= 5mallc4ps in berlin =

-=new web address=-

2005-09-21T15:40:00.000+02:00

i have recently migrated from blogger to my very own web server and web address. please update your bookmarks, and for some of you, your homepages ;)

the new address is as follows:

villainous.biz

see you there and thanks to blogger (for nuttin' but headaches)

masterpiece cleaners in berlin

2005-09-19T19:52:00.000+02:00

now that emile, danja and i are living in berlin (anastasia, we miss you!) most of the mpc crew is representing in full effect. today we got a chance to bomb the streets with our newly printed stickers.

here is one on the window of the Fleisherei. the Fleisherei is an atelier that provides silkscreen workshops, as well as a store for artists to sell their products.

here is another mpc sticker found at the rosenthaler U-bahn station. it is positioned respectfully underneath a multi-panelled sticker by Maedel. Maedel is an Viennese designer/artist and super hottie! look out for her stickers and other illustrations, coming to the urban decay near you.

emile makes friends

2005-09-19T19:39:00.000+02:00

i am finally back in berlin after a short trip to enschede in the netherlands.

happy to be back, emile, karin and i decided to visit sankt oberholz where they were having an election party. if you have been keeping up with the elections in germany, you know that things have become more and more confusing in the german political landscape.

happy to be oblivious to all this political nonsense, emile and a new friend enjoy the pleasures of playing psp. here is emile giving a few pointers in the game that has become his new crack; Bleach 2: Heat the Soul.

i believe this is just before the moment when the little guy beats emile's high-score.

as you can see emile does not look pleased.

a note to my faithful reader (you know who you are!)

2005-09-08T00:23:00.000+02:00

i will regretfully be away from berlin for a short period of time and will not be able to update my weblog for about a week or so. i am visiting the AKi, packing my old place up in enschede for a more permanent move back to berlin, and conducting all sorts of important business-like transactions. please visit occasionally for i will have new content posted very soon. i am just about to move homes now, and i promise that this is just the beginning of all the fun!

thanks and see you soon,

. : s m a l l c a p s : .

finally found an atelier space. YAY!

2005-09-02T16:25:00.000+02:00

danja just recently came back from russia the other day and we have been steadily looking for a shared atelier space with markus, and boy did we luck out finding a great space located at the edge of the wedding / prenzlaurberg boarder.

the neighbourhood is just beginning to blossom. many young people, students, musicians, artists and designers are moving into this inexpensive location looking for something close to the cool area of prenzlaurberg but are not willing or able to pay the gradually inflating prices.

this particular building is similar to the other buildings in that area; mostly old DDR constructed flats which haven't been renovated yet into lavish luxury apartments and are just recently being rented out again since the big landownership mixup that occurred when the wall went up and came down.

BUT the best part of the atelier space is that it is on the ground floor of the building and has 2 separate entrances, one entrance being the entrance to our storefront! (the street-level front door is under that metal curtain thingy)

it is actually a commercial space so it could be used as a gallery, theatre, internet cafe, clothing store, laundry mat, fruit market, padded looney bin, absinth bar... an empty space has so much potential...

much work has to be put into the space, but once we are done we plan to make it a community hub for the neighbourhood. if you want to help out or have any ideas for events or initiatives please feel free to mail me. my address can be found here.

* sorry once again for the crappy shots, but i was too excited to play photographer

the chancellor lets off a lil' steam

2005-08-31T22:20:00.000+02:00

depicted here is the current german chancellor and head of the SPD political party, chancellor gerhard schroeder. if you notice closely, he has been mercilessly stickered! the first billboard depicts the chancellor with funny cartoon eyes; pretty straight forward and simple.

the second billboard depicts our beloved chancellor (well i don't love him, not like a man loves another man, and not like any other kind of love for that matter) with a valve coming out of his neck, most likely to release latent pressure build-up from all the stress he must be going through at the thought of loosing the elections. it also might be a valve for all that bullsh!t that overflows from his mouth, or so i'm told by people that can understand his non-coherent ramblings.

the translation from the second billboard stands;

"those who want peace must stand firm."

