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        [brucknerhaus, linz, tue 5 sep, 5 pm]

        everyone reporting from this year's ars electronica seems to be 
        so exited about this so-called sperm race (see wired.com etc), 
        but to me the idea of having a masturbation contest on a media 
        festival sounds quite boring, both conceptually and practically.

        personally, what i found much more exciting was crossing the 
        german-austrian border by train, and it may be appropriate to 
        add this story to simon biggs' list of austrian anectodes: i was 
        sharing a compartment with fran ilich when two border cops 
        rushed in, checked our ids ("ooh, see, he's mechican..."), asked 
        us if we were into drug dealing, searched all our bags, then 
        sent fran out, closed the curtains, had me undress ("this is a 
        very common procedure and i'm sure you're familiar with it") and 
        then fully body searched me, including an anal exam. when the 
        bad cop drew the curtain to the corridor, i could see fran, then 
        the good cop drew the curtains on the window and i could see the 
        mountains. a few minutes later we were arriving in salzburg.

        i haven't seen much of the festival yet, but it looks quite like 
        a usual festival. that is, you meet people you've met on other 
        festivals who talk about stuff they've talked about on other 
        festivals (see http://www.langlab.wayne.edu/Romance/FreD_G/ 
        ABC3.html#anchor812974 btw, or try to get the video). when you 
        ask for the free speech camp at the help desk inside the ars 
        electronica center, the people there will start to giggle and 
        point at the window though which you can see the camp site, 
        consisting of a couple of crappy tents and wagons sitting on the 
        river bank. (to get there from the lobby make sure you don't 
        take the glass door since you will set off an alarm and have to 
        walk all the way back around lots of glass fences to get back to 
        the main entrance. from there it's just straight on and then 
        down some stairs next to a sign saying you were right in the 
        middle of some private property.) down at the camp most people 
        are really nice, but it's only very few of them, and the whole 
        camp in a bizarre way seems to be trapped in the political 
        culture of the seventies, its leftists routines and modes of 
        behaviour. Somehow it even looks like all the people here are 
        fully aware that they ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow.

        i'm still hesitating to comment on the so-called "political 
        situation" in austria, and that's not only because from a german 
        perspective you'd rather shut up and mind your own nazis. i've 
        been reading dozens of declarations this year, on this list and 
        on others, signed by hundreds of austrian artists, and sometimes 
        i'm not quite sure if i'd want to read one more. like on the aec 
        website, where about twenty austrian museums and art galleries 
        "deem it necessary to issue" another one, "in light of recent 
        events", as if these events were impossible to name, and argue 
        that "solidarity with foreigners [...] also means [...] respect 
        for artistic works", ie artistic works by austian artists on 
        display in austrian museums and art galleries, and declate they 
        "categorically oppose" and "resolutely stand up against" losing 
        their state funding, thus indicating that their own thesis "that 
        art is not created in a vacuum completely divorced from 
        political life" may not be worth the server space it's sitting 
        on. To me, the divorce between art and politics in austria 
        becomes more complete with each of these manifestos, and i'd 
        neither count on artists who stick that much to their art, nor 
        would i count on anyone involved in that practice of permanently 
        declaring this or that. declarations are intellectually zero, as
        they are practically zero.

        [to be finished...]


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