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  • Perception, Aesthetics, and Encapsulation – Encountering Space and the Materiality of Railway and Ferry Terminal Buildings.

    Following is my abstract for our college’s concluding conference on Technological and Aesthetic (Trans)Formations of Society in October. Writing this has renewed my good feelings and motivation for this conference.

    Terminals are places of modernity, of transport and communication. They are portals to the city, places of representation and power, but they are also places of deviance, decline and seduction. In this presentation, I will look at the polished stone, steel and glass surfaces but I will also look into the shadows and plumb the depths of these places. How do they interact with the people that use them? The aesthetics of the things, the technology and the architecture of railway and ferry terminals is perceived by women and men who use these places. Entering these places, people change direction, speed and mood. To capture and analyze these changes, happening in the crucial moment of entering a place, I want to introduce the term encapsulation (Einhhüllung).

    With the aid of digital video recordings the different aspects of the process of encapsulation will be explored and displayed for consideration and critique. Encapsulation is projected as phenomenologically rooted term that has both passive and active components. Passive, because people are encapsulated by a specific, preexistent atmosphere when they enter a place. Active, because people encapsulate or envelop themselves when they enter a place. They build up a protective cover around them, to shield them from potential dangers and irritations. Confronting the abstract analytical term encapsulation with concrete everyday life in railway and ferry stations should demonstrate both its productivity and its limitations.

  • Alles neu, alles schneller & wohl auch billiger.

    Kompliment – die Umstellung auf Alice als Telefon und DSL ging denkbar einfach und unkompliziert von statten:
    Am 9. August Auftrag per Web erteilt, Anschlusskennung des Werbers (danke, Andi & Tini) angegeben, am 11. August Schreiben von Alice mit Anschlusskennung und weiteren Daten bekommen (in dem eine Anschlusslegung für Mitte September angekündigt wurde). Am 15. August DSL-Modem, Splitter und Kabel bekommen, dazu ein Schreiben von Alice in dem die Anschlussumstellung für den 23. August angekündigt wird, ungefähr gleichzeitig eine Kündigungsbestätigung von der T-Com bekommen, in dem eine Kündigung zum tatsächlichen Umschaltzeitpunkt angekündigt wurde. Heute aufgestanden, Rechner hochgefahren, keinen Internetzugang gehabt, Splitter und DSL-Modem ausgetauscht, Zugangskennung im Router eingetragen und *vrooooooom* mit einer Dauer-Downloadgeschwindigkeit von ca. 228 Kilobyte pro Sekunde Daten auf den Rechner befördert. Yeah. So solls sein.
    Nu sollte ich allerdings lieber via Skype in Norwegen anrufen: 4,49 cent pro Minute ist nämlich der Alice Tarif für ein Gespräch nach Norwegen.

  • From garden-fest to work.

    The end of this year’s leisure season has come. The future months will show if it came just on time or too late… I am seriously behind schedule with my dissertation therefore having at least several weeks of highly concentrated work in front of me – including a disruption caused by our college’s conference in October.

    To smoothen the switch I took a relatively early train from Buchholz to Berlin. The hope is that I will only need this day for going from feeding the washing machine, re-organizing my stuff, staring mindlessly into thin air, distributing and caressing birthday presents, updating and synchronizing my computers, eating homemade plum pie, feeling disoriented, going through accumulated mail and odd household jobs via the fearsome afraid-to-start-working procrastination to actual page-production mode. The updating-my-blog phase is now done with at least.

  • Making Mozilla.

    Yesterday, I made my first direct contribution to the Mozilla Project, the organization that programs and distributes my favorite browsers, Camino for Mac OS X, and Firefox for most other platforms (AOL‘s Netscape is also built upon the Mozilla sourcecode). I would have liked to contribute to this great open source project earlier, however, a lack of resources and programming skills made this difficult. Therefore I have so far only contributed by posting in related forums, voting for bugs that bugged my in particular, and generally spreading the word. Yesterday however, I was again annoyed by one of the quirks that sometimes make you frustrated – in this case is was the non-standard way of Camino’s bookmark export function. A vote for fixing this seemed to be in order. To my surprise several searches in the Mozilla’s bug database bugzilla (yes, I know) turned out nothing. After some gnawing of fingernails I decided to take the plunge and write my first bug report. It is Bug 304118 – improve export of menu spacer / bookmark separator. I was crossing my fingers hoping not be told that this is an old hat, see bug number blablbabla. Seems my fears were unjustified: the bug was acknowledged (thanks Jasper!) and, to my utter astonishment, a fix has already been submitted!
    I guess that’s a birthday present ;)

  • Zelte die Zweite.

