zeitbrand|de

2007-09-27T16:35:00.000+02:00

After about a week of vacation (as in - no laptop with me!) in Croatia, i'm now back and try to get everything sorted for the next hop over the pond. I had to come back early - hanging out in internet cafes every day wasn't that much of an option (yes, a lot of things happened unexpectedly while i was away) - and i hope the ones still there will have a blast without me!

Snorkeling, by the way, is amazing! As in really really amazing. Once you get over the freezing cold temperature of the water, it's not only very (very!) relaxing, but at the same time almost like watching a movie, except the screen is much much bigger. I must admit, i haven't seen fish in the ocean before, especially not hundreds (if not thousands) of them slowly gliding on in what i could best describe as a three-dimensional expressway - or searching for things to nibble on the rocky ground. But the cinematic feeling really rises when you watch someone else dive underwater. Pictures you only recognise from TV. I dunno. It's a bit like going to the zoo, but without the cages. The feeling of floating weightless and looking down to see nature perform her spiel is simply breathtaking though. I can only imagine how wonderful it must be to do the real thing.

Though - after i put on a wet-suit myself (later being told that it's actually an ice-west) i am not sure if i can warm up to the thought of having your area between your legs pressed against your womb so tightly that you cannot raise your arms anymore... And raise your arms you must, since you're swimming, right?

It needs some getting used to the taste of saltwater though, and it doesn't help to catch a cold when diving... Why do i always have to get sick on vacation anyway?
Thanks to Ingo and Mika for taking us to Croatia and thanks so so much to Hannah for actually making me come with you. It was one of the better decision i made recently! (now that last sentence sounds like it means a lot, right? Wow, language...)

2007-09-08T18:02:00.000+02:00

While the bad weather certainly doesn't help to make everyone happy here in Linz, i have to say that i am more than pleasantly surprised by this year's ars electronica festival. The artworks on exhibit are mostly stunning and very appealing. All the stuff in the O.K. and the "augmented sculpture" (to name a few) are stunning!
I was quite sceptical when i learned that a large amount of projects was centered around Second Life (which i actually don't fond so much) but i have to say that there are so many things that turned out well. I might write something up about that at some point, or maybe i won't.
One thing i have (and love) to point out though, which is truly amazing, is hannah's (and mika's) back-rub massage gamepad from the IC student exhibition - WHERE YOU CAN PLAY TEKKEN WHILE GIVING A MASSAGE!!!!

2007-08-31T21:49:00.000+02:00

I realise that the need to rest between projects gets considerably larger. Maybe it's just lack of pressure or a lack of concepts
(or both). It seems that once you reach a certain amount of versatility, so many different things come jumping at you and fight for your attention. I sometimes find it hard to make my way through all the different things that come next. It's the decisions that make it so hard, not so much the implementation.

Take Moviesandbox for example. There are already tons of different tools out that allow you to create your own films - easy and complex, cheap or expensive. In the beginning, Moviesandbox was designed to be a tool mainly for me, and i thought i could alos put in the little bit of extra effort to make it useable for other people as well. It turned out that it's not just a little bit of extra effort, but quite a lot of thought, planning and time that goes into building a system like this. And as usual when you work with cimputer graphics, you have to find a way to circumvent your technology from aging so rapidly. In the end, all you can do is try and find a niche spot where you can stay long enough so that after all the work you put into your toolchain, you can actually start using it to show why you made it in the first place.
But you always fear to loose the race when some other product - corporately developed - jumps in the market and does everything you do, only better. Thinking about where to position yourself (so that all the time implementing code and re-learning maths makes sense in a longer term) soon takes up more time than the actual implementation (one could argue that it's not so much the 'how', but the 'what' that's hard to determine).

