20181103: Graz | Priesterseminar

No functional electrical outlets meant no wifi in my room and the need to hunt down a power source to recharge my techno-trash: laptop, phone, computer. I camped out in the floor Clubraum from 9 am until noon.

From the size of Priesterseminar, the impressive repetition of windows and doors, the density of rooms per floor, I expected that several dozen people were inhabiting each floor and shared the kitchen. The first person I met was Daniel, an electrical engineering student. I introduced myself to him. We chatted a few moments; he went about making his breakfast and left. A little while later Emilia entered; a physics student, first year. I introduced myself and she ate and chatted with me and then left. In the afternoon a Zihua entered with the gaze of a person either lost or exploring his surroundings, I introduced myself. He was also an artist in residence, based in Canada. He left to further explore. An hour later Abraham entered; I introduced myself. He was eager for conversation and we chatted at length before he went about preparing his food, at which point I wondered how much of this introductory exchange was motivated by myself and whether the students would take the initiative to introduce themselves if I did not make a motion. So for the next three hours I worked at the table and simply said 'Hallo' when people entered, if they said 'hallo' to me, but none, not one, made took the initiative to introduce him or herself. I was curious of how the inhabitants of this shared space behaved by default. Not only did the students not converse much with me, but the commingling between those who were in the kitchen at the same time was very limited. It's hard to determine how much of this seemingly reserved disposition is due to the individuals who live here, the nature of Priesterseminar–it being architecturally and scholastically emphasized solitude–being culturally stereotypical, or a function of kids nowadays preferring to eat their food in front of youtube rather than hangout in a shared kitchen together. But in the end, very few–less than a dozen–students came into the clubraum, which confused me. Where was everyone else?

Abraham offered to give a tour of Priesterseminar. He showed me the laundry room, translated the operating instructions, and etiquette which directed the separation of the students who lived in one part of the building and the seminary students who lived in the other, and what parts of the drying room were reserved for which students, a large area was reserved exclusively for seminary students’ bedsheets. He showed me the fitnessstudio, which was a disappointment for me, since I had arrived to Graz with the knowledge that Arnold Schwarzenegger had grown up in the area. Most of equipment appeared to be from the 1990s, or even 1980s, and much of it was in pretty bad shaped. The room disorganized, with several machines inaccessible and/or obstructing the use of other equipment. I had no idea how to operate several of the machines nor what benefit was to be extracted from using them. The bright side was that it was free of charge and seldom used.

The bike storage was profoundly well organized. Each bike has a given parking spot, marked with a number, and vertically maintained with a wheel brace. Notably, the bikes were quite dated and also appeared in bad shape, but I've since learned most are functionally sufficient.

The last stop of the tour was the Gemeinschaftraum, or socializing/party-room. As Abraham explained it, it's where people can come or reserve a time to let loose. At first glance it looked like the basement den of a fraternity house: aged leather couches slumping from use; multiple coffee tables aligned for the purpose of stowing beer between swigs but almost impossible to circumambulate; a foosball table; dart board; a bar separated a drink-staging/kitchenette area, though not intended to seat guests; a refrigerator stocked with beer; a piggy bank to receive the suggested donation of €1/beer; and a room with a television, another couch, shopping cart believed to be used for beer runs, and a tree stump that looked as if some hand-sawing competition had been performed on it.

I'm a horrible foosball player, but my suggestion to play was to terminate the idling conversation with Abraham, and we began a longer debate about free will, politics, and the culture of Austrians. Abraham works as a math researcher; he's from Mexico and speaks perfect English with a German accent. He has an interesting perspective not only because being from Mexico at a time when Trump and US relations are particularly bad, but also because he shares a distrust for the media and American society. Specifically, he mentioned that he had the opportunity to study in the US but made the decision to come to Europe because he didn't want to be part of “that kind of society." Specifically he disliked the absence of a social safety net, the excessive environmental degradation and vapid consumerism.

Abraham's selection of topics personally resonated with me because they were so closely echoing things I had heard and thought about when I lived in Spain 15 years ago. Under the Bush administration, European criticism of the US was at an all time high, particularly a critique of unilateral war in Iraq. But the conversation with Abraham was different than the discussions I had with Catalans over a decade ago, in part because I now felt compelled to dispel some of the myths that people have about the United States. For example, his claim that there is no social safety net in the U.S. is simply not true: I was happy to concede that many European countries may have more, and that the benefits in the U.S. vary by state, but there are programs, which included subsidized housing and free healthcare for low income and elderly people. Not only did Abraham have misinformation about American unemployment benefits, but he had misinformation about European or Austrian unemployment benefits. He believed the benefits for the unemployed were perpetual, limitless. In fact, in NYS, a person is entitled to 26 weeks of unemployment benefits; in Austria 20 weeks.[1][2] I assume there are more nuances and limitations between each system, and I'm not certain that NYS offers better benefits overall (I'd be surprised if that's the case), but the fact there is such a prevalent misconception is curious. It may be that benefits are less stigmatized, or more easily accessible in many European countries than in many American states. But what's most interesting to me is that the European perception is still focused toward America, and not preoccupied with China, Russia, Brazil, Australia or even Canada.

