Veeeery late New Year’s Eve Report

I spend New Year’s eve at a friend’s in the 16th district of Vienna. Shortly before midnite we go downstairs to watch the fireworks at Yppenplatz (now a fashionable square in an immigrant district). There is a war going on in the streets. Hundreds of firecrackers get thrown around, fireworks blow up in the air.

We go down to Ottakringer Straße, which has been labelled Vienna’s most notorious street some years ago. Fireworks go up from in front of a Serbian joint. Young guys light up rockets which shoot up in the air with quite some noise. Beautiful blossoms of fire light up in the sky, their colours shine in the faces of the spectators.

Suddenly a street lamp catches fire. From the speed the lamp lights up and burns I can tell that that lamp is made of plastic (made in the 1960ies or so). The fire goes on for twenty minutes. Burning plastic drips down on the street.

Soon there is the sound of a fire engine blowing its horn, blue lights appear in front of us. A fire truck passes the burning plastic on the street, stops, goes into reverse and puts out the fire with its left back wheel like in a cool action flick. The truck turns around when a second fire truck stops. Just at the very moment when I think „typically overdone security à la Viennoise“ both drivers honk their horns in unison, the warning lights switched on, they put in the first gear and both fire trucks shoot off to a new mission in a stereo effect. I must respect the coolness of those guys!

South Africa

A friend takes me to South Africa to work as the DOP for a documentary project which will be presented on the internet, starting with March 2010 (www.nameit.at > Kap Transmissions).
The project is kind of a behind the scenes of the soccer world cup 2010 and is intended to offer an alternative take on SA while soccer frenzy will be on the way next year.

We stay in Johannesburg and interview people in and around Jozi (synonym for Jo’burg). We meet school teachers, architects and city planners, a person responsible for art in public spaces in Jozi, technicians working in alternative energy, social workers, refugees and people expelled from areas which got demolished during the Apartheid era.

Jozi, as opposed to Cape Town and Pretoria (both white) is dominated by black people, while Durban (the third biggest city in South Africa) is dominated by Indians who started to migrate to South Africa in the 19th century. Mahatma Gandhi spent many years in SA (from 1895 to 1914) working as a lawyer defending the rights of his countrymen.

Hillbrow

Hillbrow is a notorious district of Jozi, which, as the names indicates lies on a hill overlooking Joburg’s Central Business District (in short CBD). There is a TV-tower right in the middle of the district which appears in Jozi’s 2010 emblem.

Hillbrow, now close to being an urban slum, was a whites-only residential area that was fled by its inhabitants in the 1980ies as more underprivileged people moved in. Due to poor investment major buildings decayed and the district was labelled a no-go area affected by poverty and crime.

There are some high-rise buildings in Hillbrow which are in a pretty bad condition. Some of the buildings have most of their windows smashed and some have partly black facades due to fires.



The three of us are fascinated by the area, so we visit Hillbrow several times, once even for (cheap) shopping. The place has its own charm.

CBD

Johannesburg’s Central Business District has a similar fate as Hillbrow, although effort is now being put into developing the area. Most of Jozi’s office blocks and high-rise buildings are to be found in CBD. There is also a lot of abandoned houses, some of which have been blocked with masonry on the first and second floor in order to prevent people from moving in.



Other buildings have been taken over by or rented out to refugees from other African countries. Those houses in CBD can be easily identified from outside as clothes hang outside the windows.



Accompanied by two social workers who work for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) we visit a run-down art deco building which is inhabited by 1,200 refugees. We get up to the 3rd floor where we meet people whom we can interview. There is a pungent stench of waste and excrements. The fire escape stairs in the building are full of waste. Actually somebody is sweeping the stairs and all the waste comes flying down from the upper levels. We hear laughter from people on the floors above.



We interview two people from Simbabwe (the bigger part of refugees in South Africa) outside of their two room „apartment“. The first room of about 10 square meters serves as a kitchen and also has a bed for several people. In the second room of about 25 square meters there are several beds which are only separated with cloths. Six to eight people live in that room. No room for privacy.