    Noch ein kleines Nachwort zum Zeltunglück: folgender Text steht in der Aufbauanleitung des Iglu-Dom-Tunnelzelts Modell Mallorca 3 unter der Überschrift Verhalten bei besonderen Umweltbedingungen:

    Das Zelt muss bei Schneefall oder Sturm abgebaut werden.

    Sehr lustig. Die Aufbauanleitung befindet sich selbstverständlich im Verpackungssack des Zelts. Die Produktbeschreibung auf dem Sack führt unter den Ausstattungsmerkmalen folgendes auf:

    • Moskitonetz-Eingang
    • 2 Hochentlüftungen
    • Seitenfenster im Vorbau
    • Sturmverspannung

    Haha. Tolles Zelt. Die sogenannte Sturmverspannung besteht aus sieben Schnüren, für die es am Zeit drei Befestigungsösen gibt. Die anderen Schnüre soll am einfach am Gestänge festbinden. Das habe ich auch getan und das hat dazu geführt, dass eine der Schnüre die Stoffführung für das Gestänge beim Sturm über eine Länge von circa dreißig Zentimetern weggerissen hat. Tolle Sturmverspannung, die man bei Sturmgefahr lieber abnehmen soll. Ist ja eh viel besser das Zelt eingepackt unter den Arm zu klemmen und sich ein bisschen umstürmen und umschneien zu lassen.

  • ICE 1 version 2.0.

    Finally. My biggest gripe with the German railway – there are no power plugs in the first generation of ICE trains – seems to be in the process of being removed. In a recent announcement the Deutsche Bahn has stated that the first train with a new interior design has entered service on the fith of August. The rest of the fleet will be upgraded until 2008. Marvellous news. They will switch the interior design to be similar to the design of the third generation ICE trains which is my favorite design in the last fifteen years or so: comfortable seats, enoughs plugs and a more open feel. I hate the old seats which have enormous unmovable armrests. Made me feel like sitting in a cage or in a surgery seat put into upright position. I will post a new entry as soon as I have entered the first of the renovated trains (the first one is ICE 787 running the route Hamburg to Munich).
    Mehr Informationen und Bilder.

  • Wear & tear and the mending of my trusty Pismo.

    Whew. I had to sigh several sighs of relief after Andi and I finally attached my Powerbook to the local stereo setup and successfully listened through the track Ortungstest by the German hip-hop band Fettes Brot. What happened that would cause such a joint effort in advanced breathing techniques? In the course of the last weeks the audio outlet on the back of my laptop began to show signs of a wackelkontakt. Rough rides in our car through the french countryside finally caused the wackelkontakt to morph into a full blown audio desaster: we weren’t able to listen to my music files anymore, therefore having to submit to french advertisement jingle harassment hammered through the diverse radio stations. Luckily Andi knows his way with a soldering iron much better than I do… After getting a soldering iron in Limoux’s M. Bricolage, buying a size 9 torx and a size 0 philipps screwdriver we embarked on to the repair of my Pismo’s audio outlet. And I have to tell you, it was a long journey. We had to disassemble the whole laptop to be able to get at the audio outlet. Lots of different sensible parts to be pryed out of their locations and tons of screws to manage. The audio outlet is covered by a metal shield which Andi had to solder off and on again with equipment that wasn’t really up to the task. Which is why he accidentally melted the plastic casings of some close by stuff to our shared dismay. However, some knife-scrapings and needle-piercings later the plastic was back into some sort of probably working shape. The actual repair of the audio outlet was almost trivial: two solderins points had been broken loose and were easily reattached and reinforced with a generous measure of soldering stuff. After putting the pieces together again the PowerBook did not boot up, not even making a sound after pressing the power button. Some more serious pressing of plugs and contacts was required (*cough* the processor board wasn’t firmly put into its seat *cough*) and finally the good old workhorse was booting again. Lo and behear: audio was working again, Andi is my personal hero of the week and I am really relieved that I can keep the laptop that I have grown quite fond of over the course of the last years… If you have any questions regarding surgery and patient, feel free to contact me – I did not have the nerve to take pictures, but I have a pretty vived recollection of the events and protagonists.

