Art is a matter of perspectives. In physics the change of perspectives and even theories about perspectives using optical instruments or illusions enlightens our understanding of the universe. 2D or 3D perspectives by V. Vasarely add yet another dimension through the oppositional hanging facing the Hollow Mirror Objects (convex and concave) by A. Luther (see images below). The curators succeeded in putting both art works with their incorporation of physical principles in an enriching dialogue. Art speaks to us in many languages. In more general terms, there is an underexploited aspect of exposing art. Rather than focusing on a single artist or school of artists in particular, exhibitions may focus on the interrelationships and new ways of combining or communicating images. This is human intelligence. Artificial intelligence will do this without prejudice and my own private collection of images of art works as a similar fountain of innovation as well. (Image Exhibition Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin 2024-12). 
Cumulative Mandates
Since 2010 and with 18 volumes the documentation of perpetrators assistants free riders during the Nazi rule in Germany has been valuable and reliable source of information (Kugelberg Verlag). The book series defines the perpetrators as the persons excuting crimes themselves or were in command of those who committed the crimes or gave orders to do so. It is not surprising to find evidence of many crimes, but rather that it took such a long time until the documents were published and the descendants were confronted with the facts and the difficult heritage. There are still many who undertake all efforts to deny the facts or try to minimize the guilt of perpetrators. With the real dangers of new right-wing extremism on the rise across Europe and even beyond, it becomes more important to uncover the strategies and biographies of the perpetrators. Certainly the members of the SS were executives and in command of atrocities, so-called NSDAP party officials were also mostly convinced followers of Nazi doctrines and instrumental in the implementation of crimes. Additionally, several professions (line soldiers or medical doctors) were key in the process to ensure the power of the totalitarian regime until the final days. Some persons were cumulating roles and became thereby inescapable spiders in a web of control and crimes. The lessons for today consist in hindering excessive cumulation of mandates, political, professional, military and in other work or civil society related functions. Distribution of power is one form to safeguard the survival of democratic structures. 
Conducter Careers
The careers of conductors during the 1930s and 1940s have been propelled by joining the NSDAP on Germany. Even if not too outspoken as conductors on Nazi discriminatory policies many openings arose only due to banning Jewish conductors and musicians from performing in public. The acceptance of vacancies due to such restrictions advanced the careers of Karl Böhm as well as Herbert von Karajan. A theatre play Böhm at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin takes up this topic and puts the professional career in perspective of an anti-humanist leadership style. Karajan has also come into critic, because of his role in selecting musicians who were conform to the prevailing Nazi-antisemitism. It is important to work on these biographies and their implications for hundreds of lives of other musicians. Many careers have been destroyed due to these two prominent conductors ready to do almost anything to advance their careers. It puts their interpretation of music in a different light knowing about their instrumentalist approach to music, their own careers and the disrespectful Nazi doctrines. Image New Berlin Philharmonic, View from Kunstgewerbemuseum 2020. 
Nazi Doctors
The role of medical doctors during the Nazi domination in Germany has been revisited by the professional organization of statutory medical doctors (Kassenärztliche Bundesvereinigung KBV) in collaboration with the Center for Research on Antisemitism (ZfA TU Berlin). The exhibition entitled „Systemic Disorder“ first shown in the main entrance hall in front of a conference room offers a thorough review of the role of medical doctors throughout the Nazi period. Politically undesirable physicians were rapidly banned from the profession and promotions given to NSDAP party members. The totalitarian approach transformed the whole apparatus of the medical profession into a politically streamlined organization ready to commit crimes like forced euthanasia or selecting „insane“ persons for special medical treatments in other institutions. Selection of forced laborers for firms or declaring them unfit for work, which in many cases sent those persons to concentration camps, was part of the streamlined medical doctors. It took decades after the „Wehrmachtsausstellung“ in Hamburg that another profession has done its homework. Great to know that this important exhibition, documentation and catalog is traveling now across Germany for at least a year. It is another milestone in coming to understand how presumably intelligent people were part of a highly efficient selection and killing machine during the Nazi domination in Germany. (Image, Berlin KBV 2004, catalog p73, SystemerkrankungSystemerkrankung) 
Famous Neighbors
Sometimes people believe they can catch a bit of fame, if they live in a prominent neighborhood. Next to a famous person or the glamor surrounding such a place is inspiring. In Berlin the honor or fame is transmitted for example with the street names of composers. Everybody knows Johann Sebastian Bach and around Christmas time many of his compositions will be performed again. Directly next to Bach street we find Flotow street. It needs a bit of info about music and music history to identify the honor for Flotow to appear next to Bach. Well, Berlin you are „wunderbar“. You have made my day just on one of the first few days of the direct train connection between Paris and Berlin started. We grow together in small steps. 
