Berlin’s vibrant art scene just got a little more exciting with the opening of Selina Berlin Mitte, the latest property from skyrocketing hospitality company, Selina. Dubbed an ‘art-forward’ hotel, Selina Berlin Mitte boasts a guest concept that revolves around art and music, offering visitors a memorable cultural experience to feel like a local.
Located in the heart of Berlin’s Mitte district, Selina Berlin Mitte offers guests an eclectic mix of accommodations, including standard, suite, shared, and hybrid options.
I was offered one of the suites, and I literally felt like I had relocated to my very own apartment in Berlin, stocked with a kitchen, fridge, modern shower and bathroom, couch, vintage record player and expansive views of the city. Perfectly situated for exploring the city, the hotel is steps away from some of Berlin’s best design stores and boutiques, galleries, restaurants, shops, and bars.
If you are looking to socialize, Selina Berlin Mitte features a rooftop co-working and bar area, plus a restaurant with contemporary Israeli and Mediterranean cuisine called HOWM, a grab-and-go dining option available 24 hours, and even a communal kitchen.
If you grab a drink at the hotel rooftop, you will be surrounded by lounge seating, fun board games, and a 360-view of the city, including Berlin’s iconic TV Tower. Selina goers can meet up for a “welcome drink,” rooftop yoga classes and meditation sessions. If you are searching for activities on the property, you can choose from workshops, live music, DJ sets, art exhibits, and lectures.
Sprawled along the hotel walls are carefully curated artworks by Berliners and international artists, with installations highlighting mixed media– reclaimed wood, mirrors, and vintage art objects. Using earthy and hip furniture, Selina has an industrial feel that opens your eyes to innovation and connection. Common areas are filled with murals, while in-room art combines classical Berlin prints and artworks. Large-scale artistic works are woven throughout the reception area, rooftop, corridors, and suite rooms.
On a mission to keep digital nomads connected, enabling them to travel and work without borders, Selina has plans to open 10-15 hotels in 2023, catering to millennials and Gen Z travelers.
On April 14-16, Selina Berlin Mitte celebrated its opening with the “Welcome to the Hau(E)” event, a 3-day experience showcasing curated local programming, food pop-ups, wellness activities, live music DJs, and a local artisan market.
Selina Berlin Mitte is the “IT” hotel, where art and music lovers unite into a cultural melting pot. Book a stay and indulge in the avant-garde, art-centric German capital, and all it has to offer. For the Silo, Kat Fleischmann.
For more information or to book a stay at Selina Berlin Mitte, visit www.selina.com.
“Why on earth do you collect old Simmons electronic drums?” At some point I stopped counting how often I was asked this question. But probably the following story is a part of the answer.
Years ago, in May 2015, a scientific assistant of the National Museum of Music Research in Berlin contacted me. He explained that his institute is running a musical instruments museum. They were planning a special exhibition about the history of electronic musical instruments and if I would be willing to provide a Simmons exhibit. Of course I was! Presenting Simmons gear is always better than storing it until the end of days. But nothing happened until 3 weeks ago. He contacted me again and we negotiated the conditions. He was interested in an SDSV and I preferred to bring it by car (600km) rather than unromanticly sending it with a carrier. Although the exhibition is from March to June, the institute needed the exhibits at the end of November in order to make the catalogue in time. Last week I jumped into my car with a blue SDSV with brain and cymbal pad plus my Suitcase Kit and headed for Berlin. Incidentally at the same time there was another SDSV for sale in Berlin. I took the opportunity to bring one kit to the museum but also to bring a new kit back home. However… I had the chance to visit the museum. It was very cool! Musical instruments representing all centuries. Musical instruments I have never heard of. Very impressing. If you happen to be in the Berlin area between March 25th and June 25th: Visit the special exhibition “Good Vibrations – A story about electronic musical instruments”
Early in the morning… Don’t make appointments at noon if you have 600km to go
At least not much traffic at that time
12:30. We are about to land soon
First stop in Berlin: Appointment with the seller of a white SDSV pad set. To be honest: A friend of mine asked me NOT to buy those pads and leave them for him. I agreed. He had been waiting for years to find a pad set for his brain. A round of applause for my modesty, please…
There is still some time until I meet the guy from the museum. Time to discover some essential buildings
Finally! The hall of fame!
