Programmed by Programmers?

Why, Yes, Please…

by Wolf Vest

Brooklyn

These past couple of years I have spent so, so many hours either looking at my computer or searching for/watching anything that moves on the various streaming services. No more network television. The days of “The Twilight Zone,” “Andy Griffith,” “Happy Days,” “Fall Guy,” “The Simpsons,” and all of the NCIS kinds of stuff, are totally over for me. And so is reading, more or less. Ironic. Sad. Instead, I seem to rather comb through Youtube, searching through the familiar offerings, over and over, in barely lucid hopes of finding something watchable. It’s come to that. “Can I even watch this?” The Youtube algorithm wants to box me in so bad that it will seemingly battle me to get me to bend to its will. You are going to watch this Paul McCartney interview and YOU ARE GOING TO LOVE IT! Isn’t that what this is all about, anyway?

When I was in school, I studied Mass Media, among other topics. We learned a lot about the theory of television programming in the early days. A lot of interesting stuff that could be taught in one class was weirdly dragged into a Major. Anyway, most of the info is pretty much worthless these days. Though some of it serves as the basis of content programming in fading corners of our entertainment lives.

Let’s look at the amazingly powerful word “Program.” A noun and a verb, that basically amount to the same thing. A television program was/is a hopefully enticing offering created to lure you in and ultimately selling you stuff. In the end, it was all about the ads. The programs were/are a means to that end. The pallet of this material seems to have lessened into a few things like police/crime stuff, action/multiverse shows, over-exaggerated “normal people” competitions to be fabulous, sports, family stuff, horror and news for the dedicated viewer.

We spend a lot of time exposing ourselves (think about literally baring your soul and mind) to these programs whose single unified mission is to get us to buy stuff. So, the programs are literally serving to program the viewers. And we love it!

Video games and other online content are programmed to program people. If you think about the USA-based cable news stations, across the political spectrum, you realize that they are programming the dedicated many so thoroughly as to virtually turn them into walking statistics, almost perfectly controllable physical representations of a particular demographic.

And it’s these viewers that then jump into their pick-ups, turn on similarly-tuned talk radio and drive to the café or casino full of the like-minded or those paid to treat them gently and not shake their aquariums too much. This is in the midst what might be 12 hour chunk of the same programming, blaring in-home, serving as a sleazy, manipulative friend. Day after day. After day. After day. It’s the perfect recipe for creating a zombie army which can be mobilized through signal terms like “Stop the Steal,” to use one that instantly comes to mind.

Once you become a moveable widget, you basically are a 0 or 1 on spreadsheet of some mega-corporation. Or, if you prefer it more old-school, you are just a coin in someone else’s pocket. And you are a penny. But all us pennies add up! Booya!

And we are all doing this to ourselves. Willingly bathing in programming whose total goal is to turn people into widgets. It’s totally insane! But what is reality shaped by? It’s shaped by what “content” we expose ourselves to. It used to be that friends and family might disagree on some personal or political view. But a good conversation amongst the group over time might eventually allow for acceptance and understanding. But the programmers and their programming have jumped into the breach and keep dropping dopamine dollops that have us hooked like critters on crack. Once you become a moveable widget, you basically are a 0 or 1 on spreadsheet of some mega-corporation. Or, if you prefer it more old-school, you are just a coin in someone else’s pocket. And you are a penny. But all us pennies add up! Booya!

And the virus days have upped the ante. Who is up for the Meta-verse? Infinite realities? The painful crushing of religion under the burgeoning possibility of alien origination? What else do you got?

I guess a positive take away might be: Which side of this do you want to be on? Do you want to be a part of a demographic product that is sold to the highest bidder for whatever market (other?) -related use that bidder might dream up? Or maybe it’s better to try to be a programmer? Or somehow more on the programming side? I can tell you that turning off the computer and the TV (also a computer) have allowed thoughts like this to be considered on these long, dark winter nights. In some ways, it feels like exercise.

Poetry Corner: The Art of Baking

by Sanj Nair

Brooklyn

I sift clouds all morning:

wish for snow that Joyce snowed—

I get sediment, nothing sweet.

Do you know the trick of the wrist? The write? The word?

Speak, please. Flick it this way, draw the hieroglyph:

I will eat, read and move the products of skies for you—

offer great, white clouds of what is sweet—what is sweet—

invisible barter that may not be for the taking where batter is concerned.