  • Unwetter und fliegende Zelte.

    Foto von unserem Platz in Montbrun an der Tarn - nach dem Unwetter wieder in Ordnungoh lala! ‘eute Abend ‘atten wir ein ge’öriges Unwetter! Sturmböen sind durch’s Tarn-Tal gefegt und haben das Zelt von Andi und Tini (inklusive Tini) fast in den Fluß gerissen. Von Ollis Zelt, dass ich mir für diesen Urlaub geliehen habe und das vorher noch unbenutzt war, sind zwei Bodenlaschen einfach abgerissen. Glückerlicherweise hatte ich vorher schon die gesamte Verspannung angebracht so dass das Zelt nicht auch davongeflogen ist. Vor diesem Ereignis war ich von dem Zelt ganz positiv eingenommen. Nun allerdings muss ich sagen, dass es wirklich zu riskant ist, mit billigen Zelten in den Urlaub zu fahren. Die Nähte und der Stoff (es sind auch noch zwei andere Teile etwas eingerissen) sind einfach nicht stabil genug, um widrigen Bedingungen, wie sie auch in nicht-extremen Klimazonen immer wieder vorkommen, zu widerstehen. Qualität ist gefragt – wenn wir nicht dagewesen wären und es gleichzeitig auch noch geregnet hätte, wäre es schon möglich gewesen, dass das Zelt samt Inhalt (das heisst auch diesem Laptop) völlig hinüber gewesen wäre. Gute Zelte und ordentliche Heringe sind also eine sinnvolle Investition. Auch sinnvoll ist es, bei auch nur ein bisschen zweifelhafter Wetterlage die gesamte Verspannung anzubringen und darauf zu achten, Heringe tatsächlich fest einzuschlagen.
    Dank einer hilfsbereiten und mit Nähzeug ausgestatteten Bernerin hier auf dem Platz konnte ich Ollis Zelt immerhin wieder zusammengenähen – sollte besser halten als vorher…
    Schon kurios: der Sturm kam von einen Moment auf den anderen und hörte nach ca. 3 min auch schon wieder auf – vorhersehbar war der hier unten im Tal nicht. Glücklicherweise ist hier auf dem Platz niemand körperlich zu Schaden gekommen. Einige Zelte und ein Wohnwagen allerdings sind hinüber.

  • Night, sky, creek and good food in store.

    Currently, I am waiting for Tini to return with a key for the car, in which my bluetooth dongle is lying safely kept away from my hands. It might be considered to be a downside to have to check your mail while you’re on vacation, however, it also makes you reconsider the advantages and disadvantages of modern technology from a different angle to be writing an entry for your blog while sitting under a sky full of stars, hinting at the existence of the milkyway, after having eat excellent french food with a decent Pinot Noir that has been made only a few miles away in Beaune. I think I like that. And right now, it doesn’t feel to much like an intrusion of bad high tech into a relaxed camping setting. The keys are back…

  • Shouldn’t forget this one.

    For a while a vague doubt has been nibbling at my mind – I knew there was a movie that I recently watched but that I haven’t told my dear readers about yet. And I knew that it was a movie that I really liked, even though I had my doubts before watching it. A few days ago (I think it was when I saw Inga Busch in Alles of Zucker), I remembered. The title of the movie is Confidences trop intimes (eng: Intimate Strangers). My doubts were related to the fact that it is a french movie that deals with psychotherapy. I wasn’t sure if I would actually want to see and listen to an intellectually sophisticated movie that dealt with the slippery aspects of the psyche, of therapy, and therapists. Fear not! This movie deals with these subjects but it doesn’t require its audience to cultivate an intellectual’s habitus. This is because of a good story. But this is especially because of the two excellent and perfectly cast actors that play the main roles in this movie: Sandrine Bonnaire and Fabrice Luchini. I was astonished, charmed and extraordinarily amused by the way Luchini portrays a tax attorney (in)voluntarily becoming psychotherapist. If you thought the genre of romantic comedy does not exist in French movies, you are mistaken. You should enlighten yourself as soon as possible and spend and enjoyable evening with this movie.
    IMDb entry | Trailer

  • Seminar success.

