This New Year's Eve was a very Italian move into the New Year in Berlin. Don't forget: pink champagne after a Bumm-Bumm odyssey zigzagging through Rosenthaler Strasse and Auguststrasse.

Explosions of new announcements from the CES ensure an exciting beginning of the New Year as well. The International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (January 5-8, 2006) serves once again as a platform for presenting new technological advancements and gadgets from altogether 2,500 exhibiting companies.

CES live webcast: http://ces2006.edgesuite.net/ces2006.asx

The work on the projects for 2006 already began a couple of months ago - so much for now: it will be an exciting year!

Artist support and project sponsor, Sony Media Software sponsors Ger Ger and the project Sound Nomads.

Sony Media Software's Professional Solutions array of products is synonymous with professional audio/video editing and processing. Sound Forge®, Acid® Pro and Vegas® find their application as worldwide industry standards among other things in the production in leading recording studios, post production, broadcast and media complexes, home studios and in radio stations. Through the sponsorship access to diverse sound libraries and premium media creation software is possible.

Once again a partnership with a star of the industry, two exciting years are to be expected.

Sony Media Software, a business unit of Sony Corporation of America.

http://www.sonymediasoftware.com

This year's international fair for contemporary art was well frequented. Some galleries presented themselves to be very sympathetic and refreshing, but others were very uptight and a bit aged. In any case, I was pleased with some of the program's discussions.
A side project of the Art Forum (by Kristofer Paetau), which made its rounds on various mailing lists: Art Forum Accident.

ColorVision supports Ger Ger with studio products for professional color calibration.

ColorVision is one of the world wide leading companies for monitor and color calibration systems.

The given tools from the sponsor partnership, like the Spyder2PRO, leave nothing to wish for in the studio everyday life as well as in complex workflow situations. In its newest generation, they once again work more precisely and therewith further raise part of the security for permanent correct color consistency in screen, print and TV.

ColorVision/Datacolor is also a member of the International Color Consortium (ICC) and promotion member of the "Arbeitskreis Digitale Fotografie" (adf), ("working group for digital photograpy").

http://www.colorvision.ch

For the last evening of the farewell project 'Der Berg' at Berlin's Palast der Republik, there was a final possibility for a hike thorugh the exhibit ...
Organizers: Sophiensæle, HAU, raumlabor_berlin, Club Real

Went to the 51st Biennale in Venice. Conclusion: hits and misses. The exhibition at the Arsenale was satisfying, the exhibit at the Giardini was in part, but only a few of the pavilions put their best foot forward ...
For the first time, two women, María de Corral und Rosa Martíne, were responsible for the international art exhibition. In 2003 works from over 300 artists were shown, whereas this time 100 artists were involved.

Pantone® 369 C replaces Pantone® 448 C. For almost two weeks the grass has been growing in the small personal lit courtyard of the studio. Instant-Deep-Green thanks to Ebay's rolled sod. If the new garden survives the next few weeks, then nothing should stand in the way of working there. In nine days the grass will be able to withstand weight. Mud brown goes for a fresh new look!

The last as well as the following weeks also mean the wrap-up of ReReligion, a belated analog+digital spring clean, various workflow-improvements and thoughts for new projects.

Today the first two new mixed media paintings of the continuation of the UNISEX Series were completed. In the next few days the series will be treated with varnish.

With over 750,000 online customers, Thomann is the number one online music shop in Europe and one of the 50 strongest growing businesses in Bavaria.

The sponsor partnership will remain intact until June 2006.

http://www.thomann.de

After three months of unspeakably intense work, the first two installations of the cycle ReReligion could be finished in Berlin. In the last few days, the first exhibition of these works in the Museumsquartier in Vienna came to an end. After a multi-day assembly and disassembly, at the end of the week the works will once again be on their way back to Berlin.
The end of the three week residence in Vienna has finally meant more sleep for me in the last few nights. At last it was possible to relax by going to "Heurigen," waterslides, a few parties, the "Donauinselfest", as well as the chance to meet up with a few old friends.

