20181111: Puntigamer | Dom im Berg

I went out to explore the city. Exploring an area that is already inhabited is essentially getting lost and locating oneself. Seeing things that many people have seen before, but vibrate with novelty to your eyes.

The southeast side of the city of Graz becomes Euro-suburban very fast: houses, some farm plots, automotive-dependent with islands of megastructures, inconsistent sidewalks, fences and driveways. It's quaint in size and aesthetic. It's tidy. It's sparsely populated by structures and I saw just enough people to not notice that it was abandoned.

I visited the Puch Museum, which is essentially a large garage of the myriad of the Puch products–mopeds, trucks, cars, bicycles–jammed into the center of the space, with little narrative consideration of how visitors actually see the works. This was a collector's museum, not a curator's museum. When Hitler annexed Austria, industry such as Puch was his primary target. That may explain the absence of the pedagogic narrative in this garage. Just imagine the third wall sign: "And here is when we made Nazi trucks." Not exactly a heart warmer. I was the only visitor, so maybe I was over-thinking the institution's rationale to obscure their past. The sole attendant occupied himself by spray painting something at the far north end of the garage. The fumes made their way to the middle of the garage around the time I decided to leave.

I stopped by Schaumbad to look at Eva's studio as a possible site for interviewing Steve Weiss or Martin Regelsberger and Romana Ull. The studio was filled with epochs of art projects, research, production and life. It was hard to believe that Eva had been there less than a decade. A large light fixture with the word "over" sat perfectly in the corner. From what I'd gathered about the protest against the Murkraftwerk, "over" continued to bitterly loom over Romana and Martin. The space would do.

I made haste to another art event. The event in the Schlossberg was described to me as an artist who was going to bring together a descendant of the Archduke Ferdinand and the descendant of the Archduke's assassin, Gavrilo Princip, for a handshake. The location was a room in the Dom im Berg, a space that was hollowed out of the hill; it had to served as a bomb shelter during World War II. It was too fitting, too perfect to not attend.

The event began with a trio playing Serbian music followed by other musicians playing a royal Habsburg melody.The stage was set with the Austrian musicians stage left and the Serbian musicians stage right. In the center were two black leather, Scandi-chic couches. Igor F. Petković, the artist, sat in the center. After the music conclude he gave a long, contextualizing speech, of which I could only understand him mentioning the two songs, and made several references to "Kultur." It felt almost like he was giving a benediction for the music. He then invited two interlocutors on stage to discuss Kultur, immigration and how Central Europe is a mixing pot of cultures. By the time the third person had answered a question, it began to feel like a talk show. There was so much talking and lecturing that I wondered how this would be different as an "art event" in the U.S., or even if this was billed as an art event. Was this the performance? What introduction did such a symbolically-loaded gesture need? Austrian art events, I would learn, are usually predicated with a long, verbal introductions.

Part of the event included the ceremonial recognition of winners of the Alfred Fried Photography Award 2018, which had a theme of "What does peace look like?" The presenter, Lois Lammherhuber expounded on the topic of photography and peace at length, before a ceremonial lecturer, spot lit, reading from a clear acrylic podium, announced the winner with pomp. The ceremony went on and on and I was running out of abstract footage to film; I had thought the event may be visually interesting so I had brought my camera, but nothing visually interesting was happening on stage. I was shooting the ceiling lights, the wall, hands of people. Ultimately, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to leave before seeing what I thought would be money shot–the descendants shaking hands.

More interesting than the symbolic act was the intentional production of history-making, as opposed to placemaking, or (thing)making, which may be indicative of the kulturzeitgeist. There is so much talk about "Europe" here, which I'd taken as a juxtaposition or affront to what is "Austrian," given the Chancellor Kurz's politicking. Compounded with Brexit, Hungary, Poland, the perpetual and near concern of Russia, Crimea, and the Ukraine, striving for a critical distance, a point from which this whole mess–in its wholeness and messiness–can be seen, was comforting. As the liberal left–artists–contend against the populist (mostly non-creatives)–the importance of holding onto the production of history increases. The creation or recreation of historical events, the mode of producing history–texts, online archives, photos, video and social media can be a strategy to not only moralize about a historical past, but situate a historical present and predict a historic future. History is written by hands trembling to be shaken by the infirm memory of an Alzheimer future.

20121203: Graz | Berlin

I met with Eva and Iris at Schaumbad to discuss the logistics of my art brunch. Iris had suggested I invited Steven Weiss to talk about the Murkraftwerk while I had suggested Günter Gruber and Romana Ull. After a lot of back and forth, proposing variations and possibilities, we settled with Iris’ suggestion. Tangentially I tried to improvise some of the conclusions I had reached about the ZSK, the first being the power play between city hall and the protesters. Rather than it being a voluntary situation, I proposed that it may have been a function of the West’s declining power in the world and that the right-wing austerity measures were a larger example of the situation with the power plant: a desperate grapple at a projected value in a near-future in which things are getting more expensive. Eva replied that Austria was one of the richest countries in the world.