SPD - trust in germany. i do. firmly standing.

the cult of mac @ sankt oberholz

2005-08-31T14:08:00.000+02:00

I have been spending too much time in a cafe just at the rosenthaler platz u-bahn station. the name of the place is Sankt Oberholz, in mitte. Here one can find good music, delicious food, a cozy atmosphere, very nice service and the best thing of all... free wifi!

i have posted a few times from this very cafe. as you walk in you are greeted with a smile, the smell of good soup and hipster people zombified sitting in front of their notebooks.

the real hipsters sport powerbooks and ibooks. luckily i have a powerbook (i have tried to gift wrap it behind stickers but that damn apple on the lid glows bright, dawg!) so i can pretend to be a local and no one from the 'cool kids group' has singled me out yet. anyone who was a nerd in the 90's can relate, sitting by their locker in the 9th grade.

did i mention there was an upstairs too? pc users usually hide up there as to not be made fun of by their osx using counterparts. upstairs is also close to the toilets.

regardless of your pc using disposition, anyone with there notebook attached to their hip and in berlin should pay this great cafe a visit. just make sure you are sitting by a power outlet and have your adapter or crappy battery life might cut your experience short.

meet the meats

2005-08-29T15:43:00.000+02:00

feeling a bit peckish, i stumbled into a grocery mart to pick up a few picnic items. what i am normally use to doing living on a student budget; Berlin eating is so diverse and inexpensive that i didn't really get a chance to go into a grocery store before this day. i also don't have a kitchen (yet) so cooking has not been an option.

the interior architecture of the one i visited was quite standard to western world living. florescent lighting and long wide isles packed with food stuffs side by side in perfect display is the norm. what did surprise me but really it shouldn't have, was the immense selection of various miscellaneous diverse meats and meat related products available to the customer for immediate purchase and consumption.

here's your average salami

no good german market is not without its bratwurst

and who could forget (with a name as well hung as the sausage), the schinken-fleischwurst

Karin describes it in her own words as "disgusting German eating habits". disgusting maybe, but German? i know that in Austria they are eating this stuff too! i believe the wiener schnitzel (another fine pork product produced from the venerable pig or swine, and enjoyed by both German and non-german speaking cultures alike... is a breaded cutlet usually served with steamed potatoes, sour kraut and a brown sauce) was in fact conceived, developed and then subsequently distributed to the rest of the world from Vienna (ha!), --where Karin just happens to be from.*

"blood sausage anyone?"

"no thank you. today i'll have just fat, please."

traditionally, leberkas is made from equestrian flesh, otherwise known as horse meat. this one is (un)fortunately made from pork

Germany is not Austria and therefore the eating habits of Germans may not accurately reflect the eating habits of Austrians, even though the two countries are close, and essentially speak the same language, and share many cultural similarities, including the time old tradition of sausage making.

this is what i perceive to be some type of gelatinous sausage form with chunks of flesh from some poor, misc.div. animal. sorry about the blur but it is better that way. i promise.

this one is described on the package as a luxury vegetable gelatine... ug!

...and a selection too disheartening to further describe...

for those of you feeling sick in the tummy by now (german and non-german readers, alike... shit, does anyone read this?), i have also included a few photos of fruits and vegetables. Yes, Germans (and Austrians?) enjoy fruits and vegetables too.

* sorry to Karin for yet another reference to Vienna's dark, wiener schnitzel eating past.

Kreuzberg!

2005-08-27T16:13:00.000+02:00

Kreuzberg was the 'szene' before the wall came down and was know as a place where the young men of germany could move to to avoid conscription into military service. now the unofficial Mecca point for the european gay community, Kreuzberg is also home to one of the worlds largest turkish communities (some say bigger then Istanbul itself!) and has a wealth of 'ethnic' attractions, galleries, museums, cafes, bars, clubs and restaurants.

since the fall of the wall however, the hipster scene has moved to neighbourhoods like mitte and prenzlauerberg, making Kreuzberg a great place where the streets aren't filled with 'faux run-away' models and tourists.

what the streets are filled with though is supa-cool street art. here are a few photos of work that can be found all over kreuzberg.

here is a bigger poster from obey

cbs' fists can be found on every inch of berlin

kermit the frog and a new look for ms piggy

see if you can name the politicians

and this guy is phat!

Vilem Flusser says that we should be projects and not subjects...

2005-08-27T16:04:00.000+02:00

Flusser was a communications and media theorist/philosopher who was born in 1920. he is of Czech origin and lived and philosophized in germany, england and brazil. he could proficiently articulate his philosophies equally in english, german, czech, french, italian and portuguese, and used other languages such as visual language in the form of video essays to convey his ruminations. he was also notorious for being a brilliant communications theorist who had problems even answering questions in interviews, choosing instead to take the opportunity to recite his latest complex theory to the complete bewilderment of the interviewer. he too said that if within technology 'artificial intelligence' could exist, then we as humans would have 'natural intelligence', in which he apparently had strong feelings against the later part of this statement. He is well known for coining our times with the term 'post-history'. he himself is history now. since 1991.

here is a nice quote of his from a general reader about him and of his work;
"humans have the ability to gain skills and knowledge and to pass them on to future generations. humans are historical beings. the human is able to create and save new information.
these skills are a contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics, which says that the sum of information in a closed system is constantly shrinking; this means history itself is not natural."