The toilets which are to be found outside at the end of the hallway are in the worst condition imaginable but we get told that there are even worse buildings without any water nor electricity.

Soweto

is short for South Western Townships, meaning that Soweto is an aggregation of different townships around Jo’burg. Black People in Jozi speak only with greatest pride of Soweto probably due to the fact that the uprisings against the apartheid regime in 1976 started there. Sowetans seem pretty well off like middle class people. Most of them live in proper houses with water and electricity as opposed to inhabitants of other townships which have to live in makeshift shacks.

On a Sunday afternoon we go to watch a concert at a place called Thesis Social Club. People in Soweto are proud and very friendly. There is also a special way of dressing up. Sowetans are quite stylish. At Thesis we meet musicians, graphic designers, filmmakers, graffiti artists and the like.

Hug me

We go to visit Masimbambane School in Orange Farm which is a township located approx. 50 km south of Johannesburg in the Gauteng Province. Orange Farm is the largest informal settlement in South Africa, with most estimates giving a population of 350,000 people.



Masimbambane College, a private run school, is in part funded by the city of Vienna. We get a tour through the college by a staff member. As soon as the children see the woman they run up to her and hug her. We are taken to class rooms and to the kindergarden. The kids love to pose in front of the camera. Then they come close and give me a hug. As I do the same there is no holding back. More and more kids come running and hug me. What a different feel to meeting Europeans, it’s great!

Mamelodi

is a township east of Pretoria which was set up on a former farm. In the 1960ies black people were forcefully removed out of one of the capital’s suburbs to different townships, one of them being Mamelodi. The name means Mother of Melodies after president’s Paul Kruger ability to imitate birds. The township is home to the Mamelodi Sundowns of SA’s Premier Soccer League.



We visit two schools which are part of the YDF (Youth Development through Football) program, a program organized by NGOs and German association GTZ (Gesellschaft für techn. Zusammenarbeit). The program is aimed at developing life skills of young members of underprivileged communities in leadership abilities, ecological awareness and HIV/AIDS prevention etc.

We accompany one of the pupils to her home in Mamelodi and get to know her mother and her siblings. We are allowed into their shack where we are struck by heat and the constrictions of an underprivileged life.

Coolest keyboarder on earth

We go to see a live concert of Zubz, a rapper from Simbabwe, who seems to make it big in SA. There is also a gig of Black Dillinger, a rather classic reggae band. The lot of them seem quite old (around 40) and they look as if they had smoked too much dope in the past except for the singer, who seems younger and healthier.

On the keyboard appears a skinny and even older guy who does not speak a word. He just hits the keys emotionlessly which every now and then emanate strange reggae sound effects. The guy appears on stage wearing a suit and a pink rucksack which dangles from his shoulders like an old plastic bag.



As he plays he does neither take of his jacket nor his rucksack which only contains a book or two. After the gig the guy leaves the stage, puts his keyboard in a sack and walks off the scene, still without having a said a single word nor having taken off the pink rucksack. Cool, innit?

Battlefields

After 10 days of work interviewing and filming people we head down south to the southeastern coast. We pass Battlefields, a high plain were the Zulus fighted the Boers in the 19th century. From the highway there is not much to see except for green pastures, cattle and the occasional shanty town. The landscape reminds us of Sweden as it is rather flat and has needle trees. The last 10 km before Durban the highway is winding downhill in direction of the city, but shortly before Durban we turn north to a place called Salt Rock.

Flora and Fauna on the coast

Salt Rock is part of a suburban area which is north of Durban. Suburbia seems to have neither a beginning nor an end, it stretches over miles and miles along the beach. A coast road winds up and down through an endless number of hills. The sea is pretty rough, but its water fairly warm. On the beach we see hordes of crabs which hide under the rocks as soon as we spot them.

We watch a group of dolphins riding the waves like surfers do. They skillfully manage to swim on the rim of the waves. Every now and then one of the dolphins jumps out of the water and shows his grey body. The flora on the coast is lush (subtropical) with a great variety of trees including palm trees. There are colourful birds with long tails (makes them look like skites) and even monkeys.

