Men (& Women)

the new photo friday theme is: Men.
it brought me back to those 2 moments from the almost same place:





this is at MuseumQuartier Vienna. revisiting the photos, i thought they both also could be installations - pairs of persons, with almost everyone dressed in black.

some notes about the place: the first photo is the lobby of Leopold-Museum (which hosts a permanent Klimt-exhibition). and the second is the view of the MuseumsQuartier square, seen from the upper floors of Leopold Museum. the grey block is the Modern Museum of art, the man in black on the exhibition poster is Andy Warhol.

here's more about the visit: Vienna MuseumsQuartier.

and interesting to browse all the different takes on this theme: Men.

contrasts + china

the new theme of photo friday is contrast. old and new, i thought. sky and earth. color and black. and then remembered this very pink moment from Vienna: Museumsquartier. that's right in the centre of Vienna. a different view of the same place is online in elimae: Sezession21.

and more contrasts to come: the upcoming edition of the language / place blog carnival is now under construction. it will be hosted by Jean Morris, who has a photo up in her blog today that is like a prelude for the carnival: Through the gallery window. i have visited some of the contributions already, and am excited about this carnival edition. the gallery photo also speaks to me as it reflects my state of coordinating a project, seeing it through a window while it reaches completion, yet not being part of the editing myself.

and one more link, to a very different place: a new blog from a friend who went to China, to study there for some months: Waiguo Xuesheng - Losing my Soul in China.

which made me think that i never did this: living in another country for a while, surrounded by a language that i don't understand. and so i double enjoy the view through this window named blog.

Check Please, Elephant in the Room

i have a new image up in Referential, the magazine that coss-connects images and texts. in January, i revisited Elizabeth Akin Stelling's referential poem "Check Please", which is set in a restaurant. it made me return to a photo i snapped in an Indian restaurant in Vienna - "Elephant in the room".

now the 2 pieces are complimenting each other online. and i hadn't realized it, but even the titles click: Check Please, Elephant in the Room

~

above, a collage of the elephant-image, and the one i took an hour later. i can't remember the name of the Indian restaurant, but it is in a side street of Mariahilfstrasse. Karyn and i visited it on our first evening of our Vienna-meet-up. from there, we went to Stephansplatz, which also inspired a photo, and even a poem, which then appeared in Istanbul Literary Review. later, both became part of a longer essay for the language/place carnival: Vienna, Bratislava, Istanbul (scroll to bottom). the trip to Vienna held so many moments. i keep coming back to it.

the beauty of journeys: all the surprise moments and connections they spark.

and a note on the elephant, which itself is a reference to the Hindu elephant god Ganesha - the God of Obstacles. when travelling in India, Ganesha will be a travel companion that greets you in many forms and places. from mythology, he hands obstacles to you,  but also makes sure you have the tools to overcome them. and of course, if you try to skip or bystep them, he will hand you the same obstacle again, only in another shape.

PS: and now i just saw that this is post #1000. how fitting, that it's a post on travelling, references & ganesha, of all themes.

Vienna, Bratislava, Vienna

this blog post is a part of the language / place blog carnival #2

This summer, I went to Vienna for some days, to meet up with abroad friends who happened to travel in Europe at almost the same time. Being German, the trip to Vienna itself was easy, language-wise: Austrians speak German with a dialect that isn't difficult to understand. While strolling through Vienna, I didn't feel like being too far abroad, and even the complex system of public transport was okay to navigate.

Here are some street scenes from Vienna with signs included, the first is "Strassenbahn Haltestelle Kärntner Ring, Oper" - "Tram Stop Kärntner Circle, Opera", right in front of the opera builiding.



This is the "Dorotheum". It was strange to see my name like that. The Dorotheum is both an auction house and a pawnbroker. It dates back to 1707.



And here is something I hadn't seen before: a "offener bücherschrank" - "open book cupboard". The instruction for it are simple, and written on its side: "sie können bücher nehmen und oder geben" - you can take and or give books." Here's the website about it, it's in german, but with photos (scroll down..): offener bücherschrank.



Bratislava
While in Vienna, we discovered that there is a special tourist ticket: 14 Euro for a day-ticket from Vienna to Bratislava and back. Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia, it's only about 60 kilometres (37 miles) from Vienna, which makes Bratislava and Vienna two of the closest European national capitals to each other.

