Maximilian Schich
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schichmax.bsky.social
Maximilian Schich
@schichmax.bsky.social
2.2K followers 1.8K following 1.3K posts
Professor for #CulturalDataAnalytics at Tallinn University in #Estonia
#complexity #netsci #arthistory #aesthetics
#culturalanalytics #compsocsci #infovis

"My PhD is in Art History" – Dr. Zoidberg

(max/max)
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schichmax.bsky.social
"Der Friedrichsdorfer Bürgermeister Lars Keitel (Grüne) musste handeln."

"'Dass die Verwaltung entschieden hat, ausschließlich weibliche Formen zu verwenden, entspricht nicht der Intention unseres Antrags', sagte Fraktionsvorsitzende Katja Gehrmann."
Der Grüne Lars Keitel [der kleine Drache Grisù] hat das Feuer gelöscht und wird vom CDU Fraktionsvorsitzenden Katja Gehrmann [blonder weisser Mann mit Schnauzer] zurechtgewiesen. [Symbolbild]
October 25, 2025 at 10:31 AM
schichmax.bsky.social
#space program (highly recommended)
Sun Ra – Space is the Place (vinyl record cover) Marshall Allen Presents Sun Ra and his Arkestra – In the Orbit of Ra (vinyl record cover) 'Thesda – Spaced Out (vinyl record cover) Sun Ra – Nucler War (vinyl record cover)
September 17, 2025 at 7:16 PM
schichmax.bsky.social
"Academia" is click-baiting me with an email, claiming my formal interest in architectural motifs is related to recent politics in Hungary and Austria. The algorithm doesn't seem to know me at all (or very well). 👀 🤷 🙃
Email text from "Academia": "You read the paper 'Astragal und Eiförmige Motive auf Stuckdekor der Wandmalerei Sirmiums'. We found a related paper on Academia: 'Soziale Veränderung in der ungarischen und östereichischen Gesellschaft der K(reisky)- und K(ádár)-Ära und Danach' Author Photo Valuch Tibor"
September 17, 2025 at 8:35 AM
schichmax.bsky.social
Had the pleasure to hang out with some old friends last weekend: Laid-back Faun, Grumpy Medusa, and Queen Apollo say hi. The #Glyptothek café (aka the outdoor office) is still accessible for 1 Euro, much like 25 years ago. The double espresso with ice cube is the lazy Italian's Greek frappé.
@schichmax with the Faun Barberini in the Munich Glyptothek. @schichmax with the Medusa Rondanini in the Munich Glyptothek. @schichmax with the Apollo Barberini in the Munich Glyptothek. The Munich Glyptothek courtyard café seen from a table in the corner on a sunny afternoon.
September 14, 2025 at 1:42 PM
schichmax.bsky.social
Forgot to say "Good Morning!" 🙂

☀️💦⛷️ #skiing
Footprints in the morning dew from an intensive "skiing" session on a France Trampoline.
September 5, 2025 at 12:15 PM
schichmax.bsky.social
#Florida verbietet das Tagebuch der Anne Frank!

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Wer ist jetzt die #Gesprächspolizei, Herr Scheuer?

cf. www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/csu-d...
Ein Masskrug als Gastgeschenk: Andreas Scheuer (li.), Dorothee Bär und Florian Hahn (re.) bei Floridas Gouverneur Ron DeSantis. aus: "Scheuer kritisiert die 'grüne Gesprächspolizei'" Süddeutsche Zeitung, 9. Mai 2023. https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/csu-desantis-florida-dienstreise-andreas-scheuer-kritik-1.5846982?reduced=true
August 26, 2025 at 10:15 AM
schichmax.bsky.social
To whoever thought it was entertaining
to build & display a sculpture of the orange fascist turd
at the Munich airport #Lego store,
please know that the unavoidable has happened:
A Lego sculpture of the orange fascist turd in the signature blue suit, red tie, and golden wig, built and displayed by an unknown customer at the Munich airport Lego store, August 21, 2025. The Lego sculpture of the orange fascist turd, built and displayed by an unknown customer at the Munich airport Lego store, now seen from behind after another customer, August 21, 2025. The addition resembles a supportive tree trunk as frequently found in ancient Roman sculpture. At the same time the attribute seems to signify that the orange facist turd was full of shit, took an uncontrolled dump, now resting on his own shit, and is as a consequence is surrounded by shit.
August 22, 2025 at 10:38 AM
schichmax.bsky.social
Capped off an afternoon of concrete art, music & performance with concrete ice cream.