    Last week Lars and I hosted the last session of our seminar Sehen, Hören Fühlen – Stadtethnografien erstellen (eng: Watching, Listening, Sensing – Doing Urban Ethnographies), which was – much to our relief and joy – a big success. Nine research projects had been performed by groups of up to three students. Almost all of them invested a substantial amount of time in their studies, they tackled with their position, impact, and responsability as academic observers, and they presented some really interesting aspects of the publicly accessible places they studied in Darmstadt and Heppenheim. They observed different plaza and park areas, a cafe, a cemetary, and a group of large-scale-chessboard players. Lars and I are now looking forward to getting the final results of the different studies in written form. All in all this seminar worked out at least as good as we hoped it would. Kudos to the students involved! It would be just perfect if one could teach more of these seminars, particularly if one could offer a two-semester practical seminar…

  • Rakete über Brokdorf.

    Beim sich-einen-Abend-in-Darmstadt-vertreiben hat sich in der vergangenen Woche die Gelegenheit ergeben, einen Film mit denkbar schlechtem Plakat zu schauen: Am Tag als Bobby Ewing starb. Glücklicherweise ist der Film weitaus besser als das Plakat. Schauplatz ist Schleswig-Holstein, ein Dorf in der Nähe von Brokdorf. Ein besserer Schauplatz ist schon mal kaum vorstellbar. Sehr leicht vorstellbar scheint allerdings, dass es sich hier um ein Schauplatz-technisch positiv voreingenommenes Textchen handelt. Darsteller, Story und Bilder sind alle gut. Bei den Bildern hatte ich insbesondere während der ersten Minuten des Films die Befürchtung, dass hier zu sehr eine ja ach so schräge 80er Jahre Requisite präsentiert wird, aber im weiteren Verlauf des Films ist dieser Eindruck nahezu vollständig verschwunden. Besonders gefallen hat mir Rakete, gespielt von Jens Münchow. Überzeugendes Spiel und ein hervorragender Charakter, der einigen Bekannten aus Jugendtagen charmant nahe kommt. Auch bei Rakete hätte die Gefahr bestanden, den Charakter zu sehr als unterhaltsames Kuriosum aufzubauen, aber auch dieser Verlockung wurde widerstanden und Rakete bleibt ein spannender und sympathischer Charakter. Vielleicht am Besten hat mir die schon vorher als spannungsgeladen aufgebaute Duschszene gefallen. Insgesamt ein wirklich gelungener Film, den sich nicht nur Freunde der norddeutschen Tiefebene anschauen sollten. An die Angst vor dem radioaktiven Regen nach Tschernobyl konnte ich mich zum ersten Mal seit langer Zeit wieder lebendig erinnern.
    IMDb entry | Trailer

  • Nature, Norway & no news.

    I am sorry to tell you that for the next two weeks I probably won’t be able to post entries to this blog. I will leave Oslo for Kristiansand tomorrow. Starting there, the Bornholdt familiy and yours truly will travel up the west coast of Norway for the next two weeks. I am looking forward to do some hiking, having good food, playing board and card games, reading novels, and working a tiny bit on my dissertation. And all of this offline. :)

  • Mut zur Muße.

    Schon seit November vergangenen Jahres hatte ich eine leere Textdatei mit dem Titel Mut zur Muße auf den Desktops meiner Rechner liegen. In der letzten Woche habe ich endlich beides gefunden und die Datei mit Text gefüllt. Mehr Text als ursprünglich gedacht. Deshalb findet sich der kleine Essay nicht hier im Blog und ist statt dessen – wie meine anderen längeren Texte – als eigene Webseite abrufbar.

  • Gritty, not super.