Abraham stated that between Hillary and Trump he would have chosen Trump because he thought that Trump would cause the system to collapse more quickly. I wondered if he meant this as pure provocation, or if he simply does not understand the level of irresponsibility in his preference. I responded to his comment with a long-winded, historical romp from the fall of the Hapsburg empire, American imperialism, the White Man's burden, the shift in post-colonial studies to the One Belt initiative in China. I probably should have asked whether he was comfortable with people dying in order to collapse the system that he despises.

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[1] "Amount and Duration of Benefits," NOLO
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/collecting-unemployment-benefits-new-york-32507-2.html
[2] "Unemployment Benefits in Austria," A-Kasser
https://www.a-kasser.dk/unemployment-insurance-in-europe/austria/

20181110 Schloßberg to Freiheitsplatz

Abraham invited me to scale the Schloßberg. The day was clear, the air was crisp but not yet cold. The topic of our discussions always slips into the gutter of geopolitics and economics, two themes we are both unqualified to discuss. He's a smart guy but I was curious to know where he got his information and what formed his perspective. As if in response and affront to our last conversation about the influence of media outlets on social perception, and alternative ways to learn about current events, he told me that he has no choice but to get his information from news media; he has no time to become an expert on the topics. That was his phrasing. He wouldn’t disclose the exact media names, which I noted in absentia. Still, he feels strongly about his perspective on geopolitics. It was a time when we all were expected to have a perspective.

Abraham recounted an anecdote about one of his colleagues gloating about being possibly hired by an American startup. Ultimately nothing ever formalized for her, but I got the impression that there is implicit prestige or explicit high-earnings in Silicon Valley were something that was both attractive to and disdained by him. As a mathematician, statistician and tri-lingual Mexican, Abraham could be a competitive candidate for many Silicon Valley startups. I suggested that he looked into jobs in the U.S. He retorted with the textbook answer of young men: “I never really think about making money. That’s not what interests me.”

I didn’t flinch at the answer because I’ve said the same thing, and still believed the same thing. I still gravitate toward the belief. But isn’t having a moonlight career the inherent excuse for not caring about money? But he isn’t moonlighting as a mathematician, he works as a mathematician. I mean, if you don’t have a passion that you’re pursuing while you gig and you’re just working, isn’t money exactly what you’re interested in, given the tasks being the same? Having walked away from my job, I demonstrated my belief. But I can’t lie to myself and say that money is not a high-priority in my life, not only in the lifestyle to which I’ve grown accustomed but the fact that, once I’d acquired some money, my perspective has shifted on many topics. (The latter is as predictable as Abraham’s and my answer.) But returning to the answer I wondered if he, or I, really could “not think about money.” As if, not having it excused him or I from the world around us.

Equally, I wondered, as Abraham had admitted, how much a luxury it was to not have to prioritize money. I contemplated this not only on an individual level–since both he and I are part of a small part of the world’s population that has completed post-secondary education–but also on a national level. The existence of some infrastructure–social, medical, environmental, criminal–allows us to not to seek out life-saving financial support. And if the capricious variable of where you are born offers this luxury, are there constituents to the geopolitical world that are requisite for this condition? More succinctly: What is wealth?

A siren sounds at 12 noon every Saturday, which dates back to the war days, as a test of the emergency communication program. The rooftop horn was at eye level as we descended the Schlossberg. The tone reminded me of the fire siren that sounded in Goldendale summers as a child. One long scream meant a fire in town; two long screams meant a fire out of town, and the volunteer firefighters would report for duty. I would always look out the sliding glassdoor to the porch, cast yellow by the corrugated plastic roof, to the backyard grass brown by summer sun, to the hedges and Rhet’s backyard, through the fence to the horizon for a distant signal. Sometimes I saw smoke.

The European Balcony project was scheduled at 16h at Freiheitsplatz in Graz. It is an international project intending to make European countries more united, the Freiheitsplatz was chosen in Graz due to its historical significance. Allegedly, a politician made the announcement from the balcony of the Schauspiele that the country of Austria was born, 100 years before, on November the 12, 1918. [1]

At the event I saw a few familiar faces: Marleen and Michael from Studio Asynchrome, Heidrun from Forum Stadtpark, and Stefan Schmitzer from Kork cafe. About forty people congregated and read from a page-length statement in German. For posterity, I filmed a few people who didn’t seem self-conscious of being recorded. After the short reading, Stefan generously explained the project and calculated its value and relevance in the larger European political context. The ensuing exchange, or rather expression of Stefan’s anxieties, about the future of Austria, the political right was entertaining. Some of his accusations were expected: the right-wing’s ignorant, anti-immigrant perspective; their cutting of social welfare programs; ethno-nationalist fervor. But his anxiety for his daughter’s future equality was unexpected and he explained it to me as part of the political right’s journey back to a traditional social arrangement with women pregnant in the kitchen, barefoot.

[1] "Zur Erinnerung an die Proklamation der Republik vor 100 Jahren," Tag Des Denkmal

https://tagdesdenkmals.at/de/objekte-2018/steiermark/graz-schauspielhaus-balkon-zum-freiheitsplatz/

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.