Morten Espersen and Louise Schrader

The Lead Line

We are leaving behind a lead line made out of beeswax.

We did have plans to do more, to use the lead line in greater schemes, but things didn't really turn out the way we had planned.

Maybe the object in itself was enough.

The lead line, also called a sounding line, is a device for measuring the depth of the water as well as obtaining a sample of the ocean floor, and it is one of the oldest of all navigating tools.

Caris Reid

My six hours were spent as a nod to the motif of the week, to watermelon.

There was the man on the U-Bahn, my first day in Berlin, eating a watermelon and spitting the seeds between our feet. He had juice running down his cheeks.

And the woman from a nightclub I was told about over lunch. She was beautiful, they said, ravenously eating a watermelon, at the center of the dance floor.

And then there was the lady from the magazine. Found at the top of a large stack of German publications, all from the 60s and 70s. First magazine. A photo shoot of a woman at the beach sitting with her watermelon and knife.

The stories seem united. The “eaters” apart of a secret club, a club of youth, of sex, of fleeting summer liberation. And the fruit their gateway to this euphoric state.

I devoted my six hours to them.

Rose Umerlik

Before I went into the space and started working, I gave myself permission to fail and, consequently, I was able to explore the process freely and without inhibition. My proposed project was meant to explore handwriting and the formal qualities of line through automatic writing. I covered the floor with unrolled paper, set up my video camera, had my pencil and sharpener in hand, picked a moment and began. As the words found their way across the floor and spelling and legibility disappeared, I found that my hand and body kept up with my mind and heart, the thoughts poured forth and a synthesis occurred. Every part of my body, mind and passion were in sync and felt extremely powerful. It was at this time that I realized that this piece was a performance/installation more than an analysis of words and lines. Upon filling the floor with words, and stepping back and looking at it, I felt that something new had begun in this room.

Kate Theodore

when i arrived with my birds to the mini residency space i was struck by the innocence and serenity of the window. i made the birds burst through and invade the room. i filmed the windows opening and the stages of the birds entering the room but did not take enough frames so the animation is very very short. thanks for the mini residency time, it was a good chance to focus and try this animation idea out.

Daniela Bustamante

my many mini residency was a positive experience for me because it gave me a short, isolated time to start sketches and brainstorm for a new childrens book. although the time was very short, it still enabled my to take time out of my everyday work to look at what i had done and think about what i wanted to do next.

Kate Fulton

how do you make it. to a higher place?
surface. land and slide

and how many steps. is it? till I reach the surface?

to be measured in 5 mini steps,
what will each step take?
To aid and abet desire.

anobservation inaction
an antidote
the antinovel
or antithesis

detailing the space
drawing attention

creating a ladder out of the office of necessity

when you don’t have. what it is? you need

reassemble
ascend
hold on.

to nothing. and with caution. go. at your own risk.

Kathy Leisen and Alex Wright

The Many Mini Residency was a perfect opportunity to experiment in our respective realms of video and sound. Using the time sensitive nature of the residency, we constructed a schedule of “conversation” between video and sound. Taking turns and reacting to the other’s additions, Alex edited video and Kathy created a soundtrack entirely in the five-hour time slot. The room felt great and we had fun.

Malin Neuman

What happens when you put yourself in a situation you never experienced before in a place you never seen? During my stay at The Berlin Office I wanted to explore the connection between myself, the room and the city as well as the experience of being in a new situation. I did so by approaching everything physically. I thought of how infants use their senses, especially their touch, to explore the world around them. I tried different movements within the room, covered my feet and hands in paint and listened to the sounds from the city

Jag är en internationell konstnär nu (I'm an international artist now).
Cover me.
City/Room/Person - Berlin/Pflügerstraße 61/Malin
Cover me.

Jag har sett dig som genom glas (I have seen you as through glass).

Mette Bartholin and Wolfgang Fütterer

PinkDualDuett
In our first collaborationwork „Duett" we got influenced by the two pink plastic chairs in the Many Mini Residency working space. We realised they are not trying to be a duett. They are just two, like us and like our arms, legs, eyes etc. In a duett two can transform into a dual body. We had two residencies, Friday morning at six and Friday evening at eleven. We used the pink chair dual system as basis for our video performance.

Stephanie Custance

Pflügerstraße and Hobrechtstraße

Pflügerstraße and Friedelstraße

Gubenerstraße and Rudersdorferstraße

Having lived in a city for the past four years I find myself subjected to a strange and awkward phenomena of the avoidance of eye contact. Stimulated by the majority of those passing by persistently turning their view to the ground, I began to place my own portrait in this chosen line of sight as an avenue to breakdown such contemporary instinctual social tendencies. On the trip over to The Berlin Office I collected cobblestone and brick. These became surfaces for self portrait studies which create instances of assimilated eye contact when placed back into the sidewalk.