    This is how we like our heroes. Batman has all the potential to be one of the grittier characters that one needs: an ambivalent symbol, no real super powers, a history of guilt and mistakes. To my dismay I did not like any of the Batman movies that I saw since the nineties. Except for the new one. Batman Begins is directed by the director of Memento, Christopher Nolan, Batman Begins has a great cast, and it is not nearly as clean and plasticized like the other Batman movies. The story did not really work that well for me in the first quarter of the movie – it seemed like they tried to spin a story that is to grande for a super-hero movie. After a while, the paced accelerated and the story unfolded in some nice twists. One other thing that made this movie not the perfect experience – although it is hard for me to admit this – might be Liam Neeson, whom I usually like very much. However, his presentation of the role of the potential villain was not completely convincing for me. A thing that I liked about this movie was that they did not go for Matrix like martial artish fighting scenes. There are several fighting scenes, but the camera is always really close to the action and the cuts are very short. Keeps the old men safe from harm and adds to the grittiness. I saw it in a dubbed version and I am not sure if they meddled with some of the sound effects, which seemed to be out of sync or at least not exactly matching what could be seen on the screen in a few scenes. Overall, I enjoyed this movie and would recommend watching it in the cinema. It is good enough, especially if you like one of the many stars in the cast, who sometimes act in unusual roles or outfits.
    IMDb entry | Trailer

  • It’s about the voices.

    Even though I heard that it only got bad reviews I took my chances and went to see The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The only two precautions I took were (a) going there with nice people (Olli, Mia, Manu) and (b) avoid the dubbed version. (b) was pretty obvious, I think. British culture and language plays such a crucial role in Douglas Adams‘ writing that one should avoid translations if it is at all an option. If I remember correctly, The Hitchhiker’s Guide has been the first novel I read in English. Voluntarily.
    If I would have known before watching the movie that Alan Rickman does the voice for Marvin, the depressed hyper-intelligent robot, I wouldn’t even have considered being lazy and watching the movie in a dubbed version but in a cinema that is only a three minute walk away. Alan Rickman is great. As readers of this blog with a sound memory sure remember, I totally adore his death scene as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood… So, the voice acting in general was great, as was the casting. Douglas Adams’ novel is such a great piece of writing because it often strays away from the main plot, putting in funny little notes and stories. This is almost impossible to do well in a movie, I think. They tried to capture that stylistic element in this movie, and they did not fail. However, they lost quite a bit of the charm on the way. I don’t know if this could have been solved better – I guess not. If you know your way with towels and if you don’t mind movies adapted from novels then I think you will enjoy this movie. If you’re into absurd British humor and haven’t read Douglas Adams yet, you are probably the best possible viewer for this movie and should definitely watch it. If these two statements don’t apply to you I don’t care if you watch it or not…
    42! ;)
    IMDb entry | Trailer

  • Blühende Landschaften zwischen Zonen-Gabi und Besserwessi.

    In der vergangenen Woche habe ich einen kurzen Vortrag vor einer von den Darmstädter Jusos eingeladenen Delegation von Marokkanern gehalten. In dem Vortrag sollte ich einen Einblick in die Geschichte Deutschlands seit der Wiedervereinigung geben und dabei vor allem den Konflikt zwischen Ost- und Westdeutschland behandeln. Nicht unbedingt mein Spezialgebiet, aber ein sehr spannendes Thema, das mich auch persönlich wirklich interessiert, weshalb ich auch zugesagt habe, im Rahmen dieser von der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung geförderten Veranstaltung vorzutragen. Dank an Dörte Hein von der Universität Greifswald für einige Perspektivkorrekturen und Ergänzungen. Ich habe die meinem Vortrag zu Grunde liegende Stichpunktliste ein wenig überarbeitet und jetzt online zur Verfügung gestellt. Da es sich nicht um mein eigentliches Fachgebiet handelt, weist die Aufstellung sicher einige Lücken auf und befindet sich nicht auf dem neuesten Stand der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung zu dieser Frage – über Ergänzungen und Kritik bin ich dementsprechend dankbar.
    Der Vortrag selbst ist gut gelaufen und die anschließende Diskussion mit der marokkanischen Delegation war spannend und fruchtbar. Für mich war es das erste Mal, das ich mit Simultanübersetzung (ins Französische) vorgetragen habe. Glücklicherweise schien mein Vortragsstil für die Übersetzerin handhabbar zu sein. Merkwürdig ist es trotzdem schon, wenn man von dem Titanic Poster mit der Zonen-Gabi erzählt, als Erzähler selbst die Bananen-Gurke Pointe mit heiterem Glucksen begleitet, das Lächeln bei den Hörern sich aber erst mit einigen Sekunden Verzögerung einstellt…

  • Soziologie & Kunst – X-Wohnungen Info jetzt online.

