It was remarkable how frank people we never met and will never ever see again shared their personal failures in life.

These encounters set the tone for the actual event last friday.

In our humble office with a granny’s chair, loads of pillows and the dim light of a billion candles we familialy calmed down and curiously listened to the three invited speakers’ stories about failure. First Ole Seidenberg shared his story he had with Uwe – who’s been a homeless heroin addict for over thirty years. Adam Rice took us on his rollercoaster ride he had in his job life and the lessons he learned from losing it all. After a short break, Kwela Hermanns enchanted us with more personal insights and that life can never be choreographed, just like a dance of tango. As a cute little detail bracketing the evening, a short message from Uwe summarized the main lessons of the evening – that everything will eventually turn out well.

And it was this very personal short message which underlined the whole atmosphere at the gathering. Intimate, honest, at moments silent, but never awkward, inspiring and optimistic to its core. It felt just like Christmas without the pretentious kitsch.

We think it was a very special occasion and this is why we’d like to thank every single one of our guests – and especially the speakers openly sharing their misfortunes and our friends of Your Neighbours and KS12 for realizing this conference – for having our very own Christmas in May. This was truely magical.

KS12 did a documentation of the event, it’s in the making, we’re so thrilled to see this, we’ll keep you updated. Sparkles.

Since 2003, Schmiede provides space, time, tools, a heterogeneous group of participants and projects. For ten days in September, the Saline in Hallein, Austria, becomes an open and free playground (2000sqm) for 140 creatives and artists from all around the world. Depending on the needs and possibilities of its members the SmithNetwork moves along the borders of art, culture, handcraft and creative industry. Schmiede ends with FocusOnInside, a grand public exhibition, where the Smith productions of the past ten days are presented to the public and media.

In Palomar5′s pre-camp-days Schmiede was a very important advisor, sharing with us many years of experience in social and multidisciplinary frameworks. Recently we have re-discovered our similarities and we decided to start looking for ways to learn from each other and build things together. We will start by having members of the Palomar5 community visit, support and participate in Schmiede10 this September.

If you want to apply you can do so on www.schmiede.ca until May 31.

We’re proud to now officially announce that Palomar5 extends its network of participants, experts and partners to proceed the exploration of creative spaces. While continuing operations at the newly renovated Berlin home base, we’re spreading our wings internationally to continue working on existing projects, spark new ideas and boost discussions about emerging topics and the projects from the camp.

For this effort we’ve found ourselves an excellent partner in the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA) to make the world a better place. The GAFFTA team are likeminds and do also believe in the synergical benefits of open exchange, multidisciplinary surroundings and the will for change. Palomar5 is also teaming up with the GAFFTA to host interactive workshops and other events in the GAFFTA studio to share experiences with the public and kick-off new ideas and discussions together.

About GAFFTA: Gray Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA) is a San Francisco-based nonprofit dedicated to building social consciousness through digital culture. Guided by the principles of openness, collaboration, and resource sharing, our programs promote creativity at the intersection of art, design, sound, and technology. By making digital culture accessible, substantive and inspiring, we aim to help realize the greatest power of technology: to bring us closer, faster.

P5 @ Social Media Week
Thursday, Feb 4th // 1pm-3pm // piabo, Berlin Mitte

Our partner piabo that helped us coordinating all the press requests last year is going to host a workshop about “how to attract talents through social media usage”, targeted a HR people from corporates. Since the theme of the social media week is “Streit”, we thought that it’s interesting to also talk about how corporates should NOT use social media to attract potential employees. So together wih our former Palomar5 microcamp participant Edial and member of the web agency supertroup “YOUR NEIGHBOURS”, we will present the “10 No Go’s for social media usage” @ piabo from 1-3pm. The workshop’s capacity has already been reached, however. The whole schedule about the events taking place under the rooftop of the SMW can be found here.