www.museum-brandhorst.de/ausstellunge... & www.bartu-bioeismanufaktur.de
a cone of delicious black sesame ice cream that looks like concrete at Bartu in Munich.
August 16, 2025 at 7:43 PM
schichmax.bsky.social
The combination of colors is equally powerful:
intensive blue, gold ochre, vermillion red,
resonating with classic pigments,
that look even better in reality,
hard to reproduce in digital.

The sizzling blue-orange
further combines hues
usually segregated
by dichroic filters.

Togetherness!

Light!
The official campaign logo of ZOHRAN FOR NEW YORK CITY. Source: https://www.zohranfornyc.com/media-kit
August 13, 2025 at 5:12 AM
schichmax.bsky.social
Sehr geehrter Herr Weimer (@bundeskultur.bsky.social),

Sie dienen dem gesamten deutschen Volk 🇩🇪,
nicht Stephen Miller im Weißen Haus,
nicht einem katholischen Kardinal,
und nicht der rechten Sache!

"Kultur muß alles dürfen" haben Sie gesagt.
Auch gendern! 🏳️‍🌈

Die Kultur starrt Sie an. Auch nachts!
Alexander Sacharoff, gemalt von Alexej von Jawlensky, Mitglied der Neuen Künstlervereinigung München ab 1909, geboren in Mariupol (in der heutigen Ukraine), Inkunabel der deutschen Kultur. Bild: Wikipedia, public domain https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jawlensky_Sakharoff.jpg Original: Lenbachhaus, München https://www.lenbachhaus.de/digital/sammlung-online/detail/bildnis-des-taenzers-alexander-sacharoff-30018179
August 8, 2025 at 1:53 PM
schichmax.bsky.social
Tim is cooked.
Screenshot from Google Trends showing an exponential rise of searches worldwide for "iphone alternatives", correlating with the US presidential inauguration and the onset of US tariffs.
August 7, 2025 at 2:41 PM
schichmax.bsky.social
Kruzifix!
"Franz Josef Strauß überreicht Joseph Kardinal Ratzinger als Abschiedsgeschenk ein Kruzifix aus Porzellan." Bild: picture-alliance/dpa via https://www.br.de/nachricht/inhalt/kirche-franz-strauss-102.html
August 7, 2025 at 2:28 PM
schichmax.bsky.social
Circuit virtuosity (1965)

www.sothismedias.com/uploads/1/2/...
Pauline Oliveros working with the Buchla 100 system.
August 4, 2025 at 7:05 PM
schichmax.bsky.social
Check this out: Since Trump paved over the White House Rose Garden, the yard resembles a miniature of Königsplatz in Munich, paved over to serve as the central marching ground, right outside Hitler's office in the Nazi party HQ. De-nazified Königsplatz today is green like the Rose Garden. (see alt)
Königsplatz (King's square) in Munich after the second World War. The pavement has been replaced with a green lawn, making the square a favorite hangout for a diverse crowd and the location of a great variety of events. Around the square one can see the Propyläen gate, the Glyptothek and Antikensammlung museums, the former Nazi-Party HQ buildings, now the Musikhochschule and Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, i.e. one of the largest art history libraries on earth, originally founded and serving to return artworks stolen by the Nazis. The foundations of the so called "Ehrentempel" (temples of honor) are now a biotopes for local plants, after US soldiers have destroyed them in 1945. In the foreground of the picture you can see the The Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism, which y'all should visit: https://www.nsdoku.de/en/ Königsplatz (King's square) in Munich during the Third Reich. The square was paved over serving massive Nazi marches. Around the square one can see the Propyläen gate, the Glyptothek and Antikensammlung museums, the Nazi-Party HQ buildings, the so called "Ehrentempel" (temples of honor). The latter contained the dead "martyr" insurrectionists of the 1923 Hitler coup (essentially Hitler's January 6).
August 2, 2025 at 10:18 PM
schichmax.bsky.social
This is #surreal!

