Wie es sich anfühlt unterwegs zu sein; der Geruch des Asphalts nach einem Regenguss; Staub, Tage ohne Wolken, der Horizont auf den man zufährt und der immer weiter ins Unendliche rückt, je näher man kommt. Das Verlangen seine Wurzeln aufzuspüren, um bei sich selbst anzugelangen.
Daniel Angermayrs Bilder hören nicht auf, weil sie nicht angefangen haben. Sie verraten die Umrisse einer suchenden Seele. Seine Fotografien erzählen vom Eindringen in die unbekannte Weite, die er aufspürt. Seine Kamera fängt diese Weite ein, die, je mehr er in sich selbst zu suchen scheint, offensichtlicher wird und die Farben und Konturen von Landschaften annimmt oder jene von ihm wichtiger und eng verbundener Menschen.
Was Angermayr vorantreibt ist die Faszination des Versteckten, des Unscheinbaren, des Unperfekten. Die Störung, die Unschärfe, der Kratzer. Der Beweis von Leben im Bild. Sie sind die stummen Zeugen eines Prozesses, der sich in seinen Bildern zeigt.
Text zur Ausstellung von Daniel Angermayr "Das starke Gefühl draussen zu sind oder der Garten in mir" (Galerie Thiele, Linz). Seine photografischen Arbeiten sowie zahlreichen Bühnengestaltungen in Zusammenarbeit unter anderem mit Künstler Christoph Schlingensief sind zu finden unter: http://www.danielangermayr.net
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
The Onion
Beißende Zwiebel
Der amerikanische Wahlkampf einmal von einer ganz anderen Seite gesehen.
Beim Lesen der Onion bleibt selten ein Auge trocken. Die Zeitung hat sich dem Problem der Dummheit gewidmet und führt jede Woche einen verbissenen Kampf gegen dieses heimtückische Phänomen. Das Motto der Onion: You are dumb.
Und das beginnt schon auf der Titelseite mit Meldungen wie "Southern Sheriff Pulls Over Obama Campaign Bus For Broken Taillight".
"Die Onion ist eine Parodie auf die moderne USA," erklärt Peter Koechley von der New Yorker Redaktion. Wenn nicht gerade Wahlfieber herrscht, widmet sich das Blatt der tückischen Dummheit im Alltag und der Politik. Die Onion sieht Parodie nicht als Mittel, um die Meinung von Leuten zu ändern, sondern zu den Lesern zu sprechen, die nicht an die Unfehlbarkeit der wirklichen Nachrichten glauben.
Der Zeitung sei es vor allem ein großes Anliegen, die gesichtslosen Medienmogule wie zum Beispiel die amerikanische Nachrichtenagentur Associated Press und deren überneutrale, trockene Berichterstattung zu verspotten, indem sie diese Eigenschaften in ihren eigenen Meldungen reflektiere, so Koechley.
Gegründet wurde die Zeitung vor 15 Jahren von zwei Studenten an der University of Wisconsin in Madion. Seitdem wird das Satireblatt jeden Donnerstag auf den Strassen, sowie zahlreichen Läden und Bars in New York, Chicago, San Francisco und Denver verteilt.
"Die Onion ist ein großes Projekt - mit sehr viel Humor. Bei jeder Geschichte gibt es immer zwei Seiten und wir wollen diese zeigen; wie lächerlich auch immer sie sein mag," meint Verleger Chris Cranmer. "In jedem Witz steckt ein Körnchen Wahrheit." http://www.theonion.com
Originalartikel erschienen in der Printausgabe Der Österreichische Journalist
(08+09 2005)
Der amerikanische Wahlkampf einmal von einer ganz anderen Seite gesehen.
Beim Lesen der Onion bleibt selten ein Auge trocken. Die Zeitung hat sich dem Problem der Dummheit gewidmet und führt jede Woche einen verbissenen Kampf gegen dieses heimtückische Phänomen. Das Motto der Onion: You are dumb.
Und das beginnt schon auf der Titelseite mit Meldungen wie "Southern Sheriff Pulls Over Obama Campaign Bus For Broken Taillight".