Shorty of the Month! "Princess Beauty" by Eszter Szabó!!

Hungarian video artist, Eszter Szabó, has shown works all over Europe and the USA. Her video “Princess Beauty” was part of the Digital Fairy Tales show, “Obvious Surprise,” which appeared in NYC on the Manhattan Bridge, as part of LIGHT YEAR, in April of 2020, just as the lock-downs took effect.

For more info on Eszter check out the link below, as well as her amazing “3 Questions with…” segment later in this issue!

Eszter Szabó ONLINE

The Often Unappreciated Value of Coaching (New Year's Special)

by Adrian Pocobelli

Berlin

I used to laugh at the idea of life coaching. Little did I know I needed it more than anyone. And interestingly enough, I notice in other people who think it’s a joke that they also often seem to need it the most. There’s almost a direct correlation you can make—the more ridiculous you think it is, the more you might need it.

And it’s understandable enough. Coaching can often seem like common sense and a bit of a sucker’s game for people that lack direction and general confidence in themselves. Values? “Of course I have values.” Responsibility? “I always take responsibility. I don’t need to pay someone to explain these things to me. This is basic.”

But the reality is that many people (particularly unhappy people, which of course isn’t you or me) actually don’t have much more than a surface understanding of what these things actually mean. And who can blame them? They don’t teach these things in school.

But the reality is that many people (particularly unhappy people, which of course isn’t you or me) actually don’t have much more than a surface understanding of what these things actually mean. And who can blame them? They don’t teach these things in school. And the result? A lifetime of heartbreak and missed opportunities, further reinforced by a sense that people are unreliable and the world is fundamentally a negative place.

I found myself in this position throughout most of my twenties and thirties. I was ‘happy enough’, but ultimately, I wasn’t having near the fun I might have had with a better inner game. As I look back, life seemed a little random, an anchorless attempt to build a life on ground that was constantly shifting beneath my feet. Yes, I had “values”, but, in retrospect, I didn’t really know what that meant. What I learned from coaching (the great Brian Tracy in particular, whose audiobooks I highly recommend) is that the foundation of a strong personality is values. At the beginning of my journey into coaching, the values section was always the ‘boring’ section that I had to endure to get to the good stuff of what to do to change my life and be a happier, more successful person. B ut now I see it as a profound insight, and the core foundation of all practical action in the world.

Having true values creates a sense of self-respect, which enables you to generate true confidence in yourself. And this doesn’t happen overnight, but I think it can happen in about a year of coaching and self-improvement exercises, whether it be audiobooks, reading or building new skills. Anyone can do this. When you have values that you truly believe in, relationships become far more positive from a foundational point of view, as you’re no longer seeking approval from the outside world (whether it’s someone you started dating, or senior person in your work area), but can generate love and acceptance from the inside. Not only that, once you start truly loving and respecting yourself, you’re finally able to give true love and respect to others, a beautiful, wonderful gift to the world. It’s very hard to love others when you don’t truly love yourself. This may sound pedestrian, but it’s profound.

Another side to this is that you no longer let yourself be treated badly by others. When you have values, you’re able to create boundaries and decide what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour from others. When you have values, if someone that you’re dealing with starts violating your boundaries (which are the result of values), you simply move on. This is the hallmark of the truly strong person. Weak people, as we know, put up with all sorts of bad behaviour from others because they continue to seek approval from them; whereas if they had true self-respect, they wouldn’t tolerate the bad behaviour. And ironically, those people that were treating them badly would probably start to respect them more—what they’ve been craving all along—once they truly started respecting themselves.

Again, this might seem obvious to everyone. I would have thought as much when I needed it most. But if you find yourself challenged in relationships or worrying too much about other people and what they think about you, you’re likely in need of coaching. I recommend Brian Tracy.

As Promised! It’s 3 Questions with…the Amazing Eszter Szabó

We here at International Paneling are big fans of Ezter and have been for many years. I first encountered her work at Video Space in Budapest in about 2009. Her animations are usually figurative characters who tend to illuminate more about the world than only about themselves. Her work has appeared several times in NYC as part of LIGHT YEAR and other projection events. She recently won the Leopold Bloom Award (more inside) and will be featured in an upcoming show at Diskurs Gallery, in Berlin. More at the link below!

