Category: behavioral

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Free Lunch

Who told you that there is no free lunch? On the premises of “The Berlin Philharmonic” a group of toddlers and babies had a free musical lunch. On the occasion of the lunch concert on 2026-1-28 in the spacious entry hall young musicians (piano, Ana Bakradze, and violoncello, Carlo Lay) gave a concert with Sonatas from Beethoven (op. 69) and Britten (op. 65) to an exceptionally broad range of ages in the audience. People fully enjoyed the concert, irrespective of uncomfortable seating also on stairs, if they managed to find a seat at all. The occasional breast feeding seemed to be the free lunch for some privileged babies. The adults were invited to contribute a donation to the UN refugee fund. Instead of the usual seasonal coughing, there were delighted outcries from the youngest, which enchanted the aging audiences additionally. The 2 musicians excelled in concentration on their performance in spite of the challenging setting.

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German Cinémathèque

The “Deutsche Kinemathek” in Berlin has moved to its new location in the old E-Werk. There is room for temporary exhibitions and screening on all walls. Small boxes (3 seats) give a brief overview of the history of television. The library is accessible again to the public. In order to research what went wrong in the history of mass media and cinema in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s can get access to the archives as well. In the age of new digital media technology the study of historical approaches helps to be aware of the power of persuasion of this form of mass communication. A critical thinking perspective on the material presented and the long history of cinema can bring generations together through the exchange of experiences with different media. 

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Paper and Scissors

In order to produce art it is not always necessary to have expensive materials at your disposal. Henri Matisse has demonstrated that paper and scissors can go a long way. With this in mind, the work by Johanna Beckmann, shown in the upper hall of the “Kulturforum” in Berlin, is quite astonishing. Beckmann relied on just paper and scissors, in addition to her paper and pencil work, to illustrate her own texts as well as collections of fairy tales. Her paper cuts of some hobbit stories might be remembered by a whole generation of children and even some of today’s world. Paper cuts and theatre based on such figures have been a cross-cultural treasure. The illustration of stories, but also the creation of own characters might be derived from such cuts using just paper and scissors. The “Kunstbibliothek” and the “Lette-Verein”-academy in Berlin joined forces for this exhibition and they both continue to transmit this creative craft to students actively involved in this “intergenerational exhibition”. Please bring your (grand 😉 children.
All those who travelled to Paris recently will be well aware that at “Montmartre” you can still have your profile cut these days. At this exhibition there is a “do-it-yourself” section, not only reserved to children.

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Holocaust commemoration

The commemoration of the Shoa or the Holocaust is part of an international remembrance of atrocities against humanity. It needs to be present in countries beyond Germany, even if Germany under Hitler’s rule caries the sole responsibility for the ruthless execution of a plan and the murder of 4 million of its own people of Jewish decent and additional 2 million Jewish people of neighboring countries. In the speech by Tova Friedman, a Shoa survivor, she pointed to the perceived threat which children posed to the Nazi-regime as witnesses of mass murders. There she is. In front of the whole nation she testifies for what seems like a distant past, but for many this past is still not over. Responsibility of Germany does not stop after a certain number of years, maybe in judicial terms, but a moral obligation to act against denial of these atrocities is primordial. 20 years after the inauguration of the memorial of the holocaust in the center of Berlin and the exhibition center “topography of terror” (image below, 2026-1-27) we should start an initiative to make the International Day of the commemoration of the holocaust a national day, of commemoration, where all daily routines are paused in Germany to give people time to act and reflect on what can be done that such atrocities will never happen again.

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Time simultaneously

The simultaneous experience of time forms part of the basic understanding of what society is about. However, the participants of a simultaneous game of chess might arrive at a different perspective on time. At the same time when time advances for say 20 chess players, the one person facing the 20 players is advancing on 20 processes simultaneously, but also on a single time measure shared by all. The different processes, or chess clocks, all run in the same timeframe. The experiences of time will be rather different as the simultaneous games usually stop at very different times. Each player has to live up to her own competence, only the one simultaneous player lives in multiple games or time simultaneously. The experience, even on a much smaller scale to handle just 3 parallel processes is a challenge for us. The fascination of juggling might convey a similar experience just on a more physical level.

