Islam in Europe / arabs and terrorism

Hm …. there is hope for a change after Obama’s recent speech which the german magazine ‘Der Spiegel’ announced as A ‘NEW BEGINNING’ IN CAIRO, but certainly it won’t work without looking into one’s own preconceptions. While in NYC the NYPL & The European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC) present “ISLAM IN …

inescapable experience of process oriented research

Relating to my own experience I am always interested into projects, which attempt to make use of new media techniques for their realization. To establish a blog aside a current undertaking meanwhile almost became a common habit. Thus not so many of these projects really managed to make appropriate use of the tools they …

african screens – new cinemas from africa

Even though the festival african screens – new cinemas from africa at the House of World Cultures (HKW Berlin) started already last week I want to point towards it as a very good opportunity to get a sense of the african cinemas. So far I only have been able to visit two events, thus …

two North African cities on focus in Berlin

The House of World Cultures Exhibition In the Desert of Modernity. Colonial Planning and After examines the colonial fantasies of the West(/Europe) using the north-african city Casablanca as an experimental playground of modernistic ideas and the consequent impact of this enforced transformations.From the 1930s on, colonial North Africa was transformed into a laboratory for …

The voices of Küba

Berlin’s Tanas Gallery (Gallery for Contemporary Turkish Art) shows currently the prize-winning 2004 work “Küba” of Kutlug Ataman.
The installation of 40 interviews on old-fashioned TV models, each supplied with an individual 2 second hand chair, creates a chorus of voices each telling their own story. In front of the monitor one is solely confronted …

Documentary: House of Saud

These days I had the luck to see the documentary ‘House of Saud’ by filmmaker Jihan El-Tahri. A BBC/ARTE/PBS/NHK production, which first has been aired in 2004.Saudi Arabia—one of the United States’ most important allies for more than sixty years—is home to vast oil fields and a wealthy, often extravagant, monarchy.

Until 9/11, most Americans …

p2p microfinance

.. what an excellent idea!
kiva.org works on the basis of a free loan by a private lender to the very poor, who plan or have some business to develop, but would almost have no chance to lend from a normal bank. The website is personalizing the contact between the lender and the entrepreneur …