After we brought the gear inside I explained how to set up the kit right
Inside the box on the left there’s a Mini Moog. The exhibition will include around 70 exhibits
I am invited to visit the museum. It is much much bigger than I thought. It shows classical instruments from the 17th century as well as contemporary gear. But the focus is on classical instruments. My favorite exhibit is a “Trautonium”, a predecessor of the synthesizer
This is the space for the special exhibition. In some special events some of the gear will be explained and played
The craziest musical instrument I have ever seen. The organ is only the controller of a hall full of instruments like percussion, snares, timpanies, chromatic percussion, organ pipes… all triggered by compressed air.
I counted more than 20 harpsichords. All vintage and all restored in the institutes own workshop
I really recommend this museum if you are interested in music. I will come and visit my SDSV in March or April (Will it still recognize me?) and of course I will pick it up in June. For the Silo, Wolfgang Stoelzle. Read much, much more about Simmons drums at Wolfgang’s blog here.
“Underground” is a word, which is an essential part in the title of the “Keep it simple, make it fast” conference. Not only in punk, also in techno this is a term very frequently used, referred to and rejected at the same time.
Many claim, this terms doesn’t make much sense anymore nowadays.
Is this really true, or is there just a lack of a fitting theory to explain, why this term seems still to be central for discourses in and about music scenes? So called ‘scenesters’ say they prefer things “more underground”.
Matrix Dance Club
One of my interviewees, a label owner, put it succinctly, “Berlin isn’t Lady Gaga or Paul van Dyk; this is the capital city of the underground.” What does this term mean here, and how is it sociologically rooted in the cultural field of electronic dance music (Bourdieu, 1996)?
Current post-subcultural theories, such as from Andy Bennett, David Muggleton or Ronald Hitzler (2010; 2008; 2003), offer little means to understand these claims and differences; and how to explain why they don’t disappear, but re-shape and accommodate with newer developments.
Although I broadly agree with the insights of post-subcultural theories, a crucial feature of the music scene has been lost along the way: a systematical sociological exploration of the roles that distinctions play and how they are rooted in the music scene’s cultural economy (Kühn, 2011, 2013).
So far, the economy of scenes has been mostly understood as being part of the cultural industries (or creative industries by now), or not even economic at all (Gebesmair, 2008; Wicke, 1997).
Music industry research sees them as fully integrated actors of global and national music markets, classified into so-called independents and majors (Handke, 2009) and differentiated along lines of size, musical specialties and originality. Creative industries research tries to subsume them as major drivers for the attractiveness of cities and national economies by their engagement into supposedly very innovative products (Caves, 2002; Florida, 2003; Hartley, 2004).
What both perspectives have in common is that they do not approach economic structures from the music scene’s perspective, but rather from an economic-industrial point of view. And thereby they overlook and underestimate structural peculiarities.
In order to define the economic sphere of electronic dance music scenes sociologically, I argue for the term scene economy (Kühn, 2011).
Although previous insights have been extremely illuminating, these studies have lacked a systematic perspective that analyses the aesthetic, distinctive and commercial attitudes of hobbyist and professional scene participants within the conditions of their specific cultural norms and scene-based reproduction.
My assumption is that the scene economy of ‘underground’ electronic dance music scenes represent their own differentiated economic fields with specific structures that have developed their own organizational logic. The consequences and the basis of this logic are particular conditions for action and relations of production within the scenes’ own infrastructure and value-creation chain that result from the specific cultures and market relations of electronic dance music.
To understand the specific structure, the following features need to be considered: Scene-based cultural production instead of industry-based cultural production, the emphatic role of the music culture, the internal subcultural hierarchy and the role of distinctions in maintaining and re-shaping the scene economy, music culture and attractiveness.