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Time in Chess

The more you advance in playing chess, the more time and timing becomes an issue. Sooner or later you will want to have your very own chess clock to be in control of time when playing chess. It will be difficult to keep your mind hooked on the chessboard rather than the clock as each move is linked to a point in time as well as a duration.
It was common practice for advanced players to note, not only the moves they played, but also the time they needed to play the next move. This helped to analyse the quality of your game. In specific openings of a game of chess you even keep track of “time advantages” in bringing more of your pieces into powerful positions or a “developed” position on the chessboard.
You may choose to play a “Blitz” game, which allows only 5 minutes per player to think about the next move overall, which may turn into a fast hitting battle in an protracted endgame for each side. In anticipation of this you way your time very carefully right from the beginning of the game. In short, you will never consider time as a mere second by second running of time as time has a different weight depending of the progress of the game.
Come on, it is just a game of chess, isn’t it?

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Timely timeless

It is very timely to discuss timelessness. Some inventions or artwork appear to have a timeless value. The creation of books has this feature as we have known also a lot about the conservation and restoration of books across centuries. Timelessness is about an open-ended vision of time. In mathematics it is a usual part of the differential equations‘ calculus to handle infinity as an operationalisation or a form of a projection of time into timelessness. Humans have made considerable efforts to create material and, most of all, immaterial goods which try to exist independently from time. Geek or Roman philosophy are with us for more than 2000 years and we still benefit from returning to this original concepts. Egyptian culture and the wall paintings in caves still speak to us, thousands of years afterwards. Each clock suggests that time is advancing, but some treasures achieve the level of a timeless beauty, art or conceptual masterpiece. The more we talk about time, the more we shall cherish timelessness. (Image: Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin 2026-1, The clock screening)

 

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Time and music

The trick about music is the sheer unlimited variety it allows to experience time. We all think primarily of rhythm as the direct link between time and music. Then there are the additional annotations of composers on their scores like “lento” or “presto”. In addition each note has a frequency as swinging per second, which serves as the basis for synchronization of an orchestra. The length of each note or a each phrase of music evokes specific emotions in listeners. Human embryos even register music as the frequencies and duration travel across boundaries. The relationship of time and music is such a vast subject matter that the scope of this deserves to be studied across centuries, music periods as well as across cultures. Certainly, we find a few books on the subject beyond the simple physics of waves lengths and frequencies.

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Book as Entry

Libraries are full of books. But there is much more to a library than just books. However, many users of libraries focus on the “classic” origin of libraries as large and more or less exquisite collections of books. Therefore, it is a decent tradition to think of libraries and most of all books as a kind of “memory of the world”. Judith Schalansky writes texts and conceives books. Authors are used to choose typescripts from a huge potential choice. Going through the history of book production, can inform about the diversity of appearances of texts in book form. The panel discussion at the Stabi West in the presence of Schalansky and about Schalansky raised awareness to the point that there can be many more than just one entry into a book. However, we are so used to read front to back, that it is even hard to think about more entries. Images, typescripts and typesetting or the kind of binding, all may serve as facilitators for more ways of handling a book. 

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Time reference

Times serves as a point of reference. We often refer to precise points in time, like dates 1st of May Labour Day, or a specific hour as a reference point. If we talk about 5 minutes before 12 o’clock, we convey a kind of urgency – before it is, presumably – too late. In the arts, particularly poetry, prose or drama, and even beyond the romantic period, the reference to seasons as “emotionally loaded” terms is widely used. Subsequently, there are many compositions in music, which make use of such references as programmatic titles. Through the reference to a specific duration, the scene appears to be set and the reader or listener prepared for a less surprising experience. You might even go full circle like in Vivaldi’s composition of “The 4 seasons”.
The writer, poet and Shakespeare translator Thomas Brasch (Link to publications) has written the poem “Der schöne 27. September” (1980) with an exact reference to a point in time, but reporting in 10 lines, what he didn’t do on that date (own translation).
“I didn’t read a newspaper.
…
I didn’t write a single line of text.
I didn’t set something in motion.”
(Extract from Thomas Brasch poem see above;
image below, Global stones project)