"Die Onion ist eine Parodie auf die moderne USA," erklärt Peter Koechley von der New Yorker Redaktion. Wenn nicht gerade Wahlfieber herrscht, widmet sich das Blatt der tückischen Dummheit im Alltag und der Politik. Die Onion sieht Parodie nicht als Mittel, um die Meinung von Leuten zu ändern, sondern zu den Lesern zu sprechen, die nicht an die Unfehlbarkeit der wirklichen Nachrichten glauben.
Der Zeitung sei es vor allem ein großes Anliegen, die gesichtslosen Medienmogule wie zum Beispiel die amerikanische Nachrichtenagentur Associated Press und deren überneutrale, trockene Berichterstattung zu verspotten, indem sie diese Eigenschaften in ihren eigenen Meldungen reflektiere, so Koechley.
Gegründet wurde die Zeitung vor 15 Jahren von zwei Studenten an der University of Wisconsin in Madion. Seitdem wird das Satireblatt jeden Donnerstag auf den Strassen, sowie zahlreichen Läden und Bars in New York, Chicago, San Francisco und Denver verteilt.
"Die Onion ist ein großes Projekt - mit sehr viel Humor. Bei jeder Geschichte gibt es immer zwei Seiten und wir wollen diese zeigen; wie lächerlich auch immer sie sein mag," meint Verleger Chris Cranmer. "In jedem Witz steckt ein Körnchen Wahrheit." http://www.theonion.com
Originalartikel erschienen in der Printausgabe Der Österreichische Journalist
(08+09 2005)
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Roberto Saviano
Hyperreality-Show
„Being famous is so nice“. Unlike star DJ Miss Kitten, the Italian author of Gomorrah, Roberto Saviano has already revised his opinion about his fame he only recently acclaimed. All the more after he learned of the Camorra’s intention to end his career and life sometime between now and Christmas. For those who have not read between the lines already – another reality show is just unfolding in front of our very eyes. Forget Big Brother or movies like Deathwatch. Saviano’s show is up-close-and-personal and set against the backdrop of hyperreality.
From the outstet Saviano seems to share a similar fate of the likes of Brangelina, Katie Holmes-Cruise & Co – namely the loss of his freedom to just „be“ in public. Only Saviano’s case is more dramatic as restrictions don’t even stop before his very own neck. He would probably pray for only paparazzi trying to get as close to his head as possible for the million pound shot. But no celebrity would swap with him, for sure!
In numerous interviews he has has been giving, especially after the film based on his book was introduced at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and released into mainstream cinemas,
he assures to regret having ever written this book.
„They know that sooner or later the media storm will pass. Then they’ll get me.... I did not want my entire life to be swallowed by that book. But what can you do? It was my choice,“ he was quoted saying in an extensive Vice magazine interview this summer. The New York Times called him the Italian Rushdie.
Der Standard newspaper in an article yesterday quoted Saviano saying, in a radio interview he had given at the beginning of this week, how the constant threat is getting to him in a mental way. And of his awareness that his life could end at any moment. „I am feeling isolated since I got no friends and no relationship anymore. My life is turning into a bigger nightmare every day.“
Ones compassion when reading these sentences is hit with bewilderment a few lines further on however, where it is reported that Saviano apparently is already working on another book about the Camorra and its business of disposing toxic waste.
Furthermore his announcement in La Repubblica yesterday to leave Italy for a while seems a strange public move for a man, who is desperately seeking a way to protect his life with the whole point being not to reveal his whereabouts. Following his interviews it appears like this man is literally begging for his life using the media as a mouthpiece talking to the ones planning to kill him in the near future. And yet, in the same sentence he is calling on more Italian writers to help improve this situation by stopping being so concerned about themselves in their work.
It appears that Saviano’s biggest fear, namely the system as described in his story, has already encircled him, making him feel like a fly in a trap. Or is all this public turmoil caused by Saviano just a weird, sick promotion campaign of his for his second book – just to play devil’s advocate for a moment.
In some way it might very well be a campaign, in an attempt to save his own life, when he is claiming that it was not him who started to frighten the mafia but the growing number of his readership. Not until his book sales hit the crucial 100,000 mark he started to get worried and asked for police protection. Meanwhile the mafia apparently got worried about popular literature harming their business and decided to get rid of him.
