Transmediale 2006: high's/low's

As someone who hasn't ever had any inclination in writing a diary, I am finding it hard to maintain momentum with blogging (hence the reason so long since my last post). I must admit I can't help thinking that regurgitating thoughts into the digital void is sometimes rather pointless, however, I am in the process of re-educating myself about this matter. It has also occurred to me that maybe through the sequential description of events, I can identify a more critical approach of discussing something.

So here begins new momentum for my blog and hopefully for the MAzine in general. With NodeL looming, important (and exciting) times are ahead!

Having never attended such an art festival before, Transmediale has, if anything, set the standard by which I will judge future festivals. Overall, it was a learning experience. One of the essential things i learnt was that its ok to be a laptop geek. 2 weeks has passed since the festival and I'm only just putting finger to be keyboard on the subject. I really should have (and could have for that matter) been documenting 'on the fly'. The technological infrastructure was all in place. I could have been wirelessly connected, in between lectures, with the press of a button on my laptop. So the wireless connection provided in the exhibition space was a must for all the really dedicated bloggers/journalist, neurotically updating their online content at every opportunity. It was foolish not to take advantage of this. Next time I will take my ibook for sure.

So because of this delay in relaying information from Transmediale, memories are quickly fading so I will attempt to relay what I can remember, but I may have to come back to some things in later blogs.

It is tempting to go on about my experience of Berlin in this space, since I think my experience of the city was actually more enjoyable than of the festival itself. But considering the MAzine is the website for our digital/network media postgraduate community, i will attempt to focus on Transmediale. It may be worth mentioning here that I had no real expectation of Transmediale, apart from that we were encouraged to attend because it dealt with the realm of interactive/network media that we are studying.

My first impressions of the opening day of Transdmediale was that it was hive a activity inside and the exhibition space (university der Kunste) seemed fairly good - light, modern, and typically German in some way. Not sure how. Maybe its the functional modernist deisgn. But there were way too many cigarettes being smoked which made me want to puke on a daily basis. The disorganisation quickly became apparent on the first day as well: the lateness of lecture starting times, the inability of lecturers to open files on their computers, queuing for translation devices, queuing for a coffee, queuing for tickets, more queuing for tickets. This seemed to represent the way in which things are done in general in Germany. I thought they were supposed to be ahead in terms of organisation. Everyone needed a kick up the arse in my opinion! This all just added to a more stressful experience of the exhibition.

As for the exhibition itself....