With the economy in decline and peak oil in the back of our minds, many of us are rethinking the way we travel. While some are rediscovering the amenities of train travel, others are warming up to the idea of sharing their sacred car space with others, even if it means losing some convenience or privacy.
The system of ridesharing has a long history of its own in Germany, where the first national rideshare institutions were established in the 1950s. Over the course of time, posts within all major cities’ central stations and universities evolved where rideshares could be arranged on [...]

The city of Berlin is preparing for this year’s transmediale.09, an international festival of Media Arts established in 1988. In good tradition, transmediale kicks off with a grand opening on January 27th, just shortly before the opening of the Berlin International Film Festival.
This year, the curators have taken on the theme “Deep North,” looking at the broader scape of human interaction with global systems. Their site reads:
In the context of climate change, transmediale.09 reflects on the urgency to read global events in fundamentally new ways, developing new cultural vocabularies factoring the autonomous and critical nature of art into the complexity [...]

Gudberg is a free design mag born in Hamburg, Germany, that’s gained international recognition since its humble beginnings in September 2007. Behind the magazine is a creative agency collective called Gudberg that mainly works in publishing, illustration and web design. They curate and design four issues a year, each with a major editorial topic.
Gudberg can be found in select galleries, bookstores, design offices, agencies, cafés or hotels. You’ve got to be quick though- as they only print 2000 copies of each issue, and they’re usually quickly snatched up. Two of their issues have recently been recognized at the German ADC [...]

Flickr user/nightlife fiend Spanier has put together a nice set of photos showcasing empty billboards in Hamburg. He shares his observations and writes:
I don’t know why there are so many empty billboards right now in Hamburg. Maybe some of the companies placing billboards went bankrupt, maybe it’s just because it’s January and they all spent so much money on advertising for Christmas, or maybe it’s this financial crisis making some companies seriously rethink the way they advertise. Well in any case, every empty billboard is a beautiful one. Maybe it is time to start using them for our creations. Or [...]

Unlike Media, the creators behind unlike city guides, recently announced a couple of interesting collaborations. Apart from a series of crime novels with the aim to “explore the urban terrain through historic landmarks and hidden spots”, the company also established a partnership with international film festival Berlinale for its forthcoming 59th edition.
According to the Unlike blog, this Berlinale application will premiere in mid-January and offer a customized site featuring the entire Berlinale schedule as well as film-related guides around the city or special 25hours compilations curated by film stars.
The first installment in the novel-series Pulp is set in Vienna, one [...]

Berlin-based Gestalten Verlag have just released a new book that takes a deeper look into data visualisation in graphic design.

Data Flow is a 256 page compendium of various outstanding projects in the field of information visualisation. The book’s intro offers some nice thought starters on the subject:
“We live in a world where every idea has been thought of before, and it becomes too easy to use the Microsoft template for presenting our data. The visual form we adopt becomes driven by the tool or the topic we are presenting, rather than the usefulness of the data or the insight [...]

Amsterdam-based creative hub UN Studios, famous for their signature architectural creations like the Mercedes-Benz Museum, have recently revealed their latest spatial project: Time Out of Scale, a work commissioned by Motorola as part of their PR efforts for their new Aura handset.
The folks over at UN Studios constantly aim to push boundaries with their cross-disciplinary projects that blend the worlds of design, technology, knowledge and utility.
Time Out of Scale represents different instances of its subject, ‘time’: in rhythm with changes in both images and sound, visitors can immerse themselves in the installation, comprised of a white space with a large [...]

Every two months our Hamburg-based German office curates panel discussions on topics from the fields of society, arts, media and culture. The first panel in our new event series kicked off November 20, where we discussed the state of digital music culture around the overall theme ‘Music is Okay?!’. Panelists included Oke Göttlich (CEO Finetunes), Eric Wahlforss (Co-Founder of SoundCloud), Ruben Jonas Schnell (CEO ByteFM) and Ulrich Stock (Die Zeit).
Big thanks go to our Partners and Sponsors: creative agency G2 Hamburg and publishing house Gingko Press.
The next event is scheduled for February 2009 where we will showcase new forms [...]

We came across this billboard on the streets of Hamburg today: Volkswagen has launched their latest campaign introducing their efforts towards building a new driving concept for the future. The headline reads “Volts turn into Kilometers” – followed by “Our new drive concept for tomorrow’s mobility”.
Well, as it’s almost 2009, Volkswagen and the rest of the German automotive industry are not really in the position to claim that they are ‘driving ideas’. Just a reminder: The first series of the Toyota Prius was released in 1997. That was 11 years ago.

Apart from his great work as a producer and DJ, Hamburg based multi-talented DJ DSL has just released his latest piece of work: a 2009 wall calendar. Renowned for his signature club-flyers, Football Wallcharts and sleeve designs, DJ DSL this time applied his hand-drawn style to the year ahead.
The wallpaper sized calendar costs 20 Euros + shipping (in a box), measures are 118,9 x 47,7 cm / 46,8″ x 18,8″ so all your dates and friends’ birthdays can easily fit.
Update: NYers can buy their copy at fabulous Turntable Lab in the east village or use their worldwide shipping service.
DJ DSL [...]

PSFK Germany recently had the chance to talk to David L. Sifry – whom many of you probably know as the founder and CEO of Technorati. His most recent venture is Offbeat Guides, an online service for producing customized travel guides. Offbeat Guides’ simple process for building your own travel guide is based on answering five quick questions about the excursion: destination city, your current city, your name, traveldates and where (e.g. in which hotel) you will be staying.
The site then renders an individual guide containing all the information based around your answers. Maps are custom-centered around the location of [...]

Our new event series checkdisout for PSFK readers in Germany kicks of this Thursday, November 20 in Hamburg. As of today, the very last ticket for the premiere ‘Music is Okay?!‘ can still be purchased if you want to be part of the insightful evening about digital music culture.
Our third interview in our panelists series is with Ruben Jonas Schnell, Founder and CEO of ByteFM. We briefly wrote about ByteFM’s launch earlier this year:
ByteFM is a free to listen radio station from Hamburg, Germany, that aims to provide a high quality musical broadcast, put together and moderated by professional journalists [...]

Our new event series checkdisout for PSFK readers in Germany takes place next Week, November 20 in Hamburg. Tickets for the premiere ‘Music is Okay?!‘ are almost sold out, so be quick if you want to be part of an insightful evening about digital music culture.
In this second interview in our series with the panelists we spoke with Oke Göttlich, General Manager at Finetunes. We recently wrote about Finetunes’ legal move against Last.fm’s un-licensed usage of various artists in Finetunes roster.
For more than four years, finetunes has been a pioneer in creating opportunities for independent labels in the digital music [...]

Our new event series checkdisout for PSFK readers in Germany is quickly approaching. The first installment, ‘Music is Okay?!‘, will take place on November 20 in Hamburg. It will tackle current topics surrounding the state of digital music culture. The premiere event will take a close look at the status of digital music, 10 years after the introduction of music-sharing service Napster, apart from the major labels’ mourning and lack of creativity.
To kick things off, we interviewed Eric Wahlforss from Berlin-based startup SoundCloud, a new music sharing and distribution platform. SoundCloud is aimed mainly at music professionals who want to [...]

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Urban Screen are a creative collective based in Bremen, Germany. They create interactive installations and performances using facades and architecture as their stage (or screen if you will). The above video shows their approach towards involving architecture. The group usually builds their artwork for a specific building, so they can customize their projections and staging to the given conditions.
Their first step is to measure the outside of the building along with its windows, billboards or any other add-ons. Then the group builds an exact replica of the facade as their stage, and with the help of a green-screen, [...]