    Ich habe eben die Kurzbeschreibung des Projekts Mobiles Wohnen von Hannah Groninger online gestellt. Die geneigte Leserin wird sich erinnern, dass ich schon einmal über meine Mitarbeit an diesem im Rahmen von X-Wohnungen Suburbs 2005 organisierten Projekt berichtet habe. Mir persönlich hat sowohl Hannahs Projekt, als auch das gesamte X-Wohnungen Konzept hervorragend gefallen – besonders die Erkundung in Zweiergruppen war Tipp Topp. Die Tour durchs Märkische Viertel bot immer wieder überraschende und ungewohnte Perspektiven und Erfahrungen. Bis auf einzelne Ausnahmen waren alle Wohnungen, die ich im Rahmen der Tour A besucht habe wirklich spannend und ausgesprochen anregend. Wenn das noch Theater ist, dann ist es genau das Theater, wie ich es mir wünschen würde. Falls es im nächsten Jahr wieder X-Wohnungen geben wird, werde ich unbedingt teilnehmen.
    Änderung 4. Juni: Link korrigiert und .pdf Datei mit besseren Bildern eingesetzt.

  • A warning – don’t waste your time and money on this.

    Somehow, I got the impression that people liked the last part of the prequels to the classic Star Wars trilogy, Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, more than episodes one and two. I wonder how this happened. Yesterday evening I watched it with Olli here in the Kulturbrauerei in a dubbed version. It was as terrible as the others were. Cheesy dialogue, non-working puns, uncompelling actors, and – as Olli pointed out – no focus on a real main character. The story dips into this and that, people say that they are troubled, but everything remains wooden and unplausible. Of course, the special effects department is good, but I wasn’t blown away either. The soundtrack has nothing particularly enchanting or interesting in store and the pictures are much too obviously linked to what feeling currently should be induced into the audience. Bah. Nothing at all of the gritty and edgy charm that the original trilogy had in its best moments. Stay away. Don’t throw any more money into George Lucas’ throat. Maybe that keeps him from writing and directing more of this expensive garbage in the future.
    IMDb entry

  • The beast in decline.

    browser share for May 25th 2005 as shown by my SiteMeter statisticsOn the diagram you can see a pretty average distribution of browsers visiting my site. Since the free account at SiteMeter only includes browser share statistics for the last 100 visits the variation can be pretty big. Firefox’s share has been increasing over the last few months, although it has been hovering around 20% for the last two months or so. The development which I watch most closely these days is the percentage of Internet Explorer 5.x users that are visiting this site. This has been steadily decreasing and is usually below 10%. What is even better: more than half of the IE 5.x share consists of Mac Internet Explorer versions that are much, much better at rendering according to standards (that is, their Tasman rendering engine keeps up with most of the CSS Level 1 code that I throw at it). This makes the actual share of Windows IE 5.x – a.k.a. the beast – using visitors something below 5%. That in turn means that I will soon stop supporting this browser and rely more heavily on using modern CSS to manage the layout of my page. I did a similar thing when I dropped support for Netscape 4.x versions several months ago. However, in that case I waited until the Netscape 4.x share dropped below 1%. Why do I handle things differently for Win IE 5.x and start dropping support at a share of about 5%? Because windows machines that are able to run IE 5.x are able to run Firefox well enough too. And they should run it because of the tons of security holes that are opened by browsing the web with this hideous beast of a browser.
    The new background image in the main column of this blog is one visible step in the direction redesign and recoding will take – most of the work will remain invisible to those browsing the site. However, that work will enhance accessibility and standards compliance (and propably the search engine ranking too).