P5 @ transmediale.10
Sunday, Feb 7th // 1pm-3pm  // Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Foyer, Berlin
January 28 – February 7, 2010 // Club Transmediale, next to .hbc, Berlin

The well reknown festival for arts and digital culture Transmediale and its sister festival Club Transmediale are taking place again in Berlin – and we are amongst them in several ways.

One of the projects that derived from the Palomar5 Camp in 2009, “I am Display“, has its premiere and first exhibition at the Club transmediale. It is a light installation that plays with the perceptions of its audience. It explores the equilibrium between our senses, our bodies and our surroundings. If you want to experience  the 182 fluorescent tube lights that the camp residents Valentin Heun (Germany), Sagarika Sundaram (India) and Gijs Burgmeijer (the Netherlands) built to a structure measuring, 2,5 m x 13 m – you will have the chance until February 7th – the exhibition is located right next to the .hbc.

On Friday evening, Feb 5h, we’ll deliver the famous “Talk to me about”-bubbles”, lead invented by our camp resident Jay Cousins, to the Club Transmediale party crowd.

And on Sunday afternoon, between 1.00-3.00pm, several residents and core-team members of Palomar5 will host a play- & workshop under the theme “being human” at the Transmediale, right in the foyer when you enter the House of World Cultures. The workshop is about digital lifestyle, analog behavior and human interaction. But enough with the lenghty descriptions, we are just happy to meet you there!

—

And if this wasn’t enough, we are also gonna be on German TV this thursday:
A film team visited our camp and we’ll appear in the show Neues this thursday, at 8.15pm @ 3SAT.

And last but not least, we’ll also be at the Systemdesign Symposium at the Kassel Art School this friday. It’s about 4 different voices about design, our’s will tackle the question “how can you design structures that foster creativity and collaboration in groups?”. You are happy to join us there:

February 5th 2010, 2.00pm – 6.00pm // Hörsaal im Nordbau / Kunsthochschule Kassel / Menzelstr 13 / 34121 Kassel

Palomar5 – The movie is a 60-minute documentary about what happened at the Palomar5 camp, a residency program which took place during six weeks in fall 2009 in Berlin. Using a holistic approach, Palomar5 seeked out the most visionary young people internationally and then assembled them to inspire each other naturally. A highly selective application process aimed to bring together a sensible mix of nationalities, genders, and professions to create a diverse and nascent network of movers and shakers from all kinds of backgrounds with a broad variety of skills and interests. The overall objective was to design and construct new working environments that satisfy and accommodate the skills and needs of the digital generation.

What made the innovation format of Palomar5 special, that in order to work out questions, a creative space (a 2000sqm factory building) was created in which a multidisciplinary network actually lived and validated the solutions it was working on – like in an ongoing field trial.

But see for yourselves. The full movie, split in 2 parts, is now available on our site or on a our fancy Vimeo profile.

Here’s the trailer:

At this very place we’d like to shout out once again a big thanks to Deutsche Telekom, our main partner in 2009, for allowing this to happen and a big hug and thank you to our filmmaker and editor Patricia Günther, who accompanied most parts of the camp and made this movie possible.

Happy new year. So this is it. Twentyten. Sounds promising already, ain’t it?

2009 was a great year, hell yes it was. We dreamt and we planned, we laughed and we cried, we failed and we succeeded… but after all we moved things. We could feel change happening. Not by proxy, but in the palms of our very hands. The buzzing in our fingertips, it was called joy. And be sure, it felt so good… almost addicting.

This is why we’d like to share once again what we’ve experienced so far. Where photos obviously lack the dimension of sound and motion and somehow fail to really tell what the Palomar5 camp was all about, we’re glad to show you a movie. Completely aware that 65.000 realtime minutes condensed in 60 movie minutes still circumsize way too many nuances, this is the closest we can get to the real thing.

Mid of January 2010, you will be able to watch “Palomar5 in 2009 – The Movie” at this very place – for free and in HD quality (if you have broadband). Follow us on twitter, facebook or rss our blog to get updated immediately once the movie is out.