It wouldn't be too exaggerated to say that i had hit a wall more than one time with the constant switching between working on tools, travelling around and talking about my findings and actually creating content to show why i'm doing what i'm doing. And for quite some time i could hardly show all of what i thought i'd see, because i just wasn't there yet.
It's not like i feel like i'm there now. But after a very very long time of development, i finally feel like it's within reach. But still, the questions remain - what to do next, where to focus, which path to take, so that the work you do isn't obsolete in a couple of months. And always remember - all i want is to make movies!

And where to move after November? Where to work, how to generate income? I guess it's time to break out of the 6 month i-don't-know-where-i'll-be-next cycle. The way things work right now is awesome in so many ways, but i don't know if it's stable enough to continue indefinetly.

On the more non-comtemplative side of things, i just had a wonderful couple of days in Leipzig at this year's Games Convention - an industry trade show with a dedicated art and family area and a machinima booth organised by Karin, Dirk and Ingo from the Animationsprojekt.
Not only did i get the chance to present Moviesandbox there to all the kids, teens and their parents (and realise what works and what doesn't) that crossed my way, but i also hung out with friends - new and old and sometimes unexpected. Remember Matt from Fountainhead entertainment? Right. Exactly!

And a couple of weeks before, i had the pleasure of hosting a bunch of new media performance artists for the (insert marketing adverbs here) perflab get together in Dresden. Kindly and wonderfully sponsored by the TMA Hellerau and the Medienkulturzentrum Dresden and amazingly organised by Anja Dietel (hundreds of hugs and kisses to you).

It went surprisingly well, albeit in a different direction than originally planned. Always keep in mind that you need at least two full days if you actually want to get stuff done. While Jonas made some progress incorporating the GameTrak in Blender (you get a plus for that!) during the evening, the rest of us were actually happy for the feedback and discussions we had during the day, the issues that were raised and that made us realise how important an event like this actually is. Looking forward to the next perflab then!

Dresden itself is an interesting city. It seems that there's everything here - a vivid music scene, clubs, punks, nature, art... but still some things are missing for me to really indulge. It seems like a city so rich in heritage doesn't do so well with blending all the new media stuff in. While the TMA and the CyNet art try to do their best to change that (with an emphasize on performative dance and sound), it seems like there isn't so much to take in here. From the (quite basic) impressions i have, Dresden is splintered into many small groups and scenes, each of them carefully trying to distinct themselves from the others. Be it Neustadt vs. Altstadt, Waldschlösschenbrücke vs. Kulturerbe or Theaterintendant vs. the rest of the world, everyone is busy trying to set himself apart. Or so it seems. You can see it in the architecture too...

Before, i've been travelling quite a bit - to cologne, to Ramsau and to Linz (ever so often) - you can see more of that on flickr, but i feel it should be mentioned...

2007-06-07T07:05:00.000+02:00

It seems that a couple of quick adjustments to w.bloggar now make it possible to blog in the usual way again. That basically means that i will return with an update very soon! But first i gotta get some sleep.
Hang in there...
(and have a look at the nice things in life)

(or the more disturbing things...)

2007-04-26T03:40:00.001+02:00

a friend once told me that the soul always lags a bit behind when you're travelling and i feel it's a good way of describing the feeling when you're moving a lot. Fortunately though, i have a place to rest and call home now!
A bunch of wonderful people from Dresden host me for a six months residency in their lovely city.

Actually having a place to sleep that you can call your own feels good and fits right into the overall excitement that spring brings this year.
After the ups and downs of winter, it is refreshing to walk around with a smile on your face and feel good. Yes, i'm happy, can you tell?

Right now i'm on a bit of a roadtrip to Linz and Munich and Stuttgart where I'll present at FMX next Wednesday, together with long time friend and Machinima Pioneer Paul Marino. And lo and behold, even more friends will come (Ken, Jonas and aga) and everything looks like it's going to be a really nice week full of learning and discussion. If only i would know how to best present this whole Machinima idea to the argueably high-profile audience at fmx... Ideas are welcome...

Life is good to me right now. I used to be afraid of stuff going wrong especially at times when everything was nice and fluffy, but it seems like this anxiety is slowly moving away.
Of course i still kindof don't know what to do after the 6 months are over, but hey. I'm not to complain. If things go south, i can still go find a "real job", right?