What makes one gasp for words after having sat through the film on the edge of the seat, is the chill and sobriety used to tell Camorra life as it is. As if his book had ended with the words to be continued, it is now Saviano directing himself through living the nightmare of trying to escape assassination.
One just does not go about publishing a book like this without the thought of starting an open and lonely war against brutal phantoms. Researching and writing a story like Gomorrha, Saviano must have thoroughly contemplated the one and only consequence this might have for him beforehand: death at the hands of the mafia. No one can really tell about Savione’s intentions nor the personal hell he is going through – just because he published a book.
Savione’s personal story makes one painfully aware about the many injustices that exist and probably will keep on existing. It affects one. Too much. He is a reminder that he is in actual fact a vulnerable human being. There will always be one (hopefully) brave enough to step up against evil. Watching an episode of the successfull 1980s Rai Uno TV production La Piovra, showing the fight of a policeman called Commissario Corrado Cattori against the mafia, always leaves the way out into (hyper)reality – exactly the one that Saviano is living in, thinking that it cannot be what might happen to him.
„Being famous is so nice“. Unlike star DJ Miss Kitten, the Italian author of Gomorrah, Roberto Saviano has already revised his opinion about his fame he only recently acclaimed. All the more after he learned of the Camorra’s intention to end his career and life sometime between now and Christmas. For those who have not read between the lines already – another reality show is just unfolding in front of our very eyes. Forget Big Brother or movies like Deathwatch. Saviano’s show is up-close-and-personal and set against the backdrop of hyperreality.
From the outstet Saviano seems to share a similar fate of the likes of Brangelina, Katie Holmes-Cruise & Co – namely the loss of his freedom to just „be“ in public. Only Saviano’s case is more dramatic as restrictions don’t even stop before his very own neck. He would probably pray for only paparazzi trying to get as close to his head as possible for the million pound shot. But no celebrity would swap with him, for sure!
In numerous interviews he has has been giving, especially after the film based on his book was introduced at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and released into mainstream cinemas,
he assures to regret having ever written this book.
„They know that sooner or later the media storm will pass. Then they’ll get me.... I did not want my entire life to be swallowed by that book. But what can you do? It was my choice,“ he was quoted saying in an extensive Vice magazine interview this summer. The New York Times called him the Italian Rushdie.
Der Standard newspaper in an article yesterday quoted Saviano saying, in a radio interview he had given at the beginning of this week, how the constant threat is getting to him in a mental way. And of his awareness that his life could end at any moment. „I am feeling isolated since I got no friends and no relationship anymore. My life is turning into a bigger nightmare every day.“
Ones compassion when reading these sentences is hit with bewilderment a few lines further on however, where it is reported that Saviano apparently is already working on another book about the Camorra and its business of disposing toxic waste.
Furthermore his announcement in La Repubblica yesterday to leave Italy for a while seems a strange public move for a man, who is desperately seeking a way to protect his life with the whole point being not to reveal his whereabouts. Following his interviews it appears like this man is literally begging for his life using the media as a mouthpiece talking to the ones planning to kill him in the near future. And yet, in the same sentence he is calling on more Italian writers to help improve this situation by stopping being so concerned about themselves in their work.
It appears that Saviano’s biggest fear, namely the system as described in his story, has already encircled him, making him feel like a fly in a trap. Or is all this public turmoil caused by Saviano just a weird, sick promotion campaign of his for his second book – just to play devil’s advocate for a moment.
In some way it might very well be a campaign, in an attempt to save his own life, when he is claiming that it was not him who started to frighten the mafia but the growing number of his readership. Not until his book sales hit the crucial 100,000 mark he started to get worried and asked for police protection. Meanwhile the mafia apparently got worried about popular literature harming their business and decided to get rid of him.
What makes one gasp for words after having sat through the film on the edge of the seat, is the chill and sobriety used to tell Camorra life as it is. As if his book had ended with the words to be continued, it is now Saviano directing himself through living the nightmare of trying to escape assassination.
One just does not go about publishing a book like this without the thought of starting an open and lonely war against brutal phantoms. Researching and writing a story like Gomorrha, Saviano must have thoroughly contemplated the one and only consequence this might have for him beforehand: death at the hands of the mafia. No one can really tell about Savione’s intentions nor the personal hell he is going through – just because he published a book.
