barbie and the cadillac of card games

***
note: i have changed all the videos to higher quality so that hopefully you'll actually be able to see what's i'm talking about...

happily you have found me at my new home - and boy oh boy do i have a treat in store for you this evening...

since i have arrived here in berlin, you see, i have had the pleasure of visiting the funny farm each week for *games night* hosted by the oh-so-fantastisch laura and her supercool beau, gordon m. who make this event a veritable treasure trove of Schmackhaftigkeit*.

WEEK 1:

on my first games night, laura and i played a game of sprachenspiel**, a fun but non-competitive board game that teaches you how to speak german. and i actually did learn some very useful german vocabulary, such as:

schwarze johannisbeere: black currant (lit. black johnberry?)
allein: alone
dorf: village (try saying it - you'll never go back.)
er hat gelt: he has money
fester Freund: boyfriend (not the most romantic-sounding expression, but whatever...)

apparently "boyfriend" is actually pronounced boifrännd:



(seriously, though: the game is A LOT more fun than it sounds.)

later that evening, we played some excellent rounds of pictionary - highlights are here...



and



and my personal favourite:



but the highlight of the evening was the 3 a.m. game of charades which i was having way too much fun playing to have photographed properly. in the end i managed to catch a couple, including what must hold the record for fastest charade ever solved (and they swear they weren't cheating):



and this one which i call, "buddha rhymes with what, now?":



the second week was quite a different story....

WEEK 2:

now, it's a little known fact that laura and gordon host THE coolest underground bridge game in berlin (if not the whole of continental europe) in a psychedelic-tiki-zombie-meets-dandy-surrealist sort of way. and seeing as they say that bridge is the "cadillac" of card games (i think that's supposed to be a good thing?) i thought it would be fun to try.

as of late, the "regular" games night bridge players have been:

the dapper gordon m.

the larger-than-life gordon w.

the dandy and skillful an te

and the accomplished, no-nonsense ira.

you need four players for bridge, and the intimidating part (besides the bidding, counting and scoring) is that you have to play with a partner. who you don't want to piss off. in other words: to play bridge at funny farm is to contend with the "big boys" - which sounds like a job for...

berlin barbie!

so last week, it happened that ira was out of town and i was allowed to sit in and learn the ropes. i'm certain that the boys expected me to underperform (and who could blame them, considering the blonde hair and bubbly personality?) but in the end, berlin barbie did einen klasse job***.

in all fairness, everyone was very patient with me and were incredibly generous with their knowledge and advice. there was a great deal of illegal table talk (often accompanied by refrains of 'oh my god, if ira were here he'd kill us') but it helped me learn, and by the end of the evening i was feeling pretty good.

laura doesn't like to play bridge and mostly hangs out with her neverending stream of supertoll**** visitors (like charlie, below) and makes fun of us in a "bridge is for 'old people'" kind of way:



but she is a flawless hostess who - as usual - crafted the perfect atmosphere.

case in point:

the tablecloth, in case you forget the rules of bidding...



or of scoring...



and the bridge lampshade (a laura original):



frankly, the rules of bridge are insane but the terminology is SO AWESOME. on that note, i proudly present to you a series of concise, highly edutaining videos with excellent soundtracks that will provide invaluable bridge playing advice that you can use to impress all your friends:

1. how to bid classic stayman (both vulnerable with a game on):



2. yodeling the weak club convention:



3. doubletons, tripletons, and laura dancing up a storm:



isn't the music überrad? dj laura always supplies irritainment at its very BEST (btw, william shatner's cover album ROCKS.)

i will be back soon with more fun and frolic. until then, happy bidding :)

xo,

baby blackwood barbie



BARBIE GLOSSARY:

*Schmackhaftigkeit (ger. sl): nuttiness, deliciousness.

