Just watch and enjoy…

This Web TV channel is called Cloud-TV and it shows – you guessed it – clouds. All day long. There’s also some relaxing chillout music that you can turn on if you wish. Just perfect for grey days like this one.

Via ScannerCentral.co.uk

Es war schon lange Zeit für einen Frühjahrsputz, also habe ich hier einmal gründlich aufgeräumt und renoviert. Das neue Design basiert auf dem Theme Oulipo, ist klarer und weniger verbraucht als das alte. Da ich mich noch nicht perfekt mit dem neuen Theme auskenne, können sich hier und da noch Kleinigkeiten verändern. Aber das ist bei einem Blog ja nichts Ungewöhnliches.

Außerdem – eine vielleicht nicht so offensichtliche aber weitreichendere Veränderung – nennt sich der Sternenstaublog nun Stardust Island (inklusive der passenden URL stardustisland.net – sternenstaubinsel.net werde ich aber noch einige Zeit behalten).
Der Grund dafür ist die immer noch ungelöste Frage, ob ich auf deutsch oder englisch schreiben will (vorerst bleibt es noch bei deutsch) oder anders gesagt: ob ich mich auf die deutsche Bloglandschaft beschränken oder mich auch internationaler ausrichten will. Mit Stardust Island halte ich mir diese Entscheidung einfach länger offen (und es klingt auch sehr schön).

It’s been about time for a spring cleaning, so I’ve done some thorough cleaning and renovating here. The new design is based on the theme Oulipo, which is clearer and less used up than the old one. As I don’t know the new theme perfectly yet, some bits and pieces might still change. But for a blog, this isn’t uncommon anyway.

Additionally – a probably not so obvious but more far-reaching change – the Sternenstaublog is now called Stardust Island (including the matching URL stardustisland.net – I will keep sternenstaubinsel.net for now, though).
The reason for this is the still unresolved question whether to write in German or in English (German for the time being), or in other words: whether I want to confine myself to the German blog landscape or focus on a more international audience. With Stardust Island, I simply leave the decision open for some more time (plus, it sounds really pretty).

People keep asking me about my job: “What on earth does an information architect do??” At least some do know that it’s got something to do with the internet but I’m never sure how to describe my job satisfactorily so that also non-webdesigners get it.

But now I’ve found a clip that will answer any questions. It’s about the creation of the new Volkswagen UK website (which I wasn’t a part of, by the way). The clip shows – absolutely realistically of course – what information arcitects are doing all day long. I especially love the part of filling up the loading bar with paint. This is always so much fun! But take a look yourself:

Via Integrierte Informationsarchitektur.

Last week the 5th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art startet with a lot of media buzz. Until June 15th, there will be many exhibitions and events throughout the city (well, mostly Berlin Mitte) and, making use of the weekend, I went to one of the venues yesterday, the KW Institute of Contemporary Art. Maybe I was expecting a little too much (my visit to the Palazzo Grassi in 2006 in mind) but at the end I wasn’t completely impressed. Yes, some exhibits were truly captivating, but I found the others to be, well, merely interesting to put it nicely, especially as part of an exhibition of the alleged art event of the year. Maybe it would have been different if I knew a little more about the current art scene or if I had bought the catalogue to be able to read what the artists wanted to express.

But maybe it’s got also something to do with me being too stressed out at the moment to handle the stimuli satiation that is a contemporary art exhibition. My favorite exhibit was ‘Ground Control’, the white and black asphalt room by Ahmet Ögüt (go to f&art to see a beautiful picture of it). Clean, minimalistic, spacious, calm; very powerful in its simplicity. Although it has got a totally different meaning after I got to read the explanation to the exhibit:

In Turkey, asphalt laying was a means of homogenizing the country in its rapid quest to modernize, metaphorically covering over some of its diverse history in the process. [...] Asphalt thus becomes a political tool for the demonstration of government power. Öğüt transfers this inscription of power in public space onto the exhibition hall, highlighting the political dimension of a seemingly innocuous substance like asphalt and raising awareness of how power is displayed and maintained.

Maybe I should give the Biennale another chance (and read up on the exhibits before). After all, there are still nine weeks to change my mind.

Since 1999, it was a fine tradition for me to spend the night of the Academy Awards (a.k.a. the Oscars) in front of the TV, adoring the glamorous gowns on the red carpet, sharing the excitement of the nominees and crossing my fingers for my favorite actors, all while struggling to stay awake. Quite often I caught myself thinking “Why am I doing this to me, I will be able to watch a rerun of the best parts tomorrow anyway” – but I’ve never given up. Never until now, that is. But this year I haven’t even started to watch the show, I’ve simply gone to bed like I do every night and was sound asleep when there were crying people in nice clothes on some stage in LA, clutching a golden little statue with their trembling hands.

The past years, I was lucky to have a free day right after the Oscar night so that I could catch up on the missed sleep. But this year, I am lucky to have a great job and that means that I need to be well rested on workdays. Plus, I didn’t manage to watch any of the important films beforehand due to being so busy (not even “La vie en rose”), so there was less to get really excited about. Still, I would have loved to see live how Marion Cotillard accepted her award – such a precious Oscar moment. (I also loved her dress by Jean Paul Gaultier – in my eyes, she and Penelope Cruz (Chanel) were the most beautiful.)

Now I want to see “La vie en rose” even more, just like “Juno” (Best Original Script) and “No Country for Old Men”, that was crowned Best Picture last night – even though I’m not sure if I like this kind of film.