++TAUGSHOW #16++

Divine Special (Paraflows 08 festival special)

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 / 8:00 PM @ Metalab, Vienna

We are not allowed to talk about the special guest hosts… yet!

But who are our guests?

/// TREVOR PAGLEN
Trevor Paglen is an artist, writer, and experimental geographer working out of the Department of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley. His work involves deliberately blurring the lines between social science, contemporary art, and a host of even more obscure disciplines to construct unfamiliar, yet meticulously researched ways to interpret the world around us.

/// JASON SCOTT
Jason Scott is a digital historian and documentary filmmaker based out of the Northeastern US, focusing on bulletin board system culture of the 1970s and 1980s. He often finds himself well outside of that realm and has collected many archives of general computer and software history, which he makes available on various parts of his online archive, TEXTFILES.COM.

/// RACHEL LOVINGER
Rachel Lovinger works at Avenue A | Razorfish as a Senior Content Strategist, developing ways for global clients to help connect users to the quality content they want and need. She’s particularly interested in relevance, findability, signification, and inherently funny words.

/// Regulars:
EVELYN FÜRLINGER, MA.
Evelyn presents “Wicked Wordz”, our regular column about lingustics.

/// Showband
THE INCOHERENT DEITIES
Oh yes.

Link

If you are more into culture than sports and feel “left out” because of the Euro, the official City of Vienna art zone might be just the thing for you.

Kunstzone Karlsplatz offers DJ lines, installations, theatre and art performances, visuals, live music, film nights etc. in four main spots (source) at/close to Karlsplatz from 8-28 June.

Kunstzone Karlsplatz opens tonight, for the full programme check out its website (in German).

Because I’m sure not everyone knows (I, myself, am very rarely up-to-date on sports events, so I’m speaking from experience, ahem): tomorrow, the Vienna City Marathon is taking place, which means that quite a number of trams and buses won’t be operating on normal schedule.

You can find a list of all affected lines on the Vienna Transport Authority’s website. The website of the Vienna City Marathon provides the same information in the form of a four-page pdf document.

I don’t watch movies or films, so I definitely haven’t seen Michael Moore’s much-in-the-news flick about health care in the US, but I’ve read plenty about it online from all of the experts that seem to be everywhere on the internets. Anyway, I’ve been an adult for a long time, used the US healthcare “system”, loved and hated my insurance companies, have very good friends and family members who are doctors or in the health care industry, and just generally have enough experience in that world to have an opinion. And my opinion is that health care in the US is excellent, but insurance is fucked.

I now have some experience with Austrian health care. We recently had a baby here, and we’ve been living here as near-middle-aged adults for close to two years. We have private insurance through my work — not the Krankenkassen, so my experience may be a bit out of the ordinary. But my summary and expert opinion is that health care in Austria — or at least Vienna — is excellent and the insurance is awesome.

I plan to write some comparison and contrast type posts in the future, but I wanted to quickly tell the story that so many US Americans are wanting to hear that confirms an anecdote about EuroInsurance in Michael Moore’s movie.
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say with me: burning sun - half a million people every day for three days - free concerts - cheap alcohol - unhealthy food - what’s that spell? Exactly: Donauinselfest.

From the 22nd to the 24th the whole recreational area of the Donauinsel will be converted once again into the biggest open air festivity area in Austria. About 20 so called isles will stage a variety of programmes broad enough to suit anybodys fancy. From the mainstream pop on the BACA-Insel to alternative rock at the FM4-stage, from the Country & Western isles of the Wr. Städtische to the Lego Bionicle Tour. The newspaper Österreich has four stages all in all: the BP Ultimate / Viva, Trendsport, ATV and the Playstation 3 / MTV isles. You get the picture.

But remember two things before complaining about the massive onslought of advertising: first, all of this wouldn’t be possible if these advertiseser did not pay for it. Whatever they don’t pay has to be paid by the city and the Socialist party, and you rather want your spending money go here and not your taxes, right? Second, the massive onslought of drunken people will be much worse.

So, if you are adventurously inclined why not hop U1 or U6 or one of the tramways going to the Donauinsel to explore the 21 stages, 250 boxes that sell food, drinks and other merchandise. 260 mobile toilets will be available as well. Public transport will have extra long night time shifts and extra lines available as well.

