freeze...!

about 200 people all of a sudden froze and turned grand central station in new york into something like madame tussauds, no matter what they were doing. after 5 minutes they moved on as if nothing had happened. it reminds of the flash mobs that were somehow popular in 2003 or mobile clubbers. while flash mobs were often used as a new protesting form especially in the anti-globalization movement and mobile clubbing looks like a reclaim-the-streets rave for the ipod-generation, "improv everywhere", the mind behind the "frozen grand central"-performance, seems to be more related to improvisation theater and sometimes "live action role playing" for a mobile tech-savy crowd. since this can be found almost anywhere in the world, it's no wonder, "improv everywhere" indeed has a global section ("global" meaning anywhere outside the united states)... check out events in singapore, berlin, budapest... well, not really but almost everywhere!

Berlin/New York Dialogues - Berlin session

the Berlin/New York dialogues exhibition is finally coming to berlin!
the opening will be at DAZ on the 7th of march, and will be running until the 4th of may.










the exhibition is aiming to present several different architectural projects in these two vibrant cities...and of course PLATOON is being featured under the themes: community activism, mobile architecture and urban regeneration.












the vernissage in NYC was amazing, now is time to see if it will rock also here in berlin.
rumor has it that there will be a very special line up....but it´s going to be kind of a surprise... some things are more spontaneous when organized at the last minute.


Exhibition:
Until 04 May 2008 at the DAZ_Scharoun Saal, Tuesday - Friday 12am - 7pm, Saturday + Sunday 2 - 7pm.
Admission is free.


for a review of the BLN/NYC dialogues in New York check:

1 2 3

spring fever is coming....

....and anna got herself a new outfit

bjoerk in seoul

on saturday i went to the bjoerk concert here in seoul. it was here first time to play in korea. so everybody was quite excited. at least 2.000 people came and the olympic hall was sold out. and i think the whole foreign community was there ;-) i am always a little ambiguous about her but since it was a special event for my friends here i joined them. bjoerk is known to have exceptional stage shows like her videos but what she performed on that night (tour) was NOT really stunning. as a bonus she performed 'declare independence' to the crowd. and as it is a 'punk'-song the crowd freaked out.. like koreans love to do! watch rough mobile-video..
at the climax little white snipplets of paper where blown thru the whole arena.. everybody was covered.. so a snipplet of paper was at least what people took with them ;-)

PECHA KUCHA VOL. 08

Ronald Marx of the GTA (German Theater Abroad) will be our guest curator for the evening, and he will also be a presenter himself.

Ronald Marx is the artistic director of GTA, which was founded in 1996. GTA produces theatre festivals, stage productions and readings on both side of the Atlantic; among the cities visited are New York, Düsseldorf and Berlin.

Ronald himself will present the current project of the GTA called ‘Road Theater’: 5 actors and the GTA team tour across the USA in a bus and perform the play ‘Start Up’ by Roland Schimmelpfennig. in his function as a guest curator he will bring more speakers from his network to the Pecha Kucha mikrophone.


++ THE PRESENTERS ++
this is the list of presenters who have confirmed so far:
* Thorsten Rauser (Entrepreneur / Gameshows for everyone. mass interaction in the internet)
* Anna Krenz (Architect and artist / Hens Project: aggressive old ladies)
* Ronald Marx (Theater Regiseur / USA Road Theater)
* Peter Pleyer (curator / Tanztage)
* Sönke Andersen (event organizer / Night of the Raging Bulls)
* Susanne Chrudina (Theater project Zalina)
* Lars Grau und Jan Schulz (Designer and engineer, Spoot - instant communities)
* U.R.A. / FILOART (I.-R.A:S.C. Infrared-light against surveillance cameras)
* Johannes P Osterhoff (artist/ Interface-art)
* Can Yoldas (musician and political scientist/ Undo Bundestagswahl 2002)
* Darius Ghanai (Art Director / Marketing for a German movie)