The Questions:

1. Hi Eszter! Can you tell us a little bit about where you are from, your art background, etc?

2. You have recently won the Leopold Bloom award and you have been a runner up several times, Can you tell us about the Bloom Award and that experience?

3. What do you feel is important about the intersection of digital and non-digital work, and what are you working on now?

OH MY DATA at Diskurs

Back to the Future in Berlin?

Politicians look Back while the Capitalists look Ahead in Germany’s Capital

by Leo Kuelbs

Berlin

As the days blandly turn into weeks and the winter months slog on here in Berlin, a person has lots of time to think---if one dares to! The virus has completely altered perception, perspectives and reality, in many weird ways. The changes are occurring on all levels of existence from global (beyond?) to micro-biological. Somewhere in the middle of all this is the city of Berlin—a capital which has begun to feel like a lost backwater ‘burg. Not the arts and clubbing-infused, action-packed city of a few years ago. No, suddenly we are thrust back to the 1990s. The skies are as gray as if coal was still the main heating fuel. The “new” airport is a far-off, efficiency-eater with its own train line and security teams that are moving at a pace forgotten by the rest of the western world.

Yet the people keep moving in, in search of impossible-to-find apartments, even as thousands of new ones are being finished practically every moment of every day. The past months have been a vice of crazy ineptitude and waste, crowning what seems to be an ongoing struggle between a communist past and a contemporary capitalist, digital present and future.

One can say it is akin to the old white weirdos in America who want to make it “Great Again,” by throwing us all back into a racist, bent past. The memories of cheap rents, cheap food, and bohemian lifestyles mesh necessarily with bad service, bad internet and a desire to be closed off from what’s going on in the rest of the world. It’s not even an all-Germany thing. Berlin is special these days. And I mean the bad kind of “special.”

In case you didn’t hear the news, the new airport opening was delayed by 10 years for flaws (fire-stuff) in the design. Flaws in the design. 10 years. Who designed this shit? Who hired them? No one? Ghosts?

In case you didn’t hear the news, the new airport opening was delayed by 10 years for flaws (fire-stuff) in the design. Flaws in the design. 10 years. Who designed this shit? Who hired them? No one? Ghosts? I digress. That was after, something like 40 years of alternate planning, and involving no less than three other airports. To say it was handled poorly is an understatement. It was pathetic. Many other options were voided and, finally, during the pandemic, the Brandenburg airport opened, and the two operational others were shut down. Even the home page for the new airport touts its shortcomings and implores us to “just get on with it.” I mean…seriously? One crappy new airport that was delayed 10+ years? These are the goodies everyone has been waiting for, oh so patiently?

The trains run every half hour, when not delayed. Many flights are missed due to the security crews who seem to be staffed by aging union members, filling their hours at the expense of a fuming audience. It’s crazy. I heard the restaurant selection is also bad, but I cannot confirm. I have never had the extra time to check it out. Besides the epic security experience, the place is massive and sprawling. Basically, it is a trip in and of itself to deal with the airport and its train rides to the city and back. You do your one trip, then arrive in Berlin and begin a separate travel process. The exhaustion and confusion on the platforms awaiting the next train is palpable. It’s so disappointing.

Also, in the midst of the pandemic, a rent control law was repealed. It was called the “Mietendeckel” (Rent Cap) and it was created due to an unbelievable increase in rents accompanied by a massive shortage in affordable housing which has exploded in the last few years. The vote-grabbing move of lowering rent in older buildings was not accompanied by creating affordable rents in new buildings. Yes, those folks building thousands of super expensive/super profitable living units were exempt from any responsibility to provide ANYTHING affordable. But, hey, if you weren’t those rich guys…screw you! Lower your rent! The new places could charge whatever (rent/price) they like. I have heard of 40K EUROs per square meter in some new luxury pads. Incredible. Worse than NYC…Wild.

Renters were told to hang onto their temporary savings since it was a certainty that the rule would be declared illegal. And it was. Rents paid back? Who knows? But the extra legal, accounting expenses and wasted time were shared by many, except the richest developers. What is it about wasting other people’s time that German bureaucracy loves so much? It stretches throughout all manner of governmental bodies and beyond. It’s as if momentum was a thing to be destroyed. And maybe that’s the motivation when you think about it.

