November: The Library, Digression, and Items from the Future

Photo of lights at Berliner Philharmonie

It’s 9.30 am. I am carrying my transparent plastic bag filled with a laptop, some pens and a book through the library. This place is quite ugly from the outside, but inside, it somehow works. A light-filled atrium connects the sounds of the entry hall with the desk areas and bookshelves. The noise level in here is perfect—not too quiet; you still allow yourself to breathe, and not loud; enabling the perfect concentration mode. I put my coat, my bag and my phone (necessary!) into the locker, stuff a coffee and a doughnut in my face, and find myself a desk.

It’s basically a time machine back into 2013, when I spent most of January in this building to finish my bachelor thesis. The audience is a wild mix of art and engineering students, and they all appear to be very focussed and smart. I like to make myself comfortable on the fourth floor, between the sheet music and the multi-media library. From here, I can watch November’s rain, finish some books and finally try to focus on studying. I really do try, at least.

However, I also allow myself to drift off from time to time, from link to link, book to book. In October, I briefly mentioned Design Fiction. In class, we talked about this amazing project by the Extrapolation Factory, called 99¢ Futures. It was a pop-up store which, for one day, sold various items from the future, like a Mars Survival Kit, void refills, or an “instant full university degree while you sleep”. I might want that one. Even more design fiction can be found in Mark Dudliks essay “Speculations From Tomorrow”, where he explores the narrative of the Netflix series Black Mirror, for example, or Spike Jonze’s movie Her (remember Scarlet’s alluring Samantha voice?).

Less fictional, more scary: Adobe recently presented a tool dubbed “Photoshop for Audio”. From a 20-minute voice sample, it lets you manipulate existing and create totally new audio snippets—allowing people to put basically any word into any persons mouth. While it does sound like a disaster, regarding the current mistrust in media and algorithms, it really is what we have already gotten terribly used to with image manipulation.

Further digression: My friend Caitlin is an awesome person and writer. Need proof? Read her article about womanhood (is that a word?). Anyway, it’s relevant.

I am not very up to date when it comes to trending topics and memes, but some fragments of the #mannequinchallenge slipped through to my phone. This one won.

This last day of November is my 25th birthday. And of course, I found myself thinking: “25 is basically 30, and 30 is close to 40, and 40 means full grown-up-status, and what else is supposed to come after that?” What a stupid chain of thought. However, it reminded me of Miranda July’s movie “The Future”, where a couple wants to adopt a cat, and suddenly has very similar thoughts. They turn off the internet, start volunteering, loose each other, and everything falls apart.

I don’t think thats going to happen to me though. I’ll hide here in the library, with some doughnuts and coffee, and if I stare at this open Pages document for long enough, it might start filling itself. Fingers crossed. Enjoy December.

Amor, der Liebesgott

Das energische Klingeln des Telefons weckt mich aus meinem Power Nap. Aus reinem Schock hebe ich ab, was ich normalerweise zu vermeiden versuche. Ich lande in einer Telefonkonferenz mit meinen beiden Freunden Alicia und Rudi. »Leute, ich wurde angeschossen! Von Amor, dem Liebesgott!« Rudi ey. »Ich hatte schon ein komisches Gefühl die ganze Zeit, muss ich sagen. Aber es passierte dann doch plötzlich Schlag auf Schlag. Ich konnte mich kaum umsehen, da war es schon im mich geschehen! Babette aus der 13! Oh mein Gott!«

Ich höre Alicia an ihrem Milkshake nippen, und wir beide wissen: Eine Reaktion ist hier noch nicht von Nöten; Rudi wird die kommenden Minuten mit einem Redeschwall füllen.

»Sie ist klasse! Ihr rotes, lockiges Haar, habt ihr das schonmal bemerkt?! Man will die ganze Zeit rein fassen und Dinge darin verstecken! Oh Mann. Ich bin ganz beschwipst vor Liebe! Es war Amor, mit seinem Liebespfeil!«

Ein unangenehmes Sauggeräusch lässt vermuten, dass Alicia nun am Boden ihres Milkshake-Bechers angekommen ist, und ergreift das Wort mit einem genervten Seufzen: »Wann habt ihr euch denn getroffen?« »Getroffen?! Noch gar nicht! ICH wurde getroffen! Hast du nicht zugehört? Jetzt liegt es in meiner Hand! Ich muss Amor überzeugen, ein weiteres Mal in seinen Köcher zu greifen und auch Babette mit einem seiner Liebespfeile zu beschießen. Ich weiß nur noch nicht, wie. Ich muss ihn überlisten!«

