Time for stocktaking. 5 years of business are quite a long time. So, here you can get a distilled overview of my work I’ve created during the last years.

It is my motivation to create distinctive structures of simplicity, subtlety and pragmatism, which evoke poetic moments and a state of mindfulness — and which allow authentic conversations among people with a human voice.

Clients (selection)

Cindy Gates, Mediagestaltung, Mülheim a.d.R.
Depot e.V., Kulturort Depot, Dortmund
eco e.V. – Verband der deutschen Internetwirtschaft, Köln
Fachhochschule Dortmund, Facilitymanagement, Dortmund
Fachhochschule Dortmund, Forschungslinie Licht_Raum, Dortmund
gelbschweigtanders, Elektroakustische Improvisationen, Dortmund
heiden associates, Personalberatung/Executive Search, Berlin
Hildegard Dieterle, Organisation/Moderation/Coaching, Arnsberg
Klaus Dieterle, Architekt, Arnsberg
LebenPLUS, Pflege/Wohnen/Betreuung, Arnsberg
neon* fotografie, Studio für Produkt- und Werbefotografie, Neuwied
Sonja Werner, Fotografie, Köln
Stadt Arnsberg, Kulturbüro, Stadt- und Landständearchiv, Arnsberg
TU Dortmund, Institut für Musik und Musikwissenschaft, Dortmund
Verein für Neue Musik e.V., Dortmund

Projects (selection)

VOID, lab platform, boutique, 2009
UNKONTROLLIERT, exhibition concept, 2008
f.0 zero point, final thesis, 2008
between shores, photography, chart, 2007
germ, artist book, installation, 2007
shg no. 1, magazine, 2007
schonung, lab space, 2006-2007
Eigenzeit, urban interventions, 2006
ON THE MOVE, artist book, 2006

Exhibitions (selection)

BOHÈME PRÉCAIRE — SENSE OF WONDER
Group exhibition, opening »Dortmunder U« RUHR.2010.
Dortmunder U – Zentrum für Kunst und Kreativität,  december 2010
Work: between shores

UNKONTROLLIERT
Group exhibition with Judith-Anna Czech, Annika Janssen, Nicole Klapperstück, Swantje Matzk, Jannis Reichard, Britta Rosing, Elena Schneider, Daniela Tegeler und Stefan Tuschy.
Künstlerhaus Dortmund, july 2008
Work: f.0 Zero point — Exploration of emptiness

ON THE MOVE
Group exhibition, Stuttgarter Fotosommer 2007
Sympra, Stuttgart, june—september 2007
Work: between shores

FELDSTÄRKE
Group exhibition and workshop
PACT Zollverein, Zeche Zollverein, Essen,  may 2007
Work: between shores

TRANSFORM
Co-op with Maik Hester and Niklas Reppel
Galerie Dieter Fischer, Depot
Dortmund, september—november 2006

Seth writes about the importance of innovating — starting, failing, starting again. He emphasizes the power of shipping and calls his readers to reject the tyranny of picked — don’t wait for someone to pick you. Pick yourself. Start. Keep starting.

Note to self:
– Avoiding failure is counterproductive.
– Just be curious and pursue your curiosity. It often leads to opportunities you never thought you’d have.

Go. Get it.

Poke the Box
Seth Godin
The Domino Project, 2011
ISBN 978-1936719006

Short trip to Amsterdam! Three recommendations for your next visit:

MENDO

Berenstraat 11, 1016 Amsterdam
Stunning concept for a book store. Nice handpicked selection of high-quality books presented in a pure black space. Must see!
www.mendo.nl

THE FROZEN FOUNTAIN

Prinsengracht 629, 1016 Amsterdam
Store/gallery for design accessories, furniture and lighting. Stays connected to various art and design academies in the netherlands to keep it fresh. Nice collection!
www.frozenfountain.nl

RESTORED

Haarlemmerdijk 39, 1013 Amsterdam
Nice place with pieces by young contemporary designers. Fashion, accessories, jewellery, interior. Exclusive, authentic, handmade.
www.restored.nl

Take a rest at CoffeeCompany next to RESTORED and pay a visit to the Noordermarkt (on saturday and monday).

I close down my studio on 28/02/2011.
Thank you all for your support, hard work, patience, and ideas.

Please stay tuned for new contact information and updates.
My blog will move soon to www.peterroth.net, you can also keep in touch on facebook.

I’ve been working as a professional designer for some years now. As a trained graphic designer my skills focus on communication with text and images. But I never wanted to be limited by discipline and preconceived job descriptions. I still tend to create conceptual work — I do basic research, to create small individual experiences and unknown/unseen images. During the last five years some kind of “values” have emerged, and I would like to mention them here:

Emptiness, moments and richness

I prefer to focus on the creation of emptiness. Empty vessels are offering countless possibilities to be filled. Structures that do not give definite answers and involve the viewer/user. Thus I aim to create small poetic moments, small individual experiences in our everyday life. I believe these small moments are what makes our days so rich.

Irritation, expectation and question

Coming up with questions is also creation. Questions create leverage and momentum. They challenge the status quo. That’s because many people intuitively block them. And that’s the reason I resist, and keep asking. There’s a scarcity of questions.