Savione’s personal story makes one painfully aware about the many injustices that exist and probably will keep on existing. It affects one. Too much. He is a reminder that he is in actual fact a vulnerable human being. There will always be one (hopefully) brave enough to step up against evil. Watching an episode of the successfull 1980s Rai Uno TV production La Piovra, showing the fight of a policeman called Commissario Corrado Cattori against the mafia, always leaves the way out into (hyper)reality – exactly the one that Saviano is living in, thinking that it cannot be what might happen to him.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Circuit art magazine
"Masochist Lullaby" (a poem)
I have stopped counting sheep
when the last one
was driven over
as it jumped across
a four-lane street
to come and help me sleep
Efficient infrastructure
effectively killed all my sheep
No stop sign No red light
cars and busses cars more cars
get diverted through my auditory canal
cars and busses cars cars more cars
fast and hollow they thunder
in my ears from left to right
No stop sign No red light
through my auditory canal
I wish they would run out of petrol
have no more oilfields to refill
no cars no busses no cars no cars no cars
I finally lay down to sleep
and dream of counting sheep
© Sandra Pfeifer
Circuit, Issue 11, June 2006
The poem was published together with another poem of mine, "The Ghost of John Fante", in the art magazine that changes its title with every edition, each paying tribute to the many splendid fonts invented to imbed mankind's genial brain-offspring. After expressing their content in Chicago, Plotter, Helvetica, Univers, Tiffany, Circuit ... you can get the latest issue in Vienna (Secession), Berlin (Pro qm), Lausanne (Circuit), Munich (Ben Kaufmann) or by writing to the editorial - a team of promising up and coming artists such as Christian Mayer, Christian Egger, Yves Mettler, Manuel Gorkiewiez, Magda Tothova....: zeitschrift@gmx.net
I have stopped counting sheep
when the last one
was driven over
as it jumped across
a four-lane street
to come and help me sleep
Efficient infrastructure
effectively killed all my sheep
No stop sign No red light
cars and busses cars more cars
get diverted through my auditory canal
cars and busses cars cars more cars
fast and hollow they thunder
in my ears from left to right
No stop sign No red light
through my auditory canal
I wish they would run out of petrol
have no more oilfields to refill
no cars no busses no cars no cars no cars
I finally lay down to sleep
and dream of counting sheep
© Sandra Pfeifer
Circuit, Issue 11, June 2006
The poem was published together with another poem of mine, "The Ghost of John Fante", in the art magazine that changes its title with every edition, each paying tribute to the many splendid fonts invented to imbed mankind's genial brain-offspring. After expressing their content in Chicago, Plotter, Helvetica, Univers, Tiffany, Circuit ... you can get the latest issue in Vienna (Secession), Berlin (Pro qm), Lausanne (Circuit), Munich (Ben Kaufmann) or by writing to the editorial - a team of promising up and coming artists such as Christian Mayer, Christian Egger, Yves Mettler, Manuel Gorkiewiez, Magda Tothova....: zeitschrift@gmx.net
Monday, October 13, 2008
Chanel
Die Legende vom Le double C
Besonders in der Modewelt ist Chanel's double C synonym für Luxus. Seit seinem erstmaligen Erscheinen auf dem Verschluss des Flacons von Chanel No. 5 hat sich dieses Symbol als unverkennbarer Repräsentant des Stils des Modehauses in seiner charakteristischen Form bewährt.
"Ich mag es nicht, wenn man von Chanel-Mode spricht. Chanel ist ein Stil. Mode kommt aus der Mode aber Stil niemals," hat die Patronin des Hauses, Coco Chanel, einmal so treffend formuliert. Das Geheimnis eines der erfolgreichsten Logos aller Zeiten verbirgt sich in der vielschichtigen Persönlichkeit von Chanel, der Erfinderin und Vorreiterin des Stils schlechtin.
Anfänglich verdiente sich die geborene Gabrielle Chanel als Statistin im Tingeltangel einer Kleinstadt namens Moulin ihren Lebensunterhalt. Eigentlich wollte sie Opernsängerin werden. Chanels Repertoire umfasste jedoch nicht mehr als zwei lieder, eines davon das Titellied der Revue "Ko-Ko-Ri-Ko", wovon sich auch ihr zweiter, legendärer Vorname ableitet.