...of course it sounds 'smarter' in the original language ;)

3 towers at potsdamerplatz

2005-08-26T18:28:00.000+02:00

as you come up to potsdamerplatz via leipzigerstrasse from friedrichstrasse, three hulking monuments to modern architecture over-loom in the distance. potsdamerplatz is one of the hottest places to build you headquarters for your multibillion dollar company. massively huge development projects have left this place looking like most other western cities. the obligatory shopping mall and starbuck's are present which should make North Americans feel at home. i personally find it an eyesore but at least there is free wifi.

on our way to potsdamerplatz

2005-08-26T18:19:00.000+02:00

riding the Ubahn couldn't be simpler with a good map. as usual tho in big cities one tends to find themselves posted on random public monitors to remind is that big brother is ever watchful. at least in berlin i don't feel like someone is watching me on the can like being in the london tube tends to make me feel.

hanging with some Silo Art Group members

2005-08-26T18:10:00.000+02:00

guido and danja are two members of one of enschede's finest artists goups; Silo. it is quite an international group of people hailing from russia, germany, the netherlands, iceland and the Philippines, to name just a few of the countries that the artists originate from. i have had the pleasure of living with these two great guys at the Offmess squat house in enschede, and have worked with danja recently in the Individualists' Lounge for Masterpiece Cleaners.

guido chillaxin' at markus' place in wedding

danja and i visit Potsdamerplatz. danja is a supa-media artist tech-god and fellow Masterpiece Cleaner brother-at-arms. he is also my favorite russian pop-star!

let this be a lesson to all you academics...

2005-08-26T17:59:00.000+02:00

an interesting, albeit controversial ideology ; ) i feel less stupid just reading it.

still a tourist!

2005-08-26T17:53:00.000+02:00

since i am still green to berlin living, i took the opportunity to be a good tourist and visited the brandenburg gates. it kinda looked cheap from close up, but impressive nonetheless. here are two collages from both sides of the gate.

outside...

inside...

berlin street art

2005-08-26T17:41:00.000+02:00

all over berlin the streets are riddled with graffiti and street art in all forms from stickers to posters, stencils, throw-ups and tags. artists and activists from all over the world come to these streets to bomb. berlin's particular urban environment provides the perfect gallery space for artistic activists wanting to reclaim a small piece of public space from the ever relenting commercialization of our visual landscape.

this piece is a multi-panel poster found in mitte

these pieces were found at the ann frank theatre at hackescher markt

also found near hackescher markt off the oranienburger strasse

the london police are everywhere!

and finally, these two pieces were discovered in friedrichshain

more park life living in Volkspark Weinberg

2005-08-26T17:22:00.000+02:00

on sundays in the summer one tends to gravitate to any green areas that can be found in the city. last sunday karin, emile and i ran into some grass ; ) and couldn't resist sitting for a little while to soak up a little sun and eat a falafel.

emile naps...

...and karin draws...

emile and i visit the holocaust monument

2005-08-26T17:12:00.000+02:00

emile and i had a chance to visit the recently constructed holocaust monument in berlin. there is a feeling of walking into the ocean when you enter the site. the ground gradually slopes down as the concrete monoliths begin to rise around you in waves.

as i walked though i began to feel disoriented and found myself running into people also lost between the hulking waves of concrete.

finally after a few minutes i found emile nestled deep in the installation.

chalk street art by Volkspark Weinberg in mitte

2005-08-26T16:58:00.000+02:00

this is the second time i have seen this done on the streets of berlin. there is an artist using chalk to write on the pavement a date and time stamp. there was a little chalk leftover so karin decided to participate by marking the time and date when we bore witness to the piece. a simple yet effective work!

1st annual sticker awards

2005-08-26T16:48:00.000+02:00

the 1st annual international sticker awards were held in berlin recently and i had the fortunate opportunity to come to the opening and pillage a wonderful collection of stickers!

also at the opening was a great mural on display in the exhibition area. it goes without saying that this photo does no justice to the work itself.