June 17-26, 2005, the first two works in the cycle ReReligion will be seen in quartier21/MQ in Vienna. The opening takes place on June 19 at 7 PM.

Religion between reflection and redesign: the installation CONFESS.OR invites one to public confession and JAM Bears traces the arc back to sin.

The ReReligion project pages with gathered information and downloads can be found under the URL http://www.rereligion.com or directly here.

Another sponsor for the ReReligion cycle could be attained with autasi. JAM Bears is the second work in the cycle, and will be first seen together with CONFESS.OR in Vienna in June 2005.

Autasi GmbH, specialists in pole and pollard. Viehwasen 18, 70327 Stuttgart.

http://www.autasi.de

The online shop for candles and decorations with over 4,000 articles supports the installation CONFESS.OR. The work will be first seen together with JAM Bears in Vienna in June 2005.

Special thanks go to the dedication, which CandleCorner initiated for this partnership.

http://www.meineKerze.de

EMMA d.o.o. amply supports the installation CONFESS.OR.

In the installation, modified electronic parts are used from All Weather Candles.
CONFESS.OR is the first work in the cycle and will be first seen together with JAM Bears in Vienna in June 2005.

http://www.allweathercandles.com

And once again in a short time, a redesign for the website.

After only a few months on air, last year's website relaunch has been replaced.

Some of the foundations remain and, furthermore, the website is still built upon the o0oo system. The navigation was once again restructured. Content was revised. The new appearance is cleaner.

Focus on New Audiences
The new website should also lay the groundwork for a larger audience. The appearance should act as a conduit between art and its associated topics. The navigation and the visual appearance should certainly represent the website and the portfolio of an artist, but at the same time be accessible to others besides artists and nerds.

Subject to Change
Starting immediately, the new site is in a public test phase. Some of the features and sections are not yet complete. Further, some of the pictorial content will soon be replaced with premium content. Work and project pages are still partly under construction and media downloads as well as picture galleries will also gradually be added to.

Browser Support
Because of the use of current web standards only the current generation of browsers can be supported. The following widely used browsers offer complete XHTML/CSS support and have been tested for the appearance of the website:

Mozilla 1.8x . tested 1.8a2 WinXP Pro SP2
Mozilla Firefox 1.x . tested: Mac/PC
Internet Explorer 6.0.x . tested: 6.0.2 WinXP Pro SP2
Internet Explorer 5.2.x . tested: 5.2.2 OSX 10.2.8
Opera 7.5x . tested: 7.53 WinXP Pro SP2
Opera 8.x . tested: 8.0 WinXP Pro SP2
Safari 1.0.2 . tested: OSX 10.2.8

Multilanguage
At the moment the textual content is designed primarily in German. In the future project descriptions and information about people should be available at least in English, too. Furthermore, the translation of additional content is in progress.

Feedback
Feedback on the site, content and work is welcome! To do this, please use the contact form.

For comments which should be accessible to everyone, the comment section in the lower part of the page is available. However, a comment section is not available for all content.

Website by
Ger Ger.

Attended the opening exhibition at the new home of the Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz 4 in Berlin and met with Ruth Schnell from Vienna.
The light installation "Mission of Art" on the façade of the Akademie der Künste's new building originates from Ruth Schnell and was curated by Cathrin Pichler.
The official opening of the building will take place later this month. The location and the view from the club lounge's terrace are superb ;-). The architecture is also very well done - however keeping in mind that the room will be used as exhibition space, I find the concept lukewarm ...

For given reasons ... what does the world not offer for 5 Euros in bill/coin/transfer format.
On the one hand it would be the mistake to not pay for parking at the payed parking meters in Berlin (that explains the given reasons), on the other hand the fee for getting out money at a rival bank's ATM (another given reason) and on the better side of life also a fat fantastic burrito including all the extras at Dolores. The decision is tough to make and I wonder, what else can't be had for 5 Euros ...

For five weeks the restoration of the server data has been a major undertaking.

