Sunday 26 May 2019

of bastions and batteries

Constituted in part from some of the last remains of a medieval fortification (a bastion, the defensive ring around Felsenburg Neurahen) but mostly a series of naturally occurring but artfully linked observation platforms, the bridge located high in the sandstone mountains (die Elbsandsteingeberger) of Saxony represents one of the first purpose-built tourist attractions, having existed in this form for some two hundred years.
H and I recently had the chance to hike around and explore some of the trails in this area, known as the Saxon Switzerland, der Sächsische Schweiz, and take advantage of the accommodations that developed over the decades and informed what we have come to expect—for better or worse, from a destination, its renown presaged by romanticised depictions in travel guides and paintings—though nature conservancy also went hand in hand with promoting tourism and now is the centrepiece of an expansive national park and preserve.  Click on the images to enlarge.

Also not failing to deliver, next we toured the Fortress Kรถnigstein, located on the towering promontory that dominated our campsite, as we’d appreciate later. A centuries’ old enclosed ensemble asserts its control over the Elbe, forming the one of the largest fort in Europe, located on a tabletop hill (Tafelberg).

Casements and batteries aside, the Königstein owes its long existence and many iterations to a reliable water supply won through an incredibly deep well (one hundred and fifty two metres, excavated by hand with two horse power and the second deepest in Europe) that allowed the occupants of the fortress to survive and outlast what would otherwise be a crippling siege and a matter of waiting the defenders out.

Saturday 18 May 2019

palimpsest

The discovery of the new/old painting by Old Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer (previously) has unfolded in a very captivating way that makes sleuths and amateur art historians out of us all.
Early, unauthorised x-ray examinations of his Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window (Brieflezend meisje bij het venster) among the trove of the then recently repatriated treasures of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen of Dresden—taken to the Soviet Union as spoils of war we returned to boost residents’ morale and curried the interest of Western scholars. The analysis revealed a Cupid (like these other famous putti who also reside in the Dresden galleries) walled over and painted out of the image, in what was assumed over the ensuing decades after the initial discovery was an example of regrettable pentimenti.
Recent re-examination conclusively determines that the over-painting was not done by Vermeer himself and approximately two centuries later, so conservators have chosen to restore (shown in progress with the unrestored version above) the artist’s original vision, confident that the visual vernacular of figure on the wall is in keeping with the artist’s style and contributes something to his overall message, interpreted as the girl hoping to expand her horizons outside of her domestic sphere.

Sunday 21 April 2019

battle of the nations

Visiting H’s parents in Leipzig, we took an afternoon stroll around the reflecting pool of the colossal Belle ร‰poque Völkerschlachtdenkmal, a monument and cenotaph (previously—with interior views) completed on the centenary of the 1813 Battle of the Nations during which a coalition of Prussian, Russian and Austrian forces delivered the armies of Napoleon a decisive defeat, which ultimately led to his capitulation and exile, erected on the battlefield at the southeastern limits of the city. After decades of planning, construction was finally undertaken with just fifteen years to spare before the hundredth anniversary of the event, financed by the city and private donations, the commission for the overall design awarded to Bruno Schmitz (see also here and here).
Rich in symbolism and though ostensibly a memorial to the unknown and anonymous soldier rather than a testament to a heroic and romanticised past, the sandstone and granite pyramid was meant to evoke the same strong patriotic sentiments that characterised the reign of Wilhelm II that spanned the time of its construction and led into the Great War. These strong associations with rabid nationalism—as all these monuments built many decades and centuries after the fact were meant to unite and provoke—caused debate among East German authorities, like the more recent culture wars over US civil war monuments, whether such symbols should be preserved in the first place for having incited so much damaging animosity. Ultimately, it was decided that the monument, showcased on the outskirts of the city’s famous convention and trade fair grounds (Messegelände), could be interpreted as a symbol of the enduring friendship and cooperation between Russia and Germany and thus could remain.

