11.19.2011 Hamburger Banhof: Tomás Saraceno's Cloud Cities and mingle time

Isn't this museum a funny name? Hamburger Station? I feel silly just saying it aloud: "Hamburger station!". I'm pretty sure in German it isn't pronounced like an American hamburger. (It also makes me think of the famed Hamburgler) 

Cloud Cities by Tomás Saraceno at Hamburger Bahnhof 

Anyway I came here mainly for this temporary exhibition by Tomás Saraceno, titled: Cloud Cities. It was all right. It wasn't mind blowing, or extremely though provoking, but it was good for its large scale and interactivity. Hey, maybe if it was thought provoking I might even hate it because I wouldn't even get it.

my student card works for discountss!

So the plan was to see two museums today, but by the time I finished this one, I was so tired I went back home to take a nap! Maybe next time!

Tomás Saraceno's Cloud Cities is based on an idea of a utopia with very large influences from the ideas of Buckminster Fuller's. He tries to depict floating cities of the future with a structure that is similar to cells that constantly subdivide and re-merge, kind of like clouds.

"Welcome to my bubble!", The girl at the entrance was so nice to offer to take a picture for me! 

He lets the visitor experience what it would be like inside the bubble by creating this upper bubble space in which you can enter and lie down inside, or crawl around. No jumping allowed (I would if I could). The idea was to feel like you were flying. Being made to wear goggles because of my glasses helped to make me feel otherworldly too. It's almost like being inside a clear inflatable beach ball. (Although Saraceno would argue it's supposed to be a soap bubble)  All the kids were super excited about going inside it too. They would crawl around or roll and look up, or lie down to look through the bubble, but never sit still. All the adults who went in just sat and laid on the plastic and stared off into space.

This is the second bubble you could enter. In this one, you could go in the top half, or the bottom half.

1. People above looking below, and vice versa. If those were my friends at the top, I'd make them do some sort of choreographed shape like form triangles and squares. hahaha. 2. structure

"Tomás Saraceno devises potential architectural living spaces, similarly designed as cell-like, floating cities. Buckminster Fuller's concept for Cloud Nine (tensegrity spheres) provides a vital context for the artist's work. The fantastical architectural utopia of Cloud Nine envisages a free-floating sphere, 1 mile in diameter, designed to house autonomous communities of several thousand inhabitants. Fuller claimed that the free-floating properties of this kind of architecture would be made possible by the phenomena of heated air and the construction of a tensegrity structure. With scientific meticulousness, Saraceno uses his works to pursue the idea of a realizable utopia. Saraceno's works are expressions of his vision for a future world and society, but, in contrast to models and drawings, they actually invite people to interact with them in a form of 'real' participation." An excerpt taken from the pamphlet thingy. And if you are super curious, here's the coverage by Designboom.

The rest of the museum was a whole bunch of more contemporary art things. I flipped through an Art Now book of the latest A-Z of boundary pushing contemporary artists of today, and I didn't know any of them (except for Ai Wei Wei) nor did I get any of the work... I'm happy with just 20th Century modern art. That was fun stuff! So whatever I didn't photograph, didn't make any sense.

Another exhibition titled Architektonika, is a collection of scultpures, photographs, film, and paintings that in some way bear references to architecture. It's supposed to depict a cross road between art and architecture. This stuff is only fun if I can climb into it, or if I know the artist!

Sol LeWitt, Modular Cube 1970

Bruno Taut, Glass building blocks! So nice!!

This guy was totally into the planet Saturn, Wenzel Hablik

A small one bedroom apartment with bed, kitchen, and shower! Absalon, Cellule No. 2, 1992

Alvar Aalto table and chair

This guy was crazy! He has these fantastical theories on time travel, and 4th or 5th dimensions and asks a whole bunch of cosmological and astrological questions in his work which is laid out in diagrams. There is so much information in a single diagram that it would take you hours just to digest a single one to understand the theory that he is thinking about, and what he is trying to explain, and how things are connected.

 

                   1.diagrams,                                                                                         2.notes on the concept of time. Western ideas vs Eastern ideas

Keith Haring

Andy Warhol

Cy Twombly?

People learning things.

And then I went home to take a nap.

Oh, but then there's GOOD NEWS!
I have an apartment! I don't move in until December, so I can show you when I get there, but HOORAY!!!
If you are curious, the posting is listed here: http://www.wg-gesucht.de/en/3014273.html. It comes with three other people, one Japanese set designer, one German social sciences major, and one New York product/furniture/interior designer/ book writer...everything-er. Anyway, they were having a party, and they invited me over and asked me to bring a friend if I wanted. My face slightly changed a bit because in my head I replied, "Sure, but I have no friends.." hahaa.

I arrived late on time to the party at my home to be, and met a lot of people throughout the night. One of my flatmates to-be, speaks German and Japanese, and his English is just as good as my Japanese. So we communicate with a lot of charades gestures. But I was able to tell him I liked Ghibli and Totoro hahaha.

The area where the apartment is like a giant artist community. At the mingle-mingle party, I met an animator from Vancouver ready to start pushing animation in Berlin, a painter, a gallery owner, a journalist, a photographer, other designers... and the list goes on. Oh, and highlight of the evening? There was this crazy coincidental thing that happened. I met a girl who was from Mississauga, and also went to Carleton, and brought the same house-warming gift I did! I initially told her I was from Toronto (it's the GTA!), and she replied with "Oh, I'm from Mississauga," and my eyes widened and I said, "ME TOO!!" and then her friend, who was actually from New York, declared it to be an Oprah moment.

The evening slowly filled with more and more people, people brought friends of friends, and when I was leaving, some people were just arriving. I even encountered people who thought I was the host. I had gone up to someone with my hand out for a handshake, "Hi, I'm Carmen," and the man brightened up and said, "Oh! So you're the host of this wonderful party!"  "Thank you!" I replied, but I had to tell him, "No, that's Karen, I'm Carmen..."


And the final random interjection for this post...

 

1. Christmas markets are coming!,                            2. Pink unicorn floating in the S-bahn! I was so happy to see it!