Unterwegs

Ten months ago, I found myself in the sleeping compartment of a train en route from Vienna to Berlin, pen in hand and wine nearby. At the current moment in the spectrum time, I’m floating above the Atlantic somewhere between Berlin and Detroit, a computer in front of me and a coffee to sip on at fingers reach. My mode while traveling, or rather relocating, may give some insight into the transformation I have endured since my arrival in Berlin.

Since the last textual iteration, my life’s contrast dial has been screwed to full blast. During the weeks, days and hours precluding my design course end presentation, I did little more than draw, digitize, and build. It may be a condition particularly chronic to our generation—waiting until the last minute to complete a work—but it always seems to be the best way to go. With a deadline ominously approaching, my only option was to work. I believe that I made some of my smartest and most influential decisions under the wire, or in other words decisions that I’m proud of. The review went well, and I freely accepted constructive criticism from my professor Manfred Ortner and the guest critic Jasper Jochimsen.

“Hühnchen oder vegetarische Nudeln?”
“Hühnchen, bitte.”
“Und was zu trinken?”
“Was haben sie für Bier?”
“Heineken oder Miller Light.”
“Heineken, bitte.”

Not too long before my end presentation, I made a trip to Paris to visit my uncle David while he was living in Drancy, a northern banlieue. Not only did he offer a comfy place to live; he took me around the city that he loves and conferred on me his established perspective. It was, of course, a dream to approach the Eiffel Tower and see exactly what I expected. Versailles bestowed on me a new concept of scale and a better understanding of the failures of Baroque planning. Fête de la Musique, an annual street music festival that originated in Paris, was going on while I was there, and I rendezvoused with Kansas friends Jenn, Hannah and Hilary at Batofar, a DJ boat playing electro and techno on the Seine near the new BnF Bibliothèque. The solstice sunset was phenomenally complimented by French champagne.

The Kansas girls followed me to Berlin after leaving Paris and stayed for a few days. On Christopher Street Day, we went to the Pergamon and gorged on the historic relics of civilizations passed. Afterward, we took the train to Potsdamer Platz and emerged into a sea of people celebrating the holiday, complete with unusual regalia or rather lack thereof. There were semi trucks blasting techno with colorful characters spilling out of the truck beds. It was an overwhelming sight to say the least, but if I took anything from the event it was a sense of pride that my community can show solidarity in such a welcoming context. Later that night, the girls and I went to Watergate, which lies on the Spree near Oberbaumbrücke, for the release party of Konrad Black’s WATERGATE03 mix. With Sascha Funke spinning on the lower floor, it was the highest quality nightlife experience that I’ve had in Berlin’s aboveground scene—except maybe the SUB:STANCE dubstep parties at Berghain.

The Fourth of July came and went without much gravity. It was my third Independence Day outside of the country, following Montréal and Wien the years respectively preceding. While I was hard at work chipping away the metaphysical stone enshrouding my final design solution, I came to the conclusion that I’ve chosen to celebrate Independence Day by exercising my freedom of movement.

Uncomfortably close before my end presentation, two exhibits at Fachhochschule Potsdam opened showing my work: three mounted 40x50 cm large format photographs in year end presentation at the Design Fachbereich curated by Wiebke Loeper and a selection of photographs displayed in a group exhibition of documentary photographs taken in Naples in the Hauptgebaude curated by Claus Baldus. That same July 9th, I took an hour long break from my work to party at the Casino—the one-time officers mess hall on the campus of military buildings in which FHP has been established—where I had the bittersweet opportunity to see many friends for the last time.

After the end presentation on 13 July, my extreme anxiety and sleeplessness was completely reversed—the high tones began to cut through the darkness. Lena Nalbach invited Pete and I to a wonderful and astounding exhibition opening at the Universität der Künste, which consisted of work produced by the students at the art school displayed in their studios.

The following weekend, I met Jenn at Melt! Festival in Ferropolis, a “city of steel” near Dessau, where we indulged in the best European festival of contemporary popular music and slept under the stars. The first day was unbelievable until and still after it began to rain. Klaxons, Röyksopp, Crystal Castles and Aphex Twin preceded the weather; we watched Simian Mobile Disco under a tent packed full of people while it rained cats and dogs in the wee hours of the morning. The second day began with Whitest Boy Alive, followed by Animal Collective, Phoenix, Fever Ray, Diplo, Digitalism and a set from Erol Alkan and Boys Noize. Ellen Allien cranked out spooky Berliner Techno lakeside from a pedestal grasping onto a gigantic machine once used to mine coal. We danced to Sascha Funke’s selection at the sleepless dance floor before laying down lakeside, soaking in the first rays of sun that landed on the festival since its launch the day before.

In the last days of my term in Berlin, I found myself once again observing and respecting the traditions that I had personally fostered. I spent a few nights digging the scene at Club der Visionäre and savoring the little time I had with my friends: the likes of Daniel B. and Swen, z.B. I went to Green Rice and had another bowl of the best food near Kottbuser Tor, and pigged out at Rissani on the cheapest and freshest Lebanese food in Kreuzberg. I went to Morena for a beer and hopped over to Luzia for another. On my last Saturday night, I went out with Peter, Pete and Frido for one last night at The Villa in Friedrichshain, and that time the music was spot on. The only way to end a night in Berlin is to gaze at the sunrise’s reflection in the TV tower on the walk home.

It would have been a dream to go to the Heiliger See with the fabulous International Office crew—Anika, Frido, Franzi, Pete, Daniel H., Sebastian, et al.—for the rest of the summer, absorbing the oxygen from the trees and swimming in the icy hot evening-lit water. There are as many places and things that I wanted to experience before my definite return to the States as one- and two-cent pennies in the change jar that I left with Pete. There are so many people that I wish I could have gotten to know better, especially now that I’ve reached a point that I can comfortably communicate in the native language.

Peter and I decided to throw a going away party at the Casino on our last Friday in Germany. I expected too many people to come based on the amount of invitations that we sent out, but I was pleasantly surprised by a turnout built exclusively of people who truly value us as friends. It was sublime to share one evening with the most important people that I had the pleasure to meet throughout my residence in Berlin. At the end of the night, I had an empowering feeling about my future and the people in it with me.

Milk, The Reader, Benjamin Button, The Wrestler… I would much rather watch Synechdoche again, but my personal viewing screen isn’t equipped.

I feel that I’ve reached a point in my life where every action and subsequent reaction builds upon my ethos in a way that divorces me from my physical context and invites me to imagine. I fear the end of this flight, because it won’t be complete without a big squeeze back through the cultural bottleneck into the critically devoid American Midwest. On the other hand, I remain optimistic that I will be able to apply myself in endeavors that will enrich my perception of existence and understanding of the human condition independent of my location. Further, I believe that I will see my former and present home with new eyes, be they European or experienced or tired or critical, and I look forward to documenting my foreign perspective of it.

If asked where I see myself in a year, I would probably say, “I don’t know, I’m not sure yet what I want to do after Kansas. New York or San Francisco if I dig the States, Berlin if I can find work. I might stay in school if the market is still down, but I have to find a way to pay for it.” I’m confident that my opinion of Berlin won’t shift after returning to Kansas, but that my long time home will have lost its gemütlichkeit. I’ve spent the last fourteen months shedding moss and polishing my psyche. I will embrace my last year in Kansas as an opportunity to make a local impact on a failing culture. A time of observation has ended; a time of sharing commences.