The following remarks and claims are firstly based on my research, using focused ethnography, on producers of electronic dance music, twelve expert interviews with individuals active in various areas of the scene economy. And secondly on my own long-standing participation in the scene as a DJ, booker and media producer as forms of sociological ethnography. I use ideal-type descriptions. That is, I work with exaggerated representations of differences that in reality occur in a substantially more mixed and indistinct way. And yet, their exaggeration is precisely what allows the core of their specificities to be represented most clearly.
Tresor
Towards neo-subcultural theory
In his theory on cultural fields, Pierre Bourdieu noticed a general trend towards two poles with opposing cultural logics. The ‘autonomous pole’ defines itself by its cultural orientation; in which the furthering of art itself takes highest priority over any political, moral, or economic interest. The other pole has a commercial orientation; treating art as just another form of commerce like any other, in which art is produced based on its marketability. Each pole has its way of making value and profiting from it, but they are also in tension with each other.
This tension also exists in electronic dance music: on the ‘autonomous’ side of things you find house and techno music, along with the club/open-air party culture of Berlin. On the other side, you find mass-produced and profit-driven so-called EDM ‘dance pop’, which readily absorbs anything that promises to increase sales and reach. Both poles have very different definitions of success, as well as sharply divergent aesthetics and modes of production.
Aesthetic subcultures
(and not class-based anymore) with their own identity and infrastructures struggling to maintain aesthetic and seductive cores against unwanted external influences and political, moral or economic instrumentalization. To understand the dynamics of post-modern popular cultures, it is necessary to overcome the opposition of subcultural and post-subcultural readings of music scenes. The reality is, in the case of electronic dance music such as house and techno, neither strictly the one or the other. As small scale underground music culture and their big scale counterparts suggests, also in other fields of music, both are closely intertwined and distinct from each other at the same time.
Click to view on I-tunes
Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory helps to extend the concept of the music scene and re-shape the concept of subculture to understand the cultural dynamics between “underground” and “mainstream” as different forms of meaningful culture-economic infrastructure and social identity.
By combining Bourdieu’s theory of the cultural field (2001) with updating scene and subcultural theory, the presented approach is linking both subcultural identities and cultural-economic structures and is heading towards overcoming the current dichotomy of subcultural and post-subcultural theory.
DJ SiSeN and Berlin Goth culture
Scene-based cultural production
Involvement in house and techno music typically starts with a random visit to a techno club, or by first listening to the music through recorded DJ sets. Some become very passionate about music and clubbing and start to visit clubs very frequently. In the beginning, participation remains passive, but quickly may evolve I : People start to look for certain sub-genres, follow certain DJs, gain certain scene-specific sets of knowledge about clubs, do’s and don’ts, artists, and so on. Then, to participate more deeply and earn money, some start to DJ, throw parties, launch music labels, found scene specific agencies or just start to work in clubs or for labels and agencies.
They start to combine their passion for a certain aesthetic with commercial and distinctive attitudes: For some, it will always just remain a hobby, but others quickly become professional and turn their scene participation into a business. However, for the passionate, this business orientation remains strongly limited by the cultural institutions of the music scene. They don’t start making other music just because it is more profitable. They relinquish economic opportunities, because the feelings of enjoyment and freedom experienced through the music are more important to them. They see economic activity as being able to get by instead of pure profit-maximization.
This means that they associate the generation of sufficient income and social protection with their main desire for economic self-determination, artistic freedom and passion in life. For them, money exists to make their lives possible, in which they will be able to ideally pursue their personal goals in artistic freedom—but not in order to secure as much wealth as possible, following a logic of accumulation.The small-business structure of many lone entrepreneurs promotes this logic, since it imposes fewer practical constraints on the individual than a large organization with numerous employees. This connection through a commonly shared passion also results in individuals working together in clubs or labels, often referring to their friends and colleagues as a “family”.