Monkey Business

We watch a monkey crossing a street. He looks both ways left and right before he crosses the road. The monkey then makes his way through a fence onto private property with an „armed response“ sign in front. Quite surprisingly he does not get shot. Apparently quite a few monkeys get hit by cars instead.



As I go jogging later I see another monkey sitting on a piece of lawn in front of a house. The monkey whose back is turned towards me munches quietly. As he gets aware of me he turns around his head to look at me without any emotion. Does he charge me?

I wonder if there is only one monkey in town which shows off to the tourists on different spots making them believe that there is great wildlife in town. I decide I have to take a picture of the monkey(s). Maybe then will I be able to tell one from the other, if there is any other at all. On my way back the bugger is gone...

At the beach

Salt Rock is part of a tourist area with B&Bs, some hotels and holiday apartments. Although the Christmas (and summer) season has recently started there are not many tourists around.
It is apparent that all restaurants and B&Bs are run by white people and that the waiters and servants are black. That’s a bit different from Joburg.

On Sunday we go to a public beach close to Salt Rock. At first there are hardly any people but then more and more people show up. They arrive in their cars with the music pitched up to the max. Some of them have a barbecue party in the parking area of the beach. The place gets crowded and messed up, it's a bit chaotic and great.

A great last day in Joburg

Tuesday Dec 15 is our last day in South Africa which we spend in Jozi. In the morning we take a minibus from Melville to the center. This is my first ride on an African cab as we used a rental car during most of our stay. The bus is in poor condition, it squeeches, actually it seems to fall apart every minute. The driver does not tell us where to get off, thus we go to a different spot than intended. We arrive in Newtown, a central district of Joburg which we like a lot. Newtown is about to develop into Jozi’s cultural center. There is the Market Theater, there are artisans stands and several places to go out. It is also close to Oriental Plaza, home to Joburg’s Indian community.



By accident we meet a new friend of ours, a graffiti artist, who takes us (in an allegedly stolen car) to Goodman Gallery in a different suburb. We visit the exhibition of a young South African artist and then wait to be picked up by another friend, a multimedia and film producer. That friend takes us out to lunch in a fancy neighbourhood.

After lunch he invites us home. We have a few beers and a swim in his pool. He changes cars and takes us in a big BMW to a little shopping center in Melville where we have an appointment with yet another friend. In the car he plays dark African House Music at full volume which makes us feel great and a little decadent after all what we have seen in this country.



A little later we walk back to our house in Melville. For the last time we pass single familiy houses with „armed response“ signs and electrical fences. That’s in stark contrast to the actually nice athmosphere in Melville and the warm air that we breathe.

Intermodem in Debrecen

From September 13 to 20, I participate in an international video art workshop at Modem museum in Debrecen.

15 to 20 video artists from different European countries are invited to develop their projects within a week. Debrecen is situated in the far East of Hungary within 50 km of the Romanian border. The Modem is a big museum for contemporary art that was built 3 years ago. The museum and the square in front look like any other modern museum in the West would look like. Modern architecture in the former East now seems exactly the same like in the West.

A psychotic experience: On the train with David Lynch

In order to reach Debrecen I travel by train from Vienna to Budapest and from there to the East. I change trains at Keleti station in Budapest and get a seat in a compartment with a young student who sits at the window. Except for that boy nobody on the train speaks English. We travel for hours and hours. As I don’t know when I have to get out I have to ask people for the whereabouts of the train at every station where we stop.

After some time a bald-headed guy enters the compartment. He barks at the young man in Hungarian and takes the seat right in front of him although 4 other places are available. The bald guy seems eerie and looks aggressive. Just some days before my trip I read in the newspaper of serial killings committed on Roma people in Debrecen. The far right in Hungary is getting stronger and stronger and the nationalist Fidesz party is constantly gaining votes.