Christine Empedocles and Kate Phillimore

Destination: Berlin Like a carefree backpacker on a year abroad, the works of nineteen San Francisco artists will travel the world in a suitcase to various destinations with no confirmed schedule or order of travel. In each location the exhibition will acquire traveling mates in the form of new artworks by local artists. Two local artists will contribute one work each to the collection so that the suitcase will eventually return to San Francisco as a new collection of international artworks. Possible upcoming destinations include London, Beijing, Brazil, New York, and Vancouver. The end of the show will be celebrated with the production of a catalog that will document the travels of the suitcase. {click image for full text}		Berlin Artists: Christian Tonner Inside the Black Cube, collage, 2008
			David Keating Variation, archival print, 6 pages, each page 20.9 x 28.2 cm, 2008
San Franciso Artists:

Eugene Jho and Jennifer Smith

Sabrina Small

10 Minutes reading at the Many Mini After-Party BBQ

My one hour residency was spent madly scribbling a piece entitled 10 Minutes, in which I tried to reconstruct a thought span of 10 minutes during an hour of writing. The idea was inspired by the Doris Lessing novel, The Golden Notebook, in which the main character Anna keeps a notebook of her daily thoughts in excruciating detail. I wanted to play with the private form of journal writing in the context of performance. My quest was to write convincingly in my 'inner voice' while still maintaining a narrative style suited for an audience.

Paul Druecke

Photo Credits: Paul Druecke
Inset: Ryan Thayer

The Last Days of John Budgen Jr.
Claire Readig and Paul Druecke

The Last Days of John Budgen Jr. is being published in installments—Chapter One is currently in distribution.
You can receive this and future installments by contacting info.johnbjr@gmail.com

(Special Thanks to Donna Stonecipher for her generous assistance with the reading.)

Reading and Discussion
From the Introductory Notes:

The Last Days of John Budgen Jr. is a story culled from John Budgen’s blog.
…
“Blog.” It’s not a very pleasant word. John actually has a short entry about this, noting that the word manages to sound both nauseating and salacious. Of course, the person that coined “blog” probably didn’t realize it would become such a ubiquitous word. If you search the term “blog” you get over 3.5 billion hits, that’s more than independent searches of Britney Spears, CNN and Germany combined—a couple of billion more.
…
John’s blog began in 2003 continuing to 2008 when John, unexpectedly, passed away.
…
One interest in telling this story is to reverse the momentous flow of “content” now moving from traditional mediums into digital format and onto the world-wide-web. In a sense, The Last Days is like dragging a stick up stream—pulling from the web back into print.

Cara MacLeod and Kyla Ring

Liz Walsh

I wanted to capture the sound of Berlin. I designed a tripod like device that could hold a microphone and recorder. The sculpture was created to appear nonobtrusive and blend into the environment but it also had a certain elegance and German scheme to it. I was interested in photographing this structure in different environments as a kind of document.

This work really embodies my first days in Berlin. My attempts of trying to listen and understand language, people, and the U-Bahn. Also trying to figure this place in terms of it's past histories and present layered state. It was also interesting to set up this device and watch people watching me.

Amy Leonard

Please check back later for the final video project.

I spent my time at the residency reflecting my experiences in Berlin and making lists of observations that I later shot with my dv camera..capturing the rhythm of the daily & nightly happenings in the ever evolving city of Berlin for a deeper understanding. Contrasting it later with the rhythm/flow of New York City and displaying them on two separate screens that eventually melt into one. One image pressed upon the other...Berlin impressions on the streets & minds of NYC.

Rebecca Goldfarb

In-between Residency instructions

The piece will go as follows:

In-between Residency

Proposed Length:
The length is dependent upon the total number of residents; the piece will last for approximately 2-12 minutes between each resident's residency.

Brief Description:
My In-between Residency will occur and be conducted (in my absence) by others (following a few directives given by myself and resident in the space). My piece will occur in the time between one resident and another, for the duration of the show.

1) THE RESIDENT WILL ENTER INTO THE ROOM BY CRAWLING FROM THE DOOR AND STAND UP ONCE HE/SHE HAS REACHED AT LEAST THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM or beyond, at any place of his/her choosing.

2) REMOVE ANY DEBRIS/DETRITUS LEFT FROM THE PREVIOUS RESIDENT using their hands, a broom, whatever props he/she desires (so long as nothing is left behind)...

3) OPEN AND CLOSE EACH WINDOW 3 TIMES (in no particular order).

4) RETURN TO THE SAME SPOT WHERE UPON INDIVIDUAL STOOP UP (from the intial crawling position) AND GO FROM STANDING TO CRAWLING ONCE AGAIN, EXITING THE ROOM.

5) PLACE/SET UP IN THE ROOM ANY DESIRED ITEMS THAT THE NEXT RESIDENT MAY REQUEST.