The language spoken there in Bratislava is Slovak - but that's not where language ends. The citizens of Bratislava are a rather multilingual folk, in fact, Bratislava was a tri-lingual city once: 

"Almost everyone in Bratislava speaks Slovak, a western Slavic language. Slovak is very similar to Czech and more or less comprehensible to Polish-speakers. Hungarian, the first language of about 10 percent of Slovak citizens, most of whom live in the southern part of the country, is also spoken by a minority of Bratislava residents. Bratislava was once famed as a tri-lingual city, whose residents could switch with ease between German, Hungarian and Slovak, and a few still preserve this proud tradition." - more: Bratislava Facts 

The first thing we saw of Slovakia was the border-crossing point "Devínska Nová Ves". As Slovakia belongs to the Schengen Zone, this was a regulart train stop, without passport checks. From there, it was just about 20 minutes to Bratislava.



Once we arrived, we went looking for the tourist info at the train station. Somehow, we were sure that a tourist office that offers a special visitor's ticket to bring tourists from Vienna to Bratislava will also put up an office or help desk at Bratislava train station, to welcome arriving tourists and hand them the bits of information you need to get around: city map with the main sights, and some rough guidelines on how to get to the old town, which is the most scenic and interesting part of the city. 

Turned out, that yes, there was a tourist office once, but it moved.. to the old town. While the train station is located at the upper edge of the city.

After joking about being lost, we decided to find the way ourselves. We bought a map, and then tried to figure out the way by looking at the tram listing. When we found "City Centre", we thought we had the right tram. Well. It sure took us to City Centre. Only that this was the name of a shopping centre in Bratislava / Nove Mesto area (new town area):



And good thing we had a map: when we asked for directions to the old town, the first person there spoke English, looked at the map, then gave us specific instructions which tram to take, and where to get out of the tram. The stop was named: "Laurinska". It's line 13. It takes you right from the train station to the old town and back.

Still, the detour was a good thing. Taking the wrong tram gave us a clue to Bratislava city beyond its showcase centre, which greats visitors with impressive buildings, and streets full of galeries and cafés, yet feels a bit polished. The first photo shows the opera, the second is the one of the city towers.





And here's a snapshot of the passge to Bratislava library, it hosts a photo exhibtion. The city in the large image is Prague, the capital of Ceska Republika, the "sister" state of Slovakia. Up to 1993, the two states were united, and formed Czechoslovakia.



The day trip to Bratislava indeed felt like a trip through history, and the different language made it special, and more "abroad". On the way back home to Vienna, scenes from Bratislava kept playing in my mind, and I penned down some notes that later turned into a poem, just like the notes from the first day. Both poems got  accepted by an international online journal that adds a third capital to the day trip: Istanbul Literary Review. Below, the poem from the first evening with a photo.
Back to the start: Vienna
The central point of Vienna city is the Stephansdome. That's where we headed to on our first evening, and arrived there at dusk, with the tram:



Vienna, first evening

from Mariahilferstrasse
take U3 to Stephansplatz
follow the blue signs

the way
maps
(mis)construct
reality

the way
our reflection mingles
with Stephansdome
who stands opposite of us
since ages

his peek
a white icicle surrounded
by concentric streets

below ground:
a recently refound
underground cathedral

the question, unanswered:
what's at the true
base of this city, of any city?

take Tram 13 to get back
Exit Westbahnstrasse

night is another place
in the same city

as always
we listen to rails,
we look for memories

& take the curved way
home



---------------

relating links:
- the Bratislava + Vienna poem in Istanbul Literary Review: Bratislava, Slovakia & Vienna, first evening
- more blog notes about the jouney to Vienna and Bratislava

Eos (Vienna, continued)

from all the places i've been to this and last year, Vienna is turning into the most "picturesque" - i've been there for just a couple of days, but took a whole huge file of images, with very different moods.

the most curious Vienna picture is probably the one that now is part of the new blueprintreview: "Eos". i am still not sure whether this was a light installation, or a weird effect of temperature and cellar light. this was in the centre area of Vienna, at around 10 pm (see clock). there was no one else around. above a crop that shows a bit more of the place than the issue-version, click for larger size.

some tidbits about "Eos" - in Greek mythology, "Eos" is the goddess of dawn, who rose from her home at the edge of Oceanus, the Ocean that surrounds the world, to herald her brother Helios, the sun.