The weather is awesome isn't it?

2007-04-10T22:41:00.000+02:00

i seldomly post about nerd programming stuff here but tonight i feel like i want to. I just hit my first milestone on an Animation/Motioncapture tool i am working on for Moviesandbox. The basic idea is simple: You use two regular webcams to film yourself (or a wooden Mannequin in this case) from the front and side view and create keyframes on critical positions in the video.
You then use a very powerful algorithm to find the bones in the two simultaneously recorded videos - human reasoning.
Which basically means that you have to tell the software where the bones actually are in the picture - something that's really easy for the human eye/brain but rather hard for the machine. After finding the bones, the computer does the math (something it's really good at) and sends the rotations back to Unreal - and voila - the pose magically appears!

Note: In future versions, different colors will make it possible for the program to capture most bone rotations, but even then it will be necessary to adjust bones that are covered and not seen by the cameras.

2007-04-03T16:16:00.000+02:00

I just got back from the Laboral Gameworld exhibit (whose website is unfortunately rather basic) after missing my flight back and spending a wonderful day driving from Gijon to Bilbao to catch another one.
Thanks to all the wonderful and inspiring people that i met during the four days of setting up! Have some pictures and videos:

Video of stuff being built and set up.

Video of the Furminator guys.

and a video of the Puppet installation "Anisandbox" - unfortunately without sound...

Plus, some pictures:

as you might notice, the overall quality of both the pictures and the video is really really bad. That is due to the fact that my camera is still not repaired and i had to use my laptop webcam for documentation.

2007-03-18T18:03:00.000+01:00

Yes, i was in Australia a couple of weeks ago. And i would have posted much more if my camera would still be with me. But as it stands, it broke just before i left and i still have to send it in for repairs. It's a shame, it's just two years old and now the lens almost fell off (no, it's not supposed to be like that). So for this post i have to rely on lovely hannah's new cellphone camera before i manage to scan in the undigital pictures i took with my father's Rollei. It's amazing how different a "Spiegelreflex" (sorry, i just don't know the english term) camera image shot on real film really is. I almost forgot that. So be patient and you'll see some nice images. Or come visit me for tea.
I had the pleasure of being invited to a Machinima festival in Melbourne at the Australian Centre for the moving image. It is one of the things that you think of and kind of don't really realize until you find yourself in the middle of a 14 hour flight abundant of sleep and bored to death. I never thought that my playing around with computer games would get me travelling like this. I still dunno if i would advise others to try and do the same thpough. We'll see where this will go from here...
To make the writing short and leave space for the pictures: Arrival, witness and partake in interesting and inspiring lectures and discussions, especially with Eddo, Paul, fall sick, get amazed by Jackie Turnure and Peter Rasmussen, present moviesandbox which was great fun, miss wrapup party, travel to Adelaide, slowly recover from sickness, talk some more with the others, present again, recover some more, go get great salad, go to the beach and swim in warm (!!!) ocean, recover fully, present at intimidating but fun art theory event and realize i need to read lots more, go on three day bus-trip from Adelaide to Melbourne, kangaroo experience, climbing up national park mountain, bathing in ice-cold (!!!) ocean with enormous waves (!!!), visit Helen Stuckey's parents at loveliest beach bed and breakfast and calm down (thank you sooo much!), feel rested, have dinner in Melbourne, sleep in strange cubicle hostel, fall asleep on plane and have a relaxing and really nice welcome from Klaus in Hamburg.

This trip was really really inspiring and the couple of days i could turn off and immerse myself in un-computer-things were helping to feel refreshed and healthy. But now to the happy-picture show in no particular order...