**Sprachenspiel (ger.): language game.

***Einen klasse job (ger. sl.): a damn fine job.

***Supertoll (ger. sl.): kick-ass-awesome.

barbie and the new digital instrument for the 21st century

***
the other night, i was very excited to go to the launch for the TENORI-ON, a new instrument conceived by the überawesome media artist Toshio Iwai (pictured here) in conjunction with yamaha. apparently it took them 6 whole years to develop...

according to the press release,

the TENORI-ON is a 16x16 matrix performance instrument of LED switches which allows everyone to play music intuitively, creating a "visible music" interface. By operating and interacting with the LED buttons and the light they produce you gain access to the TENORI-ON's numerous performance capabilities. The TENORI-ON provides six different performance and sound/light modes for broad performance versatility, and these modes can be combined and used simultaneously for rich, complex musical expression.

the instrument looks like this:



and it's both a performance input controller and display which you control with LED buttons and the light they produce. it has six different performance and sound/light modes and these modes can be combined and used simultaneously for musical expression.

if that sounds too complicated, this image should clear it up for you:



basically, it works like this:



if you would like to see it in action, here's a demo from gary kibler:



or watch toshio iwai himself perform at the u.k. tenori-on launch:



or check out this short tutorial that shows you how to use the tenori-on to write a song;



you can also download mp3s of some tenori-on tracks from electronic music artists jim o'rourke, atom heart, and robert lippok here and here and here.

and if you would like more info, you can find it all here at yamaha's official tenori-on website.

anyway, i had an awesome time at the event, ESPECIALLY when i got to play with the thing and it is very cool, indeed. my initial explorations are documented here:



(what i was trying to say at the end of this video before i got distracted by all the pretty sounds was that it lets you choose what key you're playing in so that it's impossible to hit a "wrong" note.)



i also compiled a very brief sampler from the video i took of some of the artists who performed -



i have to say that by the end of the evening, once the novelty had worn off (ooh! the lights! pretty!) i'm not sure that it's all that much more entertaining to watch than any other midi controller. in particular i found nathan michel's music the most compelling, but his performance reminded me of being stoned on a friday night watching people play video games...

however, i think that like any new technology, it has tremendous potential to innovate in terms of how it will be used once it gets taken up by a wider sphere, corrupted and bastardized and used in ways that no one has yet envisioned...

and on that note, i'm going to get back to writing my own music now that i've gotten my usb hubs in place and my theremin put back together again after its long journey.

bis bald,

random bounce mode barbie

barbie does the biennale

***
ah, so...

the berlin biennale party post.

but first, a word first about the biennale itself:

disclaimer: i am the first to admit that i am no expert on the berlin Artworld (nor any art scene for that matter) but whatever i do have to report to you comes from solidly reputable sources.

this year's biennale was called 'When things cast no shadow,' and was curated by Adam Szymczyk and Elena Filipovic. it aimed to "bring together artists from different generations and nationalities in an exhibition by day and night that aims to trace the diversity of art practices today. eschewing a singular theme, form, or temporality, and determined instead by a critical engagement with artists' processes, 'When things cast no shadow' could be said to take the form of an open structure in five movements without a plot."

[ha! without a plot, indeed.]

the day part of the biennale took place in four venues and included mostly newly commissioned works by 50 artists, and there were also nightly events.

so...

i was going to write a clever and incisive description of the biting reactions that i have observed in relation to the overall tone and quality of the work, but i decided to make a comic instead (click on it to enlarge):



but as i said, i'm no expert - and if my comic appears a tad cynical, let me say that with all my heart i do believe that we all want to be moved, and i sincerely lament the fact that the work seemed to be lacking in this respect.

if you would like a humorous description of a couple exhibitions, here's a candid conversation that i overheard between two of my favourite artists reviewing the work that they had seen on the first day of the biennale:



okay. 'nuff said. on to the parties.

so for those of you who are familiar with this city, you already know that berliners LOVE a good pah-tay. combine this innate tendency with the thousands of international jet-set partiers that the biennale brought to town, and you get the makings for one crazy weekend.

i've documented short bites of the two days of parties (with a few pics of the recovery day for good measure) so that you can really get an idea of what it was like. i tried to capture as much of the 'atmosphere' as i could, and happily the visuals i was able to record turned out quite alright.

what i couldn't capture as successfully was the feeling of being smushed up against a bunch of strangers for almost two days straight. i cannot count how much alcohol was spilled on me during this time (i am beginning to understand why people in this city wear so much black) but it was actually lots of fun.

i present this story to you in 12 part(y)s:

(as usual, these are very short videos - only one is longer than 40 sec.)