You really want to understand #surrealism?

Don't "engage" with such shallow #GenAI repackaging (with potential hallucinations) of #Wikipedia information (which is at least fact checked by humans), but stare at the 3600 images of #surrealism in #Wikiart, 3 sec each (yourself!).
Screenshot from Google's NotebookLM demo video: A slide with the title "The World of Surrealism", in a tasteless powerpointy font, above a 1990s web-style-guide-like divisor line, above a Dali-like melting watch in 1990s Microsoft clipart style. Below the caption aims to engage the viewer by saying "Okay! Let's dive in to the wild world of surrealism." PS: You can tell it is Google, as OpenAI would have said "Let's delve into surrealism". PPS: There is no need to dive into surrealism, as we are already drowning in it. ;)
July 29, 2025 at 11:48 PM
schichmax.bsky.social
Halston throwing a whiskey glass against the television, right after seeing the Calvin Klein jeans commercial. Still taken from the eponymous fictionalised Netflix series episode S1:E4 "The Party's Over". https://www.netflix.com/search?q=halston&jbv=80245103 from min 28:30
July 28, 2025 at 12:07 PM
schichmax.bsky.social
16 years ago

"Maximillion" met Larry Page in the hallway at Google:
"Hi, my name is Max, I am an art historian."

Larry turned his head away, looked into the distance, and said:
"I better talk to these people over there!"

In this moment I learned:
"Brute force" #ai has no patience for #arthistory.
"Marvin Minsky and Larry Page discuss AI" at SciFoo 2009. "Larry Page hosted a discussion titled 'how do we create AI' that was one of the most talked about sessions of the weekend. [...] As you might imagine, consensus on how to create artificial intelligence, or even on how to define it was impossible. [...] Page and Minsky [...] both argued that creating human level artificial intelligence may not be as hard of a problem to solve as many people think. It seems one of the biggest obstacles to success is not the difficulty of the problem, but instead the simple fact that hardly anybody seems to be working on it." Image source: Michael Clarke, https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2009/07/14/sci-foo-camp-day-2/p1000552-2/ Report source: SingularityHub Staff, https://singularityhub.com/2009/07/14/the-hub-goes-to-scifoo-2009-it-was-awesome-scifoo09/
July 25, 2025 at 6:11 AM
schichmax.bsky.social
Es ist offensichtlich: Nicht alle hinter Merz haben ein weißes Hemd, und mindestens einer hat das exklusive Krawatten-Batik-Wochenende am Tegernsee versäumt.
"#881044 Kremer Watercolor Set Blue" (Farbbeispiele) "Blue is by far the most popular color, both for women and for men. For centuries, blue was one of the most precious colors. With the Blue Watercolor Set, Kremer Pigmente is presenting 14 selected shades of blue around the latest pigment discovery, YInMn Blue. Note: The contained, real Indian Indigo has a typical smell." Source: https://www.kremer-pigmente.com/en/shop/ready-made-colors/kremer-watercolors/watercolor-boxes/881044-kremer-watercolor-set-blue.html
July 23, 2025 at 6:33 PM
schichmax.bsky.social
History does not repeat itself,
but nobody can't say they didn't see it coming.

#CancelColbert
"went viral" in 2014 ...

