streik.tv

and now.. it´s showtime!!!

today we launched the first internet-tv broadcast focused on workers in germany.

we are jubilant!

i strongly advice you to check it out even if you don´t speak any german... you´ll have the chance to have at least an impression of what is really going on in germany these days.

STREIK.TV

PLATOON´s 8th anniversary

what a wicked party!!!
the 8th anniversary of PLATOON was a complete success!
we had a blasting party with lots of wonderful guests, incredible tasty food, hilarious perfomances and rivers of booze.








for the occasion we also opened our brand new two containers on the ground floor, which we used as lounge so our guest could have a chance to introduce themselves before stepping into the madness of the „schuppen“ bar.













Daniel, the chef, surpassed any expactations this time around; all of us were delighted to taste his delicious food, a blend between traditional german food and a touch of korean specialities....we had in fact a very special visit from seoul. the whole new PLATOON.seoul crew pleased us with their presence and i have to say that we all loved them very much. they all are totally groovy and we had so much fun together.
























the bar was really cosy and just the right place to enjoy the PLATOON vibe...there were little details around the room reminding to all the succesful missions PLATOON has accomplished during this years. it felt like home to the platoonies.













Anna and Olly, our resident visual-artist and muscian, performed their live act SONI RIOT...and kept everyone shaking their booties all night long.




























we also had a performance by Hela-Helen Plewis who just came from london and really wanted to perform for us here in PLATOON. well i didnt know much about her but her enthusiasm was certainly infectious...so we decided to let her surprise us...and well, she totally did! here a little taste of her anti-burlesque performance....





























im sure our korean friends had hips of fun as well...just look how Eva is gorgeously smiling here.



(a proper introduction of all our korean friends and their visit to berlin will follow very soon in another article)









but before that we want to thank again Soo for traveling all this way to come and meet us here in berlin. she is the cheerful lady you can see standing between Tom and his brother Dirk and thanks to her we will realize an incredible project in Seoul. a kunsthalle made of containers with a highlight on subculture and its impact on the art sphere. it will be very unique, one of its kind. but i dont want to say too much about it now. thanks so much Soo for believing in us and for joining us for this celebrations! we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.






well, and as every party known in PLATOON history, it ended up very very late... lets say in the early hours...

















the rest i leave... to your imagination.

etoy wins VIDA AWARD 2007

president Francisco Serrano, announced on 29.11.07 at Barcelona Contemporary Art Museum (MACBA): etoy wins the first prize of the VIDA AWARDS created by Fundación Telefónica to foster artistic creation based on new technologies and artificial life.
congratulations to our friends and members of etoy. its fantastic.
here you can read the excerpt from the jury statement:
etoy launched the Mission Eternity Project in 2005, foregrounding on the one hand respect for the human longing to survive in some way after death, and on the other a sense of irony about dated sci-fi fantasies we contrive to satisfy that desire. The Sarcophagus is one materialization of this project. It is a mobile sepulcher that holds and displays portraits of those who wish to have their informational remains cross over into a digital afterlife. The size of a standard cargo container that can travel to any location in the world, the Sarcophagus has an immersive LED screen covering its walls, ceiling and floor. There, interactive digital portraits can be summoned via mobile phone or web browser from virtual capsules that are stored in the shared memory of thousands of networked electronic devices of Mission Eternity Angels (people who contribute a small part of their personal storage capacity to the mission, currently 765 of them; to date, 2 volunteers have been accepted for encapsulation). The data spectres that populate this tenuous memorial space are composed of details of lives lived, in visual, audio and text fragments. But when they are summoned in lo-res pixellated form in the Sarcophagus, they resemble one merged personality. The massing of details that we find in archives and records that keep the dead with us has a similar compositing effect, yet the Sarcophagus is also very unlike those. It gives us access to a novel social world generated among networked computer users who have a common goal of keeping something alive, which can invoke intense feelings such as care and wonder.

so PLATOON wish the mission a long life and good luck.

enough saved!

the second round of the billboard campaign „Genug Gespart!“ (enough saved!) for which PLATOON did the concept and realization in behalf of the united trade union for civil services (ver.di), is just over.
we have already posted an article about it in the past, but we actually didnt really translate the mission statement of this campaign to our english speaking audience.
so, here it is...