More infos at: www.donauinselfest.at

Me, I will be about 120 kilometers away from all of this craziness because I don’t like places with a lot of people on them. It is called agoramisantropiphily and thank you, green tea does not help.

After the Socialist Party agreed to the suggestion of the green party to offer free public transport to poor people (homeless people and people on social welfare) the greens are now publicising ideas about free entry to theatres, museums and public baths and pools.

Most people I heard argument along the lines of: if I pay 25 Euros for a ticket to a theatre then I won’t want to sit next to the guy pictured above. But that is just short thinking. Of course, poor people should recieve help - but offering a homeless person free entry to a museum and then sending him out again into the cold night when again when the museum closes is somewhere between inhuman and just cynic.Yes, the pyramid of necessities by Maslow still works, but for politicians earning 4K+ a month it is hard to see that self fulfilment is not top priority for people struggling for food and shelter. But hey, it’s cool that this is cared for, now let’s tackle affordable living, health issues and work offers.
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Hallo ladies & gentlemen!
I’m back on metroblog. You didnt here quite a long time anything from me here on metroblog, because I prepared a huge & crazy project. I’m proud to present you now the “Karl Kilian Festspiele 2007″. This project deals with the idea of some politicians - that artists shoud act like an Ich-AG. That means, that the artist has to take care himself of his provisions for old age, his health-insurrance, promote himself etcetc.I dont think so. I think an artist should make good art. It’s not the job of an artist to promote or sell himself!
& here is it now, the MAXIMUM PROMOTION BABY :-)

& it uses everything that is not allowed: an nearly unknown artist celebrates himself 4 weeks with a Retrospektive, A Tribute-exhibition, concerts, dj-lines, screenings… & it’s the first time that all the different pseudonyms (fm zombiemaus, Pornobone, Kosmoprolet, trashterrier…) & arts of Karl Kilian are united in one big thing:

The Karl Kilian Festspiele 2007 on myspace: http://www.myspace.com/fkk2007
The Karl Kilian Festspiele 2007 Homepage: http://www.rasprechs.com/kkf2007/fkk2007.html

Music-links:
Mayr: http://mayr.cccp.at/
Al Bird Dirt: http://www.myspace.com/dirtbob
dj Kosmoprolet: http://www.myspace.com/djkosmoprolet

PornoBone: http://www.myspace.com/pornobone
fm zombiemaus: http://www.myspace.com/fmzombiemaus

Artproject Artstudies part III: “myprof” (sorry, only german): myprof

Overheard on the subway from Stephansplatz in the direction of Leopoldau the other day, two men, both in their early 30s, one wearing a very large coat with beer cans loaded into every pocket, and both drinking beers as they sit haphazardly on the bench seats (refer to map for humor):

Guy One: What station is this?

Guy Two: It’s Vorgartentstrße.

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With the current political discussion about poverty lines, social parasites and if it is possible to survive on 400 € a month (by people usually earning 5 grand net), it gave me a hard pinch to see this homeless person sleeping in the door of small office of Austria’s biggest insurance company. But it seemed to tell a lot more about the current state of social security in Austria than a 1.000 words, so I took a picture.

The homeless is lying in the right hand downside corner of the door; that frame of a person is a cutout-figure for advertising purposes. The slogan of the insurance co. is “Uniqua. Und sicher.” (Uniqua. And safety.) Maybe that is what the homeless also was thinking when he laid down in the entry of that office. A lot of times when I hear that slogan I tend to misunderstand “Uniqua. Unsicher.” (Uniqua. no safety.). And in these times, with the politicians talking about further cuts in social security, about not giving social benefits to people who still own a new car (which is cheaper in maintainance than an old car) or own property like a flat (which is cheaper to live in than renting) or still have some money on the bank (which they saved instead of blowing it for shineola), I think we are going to see a lot more of these in the future.

As a multiple trip per day commuter on Wiener Linien, Vienna’s amazing mass transit system, I’ve developed a amusement device to keep me entertained and distract me from the people smoking on the U-bahn (subway) platforms. My game is called, “Zug fährt”.
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