Ich nutzte die bisher verstrichene Zeit, die ich nur passiv als Zuhörer verbracht habe, mir meine Socken und die Jeans wieder anzuziehen. Ich hatte sie für den Mittagsschlaf abgelegt. Während Alicia den letzten Rest aus ihrem Becher saugt, google ich Bilder von Amor. Dicke Engel mit Pfeil und Bogen ergießen sich über dem Bildschirm meines Flip Phones, das ich gelegentlich zum Surfen nutze. Ich habe Angst, durchs Gucken allein selbst Opfer von Amors Pfeil zu werden. »Kennt sie dich denn überhaupt?«

Aus der Reihe: Halb-gare Romananfänge. Fortsetzung folgt (vielleicht).

Grüße aus der Sofaritze

Das Verhältnis zwischen den Tagen, an denen ich abends denke: Fuck, ich hab’ die ganze Zeit nur rumgehangen; ich war mega unproduktiv; aus mir wird nie was, und den Tagen, an denen ich denke: Geil! Heute richtig was geschafft!, ist sehr, sehr unausgewogen.

October: Golden Clouds, Learning, and Minority Report

Image of palm tree with partly golden leaves

The train takes approximately 1.5 hours to get me to Potsdam. I will be studying there for the next one or two years. On my way, I pass through Grunewald, which is really one giant cloud of golden leaves right now, and lots of lakes. Berlin is very watery, and Potsdam is very tidy. However, the first two weeks of University left my mind in a very untidy state. So much input! Here are just two fragments of things I stumbled upon:

I read about the PIBA-DIBA proposal, for example: A guidance to blend the Digital with the Physical (paper here). It basically gives two lists to designers, based on: „Physical Is Better At“ vs. „Digital Is Better At“, with the intention to direct the designer’s focus to beneficial aspects of using digital vs. physical objects. Another interesting topic I stepped into was the design methodology of „Design Fiction“. In this essay, Julian Bleeker explains how science fiction is a powerful way of innovating and pushing ideas to a wider audience (you all remember the crazy interfaces in Minority Report, and how fragments of them slowly drip into our lives, and how their designer John Underkoffler actually made them reality).

My Dropbox is filled with PDFs, TED talks, and about 100 links to Google Scholar papers. What I find hard is to manage all this input. I have the feeling that I forgot how to learn. And I am not talking about this new kind of learning; interactive and revolutionized methods leading to epiphanies, adaptable to the “real world”. I am talking about learning in its purest, dullest format: sitting at a desk, my nose and eyes buried in books, folders and my laptop, with blue ink stains on my lips from chewing on my pen (gross). Obviously this is due to my broken attention span (on that note, I enjoyed Douglas Forsters thoughts on How to Rebuild an Attention Span), and my three-year-pause of being a student.

With the luxury of my planned studies, I got to think about my desk and learning setup a little more the past month. While I find it okay to read on my tablet on the train or sit in our University’s very nice and quiet library, I really cherish my own home office. Or maybe I’d like to call it “my study” from now on. It’s a place to really sit down and focus, surround myself with paper and technology, and get lost in this area for a little while. It just never feels unproductive.

With the setup of a proper working environment, I found myself curious and critical over the latest release of Apple’s new MacBook Pro and the Microsoft Surface Studio. Both being doubtlessly powerful machines, their hardware design is lacking character. I really have a thing for outdated technology, and every time I watch old TV series where someone self-importantly hacks into an iMac G3 “for homework”, I feel all fuzzy and nostalgic. The site Starring At The Computer provides a ridiculously large collection of computer appearances on TV and in movies.

Also in October:

A — Rixdorf, the historic town center of Neukölln, and I finally became reconciled. I used to hate Neukölln in the dark autumn and winter months, but the area around here got so much nicer. There is a real bakery, a book store, and I even visit the bar around the corner from time to time.

B — While I try to get used to academic writing (I took a crash course at University, and am reading much more academic papers), I also felt like not writing like a robot from time to time. A reminder in my phone pushes me for one diary entry per day. I don’t always do it, but I do it more often now, which is very soul-cleansing™.

C — Other than that: It just started raining, and I was so so so motivated to go out for some physical activity this evening. But ok. I might just stay at home, in my study, and watch the outside slowly turning into winter. Have a great start into November!