INITIATIVE CIVIL SERVICES
an initiative for the strengthening of civil services in Germany.

the united trade union for civil services (ver.di) and the civil servants union (DBB) launched together the „initiative for civil services: Enough Saved!"

the initiative wants to bring the benefits and performances of these services, stronger in the public awareness. it stands against the ongoing budget cuts, privatizations, and personnel cutbacks.
the initiative sticks up for a fair pay of employees working in the public sector. with their collaboration, the trade unions want to send a clear sign of determination in reaching these goals.

every citizen benefits from civil services; they are indispensable for the country. as a matter of fact the taxpayer´s money spent here keeps the country in good stead. for these reasons the state doesnt have to evade its responsibility. it has the duty to provide civil services- which have to be fairly paid, of a good quality and accessible everywhere.
savings on civil services should not be allowed to reach the point of brake.

therefore we appeal to organizations and associations- those politically responsible as well as the citizens themselves. Support us!
stand up with us for the strengthening of civil services in Germany! the „initiative for civil services“ is open to everyone who wants to step in for this purpose.


and the campaign goes on!

















*and down here are also a couple of pics dating back to the first round, when we started this campaign...in fact they are just in front of our old.PLATOON headquarters.














well, i can´t forget to mention again the extraordinary photography done by Patrick Voigt, his style is really incredible!

protect system

and everyday we keep adding some new features to our headquarters.

until now it was almost too easy to access our site...it was in fact completely open to the street.








but this morning we attached a protect system to our staircase.

Mr Gunter Weber, from Layher scaffolding sytems came to sort this out....













with the help of Stefan of course, our building master, who is always eager to do some craftwork on our site....after all it was also thanks to him and his construction expertise that we managed to move our containers so quickly.


























and today as well the job was done in less then one hour.
















thanks lads...now we are also bulletproof!

views of PLATOON

Well, we could say that our new area is slowly getting into shape...and it already feels as if we naturally belonged to this spot.










the cold winter is approaching, but in our container it´s fortunately very cosy and warm...and before starting a hard day at work we always enjoy a little chat&coffee in the morning whilst sitting on our new heavy weapon benches.

although sitting there makes you an easy target for passer-byers...in fact our headquarters have suddenly become a tourist attraction...it doesnt pass one hour without someone snapping a cheeky picture at us while we work.







so today I thought I´ll have a walk and make some pictures as well... there wasn´t much to see until recently afterall...




































































despite the lads being back in Seoul, we keep very busy over here...and thanks to modern communication we are actually constantly in touch with them via skype....

today we also had a new entry: Philipp ... but I shall leave him the pleasure of introducing himself within the coming weeks...it´s just fair enough...everyone deserves some time to digest our philosophy before getting into action.










also the upper container isnt that quite....Heidrun and Aleks are always on the move.
















this is our Bar, well we had just one party in it but soon we´ll throw another one....so for all of you PLATOON.members in Berlin, keep in touch...you don´t want to miss it out, do you?































the view from our window is brilliant....and of course we can still see ALEX, the Berlin tv-tower....we got so used to it from our last place; and you know what, there is no better view to remind you where you actually are...especially if you work in a place that can vanish in one day and appear somewhere completely different the day after.










more updates about the PLATOON.area will follow soon.