To summarize: Their private desires and business activities become closely coupled and integrated, resulting in a deeply culturalized economic orientation. One recruits “bottom-up” out of the fascination for a certain music and prioritizes cultural orientations over economic possibilities. This makes small-scale actors who mainly do it for the fun and a feasible outcome. An atomistic structure of many sole entrepreneurs dominates the markets. Instead of pure sale orientation, subjective aesthetics and political interests dominate the cultural products and business co-operations among the scene economy participants.
The emphatic role of the music culture
As participants of a certain music culture, their activity is oriented on the cultural institutions of Detroit Techno and Chicago House and thereby framed by its opportunities and restrictions. These cultural institutions enable and demand certain cultural practices to be fulfilled and followed in order to reproduce and accommodate the seductive core of the music scene. The norms are typical music tracks to be seamlessly mixed by DJs in front of a dancing crowd on a loud sound system. What are these institutions? Although very roughly and surely not exhaustively, house can be understood as established musical practices condensed as tracks with repetitive and loop based beats, with a focus on groove, making crowds dance in clubs, mixing in DJ sets and played on events at high volume.
Genre-typical patterns for house and techno music are the four to the floor beats, between 100 and 150 beats per minute speed, elements like basslines, kickdrums, snare drums, hi-hats and track themes. Techno sounds rather dark and heavy, house sound rather soft, funky and easy-going. Tracks are typically composed with intros, breakdowns, a main section, climaxes and outros. Tracks are supposed to make people dance at events and to be mixed in continuous sets by DJs (Kühn, 2009; Mathei, 2012; Volkwein, 2003).
The central role of distinctions in the music scenes economy
As a result of their scene-based involvement and fandom of house and techno, many scene participants towards the autonomous pole exert distinctions in order to conserve and develop their preferred set of aesthetics and scene-based cultural production (Strachan, 2007; Mäe & Allaste, 2011; Moore, 2007). In the post-modern world, aesthetics can flow everywhere and thereby can be used and adopted anywhere. Even in contexts, that many scene participants find not very much desirable.
The current boom of electronic dance music in the US, with associated artists like David Guetta, Swedish House Mafia, Skrillex and so on, is a good example of this. With the increasing success of so-called “mainstream” EDM, many scene participants insists of debunking that culture as “fake” and “inappropriate” – and try to keep these aesthetics, actors and corresponding organizations out of their scene contexts. Sociologically speaking, they draw boundaries around their aesthetics and modes of production.
It is a form of resistance not primarily rooted in class, but in the preservation and defense of aesthetically-based life-worlds. Typically, these distinctions are about a perceived corruption of cultural logics by the economic logics of apparently too commercialized music and events, or about external actors like companies, political shareholders or councils who are not intrinsically interested in the music culture, rather using them for their own allegedly purely commercial or political aims. Aims that eventually might endanger the productivity and survival of the music scenes by for example causing gentrification or mainstream identity.
These distinctions have become a background knowledge of the subcultural field and are also expected by the participants in order to enable economic cooperation. From these distinctions the possibility and necessity of an internal subcultural hierarchy within the field of electronic dance music evolves.
*See (Kühn, 2013) for an example, how event producers use distinctions to avoid unwanted music, DJs, insfluences and crowds on their partys.
Various forms of distinctions as a form of “aesthetic resistance” become the primary means to keep out unwanted aesthetics and modes of production in order to preserve the aesthetic core of the music scene. For the Silo, Jan Michael Kühn.
Funding:
This work was supported with a 3 years scholarship from the Hans Böckler Stiftung within the doctoral study group (Promotionskolleg) “Die Produktivität von Kultur – Die Kultur- und Kreativwirtschaft unter den Bedingungen globalisierter Mediennetzwerke”.
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Who is Sir Norman Foster? A British born architect world renowned for his ground-breaking interpretations of neo futuristic and post-modern design, that’s who.
Perhaps most famously known for designing and constructing “The Gherkin” tower in London, England at a cost of 138 million pounds. This office building is sure to turn the heads of tourists and Londoners alike.