2007-01-22T04:46:00.000+01:00

so what to do in between programming, fiddling around with milk and basic nutrition? Yes, doing fun things!
Last week i had the amazing opportunity to play the Wii for the first time (after the huge disappointment that my DELL Bluetooth stack doesn't support non-encrypted connections...) and i was...mildly fascinated. Golf it is! The game i will get one for. Golf. But the better one, that comes out in March.
Still, it was a fun thing to do on an awesome weekend where things really came together. Pleasure to work with people that way. Next time i'll take pictures of everyone...
But now for the photographic evidence of people enjoying themselves...

And just when i got back home i felt the need to do some more advanced research in terms of new and fun interfaces. Did you know that the Guitar Controller has a sensor built in that measures its rotation? I think it's an inertia sensor or something. Anyway, we found out that you can engage Starpower when turning the guitar vertical!

And now it's back to work. Things need to be written, sketches are to be made, (virtual) Guitars have to be built and a Camera has to be tracked smoothly. Can anyone explain to me (not just tell me how, but really explain) how to convert an Integer into two Bytes? I mean, i know it works, but i'm kinda stuck with this whole Bitshifting thing...

2007-01-12T07:35:00.000+01:00

The Milkscanner is finally finished enough to see some results. You can go have a look at the moviesandbox website.

Please let me know what you think, or if you have any nice Action figures to be scanned in. Now there's just a thousand others things i should attend to...

After a somewhat disoriented start into the year i slowly get settled. There's tons to do, so it's about time.
Though, guitar hero still calls me - as do the second season of Avatar and the episodes of Battlestar Galactica that i missed from the third season...

Here are some impressions of Life in Ramsau over new year's

and some happy friends doing fun things with a playstation whose power adapter had been forgotten at first...

2006-12-26T23:58:00.000+01:00

once a year i sit down and write christmas letters. Last year, I sent one card to all of the people i could think of and smile. This year, i tried to send more personalised cards - but two laptops later, it seems like i lost a lot of my eMail adresses from last year.
So for all the people that should have received hugs and thanks and warm wishes -

I hope you have some peaceful days!

2006-12-11T22:14:00.000+01:00

yes, winter got me. After some rather intense travelling over this weekend and some amazing night in Linz (thank you all so much). Not that it didn't get me before, but now, finally, it started to be cold outside.
There's obvious things to think about, and not so obvious things and it's till too soon for "top ten lists of things to change for 2007" but in my head there's a lot of lists. I guess lists are the way i organise things.
In Olomouc, i told my host that i am poor, but happy. That was about two days ago. Tonight, i am still poor, but i would like to be somewhere else to make me more happy.
Not that i could complain or anything. Everything's great. Everything runs smooth and fine.

At least, i got some new music and i feel confident that i have joy in what i do. I might even have i deas for christmas presents.
Does everyone else have weird thoughts in winter too? Does everyone reconsider the way he/she runs/walks/flys through time and space?
Plus: why do i feel bad everytime i am talking about my travels around here?
Plus: You cannot do whatever you want anymore when you run out of money. It is a blessing that you could do whatever you want at all.
And just because you're travelling a lot doesn't mean that you have a lot of money.
I need to buy pants, also. And warm socks.
And a Pürierstab to make the expensive yellow lentil soup myself.

2006-12-01T01:00:00.000+01:00

coming back home really is a misconception. It is more like coming back to a place that you have lived in a couple of years ago. Not so much with my family, but especially with my surroundings, it feels like i am just as detached as i am to most places i go to for a foreseeable period of time.
I think it is good to realise that, as it explains things. Everyone and everything has developed in the past three years and only very seldomly did i have the chance to catch a glimpse of where people are standing now.
It is not necessarily very easy to understand that i am not a part of this world anymore and that i myself also moved on to other things and ideas.
It's two more months here in S. There are parts of my stay that i like a lot and then there are parts that make me feel uncomfortable. It's all about letting go i believe.

Anyway, recent travels have had me seeing Singapore and Dresden - both only for a couple of days. Dresden was a really really nice trip (i completely love that city). And guess whom i met...

Zach provided the single best chicken barbecueSLASHcoffee experience that i had in ages. Life felt very dramatic for the rest of the day, but i think it was worth it.