NYC Mission Report

so finally im back in the container.... it has been an incredible experience being in New York; the BLN/NYC dialogues exhibition was a great chance to meet lots of interesting people both from New York and Berlin; and of course an opportunity to explain in real person what PLATOON actually is, since many seem to be confused at times about what we actually do in here.







out of the many people i met i would like to mention few of them whom i partcularly enjoyed meeting... like Prem Krishnamurthy from projectprojects, who designed the exhibition itself and will hopefully also come to Berlin to repeat the magic...but design is just one of his many qualities...he is also a terrific dancer, his crazy moves on the dancefloor were definitely infectious...and it didnt take long until everyone followed the good vibes....also thanks to Tommy and Inga (2raumwohnung) who kept submerging us with delicious beats.






a special thanks goes to Lutz Knospe, DAZ´s project manager, who was our contact person for the preparation of the exhibition. it was really nice to meet you there. and also thank you for the way you curated our project over there. we appreciate it very much.





a big thank you also to Samuel Lahoz photographer of the event who also works for the uglyplanet mag, and was very kind to send us some pictures of the night.

i also had a very pleasant interview with Morgan Campbell, a journalist of metropolismag. (click on the images to read an excerpt of the interview).










not to mention the berlin crew, who like us traveled all the way there to represent their projects. and brought with them that particular berlin vibe which totally blended with the scene in NY.
i was in fact very pleased to meet Ana Salinas, one of the architects responsible for creating the Badeschiff, although she kept pointing out that she does many other projects which unfortunately tend to be overlooked by others because of the badeschiff hype. i had lots of fun with her and her journalist friend from Granada...whose name, im sorry, slipped off the backdoors of my mind...it was a quite demanding party after all... and not just because of the neverending flowing wine.












another very interesting encounter was with cilean architect Ignacio Iratchet from nbbj, a high end award winning new york architecture agency. what actually connected us was our commmon passion for Iraqi-British deconstructivist architect zaha hadid which was featured in a parallel exhibit on the upper level. there i also saw again this shipping container project...uniqlo containers, designed by LOT-EK...and you know when containers come into play somehow it always fascinates us PLATOONIES.









however, the biggest thank of all goes to our friend and new PLATOON member Jungwon Suh, who hosted me in his splendid apartment on the 38th floor in the heart of manhattan. thank you so much Jung, i really had a great time with you...and what a view!












from his balcony one can enjoy the most fantastic postcard view of NY! and what a buzz...the rumour of PLATOON being in NY echoed across the ocean, reaching South Korea where Tom is still setting up PLATOON.seoul. apparently some friends of Jung told him they saw PLATOON in seoul again...and when he told them PLATOON was also strolling around NY...it suddenly felt like PLATOON is EVERYWHERE!.

All the Best
M.

platoon.asia

finally i have the time to report a little bit from asia. i am here in seoul since the last two weeks but had no time to blog some news from here. but now.....








after christoph and me arrived here for pushing ahead our project we decided to spend a weekend in beijing for the opening party of the new graft office in beijing. they´ve grown so fast in the last time that the old office isn´t big enough anymore. meanwhile they are 15 people in beijing and there is no prospect of an end.







for us it was a good opportunity to meet all the partners from graft to discuss our new project. we´re still working together since a couple of month on a big deal wich is slowly but surely ready to be signed. more about it later....


























thanks to baker and mckenzie berlin for their energetic support to find a right law firm here in seoul. with their support we are sure that we will fix everything within the next weeks and we can start in january 2008.














by now christoph is back in berlin to keep our current projects there but he will be back in a week.


























than we´ll travel to jeju island together with gregor from graft and our investor mrs. kim. she is building a clinical centre including a golfyard, a museum and and an art-center there and asked us if we can arrange a meeting with graft because of some design-problems she is already encountering over there. in fact i never been to jeju and the invitation really pleased me because i heard so many nice things about that island.















at the moment i am busy to set up our first crew here in seoul. i´ve been meeting so many people from the creative industries these last days. it´s simply unbelievable how many koreans from berlin are back here in seoul in the meantime. architects, culture and art scientist, media designers, moviemakers etc.......















time is running so fast here. i have to go to dinner now and meet udo lee and peter krell from berlin. peter is in town because of the gstar. a trade fair about computergames. and as you know the koreans are crazy about gaming, seoul is the perfect place for that.