Way back in 2014, our community decided on a crazy goal – the largest mobilization on climate change in history. So on September 23rd, we blew past our wildest expectations, with a climate march *6 times* the size of anything before it!!! This was 80 city blocks of New York:
And this was London, Berlin, Bogota, Paris, Delhi, and Melbourne…
Over 675,000 of us marched around the world. It was a beautiful expression of our love for all that climate change threatens, and our hope that we can save this world and build a society powered by 100% safe, clean energy. Together, we made history, but it’s just the beginning. The crucial Paris climate summit is 15 months from now — that’s where we need a global deal. By March next year, countries have pledged to make their national commitments — so our movement will divide to focus on these national targets. But every few months until Paris we’ll come together globally again and again, bigger and bigger, to beat a drum for change, for 100% clean energy, that our leaders can only follow. The movement we’ve been waiting for has begun.
With gratitude, Ricken, Emma, Alice, Iain, Nataliya, Patri, Oliver, Diego, Rewan and the whole Avaaz team
PS – We worked with thousands of organisations to make this day happen and particularly love our friends at 350. But our community deserves to celebrate the step we’ve taken. The Avaaz team and community played a central role in almost all the marches and events held. The Guardian called it “an organising triumph” for Avaaz and the BBC said “the marches brought more people on to the streets than ever before, thanks to the organisational power of the social media site Avaaz.” We fielded hundreds of organisers and thousands of volunteers, and donations from our community provided millions in funding to the effort. The challenges of our time call us to be better, and together we’ve done that, growing and changing into a new and more effective kind of movement, a movement that is now both online, and offline. Huge gratitude to everyone who made it happen.
Avaaz.org is a 38-million-person global campaign network that works to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people shape global decision-making. (“Avaaz” means “voice” or “song” in many languages.) Avaaz members live in every nation of the world; our team is spread across 18 countries on 6 continents and operates in 17 languages. Learn about some of Avaaz’s biggest campaigns here, or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.
Immediacy? “Nothing important comes into being overnight; even grapes or figs need time to ripen. If you say that you want a fig now, I will tell you to be patient. First, you must allow the tree to flower, then put forth fruit; then you have to wait until the fruit is ripe. So if the fruit of a fig tree is not brought to maturity instantly or in an hour, how do you expect the human mind to come to fruition, so quickly and easily?” -Epictetus
The Worm (2008) and Watershort (2008) are time-contemplative short films by Canadian sound and visual artist Jarrod Barker.
In the natural world, immediacy is rarely a concept. While it is true the Mayfly lives only for a day, it is also true that each fly is one infinitesimal link in the long succession of the species. As humans have increasingly stepped beyond the boundaries of nature, we have begun to forget the importance of waiting and patience. We live surrounded by cheap treasures gotten easily and quickly. But like the Mayfly, these spoils of instant gratification perish quickly leaving us desiring more. No longer do we answer to the rhythm of nature, preferring instead to force the world to step up to our breakneck pace. All the while we are saturated with reminders that “good things come to those who wait” but too often choose to ignore this time tested wisdom.
Stefan Klein works in Berlin. Presently he is examining the concept of waiting. To this end, he has conducted quite a lot of field research. Waiting, he says, “is something that’s so routinely existing in our daily lives but at the same time has this very existential dimension to it so that almost everybody can relate to it but at the same time it’s a very abstract topic.” Another project, titled Introduction to Microeconomics is a book documenting Klein’s repeated ordering and return of a book by the same name. In this way, he examined documentation as a vital element of a whole work. Much of Klein’s work investigates complex systems through performative means. In September, Klein will begin a series of waiting sessions with people from various disciplines. He will meet with guests at a bus stop (a place of waiting) for a conversation. His audience will be comprised of both those who came to see the performance and those who happened to be waiting for the bus. In this way, Klein will access waiting from many perspectives.
untitled watercolor Emilie Clark 2015
Emilie Clark is a New York City based artist who spends part of the year in New Hampshire. Much of her work is based on the work of nineteenth-century natural historians and scientists, most of them women. She also explores the literal interpretation of the word ecology (earth’s household) incorporating historical texts and working in the landscape. In New Hampshire, Clark works in a floating research station surrounded by the natural world. In New York City her experience is quite different though she has noticed similarities in plant species between the two locations. From her research station, Clark collects specimens, makes sound recordings, draws, paints, preserves, and fully immerses herself in nature. This process is rooted not only in creating but in learning.