for more Vienna images, try this tag-link: Vienna
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2 Layers - Otoliths

in June, Steve Wing and i worked on a couple of 2-layer images: collages of image pairs, with a focus on the sky. now a series of these images went live in the new issue of Otoliths:
2 Layers

it's fascinating to work with places like this, shifting them from reality to magic realism. the first image, "Water Plaza", shows the museum plaza in Vienna - another image of the photos i took there went live in elimae last month, this is the "real" plaza: Sezession21. and for another (rather counterparting) 2-layer-moment from Vienna, try Antimaterie - an image i created in response to a layer poem in Referential.

back to Otoliths: the issue that went live is Otoliths #18 - the southern winter 2010 issue:
"This is an august issue. It's packed with text in its many forms — as story, essay, review, or poem — as well as a wide range of visual media: collages, frottages, glyphs, postcards, paintings, notebook pages & some great new vispo."

it's an amazing issue - great to be in such creative company as Sean Burn, Andrew Topel, Sheila E. Murphy, Raymond Farr, Bobbi Lurie, Felino Soriano, Ed Higgins to name just a few.
.

Negative Suck: Vienna

two of my Vienna photos are now up in the July issue of Negtive Suck.

the first is online here: Vienna
click on "cont." below the picture to get to the second image.

so interesting, the contrast between those black/white images in the grey frame, and the Vienna image that went online in elimae, in full colors: Sezession21 - almost like a different city and century.

i am still amazed by Vienna. i was there for a mere 4 days, but there were so many moments leaving their imprint. no surprise that there is a whole string on blog posts on Vienna now, all connected through this little tag: Vienna.
.

Vienna MuseumsQuartier

i visited Vienna in June. a memory from there is now up in the new issue of elimae. it's from a redesigned area of the city, now called "MuseumsQuartier", a place turned into a hotspot of art. it includes 3 major museums, plus several galleries, all connected through a plaza that has a very own atmosphere. i took a couple of photos, trying to capture the vibe. one of the images is now up in elimae: Sezession21

if you ever get to Vienna, and stand on the plaza, then start with Leopold museum (which is on the left side of the square, not in the picture). Leopold museum focuses on the Vienna Secession ("Sezession") - the art nouveau movement that had its centre in Vienna in the late 19th and early 20th century, and was set to re-design "everything from architecture to furniture, making art part of everyday life."



the museum features the painters Gustav Klimt and Oskar Schiele (and others), and has a fabulous permanent exhibition on the upper floor. it provides a scope of the whole time and history, which was also heavily influenced by psychologist Sigmund Freud, and by the city development of Vienna during this time. (and bring your camera - it's allowed to take pictures, even of the Klimts.)



for more about the museums, check out the posts from Vienna:
- museums quartier (photo post)
- Vienna museum moments (photo post)
- Vienna / Yugoslavia, Korea, Gaza (doesn't sound like it but this has the most museum info, it's a longer travelogue that actually includes Leopold museum and MUK museum)

and here the official museum link: MuseumsQuartier, Vienna

and while visiting elimae, also check out the starting piece of the elimae issue, it fits in theme: "Footnotes to a History of Architecture" by Kristina Marie Darling. (and check out the other pieces, too, it's a fabulous issue.)
.

layers of time

another photo from Vienna:
that's from the first visit to Stephansdome, on monday evening, at twilight time.
a larger version of the image with notes is up here: layers of time.
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Vienna, Paris, Budapest & in transit

tuesday. i am back home now as long as i was away. it doesn't feel like it, though. i am still in transit. the feeling is enhanced by the messages from faraway places that are part of this crossing of journeys:

Karyn arrived back home in Vancouver now. and put up this amazing film about Budapest in her blog: "Post-Vacation Blue / Budapest". i play it, then replay it. this music. it is like leaving.

then Paris - a city i've been to twice. now Diana walks those streets, and sends snapshots right from the street in her live travel blog: Saint Eustache. Confisserie Tetrel. La Seine. Notre Dame.

and in the midst of all, the "Published For a Day" event, which brought me back to this abandoned manuscript of mine. and right into the land of words. where a manuscript is waiting for my full return.

tomorrow. i guess. today, i am still in transit. and so i open this paperback book. and start to read through those other times and places, of other journeys crossing in transit.

(the book was part of the journey, too. Karyn brought it. all the way, from Canada, to Budapest, and to Vienna: transit time for in transit.)

summer transit discount note:
and just 1 hour after blogging about being "in transit", i receive a mail from the printer: "in transit" is now coming with a summer discount. so if you feel like being in transit, this would be a good time to get it: in transit Summer read ($8.55 instead of list price 11.80).