Friday 12 April 2019

ausstellung fรผr unbekannte architekten

On this day in 1919, Walter Gropius founded in Weimar the Bauhaus school—a merger of the art academies of the city and grand duchy—as the successor institution to Arts and Crafts studio founded earlier by Belgian Art Nouveau architect Henry Clemens van de Velde, dismissed earlier during the war on account of his nationality, whose new style represented a negotiated compromise between the fine and the applied arts.  A show during the same month called An Exhibition of Unknown Architects, Gropius outlined the goal of the movement (see also here, here, here, and here) to create a new trade association for which there were not the same bars to membership as the guilds of the past, crafting the neologism as the heir of the Bauhรผtte, the stone masons who managed construction of cathedrals in Gothic times. A huge profusion of art and design came out of this movement and explore a carefully curated archive of resources at Open Culture at the link.

Thursday 13 December 2018

immer bereit

Named in tribute to the former leader of the Communist party of Germany Ernst Thรคlmann who was murdered at Buchenwald concentration camp, the East German youth organisation, modelled on the international scouting movement, die Jungpioniere and die Pioniere, was officially founded on this day in 1948.

Margot Feist—the future Missus Erich Honecker—became chairwoman of the group the next year and remained its leader until its dissolution in 1990—at the endpoint, nearly two million pupils, ninety-eight percent of all schoolchildren in East Germany. H was a member, and I have seen his old uniform, at least the blue neckerchief (Halstuch). The pioneers’ slogan and greeting was usually shortened to the call from the leader to “Be ready!” with the response from the group saluting “Always ready!” from the motto—Fรผr Frieden und Sozialismus seid bereit—immer bereit, For Peace and Socialism, be ready—always ready! Matriculation ceremonies for new members took place on the anniversary (Pioniergeburtstag) of the organisation’s establishment.

Thursday 8 November 2018

durchfรคhrt

Being very well acquainted with the city (check the label for Saxony for more), we enjoyed indulging in this film artefact, courtesy of TYWKIWDBI, that delivers a whistle-stop tour of Leipzig by street car (StraรŸenbahn) from 1931 and did recognise several streets and landmarks in passing. As the source recommends, use your imagination to create an immersive experience as you transverse the city at speed.

Thursday 18 October 2018

momma dollar and papa dollar

Observed in the third Thursday of October since 1948, International Credit Union Day recognising the importance of financial cooperatives globally in terms of advocacy, solidarity and engagement that’s not shared and often undercut by banks and traditional for-profit institutions.
Sponsored by the World Council of Credit Unions, the timing could be in approximate deference to nineteenth century German statesman and economist Franz Hermann Schulze-Delitzch’s (previously) departure from the Prussian National Assembly in October 1851 to devote his time and energy to the foundation and development of people’s banks (Vorschussvereine). By the time of his death in April of 1883, there were over three thousand branches across the Germany Empire, Russia, Austria, Belgium and Italy.

Tuesday 18 September 2018

ansible oder zum gedanken an

Moving house and home a few months ago and by sheer dint of having too many things, we had to cull some of our stuff—including a telephone that belonged to H’s grandmother (it’s funny how landlines in general are referred too as granny phones), which I took with the instructions to dispose of it.
Of course, I didn’t do as I was told—mostly because the dial, enigmatically and I still haven’t figured out why, only went up to eight—though there’s slots for the zero and nine. Now that H’s grandmother has recently passed away, I’m glad we held on to her telephone—especially in keeping with this special telephone booth installed in a town ravaged by the tsunami and Fukushima disaster of 2011 to let people commune with those they’ve lost, and perhaps with those that they never got to say goodbye to. I know I’m conflating metaphors and confusing two histories with their own canons but having grown up in the shadow of Colditz castle and having worked there, I associated her story with the series Hogan’s Heroes—which by coincidence premiered in 1965 on the same day as we lost her.

