So it turns out I don’t have much of a bloggers thumb. Wow, didn’t realize until writing this that I haven’t written a post since the end of August. I definitely meant to write more the last 2 months, I always had blog post ideas buzzing around in my head but ya know life (and/or laziness–your pick) kind of just gets in the way. But I will not give up! On Oct. 11th I officially hit the 3 month mark and had to write my first Quarterly Report to Watson Headquarters. If you’re interested in reading it to get a more detailed picture of where I am with my project you can here. Now we’re gonna catch up like friends over a cup of coffee. In this scenario I’m the friend who never shuts up about herself.
Meeting With Yi
So I did an informal interview with a dope person. I briefly mentioned this in an earlier post but very early on in my time in Berlin, I met with Yi Chen who is a Freelance Digital Strategist. She’s also a contributor for one of my favorite tech/design mag-blogs PSFK.
Hey Yi!
We met for drinks at the too hip for its own good Michelberger Hotel in Kreuzberg—where I proceeded to bombard her with all the chaotic ramblings of my mind. Note: at this point I was struggling to pin down EXACTLY what I am researching so I had a lot of unformed ideas floating about the ol’ cranium.
We mostly talked about the melding of the physical/digital from a marketing/branding perspective (which is her area of expertise) and she stressed that although Berlin is a creative place and a burgeoning start up hub, startups here are, for the most part, not really focused on innovation. Startups here typically steal existing ideas from other companies (sounds harsh but reality) and maintain the status quo so that they can be bought by larger companies. This is quite true, I met a few people during my time in Berlin who worked for startups that did this exact thing.
Along with her freelancing, Yi is currently working on launching an interactive [advertising/marketing] agency startup whose perspective is about using both physical and digital materials in campaigns–a risky endeavor since, according to her, German investors are very conservative and not typically open to innovation, they don’t see its automatic and direct lead to profit making (meh!!). According to Yi, NYC and L.A. are worlds ahead of Berlin in the advertising/marketing realm.
Yeah tell me about it, most of the time when I desperately scour the internet to find cool/relevant people and agencies to contact, I’m constantly only finding leads in NYC, which is super unhelpful since my research has to be based outside of the US (more on my frustrations in a later post). At the end of our talk Yi invited me to a creatives in tech casual cocktail meet up (CTCCMU), which turned out to be pretty fun.
Tedx Berlin AKA “the turning point”
So I kind of went through some rough times throughout the month of August. After a few weeks of a then inexplicable bout of ennui, sadness, and self-inflicted isolation, attending the Tedx conference pretty much saved me (what was then inexplicable was most likely a combination of slight culture shock and Watson guilt and self doubt). The two day conference supported over 20 speakers from all walks of life to share their perspectives on what cities of the future should be like in order for them to be “livable spaces”. Most of the speakers focused on the environment, architecture and technology, and although there were only a couple speakers whose talks related directly to my Watson project, I decided to go because I thought it would be an enriching experience regardless. And it wasn’t just enriching, it was a ton of fun!
In addition to the speakers, there were some amazing performance artists and musicians including the crazy remarkable Reggie Watts, whose performance closed out the first day.
True story: during our lunch break on that first day I was walking down the stairs and saw this person (from behind) with amazing huge luscious hair sitting on the bottom of the stairs chatting with someone and I thought to myself “Who is this supreme being (and only other black person at this event)”? When I got to the bottom of the stairs I realized it was Reggie Watts. I kind of froze and REALLY REALLY wanted to say something but instead sauntered away semi-defeated. I don’t think I even know what I was going to say if I did.
I want to write more about this event but I’m waiting for the TedxBerlin people to put videos up (I even emailed them asking). I intend to do a throwback (and more lengthy) post on this in the future.
Preview Berlin @ Berlin Art Week
So what I imagined would be an opportunity to maybe meet an artist who plays with the physical/digital turned out to be one of the funnest (and exhausting) weeks in Berlin. I assisted Nicole Furman, an up and coming Columbian artist, at Berlin Art Week’s main art fair. At art fairs, galleries (and some solo artists) pay to exhibit their collections for art buyers, collectors and in most cases the general public. My role was explaining Nicole’s work to interested parties and cajoling them into buying.
Unfortunately the exhibition featured mostly fine artists (no multimedia artists in sight) meaning I found no leads for my Watson project. BUT fun was had. We worked hard by day and played hard into the wee hours of the morn. Our booth was next to a Miami gallery that specializes in street art and my friend Frida (who I met working this event) and I ended up becoming friends with the gallery owner. He and his crew—a melange of crazy-interesting street and video artists—were a blast to hang out with. We even ended up being filmed for an in production reality t.v. show about street art duo 2Square (check them out they are just as zany as they are talented). To top it all off, although no gift shops were involved there was a sighting (and semi-stalking) of a certain renowned but anonymous street artist (cough cough hint hint). Ah Berlin Art Week, you will forever remain in the warmest enclave of my heart.
Sayonara Berlin (or mata ne またね)
So I left Berlin about 2 weeks ago. I will miss endless nights at Berghain (and the swings)–where Lady Gaga recently released Art Pop [wEirD!?]. Magical encounters and new friends. Summer on the Spree. Pom Bears. Ladies’ Night. Tschüss. Cozy social spaces. Pom Bears. Ritter sport. Turkish pizza…okay now I’m just listing food.
Won’t miss them for too long though, I’ll be back! Oh yeah—I’m in Tokyo!—more on that soon!
Being in the World 
Pingback: Surprise Christmas Project Miracle | Being in the World