Time, serenity and error

The interesting things happen inbetween (A and B). You start to see things you haven’t been able to think off before. Inside the process, when you just trying something, exploring something. And its usually the mistakes that take you somewhere you haven’t been before. These are the exciting moments. I need to be able to respond to that.

Filter, meaning and value

I like being involved with work that I can relate to. I like to do projects where I can use my own judgement. I use myself as the filter: how do I feel about this. I do work that means something to me, and creates value for my client.

Less, naturalness and profundity

The world urgently needs reduction. We urgently need focus. I miss a certain degree of profundity in the creation of everyday communication. An appreciation of naturalness. Profundity and suggestion rather than revelation.

As you can see I approach my work somewhat like an artist does. And yes, I deeply believe in the leverage of authorship and ‘Eigensinn’ (a term that only exists in German language, approx.: wilful obstinacy). Some may think this a no-go for a service contractor. But I guess it is a requirement in order to create something new and authentic.

Evoking this kind of conversations requires a totally different approach in comunication design. Now there is no sense in creating closed/completed messages. When you complete the message too much, there is no room for the viewer/customer/client to involve himself. You need to concentrate on the (brand) essentials and leave bits of space. Small spaces of emptiness to be filled by the viewer. People want to talk about things they can relate to. So there needs to be room left for them.

As a consequence there is no single story about you, your company or your product. No single plot you have total control of. You are not the ‘owner’ of the conversation, you are a participant at eye level. Learn to listen carefully and find your human voice.

Created with Holger Nils Pohl.

Our installation cubic.LAB is about the complexity of the internet and how we deal with it. How do we move inside this space? What are we doing in there? How do we behave, handle our data? What’s a CLOUD?

cubic.LAB is a three-dimensional visualization of this group of topics and questions. It is intended to be a catalyst, evoking involvement and conversations. It shows a complex image which seems intangible at a first glance. And the degree of complexity appears to be rising as the visitor is starting to move around the lab. By moving around, changing position and viewing angle, the visitor instantly changes the image. It’s never the same — even small movements create a totally different scene. Simply by moving you can create connections between nodes, or you can break them.

While doing so and moving around the lab you can focus only on a small part of the whole image. You have to accept inevitably that the rest of the scene is changing in the meantime and you are unable to affect this process. This is a metaphor of how we are moving inside the internet, of our view on the world itself and how we are forced to apply filters to find focus in this endless space of complexity.

cubic.LAB has been presented during the Interior Design Week Cologne (PASSAGEN) in january 2011, hosted by eco – Association of the German Internet Industry.

See our website at www.cubiclab.de and our blog at blog.cubiclab.de for more information (in german), photos and video footage.

Update:
cubic.LAB will be shown at »Leven op de Cloud«, a cloud-computing event in Kerkrade (NL) on march 29. Please refer to www.levenopdecloud.nl.

If you are interested in showing our installation cubic.LAB at your event please contact us via email – see cubiclab.de for contact information.

I wish that for you and for myself in 2011. Stay hungry. Stay foolish. And don’t settle.

If you haven’t heard about these words or the Whole Earth Catalog, please watch Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address on YouTube (Link).

Sometimes you need to hold on for a moment and sort what you have discovered – take a second to digest the relevant fragments. To reframe the big picture. To see clearly what has changed and how the process of thinking and doing has inevitably changed you. Reflection and stocktaking of oneself.

It is a perfect time, now, at the end of the year. So here is my plan: I will review the territory I’ve crossed during the last two years and put all the pieces together. This will be my »atlas«. I know it will take some time to do this and I will let you participate in the process. The collection will be both analog and digital. I’m going to share some pieces here in my blog, tagged atlas. Feel free to comment and give feedback.

I’m curious where my atlas will take me. Maybe new ground. Maybe back to the ‘old’ stuff. We’ll see.

»cubic.LAB« — an installation created in collaboration with Holger Nils Pohl – will be shown at eco during the Interior Design Week – PASSAGEN 2011 in cologne.

eco — Verband der deutschen Internetwirtschaft e.V.
Lichtstr. 43h, 50825 Köln-Ehrenfeld
More information at: www.eco.de/veranstaltungen/1164_8619.htm

PASSAGEN 2011 – Interior Design Week Köln
January 17.–23. 2011
More information at: www.voggenreiter.com/passagen2011

Abstract (german):

Mit der Installation »cubic.lab« hinterfragt das Designerduo Pohl+Roth die Sichtweise auf reale und virtuelle Beziehungsstrukturen.
Die Erfahrungsräume des Betrachters und sein Standpunkt im fassbaren Raum erschaffen ein ganz eigenes Verständnis für scheinbar vertraute Zusammenhänge.
Licht, Objekt und Raum werden zu einer sich individuell wandelnden Realität verdichtet.

An english translation will be published here soon. Sorry…

Nice impression from the creation process:

Last chance today to visit this awesome exhibition: Bohème Précaire — Sense of wonder) at Dortmunder U — Centre for Art and Creativity.

The exhibition presents a wonderful selection of very inspiring artists under the topic »Sense of wonder«. Check out the istallations by Axel Loytved (see 2nd photo) and Daniela Friebel, the photographs by Sebastian Fritzsch and the archive of Axel Braun. Great pieces!

At the request of some readers you can now find an abstract about my work »Between Shores« at my website.