BARBIE DOES THE BERLIN BIENNALE

DAY 1

party(y) 1: the bar



party(y) 2: the ballroom



party(y) 3: the hands



party(y) 4: the funk



party(y) 4a: clara with a c



party(y) 5: the nightcap



[sleep]

DAY 2

intermezzo: the dinner



party(y) 6: the negotiation



party(y) 7: cookie's



party(y) 8: um, where to?



party(y) 9: we're going where?



party(y) 10: the mall



epilogue:

so after all of this, i wanted to sleep for a very long time. and i developed a strange aversion to people. and alcohol. and lay in bed entertaining myself by making up german fortune cookie messages like, "you will soon achieve absolute knowing" or "nietzsche says: god is dead and you killed him".

anyway, later on sunday evening i ended up out for dinner with some extremely cool people - two very well-known fashion designers, as well as some curators and artists who were in town for the biennale (and the parties, of course).

we went to a restaurant called 'grill royal' which was extremely luxurious (in a berlin sort of way). i ate some very very yummy argentinean steak with four different kinds of homemade ketchup (blasphemy? perhaps...but it was sooo good.)

the restaurant was also interesting in that it had a bunch of charming but strange rooms, which inspired this impromptu photoshoot:









on the way home, six of us tried to squish into a tiny european car and i got two fingers slammed in the door. boy, does that hurt - plus it took about a minute to figure out how to get the door open again so that i could extricate my fingers from their uncomfortable situation...

michelle and mike were so very kind and got me some very fancy ice from their hotel which prevented any serious damage. but i will always make sure to be more vigilant when it comes to such closing automobile doors, especially after so many bottles of wine.

and on that note, i must get ready for games night # 2 at the funny farm! tonight i will be trying my "hand" at bridge for the first time...ha ha ha.

by the way - BEST LINE OF THE WEEKEND goes to the fabulous michelle, who, when asked at the mall party whether we were on the guest list pushed her way past the large german bouncer and with a lovely english accent responded:

"honey, we ARE the guest list".

(t-shirts are in the works. obviously.)

until next time,

eclectic electric barbie

barbie and the universal research of subjectivity

***
oh boy.

i regret to inform you that berlin barbie has fallen off the party train. she has just realized that since landing in germany, she has only spent one evening in. there is just too much for her to see and do here.

not that she is complaining - last night, for example, sitting at a table in one of the best restaurants in berlin eating some of the BEST steak of her life with fabulous, creative people...a shame that she could barely keep her little eyes open. but somehow she lasted until 2 am (an early night by regular standards) - and while today she can barely hold up her head (after having thoroughly exhausted the bienale afterparty circuit) deep down she is incredibly thrilled and comforted that the only reason she feels so schlecht* is because it's been so hard to pry herself away from such fascinating people, places and conversation.

and a night in, of course, allows her time and space to reflect on some of these conversations and places, as well as to show&tell you a bit about the work i've been experiencing.

the biennale actually opened on friday, but i need to catch up with you about thursday night first...this was the night that i actually saw some awesome work.

so thursday night there were many openings around the city of various shows not directly connected to the biennale but coinciding with it.

i was happy to make the rounds, and will point out a few of the highlights:

the first opening i attended was an artist by the name of Warren Neidich, whose exhibition was entitled "Each Rainbow Must Retain the Chromatic Signature, it…"

i found his work quite interesting - especially the paintbrushes he did which are coloured with beautiful spectra based on the colours of the rainbows in historic european paintings - for instance, the work After Peter Paul Rubens, 1636, was made from the rainbow found in Ruben's painting Rainbow Landscape:

According to the science of optics, a rainbow is a physical phenomenon made up of seven colors arranged in a specific order. However, painted rainbows from different periods in art history appear quite different as they express the varying cultural and experiential circumstances under which they were created. These same changing conditions are reflected in the construction of the mind of the artist. Therefore, the representation of each rainbow is the result of the projection of this mind upon the canvas, which acts as a screen illuminated by that particular condition of the mind. The installation of these brushes highlights these differences and expresses the history and cumulative affects of cultural history on the mind as represented through the optics of art history.

but really, i think they're pretty neat:





(everyone was joking that my hair was painted with the one on the left...)

another part of the exhibition was a small triangular pavillion made of red, yellow and blue sliding doors which opened and closed more or less randomly as they reacted to people moving around and through the space - except for when someone stood absolutely still right in the middle of it, at which point they would all close.







anyway, after warren's exhibition, we went to check out a show at 'curators without borders' which is a nice gallery on Brunnenstrasse, a cool street with lots of galleries. the show we saw is called 'dark science' which "brings together work that probes our various cultural understandings of science".

there was one outstanding piece here by an icelandic artist by the name of Finnbogi Pétursson, called Dream 2005:

Finnbogi has worked for many years on poetic visualisations of sound. Carefully selecting tones, he has drawn, sculpted or created architectural spatialities in various ways. In Dream two sinus notes are produced in a darkened room. These tones unite in the middle of the room, generating a new kind of soundwaves, on the same frequency as the brainwaves that occur in a person who is daydreaming. With a bowl of water lit from underneath Pétursson paints the ceiling with a state of mind.

here's a little video i made of the piece - it's not perfect but it gives you an idea. imagine TONS of subbass rippling through your body as you watch it. it's quite comforting, actually. i stayed in the room for ages. it was very womb-y. i'd like one in my living room very much.



okay, so then we went to a gallery called program which was showing a very interesting work by a belgian artist named edith dekyndt called Present Perfect.

this was definitely my kind of work.

her big project is called "universal research of subjectivity" which i think is amazing, obviously.

but the first thing you see when you come in (even from outside) is a large black ball hovering around and moving ever so slowly through the space.



this, it turns out, is a piece called Ground Control, and it's basically an object which is inflated with helium and air such that the weight of the object and the composition from the gas allow it to remain a certain distance from the ground. i love it. it can go in my dining room along with the vibrating pool of water.

check it out:



another very striking piece here was a video called Martial M showing two hands doing something with some kind of substance. at first i was convinced it was a manipulated image, but it's not. see if you can guess what she's doing:



and the answer: she's playing with iron filings...

neat, huh?

the third piece of hers i found striking were the COOLEST looking helmets EVER:




and these you can actually touch (!) and put on and inside there's someone speaking and then a little screen that shows some cool visuals of the waveforms of the voice...

it's called Any Ressemblance with People, Dead or Alive, is Purely Coincidental, and the voice tells you a little monologue about various real facts/events of everyday life here and in space. i totally dig it.


so what do these projects have in common?

Any act of architecture is firstly an act of human intervention upon the natural world. Architecture, as such, is a form of inquiry; a system we construct for negotiating our relationship with nature...Dekyndt has of late turned towards examining natural phenomena as mediated by a careful, subjective gaze. As if to cast doubt on our assumptions of the laws that govern the cosmos, Dekyndt alienates these invisible forces – like gravity, magnetism and light – from their native epistemological context and opens them to questions within the framework of art. In fact, simply by making us aware of the constant presence of these forces, these unacknowledged conditions within which we conduct our existence, we become conscious of the subjective, circumstantial nature of our surroundings. What is unseen, unheard and unfelt is not all together absent – yet it is this absence, this spectral presence, that architects work to maintain within our built world. We almost never ask why buildings stay standing; we never question the loads and stresses that counter within their walls that keep them from crumbling. By putting natural phenomena on display, visitors become agents in their own, subjective inquiry of the aesthetic world. Thus, Dekyndt’s Present Perfect becomes a laboratory for colliding the empirical with the intuitive.
(in other words, she makes you look at ordinary things in such a way that they appear magical, and even though she never manipulates the images she makes you question what's real and what is not.)

