that have now been unleashed will lead to a new Wirtschaftswunder," then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl proclaimed on June 5, 1990, referring to the "economic miracle" of postwar West Germany. But anyone who travels through eastern Germany today, 20 years later, will encounter failed mega-projects, depopulated downtown areas and many people who haven't had a regular job in two decades.

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#ref=nlint [16/07/2010]

Germany, the Island

"Germany, the island, is 1,400 meters (or less than a mile) long, and 800 meters wide. It has no vegetation. But it's covered in tire marks and inhabited by bulldozers, cranes and other construction equipment." (Smoltczyk, 2010)

Smoltczyk, A. (2010) Islands in the Gulf: His Own Private 'Germany'. [Online] 

http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-57231.html [17/07/2010]

Apple geotagging users

Apple now plans to target its smartphone users with geo-targeted advertising based on GPS or WiFi data provided by the device, and is "in the process of becoming an omnipresent and omniscient data leviathan" (Brauck et al, 2010). More concerns over geo-tagging.

In the past few days, every Apple customer who has attempted to buy something in the iTunes Music Store or the App Store has been confronted with a window in which he is asked to read and agree to new terms and conditions. In the text, the global corporation requests the customer's consent to Apple knowing where he -- and his iPhone, iPad or MacBook -- happens to be at any given time, and to Apple processing the information and even disclosing it to third parties.

In legal jargon, the message reads: Effective immediately, "Apple and our partners and licensees" may "collect, use and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device." Apple claims that this geographical data is "collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you." But the company does not specify exactly how it intends to ensure that this will be the case.

The move was met with outrage. It was the Los Angeles Times that seized upon the questionable passage, thereby bringing Apple, after Google and Facebook, its first real data privacy scandal. US bloggers promptly dubbed the program "iSpy," and the blog "The Consumerist" has characterized the company's thirst for data as "creepy."

Oddly enough, Apple has already used similar wording in its terms of use in the past, with the iPhone, for example. But as is often the case with such legalese, hardly anyone reads the fine print and realizes exactly what rights he is relinquishing to the company by checking a box and impatiently clicking on the "I accept" button.

As belated as all the fuss may be, it is nevertheless justified. The one thing that is clear is that the data Apple is gathering and storing is extremely sensitive. Someone who knows a person's exact whereabouts can reach surprisingly precise conclusions about his life. Apple, for its part, might as well forget about its anti-Orwellian image of itself.

To make matters worse, for the first time the company is trying to sell this information on a large scale to advertising customers.

Ironically, it was only in early June that the Apple CEO insisted that his company was very concerned about privacy. Jobs claims the company is particularly worried about the use of geographical location data obtained from smartphones. He even claimed that when it comes to privacy issues, Apple might seem old-fashioned, because of its wary view of things.

Now, as a problem that is not entirely new is finally being recognized, German politicians -- who have been very vocal in their criticism of the privacy policies of Google and Facebook -- are also expressing concern. Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, a member of the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), says that Apple must "immediately disclose" what data it captures, how long the data is stored and how it is used.

"It must be clear to the users of iPhones and other GPS-enabled devices what information about them is being gathered," says the minister, adding that it would be "inconceivable" if Apple were in fact to create personality or even mobility profiles of its users. "In this case, I feel that it is Apple's obligation to actually implement the transparency so often invoked by Steve Jobs." And then she added: "I expect Apple to provide German privacy groups with access to its databases."

Till Steffen, a Green Party politician and minister of justice for the city-state of Hamburg, also takes a critical view of the issue: "The providers' unclear data privacy rules show, once again, that privacy laws are lagging behind Internet technologies."

 Brauck, M., Hülsen, I. & Rosenbach, M. (trans. Sultan, C.) (2010) Apple Under Fire over Privacy in Germany. [Online] http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,703409,00.html [17/07/2010]

Recent social trends in West Germany, 1960-1990

Glatzer, W., Hondrich, K.O., Noll, H.-H., Stiehr, K., & Wörndl, B. (1992) Recent social trends in West Germany, 1960-1990. [Online] 
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=liMU3HPW99oC&pg=PA214&lpg=PA214&dq=social+trends+germany+divide&source=bl&ots=aoaPYheRjB&sig=AzDCcescfheIJ_U3iqAJZDn1CFc&hl=en&ei=xeVATIGcAZr60wSp9qGjDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false [17/07/2010]

Social structure in divided Germany

Krejčí, J. (1976) Social structure in divided Germany. [Online]
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_8INAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&dq=social+trends+germany+divide&source=bl&ots=p_DPVCqif5&sig=2wH3VcjTHzKeFr0j0DPzIcQ_f4I&hl=en&ei=4eVATMuBEIPw0gSJtfykDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CDcQ6AEwCDgK#v=onepage&q&f=false [17/07/2010]

Belonging in the Two Berlins

Borneman, J. (1992) Belonging in the two Berlins: kin, state, nation. [Online]

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=iKUwCJVEplsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=social+trends+germany+divide&source=gbs_similarbooks_s&cad=1#v=onepage&q&f=false [17/07/2010]