sucker exhibit

 

 

saturday was the long-night-of-the-museums in berlin.

 

*some 55 museums open their doors until 2am

 

i didn't go. that is okay. i have to remember i am no longer a tourist here and can't quite keep up with the pace as such. but i can do touristy things. heaps of them. i loved this exhibit that was part of the evening and to also celebrate berlin's 775th birthday. a bit controversial because the city has celebrated it in an array of fashions, be it an urban self image or political 'stagings'. also, i have a growing interest in temporary art&architecture (usually a combo) since it is fleeing away the moment it arrives or is massed. this particular piece will be around for two months. enough to enjoy a number of times. 

 

 

 

reflection of the berliner dome

 

 

 

alexander platz's notable icon in the back

 



 

 

 

with the moon

 

 

  

johanna on bike

 

“ Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.  ” 

being abroad & away makes me question so much

51

fifty one years ago today the berlin wall was erected by the GDR(east german soviet forces)

for the next 28 years worlds would be divided. i, and probably most of you were alive and running around in the front yard sprinklers while the wall stood. this means something to me as a lot of being here in berlin is focusing on cultural, infrastructural, urbanistic and architectural changes that happened to the city of berlin because of this division.

i'm not as concerned, right now in my observations, in the historical emotions attached with the wall but more about the space and voids it left in berlin. these spaces are opportunities. the hope is that a project would mesh somewhere into this urban realm.

as part of the project description for myself i have chosen to walk the mauer (wall) from north to south in berlin, intentionally. experience is the top priority, photographing the second, sketching the third and maybe scoring some some-what questionable but always the most delicious curry wurst the fourth. i confess: i am not a travel foodie.

okay then

a few favorite (edited) photos below of wall pieces or interpretations, they are scattered around the city. often times moved to new locations then where they were erected.

interpret

new location

as is and grown around

movin

          

 

                                  SCHLESISCES TOR : U-BAHN

yellow moves you on

hold on tight, pass by below

the city chaos

the things that matter

or maybe more importantly,
the things that don't.

do you, yes you, think that by recognizing the aspects of life that are most important to us are because of recognizing the ones that aren't? i've been having some rich conversations recently about what traveling does to a person. contemplated: how travel forces you to engage, how you settle with realities, resting time is invaluable, our convictions jump up and speak out, we change beliefs. fantastic topics that i enjoy hearing people's opinions about and how their own journeys influence them, and more often than not they do in tangible ways.


news is a funny thing. what news travels where. how it gets there. what filters the world and we as an individual places on said news. what news we only let go in our ears but never as far as our brain the dwell on. be it a good word about the arrival of a dear friend's baby being born, the US women's soccer team taking the gold at the Olympics (i passionately care about while others around me don't hesitate over), civil wars in syria, or the opening of an exhibit in berlin. sometimes we can't choose what filters into our lives, however, we do place filters on how we perceive the information. this can alter with the location of our current point in the world. a lot of news that came when i lived on a hill in an indian mountain town seemed insignificant most of the time. often, what i remember most about hearing news is what activity i was doing or who i was with when news was given to me. i have exact memories surrounding princess diana's car chase death, sept 11th 2002, the virginia tech shooting, when my grandfather passed away. each one here an upsetting story but i have a plot and short character list associated with each time. the news all of sudden seems so much more of a certain time when it is attached with a personal connected memory, even despite being present at any of the news events listed above. that one was at a slumber party then, a summer day there, an early morning before the rest of the world was awake at home then, my high school homecoming there.

back to realizing what is important to us, i have discovered some bits through the back door: the thinking about what is not on the top of the list, or on the list at all. you get to make up your own definition of list. 
if i'm a bit transparent for a moment : conviction about being less selfish and in turn wanting to serve others around me. that the people we have in our lives and what they mean to us are more clear by stepping back so we can actually see who they are and who they are not. sometimes our eyes are clear once washed away with tears. this world is big. i know nothing compared to all the knowledge there is to bring into your brain. knowledge is different than information. very different. cities can speak to us. we can use them as well. they are there for us. kind of like a solid friend. i'm slowly uncovering with many footsteps what berlin has to offer this little life.

olympiad

london olympic park

aerial view

wow.