i know, my dears, that this is a lot to read - and right now my head is swimming just thinking about the subjective gaze and epistemological inquiry. however, i can honestly say that this work was incredibly moving on a visceral level as well as being interesting conceptually. by far the most compelling work i've seen here so far...

but more about that in my next post (which will have more parties, less theory, i promise).

signing off...

electric space station zebra barbie

barbie takes the u-bahn

***
as anyone who has visited berlin already knows, the public transit here is pretty great.

in addition to many buses, there are two main lines of transport - the s-bahn and the u-bahn. the s-bahn is like a really sexy streetcar thing that i think would make a great office for me. i fantasize about spending a whole day just sitting there and going back and forth to the end of the line and just writing, reading, thinking. it goes above the city and makes for some very interesting views. love love love.

the u-bahn is the subway, which is also quite pleasant. for some reason it never seems to get busy, and the trains are quite smooth (you can even open the windows!). the typography on all the signs is also very nice. these little things just make me feel so happy for some reason.

so the closest u-bahn to where i'm living (in mitte - former east, now quite desirable...somewhat comparable to queen st. west of bathurst in toronto) is called 'alexanderplatz' and is right next to the kaufhof, the department store where one goes to buy appliances, clothes, toys, workout equiptment - even groceries. it's pretty awesome, actually. i actually get excited to go there. now i know what my mother means when she talks about how enthralling a visit to "eaton's" used to be.

but i digress...

the entrance to the subway looks like this:



you go down these stairs and then you have to go to a kiosk and buy your ticket, then you validate your ticket using another machine (which i find oddly satisfying?) and then you wait for your train on the platform:



this box with the yellow text lets you know how many minutes it will take for the next train to reach the station. i find this quite amazing (even more amazing is that every bus stop also has a timer):



now, as we all know, the subway works best when you know where you're going. and although there are maps of berlin all over the place, they don't really help me because the city is insane and has no parallel lines. it looks like this (i'm in that yellow circle) and the subway lines are twisting and turning and converging and diverging. but i know i'm just used to toronto's very straightforward grid, and it'll probably good for me learn to maneuver amidst this uncertainty:



this is me and the map:



and then the train comes:



bonus:

so the other night i was coming out of the subway, and when i reached the street right in front of the department store, there was some wicked breakdancing going on, which i'm very happy to be able to share with you. the video is a couple minutes long, but i just find it so beautiful...especially "lenny kravitz" with the incredible long limbs. apparently these guys are around ever week, so i'll definitely try to catch them again.



that's it for now. the berlin art biennale begins tomorrow (i was already at openings all night tonight) so the next few days will be pretty nuts, i expect. i'm feeling pretty exhausted at this point, especially after last night's bridge/pictionary/charades marathon at the funny farm. it was VERY fun though - especially watching an te try to act out 'creationism'(!).

xo,
air flare barbie.

barbie goes to the (funny) farm

***
achtung, baby: there is so much excitement in store for you here that i just hope you can stand it.

a brief note before we begin: the videos below, despite their momentous titles, are all under 40 seconds long. and definitely listen WITH sound.

and now, we can begin...

***

ONCE UPON last sunday evening, i had the wonderful honour of a *trip* to the funny farm, a.k.a. the absolutely incredible art/work/playhouse designed and choreographed by the brilliant artist laura kikauka, who is my new hero. seriously. next to her, i am a mere skipper.

when you first approach the funny farm (located in the middle of a square in east berlin that was actually a performance space in the communist days) it looks like this:

and the "farm" is actually that fabelhaft* building on the far left.

before we go inside, however, i'd like to point out 2 important landmarks:

1. the smoking hut:

laura designed it, and holy shit is it ever cool...

a close up of the BEST SIGN EVER...(and some days i really do relate to this):

and what an interior!