Thanks a ton to the lovely lovely people from Cynet Art who had me and Klaus come over to give our song and dance (credit for that expression goes to Paul Marino) and who managed to put together a very sweet exhibition of contemporary visual and sound installations.
I just returned early enough from the Machinima Filmfest in NewYork to participate. Which reminds me to say "thank you so much" to Evan and Michelle (you know Evan. He's the LED throwies guy...) for letting me sleep at their appartement. And who play hearts like real masters (yes, the windows card game - but for real!). Big time thanks also to Chris for helping me out with the live performance at the festival (one of the best ever - no kidding). And of course, to Paul ( i could fill a whole page with thanks to him) and Rik - also for that shameless plug on his website. I did not feel like making pictures at the fest itself as i was seeing SO many people with cameras that i thought it would be a bit too much coverage. So i ended up taking one single picture of Evan's old place in downtown Brooklyn.

I think that should be about enough for a blog posting. I'll post my thoughts on Singapore (another one of those trips i felt awkward going to but happied up in the process) in the coming days...
Sleeping usually helps for a lot of things!

2006-11-01T22:48:00.000+01:00

Travelling can be relaxing after all. And the quality of life is directly depending on having a chimney, a cushion to sit on "and a glass of brandy", according to some people...

And in case someone understands Korean, can you tell me what this means?
So i find myself in pre-cold New York now, waiting for the Machinima filmfestival to take place this very weekend. My Laptop is broken to the point where i need an external monitor to see what's going on on the screen. I'm broke, shaved, disoriented but happy and i now have new shoes.
Yes, it's that time of the year again...

Also, i almost totally forgot that America is two weeks away from major elections. Time to raise that aviation warning level (no kidding) and set the Terror alarm meter to "elevated". Time to be disgusted (albeit slightly amused) by propagandistic media and things they call "news programming".
It's just so easy to complain... (Ahh, you should hear me bragging about Germany...)
So it seems my ambiguity towards this nation is streching even further, both on the people i encounter and the overall environment (media, environment, stuff like that).
It's getting dark outside and Friedrich starts thinking...
...that time of the year again.

2006-10-29T01:14:00.000+02:00

sometimes it helps to be around children. You constantly have to come up with something to keep them from jumping at you, climbing on top of you or grabbing and poking you.
Inventing games is something that parents have to do all day, and kids are quite a demanding audience.
It's strange to see how the little things add up to each other and form answers to questions that seem so complicated when discussed at workshops or roundtables or conferences.
Moving from the sagasnet workshop on interactive storytelling straight to playing penguin and pig with Michael Nitsche's daughter in the car on the drive to GeorgiaTech seemed funny to me.
I get the feeling we might be focussing on electonics too much when it comes to experience, narration and plain old fun.
But we're getting there. Hopefully, some day, we will see all the screens vanish or be integrated into things that are useful to use while keeping us physical and attached to the real world.
And geting up at 6am isn't as bad as i thought it would be...
Atlanta is half-warm.

2006-10-15T14:07:00.000+02:00

i am sick. I mean, as in "i need medicine" sick. From the "obviously" departement comes the news that a 12 hour flight doesn't help much against sinusits. Wonderful medicine does, and maybe even antibiotics.
Anyway, due to sickness, my stay here in Seoul will be shorter than expected. Even though this city is overwhelming (so are the dreams it gives me), it just doesn't really feel good to not be able to see a doctor that understands your language.
Stuff like this happens, and of course, like my grandma would say, it reminds you of what's really important in life - health and stuff. I'm glad that it comes at a time when nothing really super important has to be done. Then again not that anything that i do is super important...

Anyway, Seoul is amazing (and this time, i use the word very carefully). The amount of people constantly present per square meter is astounding. I had the pleasure of searching for some electronic gadgets yesterday together with a friend (who's super insane and only stayed one day before he leaves again for boston...) and we barely made it out alive. I didn't have my camera with me that day though. But these pictures, taken this afternoon, should give you an idea.