Vienna museum moments

four museum moments from Vienna: the first is a self portrait, taken in the entry hall of the Kunsthalle (art hall). i am the one in the middle mirror. the one in the right mirror is Diana. (click to enlarge)


the second is from the National history of art museum - we just peeked into that on Friday, and Diana is visiting it today - more on it, in her travel blog.



and here, 2 moments from the Oskar Schiele exhibition in Leopold museum:





after visiting the paintings, i took some time to watch other visitors - it almost felt like a life performance, with the slow moves of museum visitors, and the reactions they showed to the paintings. a digitally rendered version of the second photo later turned into the cover image of blueprintreview #26.

for more about the Leopold museum and Schiele, visit this blog post: Sezession21 + Leopold museum.

a list with travel advice, as noted in Vienna

a list with travel advice to myself, for the next city trip, with some anecdotes.

1) Remember. + Listen.
remember this list. and those other pieces of travel advice you received in past journeys. or, well, go ahead and learn those things once more through your own experience.
and this one: Listen to advice. (or, well, go ahead and ...)

+ Stop and Smile at a Stranger
a travel picture to go with this thought: this is from the u-train station near museum quarter. the 2 yellow posters are part of the Kunsthalle art initiative "100 Handlungsanweisungen" - "100 Instructions of Action", here is more (including instruction clips): 100 Instructions.



---------------------

2) MAPbefore going on the trip, mail the tourist offices of the city, and ask them to send a tourist info package with city map + a public transport map (and a museum overview). then KEEP BOTH MAPS in your backpack, even when your are convinced you know your way around by now. a map helps tremendeously to find the way, either by yourself, or when asking citizens.

remember: old city centres with their labyrinth of streets are a perfect place to get lost. and when the streets are narrow, no landmark will help you, especially in flat cities like Vienna: you won't see it unless you stand right in front it, and sometimes not even then. like here. this is 30 steps from Stephansdome, Vienna's famous all-overlooking church. 




3) PHOTOS
take your camera. and the cable to connect to a computer. AND the battery charger. even when it is "just" a 4-day trip, and the battery lasts really long. it's sheer luck that the friend that is with you while your camera starts to move towards "low energy" has exactly the same type of camera and a charger.

ask right at the entrance of the museum whether photos are allowed. don't assume that Klimt and Schiele photos can't be allowed, just to find out in floor #6 that you could have brought your camera, too.

and this one:
take too many pictures.
and:
try to capture the context.



and a note on my camera: i used to have a Canon Ixus, but then switched to Panasonic Lumix last year, after trying the camera from a friend. the exact version i have is DMC-TZ5 (it’s not the latest version, but really works fine). in Vienna, i had a small laptop with me, that’s how i could adjust the photos before uploading to the blog - i usually do some standard photo edits with all photos, so that the images keep their sharpness and brightness when they are downscaled and uploaded. (here's another blog note on the Lumix, from the time i bought it: details of the everyday)

------------------------------

Vienna / Yugoslavia, Korea, Gaza

while in Vienna, i basically zoomed out of current news. on the other side, just being in Vienna and walking around all those huge buildings and monuments and statues that are intended to show the power and glory of this state in a massive, silent way constantly reminds you of the rise and fall of hierarchies in time. added to that, there was the memory of my first visit to Vienna - back then, i visited the city for a day with a friend, on our way to Yugoslavia. that was before the war there, but there already was a distinct tension and currency slide there. no one believed that the region would turn to war, though. war in europe? everyone thought those days were over.

back to the current trip: one of the museums Karyn & i wanted to visit was the MAK, the "museum for applied art". we entered it, and didn't realize it consists of 2 buildings, one with the permanent collection, and one with theme exhibitions. which currently is: "Flowers For Kim Il Sung". we hadn't planned to see this, but as we were there, and were curious + as it connects to my travels through Asia, we entered it. it comes with security check + an introduction on the current debate around the exhibition. here the exhibition link: "Flowers for Kim Il Sung - Art and architecture from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea."

walking through the exhibition made us both wonder: "How would my life - or rather: I - have shaped out if I was born somewhere else, like for example, in North Korea?" - very different, that's for sure. it's a question that probably is more present while travelling, while being/living in another place for a bit.