Cause
During a software upgrade and subsequent system restore on January 17, 2005 by the web hosting provider, not only the operating data but also the backup on another hard drive were sent into Nirvana!

Getting the Server Back to Normal
From various backups some of the data could be restored. The hosting service provider was changed and the data was transferred. The location was also at this time changed from the USA to Germany.

Recovery Attempts
The backup hard drive from the original server was sent to me from the USA and was then immediately analyzed for possible data recovery. Without success. The HD was then sent to the data recovery experts at Ontrack. Even there, no further data could be restored!

The data loss primarily affected the picture content and numerous components of the o0oo system(!), which has been developed by me for many years parallel to creative work.

Blessing in Disguise
Luckily the system was able to be somewhat patched in the last few days using old data, distributed in different places in various temporary directories. In the meantime, much - if not all - has been again reconstructed and is functional ;-)

These five weeks have certainly further shifted current project work and means (and meant) a lot of stress and little sleep.

Currently some important festivals, fairs and further events are again taking place in and around Berlin. Some of these are/were to be found in my schedule as guest/audience/workshop participant.

Transmediale - Feb. 4-8, 2005
Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin.

Transmediale is the biggest and most significant festival for art and the creative usage of digital media in Germany. Once a year the festival presents new and outstanding projects in the field of digital culture and provides reflections on the role of digital technologies in contemporary society. It is a forum of communication for artists, media workers and a broad public interested in arts of vital and still increasing international importance.

The theme of this year's Transmediale: BASICS
Participating in workshops and the conference.

http://www.transmediale.de

Adobe Acrobat Tour - Feb. 8, 2005
BBC Berliner Congress Center - an update presentation.

Retrospective comment April 2005: this event was unfortunately very superficial and wasn't on the same level as other Adobe update presentations. The broadcast/video collection events from Adobe are in any case recommended also to professionals (except for the first two hours).

Berlinale - Int. Film Festival Berlin Feb. 10-20, 2005
A new visitor record at this year's 55th Berlinale: 400,000 cinema guests during the ten-day festival. 17,000 accredited visitors came representing 120 countries.

CeBIT Hannover - Mar. 10-16, 2005
Technology Research at the world's largest IT fair.

ADC Kreativschau - Mar. 19-21, 2005
Berlin Tempelhof

On 6,000 square meters visitors from all over the world will for three days be presented with more than 7,000 exhibits in print, film, radio, photography, illustration, digital media, text, installations, marketing, music videos and media.

On view from Sep. 12, 2004 to Jan. 31, 2005 in Berlin Mitte. GC 85. Auguststr. 85, 10117 Berlin/Germany.

UNISEX - a series of mixed media montages on canvas, produced in 2003 and 2004.

When often working for months on one and the same complex media work, it feels good to work on paintings, too, in order to keep breathing. In this manner, I can let my energy out in spontaneous and sensitive forms of expression. A very important balance to the large projects that continuously demand strength and endurance ...

Whenever possible I like to let my art speak for itself and leave open room for interpretation on the part of the viewer.

The fashion of the 20th century was determined by new interpretations of gender differences - even though Ernest Michahelles designed the first unisex article of clothing in 1919. The contrasts between the constructions of gender will no longer be clear in the series UNISEX. UNISEX doesn't make any distinction between mannequins and people. The total aesthetic determines charisma, character and action and allows the mannequins to turn into flesh. The shopping window becomes the stage of everyday life.

You - our heroes, rules of attraction, instruments of seduction - are finally taking over the world and we can appear in these cozy and rather warmly lit display cases in order to take your places. Aren't they beautiful? Our appetizers of sleepless shopping adventures take over reality - better than we ever could have; your wishes are our commands. Finally our prayers are answered - WE are the fashions, WE are now pop. Slowly their facades disintegrate, finally everything is new.
Now you are the life, we are the beauty - the fiction is history!

Exhibition UNISEX Series

Opening

Thu, Dec. 9, 2004, 8 PM - Galerie Café 85, Auguststr. 85, 10117 Berlin/D