Hotels should have windows. These air conditioned rooms make you sick all by themselves. Add to that water that you can smell the chlorine from and you get a very good starting point for regaining health.
But!
The breakfast is gorgeous! And if i wouldn't be slightly off, i would totally dig the korean food. I had some Kimchi yesterday and it was fantastic. Unfortunately though, my body is not capable of adjusting to the spices so fast, so my digestion was a bit...disoriented...
I feel like i'm on drugs. Must be the water or something. More pictures, as usual, on flickr.

2006-10-10T22:42:00.000+02:00

time is rushing past me and i didn't post in ages. That doesn't mean i didn't mean to. It's just that i try to use most of my time to work on moviesandbox - that is if i'm not trying to get from one place to another.
Life blurs and it is both good and bad. As long as i feel i can take some time to rest, everything is ok.
Spending some time doing nothing helps, too.
In these past weeks i have been to Leipzig, Berlin, Amsterdam, London, Ludwigsburg, Bonn and Linz. All of the events were worth telling about, although i don't want this to degenerate in a "been here, done that" type of posting. Instead, there's this sort of feeling slowly spawning somewhere inside.
I feel that there is a new movement starting to take hold of people. A next generation of young artists start to embrace the new possibilities we have in a mix of commercial interest, integration into their lives and non-commercial cltural exploitation.
I like that, it gives me hope that people always find things that will link them to each other. Of course, you can argue that i am only subject to a tiny amount of people and also very agenda driven (then again, who isn't?). Still, i feel that there is something universal coming out of this. Something that even business people with gazillions of dollars dont manage to control.

As some might say, this is the next bubble that's just about to crash, others believe that it gives more and more people the opportunity to communicate and share culture, thought and art. And what more do we need these days than a proper way of communicating with each other?

With all the grim news surrounding us, we seem to embrace all the optimistic new bits that technology gives. It might be for the worse, in the end, who knows. But right now, it opens up possibilities and channels and ways to create culture and community that spread far beyond racial differences.
I just thought i'd write something positive...

there's tons more images on flickr.
And i just want to add a huge big thank you to all the people that hosted me in the past weeks, especially Andy/Nadya and Theo. Once i have a huge house, i'll throw a party and everyone's invited! I promise!

2006-08-10T18:13:00.000+02:00

Siggraph06 was a strange experience. On the one hand, i met wonderful people who i never see for the rest of the year, on the other hand you have so many things that want your attention and you suck in so many new ideas (both good and bad) that you can only feel oversaturated.
As i already stated in my more professional blog, siggraph will definetly have an impact on my work and the perspective i see for what i do.

Though these things also remind me of a strange bubble that you put yourself into from time to time. Detached from all earthly woes and untouched by recent news and developments, you traverse this small universe of people who all work in synthetic pictures and digital abstractions.
Once inside, your world starts spinning around research grants, art funds, the next symposium, the next exhibition, my personal favorite: "projects" and cool new things that people you know or people that know people you know did. And if you're not careful, you might loose ground and fly away, all inside your precious little world.

Above all Siggraph lay the question of "why". Why are people doing this?
Why am i doing this?
I think the question actually was spoken out loud at least three times during the ten days i was away by all different people...

The answer is far beyond just a simple blog posting. But i still firmly believe that there is an answer to that and that realtime animated movies, interactive art installations and computer graphics programming can make a change for good, even though the steps are subtle and there's no big moving and shaking going on.
It is not easy to stay focussed, but i feel that there is a big picture somewhere and that it makes sense to keep it in the back of your head, and to realise that what you're doing, you're not just doing for yourself and because you can, but you're also doing it for (maybe nowadays, only a smallnumber of) other people to show them new ways of how to approach their everyday life.
You are adding to the significant pool of things that define human culture in a non-commercial way and broaden our understanding of what is human and what is not. Albeit, on a (for now) very detached level.