Nur kurze Zeit später machte keine andere Frau als Madmoiselle Chanel persönlich die Hose für Frauen gesellschaftsfähig. Chanels einzigartiger Stil formte sich durch das Ausleben ihres rebellischen Geistes und Drang nach modischem Individualismus.
Ob Chanel selbst die Meisterin oder zumindest Mitbegründerin dieser erfolgreichen grafischen Kreation ist, wird vom Haus Chanel weder bestätigt noch dementiert. Es muss ein Geheimnis bleiben, nur so überlebt dessen Mythos, fortgeführt von Persönlichkeiten wie Lagerfeld, die nicht nur verstehen, ihn zu interpretieren sondern ihn selbst geschickt verkörpern: das ungreifbare, doch erstrebenswerte "etwas" - den Luxus.
Have a read at the full German and/or English version of my story on the secret of Madame Coco's successful logo:
http://www.pool-mag.net/content1.html?id=562&iid=24
Besonders in der Modewelt ist Chanel's double C synonym für Luxus. Seit seinem erstmaligen Erscheinen auf dem Verschluss des Flacons von Chanel No. 5 hat sich dieses Symbol als unverkennbarer Repräsentant des Stils des Modehauses in seiner charakteristischen Form bewährt.
"Ich mag es nicht, wenn man von Chanel-Mode spricht. Chanel ist ein Stil. Mode kommt aus der Mode aber Stil niemals," hat die Patronin des Hauses, Coco Chanel, einmal so treffend formuliert. Das Geheimnis eines der erfolgreichsten Logos aller Zeiten verbirgt sich in der vielschichtigen Persönlichkeit von Chanel, der Erfinderin und Vorreiterin des Stils schlechtin.
Anfänglich verdiente sich die geborene Gabrielle Chanel als Statistin im Tingeltangel einer Kleinstadt namens Moulin ihren Lebensunterhalt. Eigentlich wollte sie Opernsängerin werden. Chanels Repertoire umfasste jedoch nicht mehr als zwei lieder, eines davon das Titellied der Revue "Ko-Ko-Ri-Ko", wovon sich auch ihr zweiter, legendärer Vorname ableitet.
Nur kurze Zeit später machte keine andere Frau als Madmoiselle Chanel persönlich die Hose für Frauen gesellschaftsfähig. Chanels einzigartiger Stil formte sich durch das Ausleben ihres rebellischen Geistes und Drang nach modischem Individualismus.
Ob Chanel selbst die Meisterin oder zumindest Mitbegründerin dieser erfolgreichen grafischen Kreation ist, wird vom Haus Chanel weder bestätigt noch dementiert. Es muss ein Geheimnis bleiben, nur so überlebt dessen Mythos, fortgeführt von Persönlichkeiten wie Lagerfeld, die nicht nur verstehen, ihn zu interpretieren sondern ihn selbst geschickt verkörpern: das ungreifbare, doch erstrebenswerte "etwas" - den Luxus.
Have a read at the full German and/or English version of my story on the secret of Madame Coco's successful logo:
http://www.pool-mag.net/content1.html?id=562&iid=24
Will Alsop
Will Alsop is one of the most renowned players in the contemporary world of architecture. With outstanding projects such as the Hotel Du Department Des Bouches-Du-Rhone he has gained international repute. Also his dedication to welfare projects shows that architecture is not only a vocation for him but a service to mankind.
Sandra Pfeifer (SP): Will Alsop, is it true that the first building you designed was a house for your mother in New Zealand?
Will Alsop (WA): That's true. I was about six or seven years old when I did these drawings. I found them in one of my mother's drawers after she died. I would say it was, what in the mid 50s they would have called „ultramodern“...It had a pitch roof, big what we would call picture windows, a terrace with a very 1950s style ballustrade around, double garage, of course. I wouldn’t say it was my best architectural work.
The reason why I wanted it to be be built in New Zealand ... I suppose it was the geographical location which was quite interesting - I have never been to New Zealand. I have only been to New Zealand two years ago for the first time. Obviously New Zealand must have captured my imagination at that time – or I just wanted to put my mother a long way away from me (laughs).
SP: Do you think about your buildings/projects often after you completed them? Are there some you come back to for a visit?