With that story in mind I watch the bald guy. He just looks like a rightist extremist. The student looks scared, in one particular moment he even seems to cry. The bald guy soon falls asleep but wakes up every now and then. I watch both of the men and try to catch the student’s gaze which is reflected in the window but the young man continues to stare out of the window and does not react on the signs which I make. I just don’t know if the baldhead threatens him and he does not dare to get up.

I spend one hour being proccupied until I finally get an idea what to do, just as the train stops at another station. I open the door of the compartment and get out on the aisle. I leave the door open, a young woman comes inside and takes a seat. The baldhead gets up and leaves.

Late Reprise: Party of the year

In July three women who work in fashion, have their birthday party in a tavern in the Viennese Prater. The place is special, it has a bar but also a miniature golf course. People play crazy golf in groups of up to 6 people. Boys are dressed up nicely in 70ies golf outfits according to the occasion, the girls wear mostly evening dresses. I arrive late but get the interesting view on the scene of an outsider. After the match there is music, some of the guests dance Lindy Hop to 30ies Swing music.

Two months earlier in May, at the opening evening of the Vienna (Art) Fair there is a great party on a meadow in the Prater (Vienna’s biggest park). People seem to congregate there accidentally, they seem to come out of nowhere. A dj plays a fine selection of records on a great soundsystem. Surrounded only by trees people dance into the dark.

Hamburg

As a guest of this year's International Short Film Festival I visit friends in Hamburg. They live in an area called Schanzenviertel. That district has a long history of house-squatting like Hafenstrasse or Marktstrasse in St. Pauli. All of these areas are now great places to go out and they have numerous clothing shops, most of them in an alternative style. There is a completely different athmosphere compared to the bourgeois districts which cover a big part of Hamburg.

Hamburg is a city of cool people, lots of trees and lots of water, be it rivers or channels or steady rain fall. The short film festival called IKFF is a great festival to visit. It goes on for a week and shows short films in 5 different cinemas.

Hund in Hong Kong

Around Easter DROPPING FURNITURE (the film version) is shown at the Hong Kong Int. Film Festival, which is said to be the equivalent of the Cannes festival in Asia. I am invited to go.
On my way from Hong Kong airport to Kowloon I get a first view of the city. With its skyscrapers Hong Kong resembles in some ways New York City, only that its parts are spread out further across mainland China and several islands all of which seem to have a green mountain backdrop against which the skyscrapers have been pushed. Kowloon (mainland) and Central (on Hong Kong Island) seem like the very compressed version of a city of high-rise buildings.

Neon

In Kowloon the sky is full of neon signs which are lit by night and shut off during the day. Nevertheless the signs are colourful and still interesting to look at in daylight. I find the signs especially interesting in a part of Kowloon called Jordan. Later I will learn that Jordan is a red-light district which also has a great night market and a street with great seafood restaurants.

A quick visit to the Chungking building

I decide to visit Chungking mansions which i have seen on film in a Wong Kar-Wai movie a long time ago. The Chungking building is on Nathan Road, one of the biggest streets which run through Kowloon. The building is a big block, probably built in the 60ies, it has numerous shops on the first floor.
There is not a trace of daylight on the ground floor. A number of merchants offer their goods, from electric appliances to money exchange.

There are several elevators and stairways which lead up to the other floors. Groups of immigrants wait in front of the elevators, ranging from Indian to black people, some of them in their traditional clothes. All of them are men. They wait to get on the elevator that brings them up to an endless number of guesthouses which cover all of the above floors. The African men look quite positive, there seems to be a future for them in Hong Kong (or at least a present).
I get out through a backdoor to a dark and narrow lane. Three guys squat on the floor. One of them has bad teeth, he flashes a rather dirty grin and offers me marihuana. Better get out of that place, it’s too dark and dirty in the backyard.

Mong Kok

I continue my trip on the MTR to Mong Kok. I pass high-rise buildings and I walk through streets with a great number of neon signs and numerous bridges (for pedestrians and for vehicles) which cross the streets.
On the main street there is heavy traffic and a lot of noise. I go around the corner and as so often in Hong Kong there is a completely different picture: an open air food market. The air is full of smells, roasted chicken are chopped to pieces for take away. Hundreds of Chinese people visit the colourful market.