Brainard Carey
A Few Words to Keep in your Pocket
A work of art, a career, a relationship, anything worth investing our hearts and minds in, must be given time. We must relearn to wait, to fall back in step with the world around us. For the Silo, Brainard Carey.
Brainard is currently giving free webinars on how to write a better Artist bio and statement and how to get a show in a gallery – you can register for that live webinar and ask questions live by clicking here.
“Digital Serbia” is the non-profit private partnership initiative launched by Ringier Axel Springer Serbia and leading tech companies. Its mission is to focus on improving the framework and ecosystem required to enable tech entrepreneurship and digital innovation in both industry and education in Serbia. The founding members of the initiative are Infostud, Microsoft, Nordeus, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Ringier Axel Springer, Seven Bridges, Startit, Telekom Srbija and Telenor.
“Digital Serbia” has been established as an association, bringing leading technology, IT and telecommunication companies together to drive digital innovation for Serbia and for its people. The Steering Committee of “Digital Serbia” will be made up of representatives of the founding companies. The Committee will be headed by Branko Milutinović, CEO and co-founder of Nordeus.
All of the association’s activities will be directed towards setting up an improved framework and investment climate to encourage technological entrepreneurship, innovations in the Serbian IT industry and a better level of digital literacy and education in the digital economy. Companies who want to participate in the realization of this goal, and to contribute to Digital Serbia, are invited to join.
“Digital Serbia” has been launched following the success of “digitalswitzerland”, and builds on the efforts of digital hubs such as London, Tel Aviv and Berlin, which joined the digital tech and innovation bandwagon early on.
Jelena Drakulić-Petrović, General Manager of Ringier Axel Springer Serbia and founder and initiator of the Digital Serbia Initiative: “Technological development brings unprecedented change at a high speed. Innovation in business and education helps to increase productivity. It allows for new solutions in the development of products and services. As a media company, we believe in the importance of enhancing digital innovative strength in Serbia, as this will be the driver that helps to create new jobs and grow our business. With “Digital Serbia”, we are seeking to unlock the vast potential we envisage for the Serbian economy and its people.”
Branko Milutinović
Branko Milutinović, CEO and co-founder of Nordeus: “Thanks to digitalization, success can now be boiled down to its essence: creativity, know-how and professionalism. This is our opportunity. Together, we will work hard so Serbian innovations and success stories may develop from a stronger foundation and gain more attention. That’s why our decision to invest in digital education and tech entrepreneurship is so important to the future of our entire community.”
“Digital Serbia” will provide basic information and support to innovative companies, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises in the IT sector, on how to operate in these areas, and will provide assistance to companies and society in establishing contacts through various forums and fairs. In addition, “Digital Serbia” will actively participate in identifying and addressing legal restrictions that slow down the development of e-Business in Serbia, and will provide active support for technology startups.
The website www.dsi.rs has been launched with detailed information about the initiative.
Also building on the success of “digitalswitzerland” is the initiative “Digital Poland”, which will be launched on June 1, 2017 in Krakow during the Impact Conference (www.impactcee.com). The initiative will be supporting digitization for the economy, supporting education and the legal system around issues relating to digitization and innovation, and helping companies in Poland to transition from offline to online. For the Silo, Fouzia Hussain.
