reports

surrealeyAusstellung.jpg

Also if my recent obsession about nested polygons, nested documenting and nested exhibitions gets may be a bit boring and nerving (this is why iterations are nowadays done by a computer) – this post here is a short report about a foto report about an exhibition about which I was reporting in this randform exposition which was about online exhibitions in real exhibition spaces.

In the above mentioned computerfinearts exposition I was speculating about what Doron Golan would think about his online exhibition going inline in an exhibition space. And in fact – I should may be better use the time and write him an email and ask him directly instead of speculating. However sometimes it may be senseful to gain one`s own experiences (instead of trying to understand explanations). at least for a start.

But without feedback this is difficult and so I was happy about an unexpected email from Harrisonburg/Virginia by Allison from the Institute for Visual Studies at James Madison who sent out yesterday a link to images from the Mathematical Photography exhibition in Harrisonburg.

Indeed it is not so instructive if one looks at Harrisonburg via google earth or maps in order to understand what was happening at the exhibition (like I did in my computerfineartspost).

The above foto is heartwarming. A real person looking at surrealey! Such feedback helps to keep going. Many thanks to Allison and crew! All the best to Virginia. Keep your curiosity.

I dont know if the young woman on the foto already saw the Loreley in real. I think knowing this (actually now quite crowdy) place may lead to a different perception of the piece.

Deutschland – ein Wintermärchen (see also here or here) is by the way also a recommendable poem collection from Heine (also if my german teacher in school found it boring due to the complicated metaphorical annotations to already forgotten german politics in the 19th century).

*(by the way for german speakers: it may be interesting to compare these metaphorical annotations with a more recent variation coming from marketing at e.g. gergey.com/woerterbuch.php). (where – admittingly – it is of course a bad joke to go on and compare the oppression mechanisms of Heine—Friedrich Wilhelm IV with e.g. Ingeborg Bachmann—shopping&Co or even more abstract: science—coffee) *

addition 24.01.2013 The science link is broken, please see below comments. Furthermore a recent project to investigate the relations between academia and commerce in Germany can be found at Hochschulwatch.de (in german).

5 Responses to “reports”

  1. Gebhardt Singh Says:

    The science – link is broken.

    The Wörterbuch from that advertising business is funny, I wonder wether those advertisers do metaphorical narrations, like it seems Heine did. By the way how common is Heine’s technique in german literature?

  2. nad Says:

    Gebhardt Singh wrote:

    The science – link is broken.

    The Wörterbuch from that advertising business is funny, I wonder wether those advertisers do metaphorical narrations, like it seems Heine did.

    Thanks for pointing out the missing link.
    It was a link to a story of a Coffeecompany financing a university.
    The correct link for science seems to be now at http://www.tagesspiegel.de/weltspiegel/gesundheit/kaffeekasse-rettet-bremens-privatuni/769786.html

    Advertisements are usually short and catchy so I think there is not so much narration going on with these metaphors. There is though sometimes something like a more or less voluntary narration taking place, that is sometimes the sentences of some businesses – especially if they use germish may provide rather funny (wanted or unwanted) new meaning, which may be seen as a kind of short simultanous narration (i.e. a whole narration with multiple meanings).

    By the way how common is Heine’s technique in german literature?

    I guess manifold word meanings (see also http://www.randform.org/blog/?p=730) are heavily used in literature in general. The question is to which extend you use them for narration. Like for example – if I understood correctly – in the literature of the Western Ganga they used amongst others multiple word meanings to tell two different stories within one story. In the above mentioned Wintermärchen Heine’s used the multiple word meanings to talk about politics, which probably saved his life.
    Unfortunately I don’t know about other older examples, I can only guess and I could imagine that you may find something already in middle age literature.
    I could imagine that it is also rather hard to detect such simultanous meanings because you need to know a lot of the historical context.
    May be you could find something in the works of Hermann Bote because he wrote political satirical songs, but I don’t know.

  3. philosoff Says:

    How do you know that in Wintermärchen there are “multiple word meanings to talk about politics, which probably saved his life” ?

  4. nad Says:

    How do you know that in Wintermärchen there are “multiple word meanings to talk about politics, which probably saved his life” ?

    One teacher at high school pointed that out. I think it was my german teacher Mrs. Poerschke in 9th or 10th grade (eventually it was though again Mrs. Krailler-Link). As said above she complained about it. I think we were discussing about what to read and she told us that in her “Leistungskurs” (special emphasis class in grade 12 and 13) they were going through Deutschland – ein Wintermärchen and that this was strenous and rather boring due to the many political references, which need to be mentioned. I don’t have the time to look for examples and unfortunately Wikipedia doesn’t really mention it, but as far as I remember he even used rather direct similes/metaphors (link “metaphoring”) in the sense that e.g. the physiognomy or the name of some political proponent was represented by corresponding looking animals or by referring to certain animal features.

    By the way when looking for older examples -the Parables of Jesus are usually looked at, as some kind of moral compass or some kind of fuzzy pragmatic norms. However if they are based on real oral sayings, which circulated around Jesus life time (and early christianity) – which is not too far-fetched by looking at the discussions about the Q source – then it seems not too unlikely that political discussions were transported with them. Like in some sense the Parable of the Tares (eventually inspiring this acronym) looks like a discussion about how to deal with political/religious enemies.

  5. nad Says:

    Ok if you look at the text of “Deutschland – ein Wintermärchen” then there are various places where a metaphor seems very likely. But here is one place where he says directly that he is using a metaphor (p.104):

    Doch hütet Euch vor der Tücke
    Des Vogels, der ſein Ey gelegt
    In des Bürgermeiſters Perücke. — —
    Wer dieſer fatale Vogel iſt,
    Ich brauch es Euch nicht zu ſagen —
    Denk’ ich an ihn, ſo dreht ſich herum
    Das Eſſen in meinem Magen.

    translation:

    But beware the malice
    of that bird, who laid his egg,
    into the mayors periwig.
    Who this bird is
    I don’t need to tell you-
    Thinking of him makes swivel around
    the food in my stomach.

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