Young men on Temple Street

The same afternoon I intend to go for late lunch in Jordan. I have a huge appetite for seafood but I must discover that almost all restaurants are closed. The only place which seems to have good food is a food stall on Temple Street. I decide to sit down next to the stall at a tiny table on a low stool made of plastic. I am cautious not to rest my elbows on the greasy table and try to forget the dirt on the stool. The meal is good, though.

Without intent I start watching several young men which are standing at the corner of the street where I am sitting. One of the boys wears jogging trousers, he seems to be on the street occasionally and wait for somebody.

Another guy wears a golden necklace and a shoulderbag which looks a little too female. He crosses the street and runs around busily. A third guy appears, who also wears a shoulderbag. That man is the youngest.

Only then I notice that those boys are hookers. The young one is the most daring, he walks up to passing men and talks to them. Most of the approached men won't listen nor talk back, they just continue their way.
I watch the hookers unnoticed. Whenever I think they look at me, I stare somewhere else. Finally the young boy approaches me and offers me a massage.

Jordan is a district of red light joints and saunas. Usually women offer their services to men. The male hookers are clearly news in a city which hasn't quite come to terms with homosexuality.

Goldfish Market

On our last day in Hong Kong me and a friend make a visit to the bird market. Parrots, canaries and the like are offered in cages.
The bird market is close to Flower Street which only has flower stands. We continue our way to the Goldfish Market which has only aquarium shops.
Well actually it's more plastic bags filled tight with water which are put up in the street by the hundreds. The bags contain one or more fish, they are that taut that they almost seem to explode. Distortion gives a surrealistic look of the fish in the bags.

Hund @ Soundframe

I take part in Soundframe (www.soundframe.at), which is a big exhibition about audiovision at the Künstlerhaus Vienna.
This year's topic is Evolution Remixed. My film ALL PEOPLE IS PLASTIC is chosen for the show (see http://kgp.co.at/index.php?option=com_moviedb&task=viewmovie&id=13&Itemid=84&lang=en for information and trailer of the film).

I also contribute a collage to UKO's Sista Sadie Life Show, which is a remix project of UKO's new album on all levels (music, video and photography).

Kosmoprolet in concert

Dj Kosmoprolet aka Karl Kilian has expanded his live performance into a 3 people outfit called Kosmoprolet. Kosmoprolet speak Rrrrrrussian English, they play Trash Techno. Check out Kosmoprolet's great dance video Coalminestyle on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V68LS_gzOc and their music under: http://www.myspace.com/djkosmoprolet

Station 17 at Szene Wien

German band Station 17 play a great gig in Vienna. The group consists in part of handicapped people and they rock! To keep it tautologic: Their sound sounds like Post-Rock.

Hund & Horn do Budapest

We have a show which is set completely in the dark at Knoll Galéria in Budapest. The exhibit consists of video, photography and paintings. It is on until March 22, 2009.

I went to the moon and back

Dropping Furniture on show

In December 2008 our video installation DROPPING FURNITURE is shown in a group show called "Soot From the Funnel" at Lokaal 01 in Breda (Holland) and at the "Central European Art Festival" in Trnva (Slovakia).

The single-channel film version premiered at 2008's Austrian film festival VIENNALE and has been invited for ex. to this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam and the Hong Kong Int. Film Festival 2009. Yippiäh!

Pictures of an Exhibition

Our show "Paul Horn & Harald Hund - Living Rooms" at Knoll Galerie (www.knollgalerie.at) in Vienna closed recently. It was about living spaces which we inhabit. Part of the show was our new video installation "Dropping Furniture" (picture above). On the other pictures you see two of my works called "Modernism for the Poor 1 and 2".

Street Art in Ljubljana (Slo)

Banksy was in Ljubljana too

and made a statement about the infamous Fritzl guy

MysistercookedZwetschkenkompottandleft

Iforgottoeatit.