BERLIN.placeinplaceof.net is a web-based project which uses the weblog format to present concurrent and collaborative investigations and interpretations of Berlin, from Then and Now.
BERLIN.placeinplaceof.net began in June of 2005 during the course of a three-month artist residency at the Karl Hofer Gesellschaft in Berlin, Germany. We utilized the blog format as a rich medium to understand and document the city, and to present concurrent and collaborative investigations and interpretations of Berlin. That was Then.
This is Now. Newly re-settled in Philadelphia, USA after several years away, we have both been thinking often of Berlin—memories sparked equally by the noticeable similarities between the two cities and the inevitability of nostalgia that anniversaries can invite. Place and memory are inseparable companions (I wrote my thesis on this, after all): to remember is to exist is to be in some place. So it makes sense to continue this Berlin project in spite of—no, because of—living in Philadelphia and expand the field of our investigations of that city to the complex ways in which we remember it and recreate the memories of it.
BERLIN.placeinplaceof.net is the first functional iteration of Place In Place Of, a loose network of web-based projects developed by Jeremy Beaudry (and in collaboration with others) that instigate concurrent and collaborative investigations of place. PHILADELPHIA.placeinplaceof.net is the second iteration of the network of projects. For more detailed information about the original (not yet realized) project proposal, please visit: http://placeinplaceof.net. Proposed there is a collaborative web project that will juxtapose simultaneous blogs authored by participants in several locations throughout the world.
Comments regarding the project, the functionality of the website, or anything else are very much appreciated and may be directed to .
J. Meredith Warner is a recent graduate of the Masters of Fine Arts Program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is currently an Artist-in-Residence at the Karl Hofer Gesellshaft in Berlin, Germany.
While in Urbana-Champaign Meredith was a Graduate Instructor teaching classes in Painting, Video, Landscape Architecture and Site-specificity. She also co-directed a local alternative arts space and collective called OPENSOURCE Art and served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Champaign County Historical Museum.
Meredith’s artwork focuses on knitting as a physical craft and a conceptual act of binding people and place. Her work exists at the conceptual intersection of craft, site-specificity, new media, labor and feminism. Most projects begin simply, with a site and some yarn. She uses knitting as a performative act, on location, as a means to reveal a private act in a public space. For more information about her work, please visit: http://knittingcommunity.org.
Jeremy Beaudry is an interdisciplinary artist and designer currently living and working in Berlin, Germany as an Artist-in-Residence at the Karl Hofer Gesellschaft. He holds a BFA from the Tyler School of Art (1997) and a graduate degree in architecture from the University of Texas at Austin (2002). Most recently he has taught courses in the arts and humanities at Danville Area Community College and co-directed an alternative art space in Champaign, IL called OPENSOURCE Art. Jeremy has shown his work in several group shows in locations throughout the United States. Areas of interest and research include: architecture, ideas of place, vernacular landscapes, built environments, visual culture, the intersection of critical theory and practice, memory as a constructive agent in the production of meaning, and the practice of everyday life. For more information about his work, please visit: http://meaning.boxwith.com.