WA: I do. Not all of them. The buildings you are most proud of they are like your children in a way.
And you never forget of your children. And sometimes I do go back, walk around or climb past, depends where they are, just to see how things are and if people look happy in them. And they do.
SP: Can you imagine your buildings still around in 300 years?
WA: I don’t think any of my buildings will last three hundred years. In today’s society people don’t want to spend the money to make something last that long. Society is more transcient, it doesn’t expect it to be there forever.
The only possibility is if some heritage organisation decides it’s a really important piece of architecure and that way they decided to protect it. Then of course they have to spend the money to keep it there.
SP: What responsibility you think you have as an architect?
WA: What is your responsibility you carry as an architect?
That’s easy. I suppose my mission statement is to make life better. Which is also my responisbility if I can. To make life better for other people and for me of course.
SP: As an architect what does future mean to you?
WA: Future is always about change. And I think change is a sort of double-emotion. It is necessary to keep everyone alive but people at the same time are scared of change. They like to know.
What I noticed is when you show them someting new, that is different, they like that too.
When I think about future I think about two things: an ever evolving world, at the same time I dreamt that there are more people who would be happy to sit in a comfortable chair outside, smoking a cigarette, thinking about nothing at all.
SP: How important is self-humor for you?
WA: It is incredibly important. You have to see the deficiencies of what you are doing and the best way is to laugh at it.
If you take yourself over-seriously then you are not a good architect.
Check out my full interview with British architect Will Alsop in full English and German version for pool magazine n_23 / summer:
http://www.pool-mag.net/content1.html?id=538&iid=23
Sandra Pfeifer (SP): Will Alsop, is it true that the first building you designed was a house for your mother in New Zealand?
Will Alsop (WA): That's true. I was about six or seven years old when I did these drawings. I found them in one of my mother's drawers after she died. I would say it was, what in the mid 50s they would have called „ultramodern“...It had a pitch roof, big what we would call picture windows, a terrace with a very 1950s style ballustrade around, double garage, of course. I wouldn’t say it was my best architectural work.
The reason why I wanted it to be be built in New Zealand ... I suppose it was the geographical location which was quite interesting - I have never been to New Zealand. I have only been to New Zealand two years ago for the first time. Obviously New Zealand must have captured my imagination at that time – or I just wanted to put my mother a long way away from me (laughs).
SP: Do you think about your buildings/projects often after you completed them? Are there some you come back to for a visit?
WA: I do. Not all of them. The buildings you are most proud of they are like your children in a way.
And you never forget of your children. And sometimes I do go back, walk around or climb past, depends where they are, just to see how things are and if people look happy in them. And they do.
SP: Can you imagine your buildings still around in 300 years?
WA: I don’t think any of my buildings will last three hundred years. In today’s society people don’t want to spend the money to make something last that long. Society is more transcient, it doesn’t expect it to be there forever.
The only possibility is if some heritage organisation decides it’s a really important piece of architecure and that way they decided to protect it. Then of course they have to spend the money to keep it there.
SP: What responsibility you think you have as an architect?
WA: What is your responsibility you carry as an architect?
That’s easy. I suppose my mission statement is to make life better. Which is also my responisbility if I can. To make life better for other people and for me of course.
SP: As an architect what does future mean to you?
WA: Future is always about change. And I think change is a sort of double-emotion. It is necessary to keep everyone alive but people at the same time are scared of change. They like to know.
What I noticed is when you show them someting new, that is different, they like that too.
When I think about future I think about two things: an ever evolving world, at the same time I dreamt that there are more people who would be happy to sit in a comfortable chair outside, smoking a cigarette, thinking about nothing at all.
SP: How important is self-humor for you?
WA: It is incredibly important. You have to see the deficiencies of what you are doing and the best way is to laugh at it.
If you take yourself over-seriously then you are not a good architect.
Check out my full interview with British architect Will Alsop in full English and German version for pool magazine n_23 / summer:
http://www.pool-mag.net/content1.html?id=538&iid=23
Vice magazine
Soweto, South Africa
"The guy resting on the bench outside his tin shack is pretending not to take notice of me. I am staring from the other side of the street at the sign in front of him. "SLUM TOUR - call 0837-197-494" I read in big letters painted in blue on a makeshift billboard.