when Diana arrived from Prague some hours later, we told her about the exhibition, and she told us about her trip through Korea, and the visit to the Demilitarized Zone between the 2 countries. which then lead to memories of East/West Germany.

then yesterday, Diana and i visited the Leopold museum, which focuses on the Vienna Secession - the art nouveau movement, and its approach "to design according to which artists should work on everything from architecture to furniture, making art part of everyday life" (more). the main focus of the musuem is on the painters Gustav Klimt and Oskar Schiele. but the permanent exhibition on the upper floor gives a scope of the whole time and history, which was shaped by psychologist Sigmund Freud, and also by the city development of Vienna during this time: the mayor of that time was Karl Lueger, a charismatic leader who introduced communal reforms. Lueger also was an Antisemit. why do i type this all out? because of this little detail that also was part of the exhibiton: Lueger's life and political appraoch later inspired an unseccusful artist who lived in Vienna for a while: Adolf Hitler. i hadn't realized this connection before.

just 2 hours later, the news of the world caught up with Diana and me as we walked from Leopold musuem to the Vienna Hofburg, and then waited for a tram. turned out, the trams weren't running, due to a demonstration down the street, which just started to proceed towards the Hofburg. we stood there and watched while the demonstrators passed by: it was a Turkish / Palestinian demo against the Gaza attack. opposite of us was the Goethe statue. the demonstrators handed out leaflets. today i came across this post on the theme on the blog of Rachel Barenblat, who contributed to the re/visit/circle/turn issue of Blueprintreview, and now wrote in her blog: "if I want to see more thoughtful blogging from progressive Jews on this subject, I need to speak up too." here's the link to her post: 5 things about the Gaza flotilla.

Diana has a short video of the demo up in her travel blog, her first video there: pro-Turkey demo against Israel. it includes a link to a NY Times article: "Days of Planning Led to Flotilla’s Hour of Chaos - Weeks of miscalculations set activists on a Turkish boat and Israeli commandos on a collision course. http://www.blogger.com/what"

..
somehow this post now would need a summing-up sentence, but i am not sure how to wrap this up. i didn't even intend to write a blog post on this theme, i thought i would give an overview of the museums today. then i saw the note in Rachel's blog, and it brought back those other moments of reflection: Korea and Germany. and this connection between the Vienna mayor and Hitler. which of course leads to the Holocaust, and to Israel, and the Gaza zone.

...
note, a day later:
it seems to be a time of political blog post in poet/author blogs. here's another one, also from a blueprintreview contributor: Nicole Wong on the 4th of June - the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protest + massacre: June 4th 2010.

sun for goodbye

i'm back home.
had sun for goodbye - and some amazing museum moments.

more about that, tomorrow, after i unpacked the bags.
:)

Bratislava / Slovakia

today: a daytrip to another country (Slovakia)
today: arriving without a clue or map
today: finding sunshine, graffiti art, Danube views
today: having Sachertorte and ginger tea
today: figuring out the tram way home

coming + going & live blogging

yesterday was departure day for Karyn - and arrival day for Diana. in the middle of it, we had some hello-and-goodbye-tea for 3. such a good crossing point of journeys. we should have sketched a map.

today to come: Bratislava. which means, leaving Vienna for today, crossing an open border, and seeing the capital of Slovakia, and returning in the evening. then tomorrow, one more day in Vienna for me, and then i will be the one to have to say goodbye.

you can follow the day on Diana's live blog: around the world in 365 days.

ways to take

today: trying the Strassenbahn -- getting lost and found -- having delicious dinner downstairs at the Gaumenspiel..

..and playing with the idea of taking the train to Bratislava (capital city of Slovakia). and finding it's 1 hour on the train. and 14 Euro return ticket. so tomorrow: Slovakia.

museums quartier

2 more moments from yesterday, from the museums quartier - a hotspot of museums, art, galleries in the middle of Vienna. in the second photo, there is a reflection of Karyn and me, (right lower corner), taking pictures through a mirror.

in the process

in transit
on a table
razzed cats, peach roses
a paper house
______next to
momuk media messages
warhol notes
haring leaflets
______all in the process of
turning into
collaborate /post / cards

vienna 4

4 places, 4 moments from today's tour through Vienna.


Changing Channels (art + tv 1963-1987, exhibition in the MoMuK museum)


Vienna Hofburg(Emperors Residence), view from the national libary


butterfly house /or: wild life meets art deco (Emperors gardens)


living room (west wing of our Vienna apartment)

that's where we are now, having some tea.