My Secret Viennese Ritual

May 2019

(Description)


In Follow The Lost Umbrella I observed the sight-seeing in Venice curious: when does a place become a sight worthful seeing? Additionally, I deliberately separated the reading of the text written as a report of this experience from the slide show that would usually follow the text in real time. I separate, or connect (?) these two elements by a walk, in order to emphasise a walk as an inseparable part of my work.


A few weeks later, I tried to observe the sight-seeing in Vienna, the town in which I have lived for more than 10 years. What does it take to be a tourist at home? Is it possible at all? I remembered a ride in Prater, a popular amusement park in Vienna, that I visited and took almost every week in my first year of life in Vienna - Star Flyer. It was a funny coincidence that the only ride visible from a spot in which premises of my phd program are located is this one which I knew so well. I decided to revisit it, in order to take a picture of the building in which I study now, exactly from up there.


I repeated the following usual procedure of mine:

I go for a walk and record videos of everything that trigger curiosity, thoughts, impressions. Afterwards, I write down the notes about this experience, automatically without much control over the order, I let memories come naturally, I recall the observations. Then, after this story is written I revisit the videos and take screenshots that I feel do add or follow or depart from the written part.


It turned out that my attempt of being a tourist at home was a hardly possible mission. As long as I felt familiar with what I saw, or expected to see, it was a frustrating experience. Only when I discovered an attraction, and in this case it was another girl feeling familiar with the ride she takes everyday for days, I could extract myself from my own feeling of being home, watching someone who feels more at home than me.

(The result)

 

My Secret Viennese Ritual consisted of a live reading, at the exact spot in the backyard of the University from which my ride is visible, a short walk to the room in which then the slide show was shown.

 

Research material.

 

Read the text


Watch the slideshow


Listen to the reading


Q&A - transcript.


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