For many reasons, the question was more apparent during the last two weeks than before, as our planet seems strangely divided between areas that fall back into undissolving conflict while other areas celebrate virtual war as the peak of human entertainment.
It's hard to get all of this into your brain and write machinima press-releases while you pale when reading the newspaper.
So what was the big picture again?
Culture,
right.

Sometimes it's hard to stay focused.

Pictures of Siggraph06 in Boston can be seen at my Flickr Siggraph set.

2006-07-23T00:01:00.000+02:00

I know it has been a long time, and even now it feels strange to take a couple moments to sit back and write about what appened over the past weeks.
Life got accellerated even further with this summer being the most travel intensive in my life. Let's see how well i'm going to get through it.
But first things first, let's take a look at what happened in the previous episodes of Friedrich's life in pictures...

After coming back from new york, i met Klaus and Alex in Hamburg for a sweet and busy time with Bob Block to prepare for the nightsalon in the Stedelijk museum in Amsterdam.

It's insane to see how much work you can out into things and how long it takes until reasonably good things come out of it...
I learned a lot from these days and from the performance that followed...

Shortly after that, I had the opportunity to take part in an almost week long workshop in Prague, organised by the lovely Denisa Kera (among others) from CIANT.

You gotta like Prague, even though it was so stuffed with tourists that you feel sorry for the people actually living there. Anyway, thank you all so much for the lovely time!
And on it went, visitng Sven in Cologne and for a quick chat with Christiane and Chris (no pictures, sorry...).

Then there was some time to breathe and work on things. Moviesandbox is about to be released after fixing some of the more nasty workflow issues and bugs.
It's still a far way from becoming what i imagine it to be, but it's a start...

Anyway, my travels sent me back to my home area around Stuttgart to watch my fellow students' work and meet some friends i haven't seen in a while.

And of course, i got some impressions from the football world cup at the Stuttgarter public viewing area (which got closed after 500.000 people came to watch Germany win over Argentinia!).

My brother finished school!
It's amazing to see how good the mood among his friends and classmates (about 120!) were, considering the germans to be a rather sceptical people...
It was amazing to see all the young people celebrate and be happy about what they achieved. Sometimes, i feel, we are all too critical about how things are turning. It's good to know that the generation that comes (even though it certainly has its flaws...) brings a fresh optimistic way of living their lives with them...

last picutre is my parents being proud...

Then at some point, yu have this ZEN state where you forget about things around you. Usually that state comes (or "happens") when doing something monotonous that doesn't require a lot of thinking, like dishwashing (no kidding), playing Wipeout2097 (best game ever) and driving for long distances in the middle of the night...
I had to take the car for a longer journey to Weimar and Berlin and to move my stuff as i am leaving Linz - slowly but surely. Anyone interested in a table or a cupboard?

Last week was a journey through most of Germany. Starting from Linz and Ramsau to my parents' place in Stuttgart to drop some stuff, we then drove to Weimar to hang out with Klaus, watch the mediengang X (the ten year faculty anniversary of the Bauhaus university in weimar) and discussed Bob Block. Until Alex came by (of sceen fame) and we decided to freeze Bob Block until we get the right approach. Nevertheless, we moved onto Berlin to give one last performance, mainly focussing on the possibilities though...
On our way, we stoped over at Dresden to meet with Thomas Dumke of ds-x.org to discuss a machinima showcase for the Cynet-Art exhibit in Dresden.
And then, finally, we arrived in Berlin...

Though the stay was short. While Klaus and Alex held the performance at the NMI symposium, i had to fly over to Amsterdam to start working on a machinima exhibition to be presented sometime mid-september at the always cool mediamatic.

(that's Arne's two boys, i got a whole flickr set of them...)

A day that felt like a week ended with a dinner at Arne's place and a tour through the night in Amsterdam guided by Nadya. Thanks to all of you (and Andy for being ok with me sleeping at their place!) for that!