(cont.)

this was obviously one of my favourite elements:

and the second BEST SIGN EVER:



2. did i mention that laura also pimps bikes?

okay.

now as we approach the front door, you get a better sense of how awesome this place is. what a great balcony. kinda makes me want to stage a really demented version of romeo and juliet. on bicycles.

and now we approach the front door: when i first saw this i thought it said "please quiet when RAVING" and found that notion quite intriguing...?

and...

the front door: Funny Farm East.



and now, la piece de resistance...

the interior.

i hardly know where to start - but the videos will give you a better idea of what the place is like. everywhere you look is something awesome and groovy and unique. laura has collected and carefully orchestrated immaculate displays of everything a girl could ever want, need, or dream of...

such as this record player:




and if you want something to play on said record player, try the hit single:



all you philosophers will appreciate the "chance or logic" board game - (now if only we could figure out how to play):



when we arrived, laura was already hanging out with two lovely friends of hers, danielle and steven, whom she had run into at the flea market. danielle is a wünderbar artist and musician, and steven is an übertalented artist and graphic designer. he was a little hungover, but still very charming.

we all sat around the bar and had enlightening conversations about things like this:

"the skull that laura built"



yes, laura actually made that.

which put us on to our next topic:

les mouches (or, steven teaches us how to clean a skull)

btw, the picture of the singing foam noodle you see halfway through is laura. and now you know why she is my new hero.



and just so you understand how severely insanely amazing her decoration skills really are...

mirror mirror on laura's funny wall



so we had a couple beers and then laura, an te and i went upstairs and had a little wig party.

this is laura (incognito...don't give away the disguise or she'll kill me):



would you buy a used fish from this man?



and me...red light barbie.



a little later we were joined by alex (danielle's husband) from the epic band 'einstürzende neubauten', and by william morrison of skinny puppy, both of whom are way too cool for school (good thing, 'cause we were at the farm, after all).

alex and william both had iphones which they liked to play with. in case you have one which sometimes malfunctions, i believe laura discovered the ultimate reason why:

that damn static



we talked a lot about some VERY important, life changing matters. for example, did you know that there's a place in germany where they have a sport called chess-boxing? basically, you fight a round and then you play a round of chess. then fight, then chess. this sounds like fun to me...(as long as i don't have to be the one playing).

and just when i thought i was so total in for knowing about a place here that specializes in punk-rock karaoke (apparently they have every dead kennedy's song ever), alex totally showed me up by informing us about a place here where you can do karaoke porn. this does not involve actually acting out scenes from porn flicks (as i initially imagined...) but rather you sing along to porn. so there.

which brings us to our "german lesson" of the day. laura had a great little book that taught me some key phrases which i just know you will find superuseful, such as:



(leave me alone or i will call the police)

and my personal favourite:



(this man is bothering me)

so then it was about time to eat, so we went for some yummy food nearby. it was the first time i had ever seen breasts served as a side dish...



and we finally adjourned to laura's place, where william coined our official mantra of the evening:

"anyone can be skanky"

and i took one last little movie of the whole gang, which i call:

panorama die freunde:



and that, my friends, seems to be a good as a place as any to leave you for tonight.

i know this is one epic post, but i was just so incredibly inspired and incredulous and giddy to have found barbie's dreamiest traumhaus ever that i had to share it. and i even get to go back tomorrow for GAMES NIGHT.

klasse***.

stay tuned for my next installment, in which i plan to present footage of some of the most AWESOME breakdancing EVER.

...

xo,

midnight muesli barbie





BARBIE/GERMAN GLOSSARY

*ger. adj. (coll): fantabulous, scrumptious, topping (?)
**ger. adj. (coll): hip, in the know
***ger. adj. (coll): sweet!