Reconciliation
European history is a long history of atrocities committed against humanity. The Documentation Centre for Displacement, Expulsion, Reconciliation in Berlin (Image below) captures this history in a comprehensive manner. We are quickly overwhelmed by this weight of history and the implications this has for the understanding of the people on the globe. This relatively new learning centre has, beyond the memorable permanent and temporary exhibitions, a room of silence to recover from the hard work of remembrance, always in view of reconciliation.
The library allows personal search and research of migration documents and biographies. All centuries have their history of displacements, but the Nazi terror surpassed all prior records and forced millions into displacement or death. We are still working on this heritage and the enlightenment of how these atrocities could take place. Full consciousness of the terror and horror of the 30s and 40s is necessary to guard against the many attempts to falsify historical events or discard the sorrow of millions of people and their families.
Reconciliation remains a continuous challenge. A large part of diplomacy has to deal with reconciliation beyond concerns of daily affairs. It is not just a matter for head of states and days-off during a year. Stillness helps to deal with the challenge, especially if it is very difficult to find adequate words. 
Air Concept
Well yes, this is the latest fart in design and architecture. The Berlin International University of Applied Sciences composed an exhibition on “Air Architectures” which takes air seriously. The international group of 7th semester students took Air Architecture seriously and developed their ideas in the context of a curated exhibition. Nice semester project.
Air is a fundamental precondition for humans to (co-)exist. The biology of air (breathing) or the chemistry of air (fine particle matter) have been studied extensively. The physics of air flows in cities receive more attention as well in architecture. Interior design has yet a lot to contribute in the age of heat pumps and air conditioning.
Let’s think architecture from the perspective of air and air flow. Depending on our cultural background we might have very different associations with air. Indian or Chinese practices like yoga or Tai Chi teach us to take air more seriously than Western practices. Most architecture in cold countries of the northern hemisphere aim to keep air to the outside of buildings. Yet, the percentage of humidity of air is a serious concern of architecture as well. Air flow and quality then becomes a key issue of construction and architecture, somehow through the back door.
Maybe in approaching architecture we might think first of what is or has been the architect’s concept of air or aerodynamics. 100 years after the death of Gustave Eiffel and the Olympic Games in Paris, we still gain from thinking about air (not only air pollution) and its dynamics. Looking forward to the next generation of air architects.
(Image: Exhibition, Air architectures, at Berlin International, University of Applied Sciences 2024-12) 
Chinny Trait
In evolutionary biology there is still a discussion about the functional explanation of why humanoids developed a chin. A recent paper by Meyer-Rochow adds a new functional explanation for the evolution of the chin to the literature. Across cultures and sufficiently distant populations of humans, similar patterns of the use of the chin have been observed. In comparison to other species under the superfamily “Hominoidea”, our bites are only of minor strength and apes, Orang Utans have not developed a chin quite like us, homo sapiens. Origins of the chin as “weapon” in fighting and broader social selectivity remain hypotheses without sufficient proof of evidence.
In addition to the functional explanations of easier “mastication” or formation of words, chins might serve as an additional part of the body to hold items to the chest. This function, of holding tools or stuff could have been an advantage for our ancestors and became a favoured trait. During the pandemic our chins became a supporting or hindering reason in the struggle to wear masks for extended periods of time (see image below).