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How to eat an orange

I once saw a video tutorial on YouTube about the correct way to eat oranges. Oranges are a weird fruit: More palatable than lemons; they actually work as a normal fruit snack; however, they are really tricky to prepare. According to the video, one needs to place the ripe fruit between both hands, and then start rolling it around the palms—gently, but not too gently. The rolling movement is supposed to detach the outer, inedible skin from the refreshing, juicy pulp. After a couple of minutes, one can dent a fingernail into the fruit’s detached skin and begin peeling off the hard, resistive layer. This should be easy now, and if you’re a pro, you can remove the skin in one piece. Afterwards, the fruit is demountable like a tangerine, and ready to be enjoyed.

Well. I never do it like that. I usually take a sharp knife, slice the orange in bite-sized portions, position myself over the sink (make sure I’m alone first), then start sucking and biting the slice until only the bitter skin is left. I open the bin drawer and throw the remains away. After that, I take some minutes to peel left-over fruit particles from between my teeth with my tongue. So refreshing!

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Ich liebe das Finden von alten Dateien, die hier und da auf meiner Festplatte verstreut liegen. 2012 war ein gutes Jahr – wir haben uns in dieser Stadt verwurzelt, wir haben uns über drei Jahre hinweg einen Alltag erarbeitet, ein Zuhause, eine wirklich gute Freundschaft. Alles hat diese ganz bestimmte Farbe; einen fest zugehörigen Soundtrack; Objekte, die mich immer an gewisse Sekunden erinnern. Manche davon sind auf Video gefangen.

Roman, 2012. Musik: Tula. Auf Vimeo.

September: Sketchbooks, Cobble Stones, and Solitude

image

With the cobbled part of the street, I slow down a bit. I take notice of the old houses and small byroads, dipped in the blue hour of the evening, and I glance into a warmly lit restaurant window. It’s empty, there is only one person inside, close to the window. The man isn’t reading, he’s not looking outside, he’s not really looking anywhere at all. It was a very calm moment, and in the next one, I got shaken up by the cobble stones again. I cycled on, and asked myself: Was he lonely, maybe?

For its larger part, September was spent in Augsburg, my parent’s home town. I wanted to take a break from Berlin, get some work done, and use my newly gained freedom to read, learn to cook (haha, yeah, no) and fill my sketchbook. There are only a couple of friends left in the town where I grew up. But when I meet them, it’s doesn’t feel like we live 600 kilometers apart. My friend Viktoria asked me if I would still fill those black notebooks with snippets, poems and drawings, as I used to in school. I loved carrying the small Moleskine books with me, and really put effort into the “ideas”, as I used to call the filled pages.

Unfortunately, I had to disappoint Viktoria. Since I started studying design, my patience with notebooks got close to zero. My handwriting is poor, it feels like my drawing skills didn’t improve over the years, and I just don’t take the time to go through printed magazines and cut out the things I like or find funny anymore. Now that creativity is “work” for me, the simple art of Scrapbooking feels dilettante. And I don’t like that. Remixing, editing and sorting the things you stumble upon is an integral part of the creative mind. I can still remember a lot of pages from all the old black books I filled, just because it took time and effort, and was actually fun to do. It was more than just a notebook with sloppy handwriting and messy sketches for sketches.

However – I didn’t manage to draw a lot. I watched some video tutorials on water colors after I visited my grandfather, wo enjoys doing it, but I wasn’t very successful or determined. With my return to Berlin, I stumbled back into reality. Even though the city is so much bigger and wide-spread, it’s also so much stronger connected. Everything is wired up and constantly buzzing. Next week, I’ll have my introduction day at University, and I am excited! It’s probably just me who’s buzzing, to be honest.

Things that caught my attention:

Rebecca Solnit on being a writer: “Find your metaphors where no one is looking.” I should read some more classic literature.

On the other hand, I enjoy delving through Gregor Weichbrodt’s corpus of work. He explores conceptual digital literature, for example with his Dictionary of non-notable Artists, or BÆBEL, a mash-up of IKEA furniture-assembly instructions.

A thought: Instead of in the woods, we’re getting lost on the internet.

Take some time to go to the woods though; autumn is amazing these days. Go with a friend, or maybe take some time for yourself to do so. Solitude is not loneliness, and it can be quite relaxing. Enjoy October!

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