The discontent cumulated, when the institution’s
provost was dismissed abruptly in late December – the popular Joseph W. Westphal only served three months. The president of The New School, Bob Kerrey thereupon anounced that he would fill the office on a temporary basis himself.

Students of the The New School in New York City were so outraged that they occupied a faculty building in 12th street in Greenwich Village for 30 hours to give their opinion a voice: “Our ability to do the very thing we came here to do — receive a quality education — is at risk,” is written on the protest homepage The New School in Exile. Target of their unconvinience are president Bob Kerrey and James Murtha, his executive vice president and chief financial officer.

Students demand the resignation of both for the following reasons (taken from the online petition):

- It is unacceptable for President Kerrey to appoint himself interim Provost.
- Students face a serious lack of resources, both technological and academic directly due to Kerrey’s leadership.
- Bob Kerrey has attempted to make the New School a profit making venture. Mr. President: Where is the money?
- There is a fundamental lack of democratic transparency concerning both the activities of Bob Kerrey and the board of trustees.

Students stand for reforms of The New School: they want a change towards a critical education and a social responsibility:

As students we have an obligation, because of our privilege, to push the envelope and construct a new vision of how the world could be. Formerly our school was driven by calls for open deliberation, anti-authoritarianism and critical and direct engagement with social problems. Now—under the present leadership—decision-making is secretive and closed. Power is consolidated, abused and wielded as a weapon against academic inquiry and critical skepticism. Our “brand” is now more important than our ethics, and students have been reduced to economic units—like cogs in a corporate machine.

The students announced 1 April as deadline for Kerrey and Murtha to resign. ROGER wishes the students good luck for getting the chance to actively reform their university and design their own and upcoming generations’ educational future.

On August 16th the new Cologne docklands “Rheinauhafen” will officially be inaugurated by the Lord Mayor of Cologne and other more or less important people. More important – and probably much more interesting – however could be the exhibition “new talents 2008 – die junge biennale köln” that opens its doors on the same day and happens more than one week from 16 August till 24 August 2008 on the whole dockland area.

The Kunstverein Fuhrwerkswaage had the clever idea to select about 10 graduates of each of the 4 art and design schools in Cologne (plus one in Düsseldorf) and open the opportunity to the young artists and designers to show their talent in the pleasant architecture of the refurbished docklands – a stylish new business and living area, where companies like Vitra, Microsoft or Electronic Arts and many architects and galleries found new quarters.

ROGER is presenting one of the exhibitions: 100 CUPS. The exhibition focuses attention on the paper cup which has, in the last few years, experienced the same kind of growth as the mp3 player or mobile phone. Anyone wishing to sport a modern image to go with the image of a modern city needs, besides an iPod, and a mobile phone, ‘a coffee to go’, the acquisition of which does not require a huge investment or a long-term contract obligation.The paper cup with the favourite hot drink can easily be bought at kiosks, bakeries, cafès, fast food restaurants, railway stations or cafeterias. The next ‘coffee to go’ is no more than a few meters aways.

The otherwise straightforward, simple cup involves the dynamics of large-scale distribution which impacts society, and raises various concerns. Where does the cup come from? What material is it made of? How did it enter the market? What is it that makes is so popular? Why did its shape or looks not change over the years? What society developments does the coffee cup reflect as a symbol? Do we need the steady supply of coffeine to cope with our daily stress and strains and our daily performance at work? What has Togo got to do with it?

At the core of the exhibition are a hundred variations of the coffee cups that have passed through different processes of transformation to give them a new symbolism. The coffee cup could be diverted from its intended use, polemised, extrapolated, exaggerated, tuned, philosophised, critizised, experimented, optimised, painted black, copied – but above all there will be experiment.

Accompanying to the show, ROGER LiVE will show one cup a day from the hundred that are on show at Rheinauhafen. Exhibition at the Rheinauhafen starts on August 16th at 4 p.m. and goes till August 24th. 100 Cups is hosted in the offices of Detlef Stephan Architekten in the so called Siebengebirge building. Here you can download a detailed plan (look for No. 24 – “Marco Siebertz / Stephan Architekten”.

is the name of the website where you can find the creative community of plebsville. Well, yes – another community, as if there weren’t enough in the vast web 2.0 universe.But imagine you register for the community and three days later a person called HUGO rings to call your attention to a competition. That sounds special, doesn’t it? But exactly this is what happend to ROGER when he registered at designers are wankers! So needless to say that this is quite an outstanding personal approach.What you can find at plebsville is a collection of now 1,730 people that have the possibility to show their portfolio or get into contact with the other 1,729 creatives. The profile attributes have quite a playful approach and ask for things like:

Hardest lesson to learn, still to learn, home truths, inspiration, most fruitfull collaboration, future plans are for, style of approach that works and many more.

This leaves enough space for a not too tight and open-for-interpretation description that won’t get too serious and revealing.But why are designers wankers? It’s the name of  Continue Reading »

Admittedly ROGER was a bit flabbergasted when this invitation from New York arrived. ROGER was asked to save the date for the »Dan Golden Rug Launch Party«. Occasion for the party is the launch of their rug collection with a new representative and to celebrate their West Coast debut.

Also for the ROGER magazine it is a debut – as he entered the New York design scene so quickly. It seems there are people with a good taste hanging around there. We should try working on a New York office or at least a correspondent. If there’s somebody out there, just send us some lines.

About the party: ROGER is not sure if it’s a public one, but if you want to have »Prosecco, Parmesan and Prosciutto« on October 24th and »Music, food, drinks. Party« on October 25th then you should give a call to Ford Lininger at Dan Golden Inc.