Arrived Berlin Mid day 3rd February. Snowy but not too cold. Taking care not to slip over. Lots of snow in the street.

Transmediale Festival which is art based but also has scientists and social theorists and technology thinkers in train, is taking place at theHouse of World Cultures in Berlin. Very appropriate place for the theme of the Festival , which is the about the sense that the notion of the future in the present is actually feeling quite of the past. The building itself is "futuristic" with a sweeping roof which appears quite old fashioned now and not really of the future at all. (picture tomorrow).

It was dark by the time I got there, picking my way through the snowy paths of the Tiergarten . I now know to use the 100 bus.

Met lots of people, including a chap from Nottingham Trent Fine Art of a few years ago Will get his name today -he lives and works in Berlin. Also Anette Schafer, co-curator of Trampoline and Radiator, and her two lovely little twins, who were experiencing their first digital arts festival. (but, I suspect, not their last)

Lots of people here. The evening event was a concert, Pattern Recognition.

The whole thing was completely sold out and started late because they had to get so many people in. (maybe 800-1000)

The First hour was a rather ponderous laptop sound and video projection piece,Materia Obscura by German artists Jurgen Reble and Thomas Koner, which was visually stunning but ran out of ideas early on and could not sustain itself.There also seemed to be no sense of "performance" about it -and it felt like watching a pre-recorded film.

The real star -and I suspect the reason why everyone was there was the premier of TEST PATTERN by Ryoji Ikeda who had come across from Japan to perform it. Yes, I know the title doesn't sound like much fun, but it was a terrific performance in which he stood in front of a giant screen operating his laptop which controlled audio signals converted into black and white barcode like symbols which were projected behind him in sync with the sound. The analogue clicks and crackles and tones of TV were put together into fantastic patterns of sound which sometimes resembled radical club beats and sometimes firework displays. Beautifully controlled.

Tonight going to the Premier of the GOB SQUADS new work, REVOLUTION NOW, at the Volksbuhne Theatre.