i have two main agendas here in berlin: the conference and vegetarian restaurants.
well i can safely say, that so far the food is winning by a mile or so, while the conference played (globally) really badly.
why?
how about a panel discussion. on the panel you have 4 babyboomers, all of them of european descent, 3 of them are professors at some artschool or other, 1 is a curator at a museum, and this crew is complaining and moaning about the crisis in interactive media art?
well, you is right: that’s a truely truely pathetic sight.
and even more so, if one considers the theme of this conference to be ‘play global’ and outside you have teams from southafrica and mexico, who are really exited, because in their countries media art has only recently become a real option, since the necessary technological gear is now more affordable and available than ever. or also considering that the gaming industry is thriving more than ever – and yes i hearby boldly claim that digital games can be a form of interactive media art…
well face it, old farts, i don’t think there is a crisis in interactive media art, it’s just you guys having a midlife crisis, because your favorite pet media art has not developped into what you wanted it to become… not a heady field for brainmasturbations.
or how about a keynote speaker – even to have such a thing as a keynote speaker is sort of strange – who is mainly namesdropping and somehow manages to draw a circle from james joyce to houellebeqc (or however one spells his name) to schmitd to adorno and all the while keeps quoting the question by duchamps: can one make a work of art that is not a work of art?
well, you lost me there buddy…
but then food: wooheee. i went to eat at an israeli restaurant. oren, oranienburgerstrasse 28. the restaurant was right next to the big synagoge, both of them fenced in and guarded heavily by guards with machine guns.. so that was eerie. and i admit, i quite regreted that i had recently shaved my head. but i ate an oriental express plate, and i agree that the name is truely awful, yes, but the food oh the food was exxxcccccellente!
so the score is 0:1