Monday 3 September 2018

qui cum canibus concumbunt cum pulicibus surgent

It is unhelpful and counter-productive to label anyone and everyone that is against migration and refugee policies who wants to voice their opposition as a Nazi—setting aside for only the briefest of moments what crimes the Nazis carried out, but anyone who marches alongside or in a group infiltrated by Nazis is de facto a Nazi themselves—or a useful idiot thereof, which is arguably an even worse fate, to be a tool without agency of hatred and nihilism.
This applies universally across space and time but Germany has made some very simple guidelines should one find their demonstration impinged upon by Nazis which should prompt one’s hasty retreat and alert the authorities: the Hitler greeting, Swastikas and other symbols of Nazi Germany and denying the Holocaust and extent of their crimes against humanity are illegal and finding oneself in the midst, even marginally and uninvited should signal one to get out and regroup right away. There’s no acceptable common-ground and one’s polite and practical arguments for xenophobia and racism are quickly accelerated to their natural conclusion, institutionalised ostracism and alienation and perhaps even industrialised murder. Are organisers and political figures responsible for the behaviour and outlook of all of their constituents and benighted disciples? In the legal sense, no—lest one prove a calculated neglect, but in the moral sense, leaders should always police for extremism and make the effort to reform their stance and clarify their own position to ensure that there’s truly no place for such views. Anything short of that is dereliction of duty and makes one’s crusade and campaign just another rung in the ladder for the forces of regression and division, no matter how one pleads or equivocates.

Sunday 22 April 2018

zwischenstopp: willmars

We’ve previously wrote a little bit about the village of Willmars when we went exploring some ruins and contemplated hunting for mushrooms but the side of town one spies from the road is also pretty picturesque and compact—everything that makes a proper village all right together. The bakery/general store is co-located now with the fire department removed a bit from the main street but everything else is right there.
The settlement was originally in the hands of a cadet-branch of the Franconian dukes of Henneberg, controlling the lands with imperial immediacy from the forests of Thรผringen to the banks of the Main, from the early thirteenth century onwards.
Once the line died out with no legitimate heirs in 1583, Willmars and its neighbours reverted ownership to the Duchy of Saxony.
With the major re-distri-bution of sovereignty within the Holy Roman Empire of 1803 (der Reichsdeputationshauptschluss), the villages once again traded hands and came into possession of the Free and Imperial Knights von Stein zu Nord- and Ostheim—more or less for keeps and more on this venerable family to come.

Thursday 9 November 2017

6x6

c/2017 u1: passing interstellar object receives an official designation

cut and paste: a previously unknown Waldseemรผller globe gore (a two-dimensional map whose segments are to be put onto a sphere) to be auctioned off, via Nag on the Lake

gรถrliwood: historic German town of Gรถrlitz near the Polish border named best filming location in Europe

a crack in the sky: a cache of recently declassified material on the last time the US conducted atmosphere nuclear tests, via Paleofuture

o brave new world: on the resonances of writing and what comes of surrendered that script—even temporarily

the giving tree: two landscape photographers travel the world to showcase some choice arboreal overachievers

Friday 22 September 2017

6x6

1995: a retrospective of the first five web applications that informed the internet as we know it, via Waxy

travelling matte: a thirty kilometre long art project for train passengers between Jena and Naumburg

bellerophon: incredible Roman mosaic discovered by amateur archaeologists in the Cotswolds

lay of the land: different proposals for visualising maps and daily journeys through the lens of time

mona lisas and mad hatters: other Elton John songs that Dear Leader uses to refer to world leaders

phase shift: pumping air through sand makes it behave like a liquid, first spotted here  

Wednesday 31 May 2017

parforce

Recently H and I had a chance to visit a pair of monumental hunting lodges whose architecture and ceremonial follies illustrated how the occupation become leisurely pursuit of the powerful of the hunt was a way of reinforcing fealty and was a metric of noble means beginning in the Middle Ages (parforce hunting) and articulated as a social arena for centuries thereafter.
The great wooded area around the village of Wermsdorf was a royal park for many generations and there was an ancient though modest lodge there already—but as existing accommodations were proving inadequate to impress visiting dignitaries, August II. der Starke (called the Strong for his physical strength that could apparently break horseshoes bare-handed and won him prizes in the prince-elector bracket of competitive fox-tossing—literally and as cruel as it sounds) commissioned the construction of the Hubertusburg (announced on the feast day of Saint Hubertus—3 November—who is the patron of hunters and the vision that led to his conversion is popularised in the Jรคgermeister logo) to showcase his family’s power.