But hey, the rent cap is gone and the shitty situation is back to how it was before. It’s a difficult thing to watch friends searching for a place to live when thousands of them seem to be vacant, possibly owned by giant investment companies. Oh yeah, I forgot, the national airline of Germany apparently doesn’t want Berlin to become a transport hub, since it already has one in Frankfurt. Thus, the cancellation (current, anyway) of direct flights to NYC and other major cities.

Somehow it seems the city is completely catering to super wealthy interests who ignore what normal people want/need. Not that a direct flight to NYC is needed by all, but you get my point. There’s a huge disconnect between the political class (non-digital) and the (digital) contemporary capitalist class with a city of middle class on down stuck in between.

Though I will never say “Ich bin ein Berliner,” I can say I have been here long enough to appreciate some of this style of dysfunction, which is new to me. But, wherever people are working, stacked up in classes on top of each other, life goes like this. But hey, hopefully the sun will come out pretty soon, so I can forget about such things for a minute and go back to simply worrying about where my mask is.

“Fernweh,” Woody Allen and the Restless Spirit

Image and Text by Stu Spence

Sydney

There is a German word, 'Fernweh' which, roughly translated means ‘farsickness.’

Now my memory is, at best, poor, at worst, it’s an empty vessel, however I’m still going to try and relate a scene from a movie I haven’t seen in a very long time. We may be ok, though, my body remembers it (that’s my woo woo explanation, and I’m sticking with it).

At the end of Barbara Kopple’s fab 1997 doco “Wild Man Blues,” where she follows around a terminally reticent Woody Allen, as he tours Europe with his jazz band. At the end of the flick we find Woody and Soon-Yi Previn returned to Manhattan. As the sun sinks on the rooftop of their Upper East Side apartment, Soon-Yi asks Woody if he’s happy to be home, he sighs, in that perplexed melancholic grimace we have come to know and love from old Woody. He admits to always wanting to be where he’s not, where he was, somewhere else…like I say, my memory is shonky, but there it was, “Fernweh.”

I understand this feeling. It's summer here in Australia, and Sydney is sopping under weeks of merciless heat. The maudlin lockdown mood has lifted and restrictions eased… bods carpet the beaches; while boats of every kind slice up Sydney Harbour, day and night.

I understand this feeling. It's summer here in Australia, and Sydney is sopping under weeks of merciless heat. The maudlin lockdown mood has lifted and restrictions eased (so have our Covid numbers, coincidentally, but that’s another story), and bods carpet the beaches; while boats of every kind slice up Sydney Harbour, day and night. The outdoor, fancy beer gardens (a big trend for pubs, in these plaguey days) are heaving in the never-ending sunsets. But I want cool--cold even, maybe. I think I want to be up there gazing over Central Park with Woody, shivering (a bit). My cheeks and nose frozen, but zinging, alive, letting the promise of snow flow over me.

But what would we talk about? 'Fernweh,' I guess. Now, I know, I know, what kind of maniac has these kinds of ridiculous thought? I get it, and don’t worry, I still flop around in my local Harbour Baths twice a day, and most nights (if the dirty martini’s have done their job). But there’s still something that draws me…elsewhere, north. Like Woody though, when I arrive ‘there,’ will I want to be somewhere else? Home again? Back in the Pacific, body surfing a Bondi curler into shore, as the sun turns the water bright greeny blue? But then when I get there, will I want to be there… Oh, Fernweh, go away…and stay there.

It’s time for 3 Questions with… German Actor, Zoe Hutmacher!

German-born actor, Zoe Hutmacher discusses her history on stage, screen, audio books and more! Based between New York and Berlin these days, Zoe adds her thoughts on what it means to be an international person. Let’s let Zoe tell you herself!

The Questions:

1. Hello Zoe! Can you tell us about your background and influences as an actor/creative professional?

2. Where do you call home these days and what does the term “home” mean to you?

3. What are you working on and looking forward to these days?

Before we go, it’s time for an International Paneling EXCLUSIVE!

German Words of the Month!

First Word: unglaublich: Incredible, amazing, etc. Pronounced “Un Glaw blick.” In a sentence: Der Hulk ist unglaublich! Meaning: The Hulk is Incredible!

Second Word: Eichhörnchen: Squirrel. Pronounced “Ike Hurn Checn.” In a sentence: Streichle das Eichhörnchen nicht! Meaning: Don’t pet the Squirrel!

International Paneling/February 2022