I left Vienna this morning heading to Berlin but not before heading over to the first district, sneaking up onto a rooftop and taking this panaramic shot of the city. Unfortunately it wasn’t the clearest of days, but it’s a pretty good feel for what’s going on anyway. Click the above to gigantify it, as it’s massively embigenable.

After a month of talking about it I finally walked over to the MuMoK today and checked out the China – Facing Reality exhibition and I’m totally pissed I didn’t go earlier. I’m definitely going back again soon and if you haven’t seen it I highly recommend swinging by and checking it out before closes in Feb next year. Two things I was blown away by were a 13,500 piece installation by Fang Lijun on the first floor of the exhibit, and the paintings by Zeng Hao on the 8th floor. Unfortunately today was school day or something so in addition to the hundreds of screaming kids running around the joint there were also extra security guards being extra observant. I say that’s unfortunate because I wasn’t able to steal a snapshot of Lijun’s installation but I’ll be going back for sure and hope to get one then. It’s hard to describe but awe inspiring to see. 13,500 golden blobs mounted on different length rods and lined up making something that feels a bit like flowing fields of some kind of crop, corn or wheat, but upon closer inspection are individual faces. It’s rather impressive. Anyway, go see it yourself.

Here is an old Hartlauer catalogue from 1984…

…and here is the entire brochure as PDF… please check it out…

I quote the Austrian Press Agency:

Utl.: Pressekonferenz: 17.12., 11 Uhr – Quartier für digitale Kunst

Wien (OTS) – Kaum hat sich Hans Dichand in die große, weite Welt des Bloggens gewagt (http://blog.krone.at), da hat er auch schon einen satirisch schreibenden Doppelgänger (http://hansdichand.blogspot.com) – einen “Fälscher”, den Herr Dichand “ausforschen” und “überführen” will, wie er selbst in der Kronen Zeitung geschrieben hat.

Um ihm die Arbeit zu ersparen und die allgemeine Verwirrung um den doppelten Dichand aufzulösen, lädt “Der Fälscher” kommenden Montag, den 17. Dezember, um 11:00 zu einer Pressekonferenz ins Quartier für digitale Kunst (Quartier 21, Museumsquartier, Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Wien). Dort werden alle Geheimnisse aufgedeckt und etwaige Fragen beantwortet. Außerdem gibt es Gugelhupf.

I guess you have to come!

OLPC Austria is a grassroots coalition of people in the German speaking countries, mainly Austria, interested in contributing to the “One Laptop Per Child” (OLPC) project which is more widely known as the “$100 laptop”.

On Saturday OLPC Austria will celebrate a party! Join and get involved!

Metalab, Rathausstraße 6, December 15; 8 PM.
Link

Just returned from an extraordinary concert.
Ennio Morricone conducts Ennio Morricone. Tremendous!

Legendary is an inflationary term in the music business. For some people it’s simply true.

“Once upon a time in the West” , “A Fistful of Dollars”, “The 120 Days of Sodom”, “La Cage aux Folles”, “Leon”, “Once upon a time in America”, “Kill Bill”, or the early Schwarzenegger work “Red Sonja”, if you had to list the complete works of Ennio Morricone since his debut in 1959 it would take more than this page.

What would the spaghetti western be without the world famous melody of “Once upon a time in the West”, but Morricone only composed the music to 30 spaghetti westerns.

At the age of almost 80 Ennio is on a world tour. And I saw him.

Cheesy cellphone cam pic of a great ensemble.
Yeah.

Sorry, German only.

Link

Location: Starbucks Mariahilferstraße

Thomas Brandstetter (who is teaching at the University of Vienna, Dept. of Philosophy) is giving a talk on Friday (Dec 7; 7:30 PM) at the Metalab.
The talk is dealing with the scientific ancestors of computer simulations, so-called “model experiments” in the 19th century.

Link (Metalab; German)
Link (FM4; German)

Hans Dichand, born in 1921, founded the Austrian “Kronenzeitung” (”Crown newspaper”) in 1959 and still acts as its editor in chief to this day. With over 40% market share, this right-wing populist paper has a unique position of power, and Dichand used this to influence Austrian politics to a great extent. This media-political practice earned him the nickname of “Kanzlermacher” (”He who makes the chancellor”).

Shortly after Mr. Dichand started blogging in November 2007, another weblog under his name appeared, where an unknown writer spoofs the newsmaker by using his rather unique tabloid writing style to express
views and ideas contrary to those of the original, and to poke fun at the mighty newsmaker.

This fake blog has gathered quite a bit of media attention over the last weeks, especially since the original Dichand saw it necessary to write about “The Forger”, as the fake blogger has been called on numerous occasions.

http://blog.krone.at / Original Dichand blog
http://hansdichand.blogspot.com / Fake Dichand blog