Nowadays, we ask ourselves about the social selectivity into becoming a violin player with this important function of the jaw and chin to hold the instrument. A rival hypothesis is, of course, that holding things with our mouth, like needles or screws, in sewing or handicrafts could eventually make the chin disappear. The bipedalism of hominids, freed our hands for other tasks and the evolution of a chin could similarly reinforce the efficient use of our hands.
Novel use cases for the chin, like holding your smartphone while typing on a keyboard or while opening doors, might enhance the chinny trait of hominids.
Over hundred of thousands of years the interaction of the bio->psycho->social (BPS) spheres of life may have interesting traits for us down (or up) the evolutionary line.
(Image: European parliament, Brussels 2020-7-23 address by Ursula von der Leyen in “masked assembly”).
Book Annotation
For most people book annotations are considered a nuisance. However, most pupils or students mark their so-called textbooks, which contain many images nowadays anyway. A good mindmap, summary of text, highlighting or critical comments may be part of their day-to-day working with a book. Some editors facilitate this using broad margins and more space between lines. Working through a text can take multiple forms and books have allowed over centuries different kinds of their usage.
There is yet another underexplored usage of books. On printed volumes annotations of previous readers may serve as a guide to a script of places, thoughts or material of particular importance. I have always found annotated copies of other readers interesting in their own right. Reading an annotated copy felt like reading another person’s mind, thought or learning process.
A modern view of books as a tool of communication might extend this perspective to study annotations of several readers on the same copy. Just like we comment today in word processing on texts from collaborators or students. Books are a means of communicating with other people or machines (AI) usually with the aim of spreading ideas, content, horror or pleasure.
Therefore, I am always happy to find annotated versions of a book, especially of prominent authors. It sometimes feels like reading a “partition”, a transcript of music which contains the comments or fingering of the reader or the performing musician. The BNF has a lot of such special copies in its archives, usually found in the donations of persons or prominent authors and their families to the archives. This can be put together to make an interesting exhibition of the process of thinking and writing and of special treasures – annotated books.
Image Bibliothèque nationale de France BNF, collection, “Annotations by Jean Racine on Homer “Ilias“.
Democracy in Korea
For all scholars of the theory of democracy the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville (1835) “De la démocratie en Amérique” are a major point of reference. The comparison of the democracy in America with the French king and both constitutions reveals comparative strengths and weaknesses of political systems. Korea after the 4th of December 2024 is yet another warning of what are the dangers to democratic systems. The attempted “coup d’état” by the president of Korea together with a former defense minister and several hundred soldiers has failed due to the speedy reaction of the elected members of parliament and an attentive and reactive public (Korea Times reports).
Tocqueville (p.130-131, French edition online) states, beyond the separation of powers (John Locke), the importance of the right to nominate key positions in a society also public opinion for the survival of democracy. Modern social media have increased the “reaction time” of public opinion and the “time to action” if need be. The combination of both elements of public opinion ensured that parliamentarians in Korea rushed to parliament and used their potentially last chance to vote against the imposed martial law, which started to seal off parliament already.
Several lessons for democratic systems derive from this. Separation of power remains key for democracy. The distribution of state functions on many shoulders under the control of parliament are essential. Legal mechanisms, in case of a spontaneous attack on the system, have to be able to react fast in order to avoid spreading fake news about legality/illegality of interventions. Public opinion, the people at large, should have their opinions distributed rapidly as well. This is necessary even beyond the traditional media of TV, radio and print. In Korea 2024 the attempted “coup d’état” tried also to block traditional media and prominent figures of the opposition with high power of influencing and reach on social media.
Tocqueville stated already that kings are threatened by revolution. Elected presidents have to fear public opinion. A lesson still valid beyond the US., France and Korea in the 21st century.
(Image: joint exhibition at “Traditional Korean Painting”, Korean Cultural Centre Brussels, 2024) 