For a while I was left wondering why somebody would expose poor people to the inquisitive gaze of foreigners*.
On my third visit to Johannesburg I decided to take my chance, curious to see whether you really get shown around people's homes with a guide saying something like "and this is how poor people live." Looking at my camera in my lap, I am not sure how to feel about exploring Soweto, ones of the biggest townships, in this particular way...
Check out my story* on my tour through Soweto, South Africa, in the latest print edition of Vice magazine (Austria) Volume2 Number9/September 2008
*the Simpson bit was an editorial decission
"The guy resting on the bench outside his tin shack is pretending not to take notice of me. I am staring from the other side of the street at the sign in front of him. "SLUM TOUR - call 0837-197-494" I read in big letters painted in blue on a makeshift billboard.
For a while I was left wondering why somebody would expose poor people to the inquisitive gaze of foreigners*.
On my third visit to Johannesburg I decided to take my chance, curious to see whether you really get shown around people's homes with a guide saying something like "and this is how poor people live." Looking at my camera in my lap, I am not sure how to feel about exploring Soweto, ones of the biggest townships, in this particular way...
Check out my story* on my tour through Soweto, South Africa, in the latest print edition of Vice magazine (Austria) Volume2 Number9/September 2008
*the Simpson bit was an editorial decission
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Jörg Haider
Death of a politician
"The governor of Carinthia, Jörg Haider is dead"
This somewhat bizarre headline has definitely secured it's place in Austrian news history.
Besides the tragedy at a human level, knowing that politicians don't carry a license protecting them from demise it leaves you desperately trying to pin-point the weirdness of this news. And the strange sensation garrison these words.
One explanation might be that this happened just two weeks after the elections - in the midst of the coalition talks with concerns ranking high of Haider and his right-wing department landing yet another coalition-coup as seen in 2000. Both of the countries right-wing parties together, Haider’s former FPÖ and his newly formed BZÖ, have managed to generate voters favours accounting for 27 per cent of the total voting outcome. Just one percent less than the Social Democrat Party with a winning majority of 29 per cent. If this does not spill the beans on a country’s „mental“ state.
What Haider has managed once more is leaving the country in conflict. This time round on whether to feel mourning, relief or indifference. A dichotomy that seems to have hit on the media the most for its obligation to deal with the moral question of the his obituary in this particular case. No doubt he might have been an earnest, hard working man had only his motif and cause would have proved of human integrity.
What are the ethical implications to call a dead man a good man knowing of his strictly selected love and respect towards his own kind of which he made no secret of.
It is almost painful to follow the media coverage; how the ORF (Austrian Broadcasting) is dutifully broadcasting special reports, permitting their national branch covering Haider's hometurff province Carinthia changing it's entire programme for the day; liberal paper Der Standard (web edition) apologising for the missing blog-spot complementing the article since due to a mass of impiously responses to this news they saw themselves forced not to; editor's hairsplitting discussions over the term neo-fascism with regards to his policies; reports about mourners in Carinthia putting on candles for a man who was one of them; columnists airing their disgust over the legend he has already been made overnight; voices from the press across the globe.
Austrian news agency APA putting together a medley of the most outrageous quotes he delivered in his career that have given Austria a face to its name. A name that still has precisely this right-wing connotation clung to its sound.
What exactly is the catch-22 for the media: Duty before ethics? Or ethics before death?
How to pay tribute to a man who perhaps did not deserve one without saying it out loud.
What has been elegantly left out is Haider's one and only positive function he occupied – although subconsciously – in his position. He epitomized the opportunity for debate and reflection on the true identity of this country and its intended future image. He posed a challenge for the country to grapple with its own history and trauma that is being passed on from generation to generation since the end of WWII. But this never happened. Looking at the country’s post-election situation at this very moment where politicians are swamped with forming a hopefully righteous government - one finds it hard to believe that they are able to grapple with the current political challenges to start with.
A similar inertness hovers in the air; that same old game of complacency rather than rolling up the sleeves and rethink the voting system – for example.
Living in this country feels quite insular in fact. All the more when a paper like the center-right Die Presse prints headlines such as „The cliche has returned: Austria as Nazi-country“. Would the word cliche not strike the perfect chord to finally demand for clarification; for mature discussions without being ashamed or having the finger pointed at - in order to enable this country to get over its „victim“ trauma and a chance for a new beginning. Finally.