PECHA KUCHA VOL. 08 february 19 | doors open 19:30 | sart 20:20
Tape Gallery, Heidestr. 14 | admission €5,-




this is the link to the Ebay auction where you can buy one presentation slot at Pecha Kucha Berlin Vol. 09. we are looking forward to an exciting bidding race and hope you will enjoy it. the auction ends on February 18 at 23:20h

see you on tuesday!

street soccer vs. parkour

remember parkour? the FIFA STREET3 Game features a viral video of street soccer player from mexico. for sure not everything is real but FX.. anyway: a challenge for all those soccer or parkour fans to do it real!

Mustafa Maluka - the message

our good friend Fusi has sent us this invitation for a very interesting exhibition by Mustafa Maluka, a very talented and multiskilled artist who beside painting is also involved in several other cultural projects, as for instance with music. he was in fact the very first to organise a grime-time event in south africa and the connection to this subculture movement turned out to be one of the very reasons for why he actually decided to move to berlin.
however i don’t want to indulge on his other projects…

here is the invitation to the exhibition and an introduction to Mustafa´s work:
















the exhibition presents a series of new works by Mustafa Maluka, each of them unfolds a reflection on identity and culturally defined differences.

Mustafa Maluka´s portraits combine reference to graffiti, hip-hop and pop culture. the majority of maluka´s paintings take their point of departure in editorials and advertisements from magazines to which he has a special affinity.
he develops his portraits through several layers of colour, enabling the depicted persons to appear as characters with their own personality- ostentatious, cool or spirited.
Maluka´s “invented heroes” hint at personal stories, including those dealing with formation of identity. discussions concerning cultural identity and migration are of central importance to Maluka´s oeuvre. his works examine how his own personal experiences tend to differ to those born and raised in a different social, cultural or political context. the experience of being an outsider from the so called “cape flats” in cape town and later being an outsider in a foreign country has had an important impact on Maluka´s work. thus, it has resulted in the critical and subversive strategy, which is characteristic of his artistic practice.








Maluka was born in cape town in 1978. in 200 he moved to amsterdam where he studied at the de ateliers post-graduate art institute. in 2004, Maluka returned to south africa and won the tollman award for visual arts. since 2006 he has lived and worked in berlin. He has exhibited in asia, Europe, the united states and south america (the 7th sao paolo biennial). furthermore, his works were included in the 2006 group show, “what lies beneath: new art from south africa” at the galerie mikael Andersen in Copenhagen.

*text by Galerie Mikael Andersen




the exhibition begins saturday 2 of february at
6-9pm and ends the 8th of march 2008.
at Galerie Mikael Andersen
Auguststrasse 50 b - Berlin mitte












and here a link to Mustafa´s pictures of the legendary boombx party and one of his personal blog.

jahcoozi at the CTM 08 opening night

at the opening of club transmediale at maria am ostbahnhof last weekend, Jahcoozi performed their first gig of the year.

Sasha Perera, front singer, appeared on stage wearing a huge white tunic with a red thunderbolt drawn on it, symbol of their latest album „blitz´n´ass“.






at one point during the performance, she took off her lightning robe and with my great surprise she was wearing a very special shirt i gave her last year: our ARM TROTZ ARBEIT shirt representing the minimum wage campaign!















the reaction of the audience was hilarious, when they read „working poor“ on Sasha´s shirt, some couldnt help but laughing...it completely hit the spot and although this caustic remark was filled with irony, the problem really affects many of us... and they know it.










nevertheless the contrast of being in a club having a great time and being reminded of some serious problems bearing upon our society, can´t but be funny.

however thank you Sasha for your support to the cause...im sure that many people didnt have the chance to see it yet and i think it was a great opportunity to reach also those who usually leave home only after dark. besides, now we also have it mentioned in the „berliner zeitung“.





















* some pics are taken from berlin.nachtagenten
you´ll find more of them on their website.