After the conference Franz drove me to Flughafen Graz and I tried to ask him basic questions in German on the ride. Franz has such great energy–so funny and positive–that even a person who doesn't speak the language feels ok making mistakes in front of him, or at him.

At the airport a guard there gave directions on separating luggage and checked tickets and passports. The metal scanners were guarded by two happy security guards, and the waiting room was spacious and clean. There were three people in the line for security. Flughafen Graz was what every airport should be, and I feared not even it can continue to be much longer. I expected it would devolve into what most airports are: a crowded perpetual crisis-situation that aspires to monetize traveler's fatigue rather than address the levels of anxiety that the air travel industry mandates.

I returned to thinking about what Eva mentioned about Austria being one of the wealthiest countries in the world. What did she mean? Why did she say it?

In response to my remark about the decline of America and the supposed decline of the European Union, her remark seemed to claim that "they could afford it," "it" being the social welfare that the right-leaning government was cutting.

But wealth is a funny thing. It's inaccurate because it doesn't mean the same thing to different people who are wealthy, and it doesn't mean that everyone is in a country is wealthy. There are different metrics for wealth; the metric to conclude that Austria is one of the wealthiest countries in the world is median net worth, which is the total country's wealth divided by the number of inhabitants. At 8 million people, that's not hard to imagine. In fact, most small European countries land toward the top of that metric. In terms of average income, the US nears the top, which may explain the smartphones. But it curious that most countries that are wealthy have a way of calculating their country is the wealthiest.

My point about economic decline referred to wealth as a function of power, in the context of political and economic bargaining. When the metric is total wealth, and the US sits discomfortable at the top, about double the wealth of China. Japan is third. Austria barely makes the top 20, but really maintains bargaining power as function of its membership to the European Union. My point of decline was also intended to relate to the known and explicit American withdrawal from foreign affairs that otherwise shield Europe; specifically militarily, and the subsequent swing of left-leaning countries to the right, in order to fill the void. German had already begun to rebuild its army over the prior two years. Merkel openly stated that Germany could no longer rely on American military protection. [1] Which other countries will follow suit? The militarization of Europe clearly a recall on America carrying the White Man's Burden, a costly role from which America has at other times retreated.

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[1] Germany's Merkel calls for a European Union military. Router's November 13, 2018.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-politics-merkel/germanys-merkel-calls-for-a-european-union-military-idUSKCN1NI1UQ

20181221-20190103: Europe | New York City

In the morning I was checked out of my room by Ingrid Klamminger of Priesterseminar and I wheeled my Petrol case of gear and my box of books and junk down to Operncafe, across the street from the Flixbus stop. I had an amazing coffee there with the largely retiree crowd of mid morning. They were gyrating caffeinated conversation.

Flixbus to Vienna International Airport, time kill and Vueling flight to Barcelona.

I spent the 21st to the 2nd in Cornellà with Vanesa’s family. The weather was unusually warm worldwide; even Prado Dorado had only rain. We had Buena Noche dinner with Esther’s mother and friend; Imet with Anabelen, Sara and Artur, and Teofil; we traveled to Zaragoza and met Teresa and Jorge; we went for walks around Cornellaà. The vocabulary word of the year: el cuñado.

I was filled with excitement to get back to NYC during the week in Spain. In part I was tired of the smattery relationship to place that one first finds exciting in travel; equally I was tired of having concluded the filming stage, but wa in limbo before I could properly edit the footage. I was also profoundly tired of superficial things: clothes, coats, shoes, food, mattress, desk, or shower. So for that week in Spain, on holiday (cuando esta cerrado cerrado, sobre todo esto), I was already restless.

My enthusiasm for NYC correlated quite accurately to my altitude: at 30,000 in a Dreamliner, LED rainbow ceilings, even after an 8 hour flight and little or no sleep, circadian midnight, I felt upbeat and positive; in the final descent into Newark I gawked at the high rises that I’ve seen so many times. Still, I felt eager to get back. At sea-level I was waiting through customs, elongated by the new computers to first enter the customs; collecting my physical belongings, waiting through a customs exit line, and compressing my three parcels of 20 kg, 20 kg, 10 kg into one murderously heavy rolling suitcase. In the Meadowlands, waiting for NJT, the train that finally arrived, I saw the dingy, aged sliding door between cars, dysfunctional and ajar. The smell of body odor and the dust that every passenger saw but the cleaning crew had somehow overlooked for a decade. In the subway connection at Penn Station, below sea-level, I found myself utterly depressed, hauling the suitcase up and down stairs, since the MTA and New York State continue to combat the American Disabilities Act and install functional elevators; at the connecting D train, which was exponentially later with each announcement, we finally gave up and took a cab. $28 for a 20 minute drive. Welcome back to New York City. Fuck You.