netznetz is a platform for individuals and groups associated with net art and net culture here in Vienna, Austria.

MANA is a system for the distribution of municipal grants developed and run by netznetz in which the participants distribute their own funding according to certain democratically agreed-upon rules and aided by custom software. It is run largely independent of the city government which provides the funds.

The system strives for guaranteed and dispersed distribution of funding in the sector while the parameters of the distribution are meant to remain flexible, providing a dynamic scope. Therefore, everybody who is involved in the sector is subject to the principle of permanent reconfiguration of the system and the network.

In December 2005 the community agreed to use the so-called ‘Community Game’ — a system by Christoph Theiler — as the first distributing method for MANA.

Shortly before the launch of the “MANA Community Game” a couple of software flaws were identified, so the community agreed to allocate the first network grants in an offline paper-trail version.

Last week the paper-trail version of the “MANA Community Game” was conducted.

Counting the votes.

And here’s a picture of the ballots of the first game day.

The first time 125.000 euros have been distributed.

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- Joe Noname: 15000,00
- Andreas Findeisen: 14925,28
- Magnus Wurzer: 12526,34
- Paul Böhm: 11461,55
- eSeL Lorenz Seidler: 11004,79
- Eva Grumeth: 10352,91
- Tina Lorenz: 10232,81
- Michael Mastrototaro: 9393,17
- lizvlx: 9187,28
- Christian Jeitler: 8723,74
- Claudia Glechner: 6915,18
- Judith Fegerl: 5276,96
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There is a lot of stuff that can be improved… but it was a first step.

A few weeks have passed since I covered it — now the Donaufestival is on since last week (and it was a blast so far).

This week is going to be very nice as well. Matthew Herbert, Dresden Dolls, Peaches … just to mention the headliners. But they’re clearly not the only interesting performers this week. One of them needs your help. Yes, that’s right.

The duo Uniform (Noise artist Wajid Yaseen & fine artist Alice Kemp) need about 20 people to perform movements/dancing in a fashion that resembles the Butoh style. As Wajid said himself, there won’t be so much strict ‘dance’…more like very simple movement. On stage, and in the crowd. The dancers, one of them hopefully you, will be as naked as they (and the artists) are fine with, and painted white.

The music is about as strange as the dancing — mostly ambient with some noise aspects, largely dominated by sound rather than beat. The Wire says their new album (which was released this month), raises smiles and send shivers simultaneously — but I’m sure you can judge by yourself:

You’d receive a free festival pass for this week, a Donaufestival t-shirt, the travel expenses, and not to mention the opportunity to participate at an one of a kind project.

So in case the combination of unusual music and getting naked gets you going, drop them a line and include your your name and phone number.

To quote the Wiener Lloyd: Participate!

Update: Their train has delay so they’ll be performing about an hour later at 22:00 – so if you read this a little too late, you might still have a chance to catch Mr. Hahn play.

Joy! Kristof Hahn, mastermind and frontman of Les Hommes Sauvages, the German something-like-Country band with tendencies to use French and English too, is going to play an acoustic session at the Phil today at 21:00 CEST. And it’s got no price tag!

If you wonder what kind of music this is, they offer three mp3s on their website, namely Sandmann, Blast of Silence and Mieux a Faire. Should be enough to convince.

That’s not all, no no, there’s also a proper concert scheduled: 28th of April at the Technisches Museum Wien (€15/€17) — yes, that’s Friday.

Enjoy.

Remember the fanboyish review I promised you for the play I announced two weeks ago? That didn’t quite come to pass, but I sent our supercommenting, multislacking multimedia field reporter extraordinaire nex to the debut performance, and he finally filed his review. Since the play is in German, so is the article, but you can head over to the accompanying Flickr-Set and read the English translation there.

Gerling bezeugt seinen Mangel an Respekt für Akademiker (”Man muss HERRSCHEN!”), während sich Gloob in seinen Topf zurückzieht und über seine eigenen galaktischen Eroberungspläne nachdenkt (”Durch Umtopfung!”).

Sieben Charaktere teilen sich zwei Schauspielerinnen. Das ist keine Sparmaßnahme, sondern integraler Bestandteil der Handlung von Warten auf GOTO. Das jüngste Bühnenstück von Autor, Regisseur und monochrom-Ober-Exzentriker Johannes Grenzfurthner hatte letzten Freitag im Volkstheater Hundsturm vor einem begeisterten Publikum Premiere.

Die Studentinnen Yvette Orlong (Annette Isabella Holzmann) und Talara Zilp (Sabine Osthoff) hatten ein Problem: sie konnten sich ihr Studium nicht leisten. Deshalb dienen sie als Lebendkörpergefängnisse für die aus Sicherheitsgründen von ihren eigenen Körpern getrennten ‘geistigen Volumina’ von intergalaktischen Verbrechern. Jetzt haben sie zwei Probleme. Ausgerechnet zwei Anführer aus opportunierenden Lagern der Fraakh-Kriege, die als Strafe für ihre Kriegsverbrechen bis zum Kältetod des Universums in verschärfter, körpergetrennter Haft verwahrt werden, wurden in ihre Körper und somit in die selbe Studierstube verpflanzt. Das erschwert den megalomanischen Erzfeinden Gloob (ein Gebüsch mit Selbstbewusstsein) und Gerling (in seinem Imperium per Briefwahl zum Gott erklärt) die Flucht und den Studis so ziemlich alle Aspekte ihrer Existenz, denn die Häftlinge können über ihre Wirtskörper fast frei verfügen – solange nicht gerade ihre Zellengenossen die Kontrolle übernommen haben.