The current discourse reduced to the literature section in a couple of national daily quality papers is not enough: so far it's only authors desperately solving their conflict of loving their grandfather, the Nazi.
If politicians – elected by a nation in the hope of bringing about change are not able to to so, then what happened to the so-called fourth estate of the press? It should start to exercise its duty to the public rather than acting dutiful. How else to get rid of the so-called cliche?
This piece is published on Falter and former Die Zeit political editor Florian
Klenks Watchblog
http://www.florianklenk.com/2008/10/haiders_tod_nachtrag.php
"The governor of Carinthia, Jörg Haider is dead"
This somewhat bizarre headline has definitely secured it's place in Austrian news history.
Besides the tragedy at a human level, knowing that politicians don't carry a license protecting them from demise it leaves you desperately trying to pin-point the weirdness of this news. And the strange sensation garrison these words.
One explanation might be that this happened just two weeks after the elections - in the midst of the coalition talks with concerns ranking high of Haider and his right-wing department landing yet another coalition-coup as seen in 2000. Both of the countries right-wing parties together, Haider’s former FPÖ and his newly formed BZÖ, have managed to generate voters favours accounting for 27 per cent of the total voting outcome. Just one percent less than the Social Democrat Party with a winning majority of 29 per cent. If this does not spill the beans on a country’s „mental“ state.
What Haider has managed once more is leaving the country in conflict. This time round on whether to feel mourning, relief or indifference. A dichotomy that seems to have hit on the media the most for its obligation to deal with the moral question of the his obituary in this particular case. No doubt he might have been an earnest, hard working man had only his motif and cause would have proved of human integrity.
What are the ethical implications to call a dead man a good man knowing of his strictly selected love and respect towards his own kind of which he made no secret of.
It is almost painful to follow the media coverage; how the ORF (Austrian Broadcasting) is dutifully broadcasting special reports, permitting their national branch covering Haider's hometurff province Carinthia changing it's entire programme for the day; liberal paper Der Standard (web edition) apologising for the missing blog-spot complementing the article since due to a mass of impiously responses to this news they saw themselves forced not to; editor's hairsplitting discussions over the term neo-fascism with regards to his policies; reports about mourners in Carinthia putting on candles for a man who was one of them; columnists airing their disgust over the legend he has already been made overnight; voices from the press across the globe.
Austrian news agency APA putting together a medley of the most outrageous quotes he delivered in his career that have given Austria a face to its name. A name that still has precisely this right-wing connotation clung to its sound.
What exactly is the catch-22 for the media: Duty before ethics? Or ethics before death?
How to pay tribute to a man who perhaps did not deserve one without saying it out loud.
What has been elegantly left out is Haider's one and only positive function he occupied – although subconsciously – in his position. He epitomized the opportunity for debate and reflection on the true identity of this country and its intended future image. He posed a challenge for the country to grapple with its own history and trauma that is being passed on from generation to generation since the end of WWII. But this never happened. Looking at the country’s post-election situation at this very moment where politicians are swamped with forming a hopefully righteous government - one finds it hard to believe that they are able to grapple with the current political challenges to start with.
A similar inertness hovers in the air; that same old game of complacency rather than rolling up the sleeves and rethink the voting system – for example.
Living in this country feels quite insular in fact. All the more when a paper like the center-right Die Presse prints headlines such as „The cliche has returned: Austria as Nazi-country“. Would the word cliche not strike the perfect chord to finally demand for clarification; for mature discussions without being ashamed or having the finger pointed at - in order to enable this country to get over its „victim“ trauma and a chance for a new beginning. Finally.
The current discourse reduced to the literature section in a couple of national daily quality papers is not enough: so far it's only authors desperately solving their conflict of loving their grandfather, the Nazi.
If politicians – elected by a nation in the hope of bringing about change are not able to to so, then what happened to the so-called fourth estate of the press? It should start to exercise its duty to the public rather than acting dutiful. How else to get rid of the so-called cliche?
This piece is published on Falter and former Die Zeit political editor Florian
Klenks Watchblog
http://www.florianklenk.com/2008/10/haiders_tod_nachtrag.php
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