Art Center Student Exchanges

During the first couple of weeks in Berlin, I stopped by the Mauerpark Flea Market, one of the more popular weekend markets, especially on a weekend with good weather. It is jammed pack with venders, foods, and people. It has live music, karaoke, vintage clothing, art, and a lot more. I think I just might go back for that quark! So delicious.

In our main course, Exhibition in the Cloud, we had to do a 2 week pressure project with our partners over at Parsons in New York. The project was fairly open-ended and the main objective was to create some type of bridge between our partners in New York and us in Berlin. My group and I decided to record our daily routes and overlap our maps/routes to pinpoint areas of intersections between both our maps. We gathered photographs from both locations of the intersection and compared the two images. Essentially, we saw two different photos of the same place on our map that bridged us together. These were our International Intersections. One of the most interesting parts was our skype presentations with New York. It’s beginning to look like the future.




One of my favorite secondary courses is the Ecstasy of Feedback class, where we read Vilém Flusser essays, watch Vilém Flusser video clips/documentaries, and discuss his theories and philosophy. I’m also taking some electronic classes which are loads of fun and I’m not sure if I’m learning German fast enough, but German class is sehr gut.




Some people from our German class signed up to go to a ballet last weekend and it really was a pleasant experience. I love how accepting and accessible the art culture is here in Berlin. After the ballet, we all went out for Madison’s birthday and had a blast. Earlier on in the week was Taco Tuesday. Both occasions included fun and beer, which have become somewhat synonymous here.

Last week I was pretty much a homebody trying to finish all my finals for classes while still being in Berlin and felt like I needed to get out. I took the train to Potsdamer Platz, walked around a bit and found this interesting public exhibition. Today, the Museografie und Ausstellungsgestaltung Exursion course went to see Gerhard Richter’s work at the Neue Nationalgalerie. There were a lot of people at the gallery and it was amazing and refreshing to see so many people coming on a regular day to support the artist/the gallery/art!

Since there wasn’t any class today, Robert, my roommate, and I met up with Anton (Robert’s friend) and walked over to Ikea, which was less than a mile away. There wasn’t too much of a difference from the Ikea here in Berlin and the Ikea back home in the States. Luckily the meatballs tasted just as delicious! We spent a good two or three hours there and I bought myself an alarm .99 euro alarm clock. Later on, I felt lonely so I bought myself a chocolate sundae at the McDonalds inside the station. Life is always a little better after some ice cream.

Ah! School has finally started! The day began with all the instructors giving a brief, sometimes not so brief, summary of their class description in German. For the most part, all I understood were the “Guten Tags”. Things are slowly beginning to settle and I was able to take my first German language class here! WUNDEBAR fasho! A big danke to Erin, who was in Berlin last term, for introducing me to http://indexberlin.de/ ! The site lists awesome events, exhibitions, bars, and galleries all around Berlin! Yes!

The first image is another collage I made with an old image of the UdK campus and doodles (was thinking of this girl). Second image is of the Grunewaldstraße campus. Two black and white images of some of the other exchange student friends! (Above B/W: Chris, Madison, and Bennetin getting some vending machine coffee. Below B/W: Atli, from Reykjavik, writing some German numbers on the board.) Then, the reflections of a Berlin sunset. The last two images are some official papers/piece of candy from the mighty folder of paperwork that needs to get done right now!

Off to the other campus now! Tschau!