And just fresh and hot out of the oven, THEO is in JAPAN!!!!!!!
Go see what it's like for an englishman with a beard (!!) to be in Japan here.

2006-05-20T01:10:00.001+02:00

So that was it, my 3 month new york visit is finally over and boy, it was quite a trip. I am currently sitting at JFK, waiting for my 2-hour delayed flight to arrive and chewing on some stuff i could buy with the 15$ food voucher you get in situations like that. I am almost healthy again and i feel a bit sad but at the same time happy to go back.
It's going to be an interesting summer and i will be back soon, i promise.

Also, thanks to all the people who came to say goodbye yesterday evening. It meant a lot to me.
See you soon!

2006-05-09T15:54:00.000+02:00

Bremen!

2006-05-09T15:53:00.000+02:00

Say hello to Klaus, the latest visitor to my humble residence in Williamsburg.

more pictures of the place i live in to come.

After just arriving from a short trip through Bremen and Linz, i'm about to get off to Atlanta tomorrow, where i will speak informally at GeorgiaTech, thanks to lovely Michael Nitsche! And then off to E3, the first time for me and i am filled with fear and excitement...
Other destinations in the foreseeable future include Stuttgart (mid-May), Linz (end of May, beginning of June) and Prague (mid June).
If you lovely people out there happen to be around, i would love to hear form you!

2006-05-09T15:21:00.000+02:00

after a gazillion of weeks without updates, here comes the fun.
Life in Williamsburg is nice and almost berlin-ish, as my two visitors could experience themselves. Obviously, a city is only as much as the people you know living in it. So a lovely thank you goes to Theo and Emilie and friends and Paul for a great time.

and as some might have noticed, my Luke-Skywalker time has officially ended (again) and my hair is gone. The process was worth documenting, as the original intention was not to mow it down altogether...

...which eventually was unavoidable, though.

2006-04-09T09:12:00.000+02:00

I know, i said i would post some pictures from San Jose, but i think i'll wait until i find some time for the next machinimag issue to revisit those photos. In the meantime, i thought i'd post some lovely views of toronto...
Because it just so happened that the very last half day on my trip was lovely and warm and i had some time to walk to the water and around town.
After all, that kind of peaced out my rather rough toronto experience - starting with a secondlife tradeshow panel and almost ending with food-poisoning.

On my way back to La Guardia airport, we flew parallell to manhattan with a breathtaking view over the city, but i was too lazy to grab my camera. So when i did, most of the great stuff already passed us...

So, after arrivingback "home" i had to find myself another place to stay. Big shouts to Rik, Paul and Mole to provide for the one night right after my arriving.
I was extremely lucky to have two appointments to see appartements the same day i came in from Toronto, so without frther ado, i took the subway to the upper west side to see an unfurnished, small but cozy room (for a little over a grand/month). And just right after that one, went to see a room in a 6 bedroom appartement in Williamsburg, right next to the east river and williamsburg bridge.
Both of them would have loved to have me move in (guess what...lucky me) and i decided to go for the williamsburg spot - it was cheaper.
After arriving back home at my shelter at Rik's, i immediately fell asleep on the sofa and moved the next day.

The appartement is inhabitet by 6 people, a cat and a dog, all of them very very nice. If only the weather wouldn't be SO April, i'd have a really good time.

But anyways, kindof leaves me more reasons to stay inside and get some work done...
And that can feel good too. Plus, it's so much, i could lock myself in for the next year or so.
Would someone come bring me food?

2006-04-06T09:39:00.000+02:00

i couldn't sleep so i thought i'd do a little programming.
The file is in .avi format and uses the FRAPS codec. It should work with Windows media player. If not, never mind, t's geek stuff.
I was playing around with different implementations of realtime depth of field for the unreal engine machinima toolset. Well, it might not be highest quality, but it is realtime and i feel it's ok. It runs with about 11 fps on my laptop, so it should run significantly better on "real" computers.
There are much more and much more important things to post, i know, but i needed to DO something after all that writing and talking in the last couple of weeks...