In GOTOs Dialogen findet man fast alle Reqisiten einer epischen Weltraum-Oper: Interstellare Raumfahrt, groteske Außerirdische mit teilweise bizarren Sprachen, Zeitreisen, Teleportation, Klone, die Auslöschung ganzer Zivilisationen durch große Kriege (und Urheberrechtsprozesse), und künstliche Intelligenz, die immer komplexer wird und sich dadurch ihrer selbst bewusst wird (woraus Gloobs Zellengenosse Freeloan entsteht, ein Fleisch gewordener Spamfilter). Es fehlt nur noch ein drahtloser Staubsauger. Episch ist in GOTO zwar höchstens die zu Beginn eingespielte Hintergrundgeschichte, doch eines hat das Stück mit jeder guten Science Fiction gemein: eigentlich geht es um das Hier und Jetzt.
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U6 Station “Strandbäder”

I think there is a second one on the other side of the station, but i cant find the photo anymore.
Does someone know who made those fisherman things? An Art group? I doubt it was the idea of the Wiener Linien.

can vienna.metblogs.com be the only viennese media not mentioning Mozart in 2006?
I guess it’s simply impossible not to have Mozart in 2006. and then again it’s for a good purpose.
Klaus Maria Brandauer (known as the james-bond-evil-guy) reads Josef Nepomuk Bullinges texts about Mozart leaving Salzburg.

the performance takes place on the 30th of april in Schauspielhaus @ 11 am.

the net profit will be donated to SOS Menschenrechte who use it to finance psychological advise for female asylum seekers.

On the Easterweekend my lover and i decided we should admire the wonderful weather and go out for a walk. Where should we go? The parks? naw, not again. Well, let’s go to the Donauinsel and see whats going on there.

You can see old sailors (Nick Cave’s “Ship Song” started in my head when i saw this man) walking along the danube. I wonder what he was thinking about.
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Sweet idea!
a sugarpacket with funny things on it.
This one:
“Invite someone to a little game (and a coffee)”
There was another one about telling your neighbour that she/he is beautiful.

(At a little italian Cafe near the Votiv Kirche)

It is not new that a couple (or many) policemen think they are above law and are allowed to do whatever their sometimes rather little brain can think about. No matter if stepping on people’s chest, or making them choke on duct tape. They know they will most probably get no punishment, or maybe just a couple of months of punishment.
You’d think that they would face the same punishment like every normal human being as well, but hey, we are in Austria. It is totally okay to shit and spit on human rights. You can act like Haider and remove city-signs. You can be Schuessel and say sweet fuck nothing, and if you say something, make sure it is totally obvious that you are not interested in democracy. Heck, just go and shake hands with Berlusconi!
Anyways, i dont want to rant here about politics. That would fill up the whole page with very bad and insulting words, plus it would stress me and yeah… let’s not do it.
Today i read that our policemen did a great job again. Oh yes.
The 3 policemen, part of the WEGA Team, were supposed to bring Bakary J. back to Gambia. Now, we could discuss the idiocy of the austrian system about sending back asylum seekers when they are already married to austrian men/women. In this case, Bakary has an austrian wife and 2 kids. But lets just ignore this fact. Let’s go on with the story. Bakary refused to get on the airplane, and told the pilot that he doesnt want to go away because he has a wife and 2 kids here. The pilot of said plane refused to fly Bakary back to Gambia. Maybe because he is a human being and understood Bakary. Maybe he thought that flying “home” an african man accompied by policemen could lead to death of the african man. I am not sure why he made this decision.
Our WEGA troup got a little bit pissed, and decided to take Bakary for a short little walk around. They drove him to a storehouse in Leopoldstadt, a storehouse that is used by the police for training purposes. No, they didnt want to drink a Melange with Bakary and talk to him. Nah. According to the Standard, they made him sit on the floor and continued driving the car in front of him, threatening him to run him over. Furthermore they kicked/beated him up.
Yes, a few of you might ask why i didnt mention that Bakary has been convicted 2 times for drug dealing. No, i did not forget that. But it cant be that because of drug dealing, or any other crime, you get beaten up and threatened.
Furthermore, if you are married with an austrian, have 2 kids, how can someone really think about sending you miles away? Dont start the whole: omg he is illegal! thing with me. No human being is illegal. Okay, maybe Britney Spears and the members of Tokio Hotel are. There has to be a more human way, wihout ruining lifes or physical violence or killing.
The 3 policemen will now face the court. I bet they wont get more than 4 months. Who is up for a bet?

As the current captain of the Vienna Metroblog, I’d like to apologize personally for the large amount of monochrom-related content lately. It’s not so much that not much is happening right now, it’s just that the monos are really that good. Trust me. With that set aside, let’s roll:

monochrom is back on stage – and for everyone who saw, no, witnessed Udo 77, this is a good thing. Their newest brainchild is called “Warten auf GOTO”, a play on “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett (who would have celebrated his 100th birthday tomorrow, by the way). “Warten auf GOTO” is set in a post-war society – post-Fraakh-war, to be precise.

“Working conditions are terrible, and it’s almost impossible to finance a higher education. A halomester costs a lot and has to be financed through cumbersome part-time jobs. monochrom visits a Xeremarianian student and a xenosociologist around the campus of Largos in their everyday live inside a society of control.”

Since the play premieres on April 21st, I can’t tell you yet if “Warten auf GOTO” is an elaborate satire of modern life as a postmodern human in a postindustrial society, or just one large ball of monkey business. Whatever it is, it’ll be intelligent, fun, and insanely great – I promise. And after the premiere, you can expect a fanboyish review by yours truly.

The play will be shown on April 21st, 22nd, 26th, 27th, and May 2nd and 3rd in the Volkstheater Hundsturm, Margaretenstrasse 166 in the 5th district. Tickets cost 10€ and are available through the box office or by calling +43152111400.

Be there, or be a steaming pile of kaarf!