The Big Black

In January 2010, writer and director Oliver Kyr and producer Joachim Maurer arrived in Berlin with a screenplay, and a vision: shoot an entire movie in just a month, and finish editing by the end of the year.

Declined financial backing by both the funding institutions and the broadcasters, they did what everyone in their situation would do: shoot the movie anyway.

The result is "The Big Black", a dark love story - in many respects. A journey through doubt and failure, for both the fictional characters as well as the production team, and a truly independent production.

"The Big Black" will be released in cinemas and on DVD in 2011. An exclusive preview of the film's first five minutes is promised for the talk.

The Awesome Foundation

Michelle Thome and Henrik Molte will present the Awesome Foundation for the Arts and Sciences, an ever-growing, worldwide network of people devoted to forwarding the interest of awesomeness in the universe.

Every month, the foundation awards $1,000,- grants to projects and their creators - cash, upfront, with no strings attached, and no claims of ownership over the projects it supports. It is, in the words of one of the trustees, "a micro-genius grant for flashes of micro-brilliance".

Michelle Thorne works for Creative Commons as International Project Manager. She organized the Free Culture Research Conference, and helped “chaordinate” the DMY Maker Lab and other DIY projects in Berlin and around the world.

Henrik Moltke is a digital activist, media professional and advisor. He has been working on various access to knowledge and copyright-reform project, such as FREE BEER, Good Copy Bad Copy and Creative Commons. He works for Mozilla as the European Drumbeat project producer.

Also awesome: Tomoko will be serving tasty Japanese food, so please skip dinner and come hungry! New: you can now follow Tomoko on Facebook, here.

Here is the artist video from the last "talk about the weather"

Berlin based, urban culture and graffiti book specialists From Here To Fame Publishing are pleased to present the first round of titles from their spring 2010 catalogue: Calligraffiti – The Graphic Art of Niels "Shoe" Meulman and On The Run Book # 7- Graffiti Tattoo – Kings on Skin.

The lecture of the two authors Niels Meulman and Adam Eeuwens starts Thursday the 11th at 8pm in our Basement Bar.

Street-edge meets high-end design as contemporary Dutch calligrapher, typographer and designer Niels Meulman, also known as graffiti artist “SHOE” from the legendary Crime Time Kings, explores the contours of words as images in "Calligraffiti" - his hybrid art form which blends calligraphy and graffiti. He presents for our viewing pleasure a wonderful interplay of contrasts, such as ‘black-white’ and ‘rise-fall’, with a series of fast phrases and upbeat witticisms in the form of captivating typographic masterpieces.

Nalden meets Niels 'Shoe' Meulman from Nalden on Vimeo.

Here is the artist video from the last "talk about the weather" showing the artist at work.

Apfel Zet, Design for Illustrative 2006-2010

Jarek Sierpinski and Julia and Roman Bittner are the designers and illustrators of Berlin based design studio Apfel Zet. Working mainly for cultural institutions they create posters, packaging, icons, logos, flyer and websites - mostly with an illustration as a centre point.

Following the postmodernist tradition of the 80's, Apfel Zet draws inspiration from a wide and contrasting variety of sources, ranging from Russian constructivism, Art Nouveau and Swiss typography to the works of comic artists Winsor McCay, Chris Ware and Hergé.

[Talk in German]

Ambitious Fishes Poster

Stay in shape and be lazy! Jakob Lehr presents Ambitious Fishes, a service for creating personalized swimming plans for Berlin bathing facilities. It combines a classic visual design approach with dynamically generated geolocation data and on-demand printing.

[Talk in German]

Sozi

Rilla Alexander of design and art collective Rinzen will give a sneak peak of her all-ages picture book "Her Idea". The book will be launched in November, featuring her alter-ego Sozi who loves ideas but has a strong tendency to procrastinate.

[Talk in English]

As always, Tomoko will be present, serving Japanese delicacies. Visit her website at okawari.de for more information.

Update:

After giving a presentation at Pictoplasma in Hamburg, Akinori Oishi is passing by on his way back to Japan for a short impromtu gig at the Weather Talk.

TV animation for "Yo Gabba Gabba!" at Nickelodeon

Gerüst

German artist Philipp Hennevogl talks about his linocut prints, that baffle with their insanely intricate details.

Tokyo Clash

Tokyo is famous for its apparently chaotic mix of old and new, tradition and trash, stillness and shrillness. An exciting and inspirational place for any designer, that Ralf Bähren walks you through in his brand new book, Tokyo Clash. The book will be on sale on the evening, and is available on Amazon.

Hirschblüte

German-Japanese designer Akari Luig tells the story of her Deer Vase, developed from initial sketches to finished product in 6 month, together with porcellaine artist Maria Volokhova. The Deer Vase is available on CharlesAndMarie.com.

Grace, the latest project of Michael Hecken, is a new type of electric bike, combining the light-weight design of a mountain bike with the performance of a scooter. Top speed is 45km/h in the street-legal version, range between 30 and 50km, and it only takes one hour to fully charge.

Grace bikes are made to order, hand-crafted in Biesenthal, just outside Berlin, where Michael also hosts the annual ART Biesenthal.

This Tuesday we'll be gathering with our friends, business partners and members of the Berlin creative community for the 18th Talk about the Weather. Speakers have just been announced, we'll be hearing about a handcrafted e-bike called GRACE and about where and how people will work together in the future from a member of agile software development company mindmatters in Hamburg.

Check talk-about-the-weather.de for details!

Quatschtronauten

Christian Ridder recently escaped from managing innovations projects at Sony and Deutsche Telekom. But, as soon as he emptied his mind and deleted all thoughts about corporate business, the Quatschtronauts started to spam his mental inbox. These mice-like creatures just can't stop developing „fantastic“ inventions, based on quasi-scientific theories. This talk will present some of their visionary ideas.

www.quatschtronauten.de

In't Veld

Berlin's renowned chocolate pioneer Holger In't Veld has been producing and selling exclusive gourmet confectionary for the past eight years.

This year however started with a storm - while he successfully launched his book "Schokoladen-Rebellen" to critical acclaim, he had to watch his business sinking.

Holger will talk about what it means to sail against the wind of mainstream chocolate business, read from his book, and - as a very rare treat - prepare cocoa beans at the event for you to taste. His book and chocolate will be both on sale.

http://www.intveld.de