AECOM designs

i have been to a few different olympic parks and find some odd fascination with them. they are a different kind of urbanism that changes with the city but never with the initial program. changes with the current usage, yes usually so. most often placed a good distance outside of the city center one can only image how uninhabited they quickly become. an early stop on my berlin list of-buildings/parks/publicspcae/installations to see was the olymic park here. it was for the 1936 games. a time during the nazi regime. a symmetrical and neoclassical style of architecture was called for and perhaps for obvious reasons.

others seen : rome [1960] & barcelona [1992]


olympic park berlin below:

on language and book themes

i recently finished up Blue Like Jazz. i devoured the pages, the book was written with a true rawness that, i believe, is rarely achieved on this sort of topic. the post modern christianity one. the stories were what they were. no special extra but a simple dose of truth and honesty. it is a funny thing to think about the act and mastery of storytelling, as this book was a lot of storytelling and read as if the author had nothing to prove. refreshing! why do so many write, talk, tell, yell as if they have something to prove?

[huge edit] realized the internet isn't the place for some topics.
{insert ridiculous and laughable banter on a web-page forum}

anyways. the other day i was in the middle of a crowd in berlin and overhead a brittish man ask another friend of his why he feels like american pastors have this certain aura about them that is along the same lines as a car sales man. he stated that their "time on stage" was like a production as if there was something to sell him. i followed for a few steps before we veered on different paths. he seemed bothered. and quite frankly this bothered me as well. this is only one man's opinion. however i don't think that is the biggest concern. a friend of mine used to say: just because they are many and i am one doesn't mean they are right. so that is the thought.

o n  t h e  u r b a n  s c a l e-- we are close enough to one another in this city to be overhearing conversations all throughout the day. you just have to open your ears. and let me tell you, when you hear your native tongue; it screams at you. your ear somehow picks up on this like the sweetest song you have heard. i can't explain so well how this is, but when i hear english in my daily moves through the city it is just like a loud whisper, the one that is louder than regular spoken word and (usually) no matter what is spoken, holds a little more time for thought. this happened on the bus the other day when two friends were complaining to the max about another friend...blah blah blah. i got twenty minutes of my tram ride with their chatter, i didn't mind, felt a little bad for the brit they were hustling but enjoyed the english. i then excused myself in my best american accent. whatever that means. even though there isn't as much diversity when it comes to languages in the states we really don't get the chance to even find out. it isn't the norm to be brushing shoulders and sharing bahn seats where this sort of interaction or hearsay happens. it still and probably always will blow me away when i talk with a friend in english and then see them turn a switch and speak another language fluently. how can they dooooo that??? i'm simply amazed by fluency in language. on another note, a six year old german girl taught me some important words the other day. i now have: mirror, candle, fork and newspaper in my deutsch vocabulary.


german words we use in america and maybe didn't know it ::

gesundheit (ga-zune-tight)

doppelganger (who is yours?)

kindergarden (we are growing children)

scheisse (shiza, shit)

 The one-ofa-kind artist ,CHRISTO wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin

the year was 1995 and a lot has happened since then

his work never fails to take my breath away

i hope someday to see one in person

a bucket list kind of thing to see

i think i need to invent a new terms that also means bucket list

hmmmmmmmm. still thinking on that one.

planning not to miss the one coming to colorado, though not until 2015, far off excitment.

here is was last year when we visited:



orangerie at the karlsaue (kassel, de)

:: translation ::

this was a baroque castle summer home and home for the orange trees to take refuge in the winter time. they had to keep the oranges happy and warm. today it hosts astronomy ideas/things, garden shows and other beautiful things. this is also the north end vantage of the karlsaue park, the formal garden space in kassel. it's beautiful and just on the edge of the city which is fairly rare. think how far Versailles is from the city of paris. here, you can walk from the city center!

DOCUMENTA 's graphics through the years. not sure about them all

kassel - pronounced - - castle

currently working in Kassel, a small-ish feeling city.

[insert wikipedia reserach time]

population 200,000.

you can call it large as well, depends on your view of a city, town, village, mega-region..what have you. in this country, the stadt  : town & city translation : will make its way to a big-city when it reaches 100,000 inhabitants. towns are considered to be having at least 50,000 inhabitants. There are a few world cities in Germany as well -- Frankfurt, Munich, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Stuttgart and Cologne. interesting topic: world and global cities.

well, that was a tangent. sheesh, no deleting now. i got kind of interested but need to be back on topic and keep this short as there is a lot of work to be doing in the current days of this symposium we are at. to see more of what is going on in kassel, please venture

 to DOCUMNETA 

also,above is a map for you

this compares the university of virginia with the university of kassel, but clearly UVA is taking over the majority of the city. scale...wow!