#Colbert 😎🍿:
"But Folks, I'm Still Here!"

youtu.be/MBPgXjkfBXM?...
Screenshot from "The Colbert Report - Who's Attacking Me Now? - #CancelColbert", with the caption saying "BUT FOLKS, I'M STILL HERE!" "The Interwebs nearly swallow Stephen whole after the dark forces of Twitter descend on The Report." "About The Colbert Report: As America's most fearless purveyor of 'truthiness,' Stephen Colbert shines a light on ego-driven punditry, moral hypocrisy and government incompetence, raising the bar for political satire."
July 18, 2025 at 6:48 AM
schichmax.bsky.social
The moment in which #Strauss 🇩🇪 assures #Reagan 🇺🇸:
"We are just here to tell you that we stand on your side."
"Our youth organization is [...] fully in the line of the party."

Context:
#Heritage was "President Reagan's favorite think tank, and Reagan was the embodiment of the ideas and principles".
"President Reagan meeting with Bavarian Minister President and Christian Social Union leader Franz Joseph Strauss of Federal Republic of Germany in Oval Office on March 18, 1982" Source: Reagan Library https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up2Ngn8JdwM
July 11, 2025 at 12:04 PM
schichmax.bsky.social
We are
50 years into the #Internet,
36 years into the #WorldWideWeb, and
#meowtiful was still no hash tag on #BlueSky.

#arthistory #iconography #patriarchy
In this still frame from a 2014 Youtube video by Google, titled: "Vint Cerf explains... Who runs the Internet's address book?", we see a line-drawing of an idyllic landscape in Google corporate colors, in Claude-Lorraine meets Weltlandschaft style, with mountains, a monumental water fall, and a river opening to the sea in the far distance, lush vegetation in the foreground. A smiling Apple Macintosh cartoon computer with arms and legs "cerfs" as the narrator in the front center, surrounded by animals, including Tweeter-like birds. All together the assemblage of characters resembles the manner of a Catholic painting that is depicting St. Francis preaching to the birds. Vint Cerf, the actual narrator, is featured and self-identifying as "the father of the internet" earlier in the video, and is depicted in his usual "sartorial style", riding a giant grumpy cat to the left (meaning, iconographically, in image space they sit "to the right of the lord"). Both Cerf and the cat are highlighted by a double rainbow in the background, alluding to the depiction of Catholic saints with a divine halo. Meanwhile, a cloud and the head of a Doge dog appear in the white sky. The Doge dog, who is the last addition, drawn in just in time, already prefigures the memetic black hole sun, which it evolved into later. The BlueSky does not yet exist. Closed caption: "To sum it all up, the purity of your Internet experience will stay the same. The only thing that's changing, is that we're embracing a more democratic framework so the Internet can remain free and open. A free and open world depends on a free and open Internet." In the same year, Barack Obama said: "Give Up Your Art History Degree And Work In A Factory". Not following Obama's advice enabled this post. :)
July 10, 2025 at 6:43 AM
schichmax.bsky.social
Just found a 5½ hours recording of my 2003 summer party DJ set at the Max-Planck for #ArtHistory in Rome. It has lots of static and includes the big Italian power outage ending the party. Pretty epic to have this #NetSci moment on tape.

cf. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_It...

@bhmpi.bsky.social 🎉🇮🇹🕒🔌🔥
Art historians at Bibliotheca Hertziana dancing into the big power outage in Italy on September 27, 2003. Photo: Maximilian Schich, 2003.
July 6, 2025 at 3:35 PM
schichmax.bsky.social
Note how "Indiana House Bill 1001",
the #Indiana #massacre of academic disciplines,
rhymes with "Indiana Senate Bill 101",
the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act".

It is not just about money.
It is #counterreformation.
Mike Pence in Columbus North High School's 1977 yearbook, who later as Governor of Indiana signed the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act" into law. Source: Wikipedia
July 1, 2025 at 5:42 AM
schichmax.bsky.social
The #Young vs #History.. . . . it's on
Still shot from Groove Armada feat. Will Young - History (official video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7QZpUWGcVs
June 30, 2025 at 8:25 PM
schichmax.bsky.social
Protecting the Universe from the scum of Earth since 9/11 1997.
Black Men in Black™ ballpoint pen on a walnut surface, obtained at the German movie premiere at Cinema in Munich. Source: Maximilian Schich, 2025-06-28
June 28, 2025 at 8:37 AM