At this very place we’d like to shout out once again a big thanks to Deutsche Telekom, our main partner in 2009, for allowing this to happen and a big hug and thank you to our filmmaker and editor Patricia Günther, who accompanied most parts of the camp and made this movie possible.

So this is the new year. Twentyten. And we’re back to work.

Yours, optimism and daringness is contagious, Palomar5.

Palomar5 in 2009 – The Movie (Trailer)

The sets can be found here. Enjoy.
All photos by (c) by Carolin Seeliger

Maryanna Rogers currently is a doctoral student in the Stanford School of Education. In research, work, and play, she’s been exploring the creative process of what is motivational about making things and how individuals stay interested and motivated during long term creative projects. In addition to her studies in Educational Psychology, she continues to address her insatiable desire to acquire design skills:  machining metal and plastic, silversmithing, design thinking, woodworking….

Maryanna has an undergraduate degree in film and worked in the TV/Film industry for a few years.  While working at a commercial editing boutique in NYC, she realized that in order to be a responsible media creator, she needed to know more about how her work was impacting viewers.  That motivation lead her to UCLA for study and research in Psychology and onwards to Stanford for a Master’s in Learning, Design, and Technology.  She has since then worked on several projects that integrate the desire to make things and the interest in human behavior with the ultimate goal of making the world a better place (for at least one person).  Some projects include:  a video-guided program for youth at-risk for depression and anxiety, a mobile phone application for children with OCD, psychoeducational curricula and comic books for Ethiopian sex workers.

Rather than a pragmatic take on the subject, Maryanna takes a more psychological, educational and sociological view on the Palomar5 experience. From the Palomar5 camp she expects camp to be full of the unexpected. She’s particularly excited about finding interesting ways of working together and inspiring each other. She’d like to finish the Palomar5 experience not only with interesting and generative ideas developed during the camp but first and foremost with an experiential understanding of what it’s like to collaborate with a diverse group of inspired brainiacs.

25-year old Loek Ruijs from the Netherlands is a Kaospilot graduate and immensely experienced and skilled in creativity methods. These area all hard facts, but what really matters for Loek is to be one of the guys that are making a change. That guy that wants to make this world a better place.

‘First of all, I’m sorry I’m late but I took the best time I could choose to write about myself. About my goals, my passions and where I come from, and the best time to do that is when I’m totally honest. This is the time. There’s pressure on me and I had some beers.

This is the moment that I tell the world that I’m passionate about making a difference. I know I can do it. I learned it while I was lying on a bed being totally wrecked, feeling insecure and totally unhappy. But at the highlight of my greatest depression something happened. I visualized a book and it showed me that there are things I’m good at and I felt great immediately. Since that moment I knew that I could do and achieve everything I want.

I dreamed about achieving the greatest things. And dreaming about them doesn’t mean you should only dream of them. What it means when you experienced something like a big dream, even though it’s only in your mind, it means that it is already out there, that it already exists. You only have to make it happen. And the one thing I learned is that the one who has to make it happen is you! So, for this dream it’s going to be me who has to make it happen.

As I kind of said I had moments that I totally felt like a screw-up; I felt worthless and less than every single person that inspired me in some way. The main things I want to do is to show and give the next generation the feeling that they are capable of whatever they want, because when they’ve already envisioned a dream, it means it’s possible. When you feel good by thinking of achieving your dream, just do it! The only thing people need to make things happen is some self esteem. My self esteem still sucks at moments, but I’m working on it. How I do it? Just by being the one I feel like being each moment in my life. Adapt to the setting your in. I like that! And if I don’t like the setting, I change the setting.

So what I want to achieve in my life and through Palomar 5 is that every child in the world is able to see and read such a book as I saw in my dream. How I do this? Just wait and see.’

Loek Ruijs

Dreamer, Kaospilot & Palomar 5 camp resident.