About “digitalswitzerland”
digitalswitzerland is a joint partnership between businesses, public authorities and the scientific community, which wants to shape Switzerland as the leading international hub for digital innovation. digitalswitzerland is already active in a wide range of fields such as knowledge transfer, education, start-up ecosystems, and political framework conditions. The association includes more than 70 of the most renowned companies and organizations as well as innovative locations throughout Switzerland. The initiative was launched in 2015 by Marc Walder, CEO of Ringier AG. More info can be found at www.digitalswitzerland.com
About Ringier Axel Springer Media AG
Ringier Axel Springer Media AG was founded in 2010 by the Swiss Ringier AG and the German Axel Springer SE. The company operates in the growth markets of Poland, Hungary, Serbia, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania with a broad range of media services, comprising more than 165 digital and print offerings. The company’s registered offices are in Zurich and it employs a total of about 3100 employees.
KATUSHA VOLUME ONE: EDGE OF DARKNESS, the first of a three volume graphic novel series by historical graphic novelist Wayne Vansant, is now available exclusively in digital format from digital publishing imprint Grand Design Communications.
The painting Kateryna by the Ukrainian poet and painter Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861)influenced Katusha. Kateryna tells the story of a Ukrainian country girl who is seduced and abandoned by a Russian cavalry officer.
KATUSHA is a coming-of-age story set in the Eastern Front of World War II, following the life of a Ukrainian farm girl Ekaterina Tymoshenko, nicknamed Katusha, starting with the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany in 1941. The three-volume graphic novel, which when finished will total 540 pages, follows her journey from farm girl to partisan fighter to tank commander in the Red Army, along the way participating in the Battles of Stalingrad and Berlin, among others.
During the second world war, hundreds of thousands of Soviet women served in the Red Army as pilots, snipers, tank drivers and other essential roles. Although KATUSHA is a work of fiction, Vansant based his story on interviews he conducted with living veterans in Ukraine and extensive research. He will return for another trip this fall, to conduct more interviews and do research on locations.
Lviv, Ukraine, 26 October 2010 – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is joined by Ukrainian officials as he pays tribute to Ukrainian poet, artist, and humanist Taras Shevchenko.
KATUSHA VOLUME ONE: EDGE OF DARKNESS, the first of three volumes, is out now exclusively in digital format for iPhone, iPad, Android, and in-browser reading. It is available in two formats – as six separate chapters priced at $.99usd each and as a single one hundred eighty page edition priced at $4.99usd, and can be purchased through iVerse’s ComicsPlus app and from Grand Design’s electronic storefront on iVerse’s website.
A native of Marbleton, Georgia, writer/artist Wayne Vansant has created many historical graphic novels – both fiction and non-fiction – in a career spanning more than twenty five years. His non-fiction graphic novel about the Allied invasion of Europe in World War II, NORMANDY, were be published in September by Zenith Press.
His recent collaboration with writer Dwight Jon Zimmerman, THE HAMMER AND THE ANVIL (2012), a graphic novel about Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and the end of slavery in America was published by Hill and Wang, and Vansant was the primary artist for Marvel’s The ‘Nam for more than five years.
His other non-fiction graphic novels on military history include DAYS OF DARKNESS, ANTIETAM: THE FIERY TRIAL (with the United States National Park Service), BLOCKADE: THE CIVIL WAR AT SEA, and THE VIETNAM WAR: A GRAPHIC HISTORY.
“Digital Serbia” has been established as an association, bringing leading technology, IT and telecommunication companies together to drive digital innovation for Serbia and for its people. The Steering Committee of “Digital Serbia” will be made up of representatives of the founding companies. The Committee will be headed by Branko Milutinović, CEO and co-founder of Nordeus.
Jelena Drakulić-Petrović, General Manager of Ringier Axel Springer Serbia and founder and initiator of the Digital Serbia Initiative: “Technological development brings unprecedented change at a high speed. Innovation in business and education helps to increase productivity. It allows for new solutions in the development of products and services. As a media company, we believe in the importance of enhancing digital innovative strength in Serbia, as this will be the driver that helps to create new jobs and grow our business. With “Digital Serbia”, we are seeking to unlock the vast potential we envisage for the Serbian economy and its people.”