The prince-bishops were not only instrumental in choosing the emperor, the leader of reformationist Saxony was also the king of Poland and the grand duke of Lithuania through martial unions that honoured the traditions of those brought into the fold—exemplified in the Catholic court chapel that was rather unique in the region and is the only room to have escaped plunder and destruction.
Lavish, choreographed hunts continued at the Hubertusburg, whose grounds and layout was favourably compared to Versailles—the quarry of choice being deer—up until the outbreak of that first global conflict, the Seven Years’ War, in 1755—whose own chambers saw the peace treaty that brought its end as well as the French-Indian War.
The residential palace never wholly its former glory and was at times used as a sanitarium and prison and even a porcelain factory. Presently, the trappings of the hunt are re-enacted by skilled equestrians and enthusiasts who dress up in period costumes, but mercifully the hounds are put on to the scent of human decoys to pursue through the forest—harming no one in the end.
The other hunting lodge we visited was Schloss Moritzburg, an earlier Baroque example also set in the midst of a favoured game preserve not far from the royal capital of Dresden. Constructed on an artificial island, the quatrefoil design reminds me of the Seehof of Memmelsdorf by Bamberg, it served a similar function with protocol and entertaining dignitaries.
A showroom of course for hunting trophies, the collections quickly expanded to display pieces side by side to compare Japanese and Chinese ceramics with MeiรŸen faience. Later an ensemble of other buildings were added to the parkgrounds, including a Rococo pavilion called the Little Pheasant Castle (Fasanenschlรถsschen) that’s meant to invoke an Oriental style and despite Saxony’s landlocked state, it’s one and only lighthouse—for when the occasional mock naval battles were conducted in the lakes that bordered the gardens.

Saturday 29 April 2017

worth 1000

Messy Nessy Chic interviews Leipzig transplant and surreal photographer Frank Herfort now capturing the ambiance of post-Soviet public spaces and shares the story behind some of the striking images. This picture gave me the impression of a deleted scene from Twin Peaks and the explanation—while not unsettling—is anything but mundane. Peruse a whole gallery of his works at the links above and discover more jarring juxtapositions that those part of the shot don’t seem to regard as unusually photophilic but are nonetheless content to be part of the composition.

Monday 21 November 2016

a scanner darkly

The colour background that one sees when one closes one’s eyes is called Eigengrau (German for intrinsically gray) and is brighter than what we perceive as the blackest black because there’s no contrast behind our eyelids.
The term was coined by experimental psychologist Gustav Theodor Fechner in the 1860s while working at the University of Leipzig whilst studying the relationship between sensation and perception, famously recognising that not everyone will see the same colours as demonstrated by contemporary and toy-maker Charles Benham with his top. Just as the Eigengrau that people report is hard to measure and is subjective, the subtle arcs of colour (called Fechner colours or flicker colours) are not the same for every observer—and no one can quite say why. The flashing image might make some people dizzy, so click here to view it. What colour are the tracers that you see? Is it the same for this one (caution flashing images) too?

Thursday 10 November 2016

alt-right or barrel of deplorables


Here’s a brief biographical look of some of the freshly be(k)nighted members of European Alt-Right, coming soon to an election near you—you know, so you can avoid awkward encounters at parties. Thankfully, most have a day-job to fall back on—since idle hands... With the exception of the do-over election in Austria, this dossier only introduces those without some tenuous claim to authority.

Frauke Petry, chemist and chairwoman for Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, founded 4 July 2015.





Lutz Bachmann, advertising executive from Dresden and founder of the PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident) October 2014.



Marine Le Pen, attorney and French politician and president of Front National, October 1972.





Albert Rรถsti, political consultant and national chairman of the Swiss People’s Party, founded September 1971.





Geert Wilders, Dutch founder and leader of the Party for Freedom, February 2006.











Matteo Salvini, Italian journalist and leader of separatist movement Lega Nord, founded in January 1991.








Norbert Hofer, contested president of Austria and member of the Freedom Party (FPร–), founded April 1956.

Thursday 1 September 2016

glass menagerie or radial symmetry

Hyperalleric invites us on a field-trip that they’ve helped to curate themselves to the Corning Glass Museum to marvel at the exhibit of antique glass models of deep sea creatures—tube worms, squid, corals and anemones—crafted in a nineteenth century workshop in Dresden from the stacks and storerooms of Cornell University, having acquired a sizable amount of them in the late 1800s for instruction in marine biology.
The glass-workers were quite skilled and came from a long line of artists, and in response to wide-spread interest in natural history at the time, turned their attention away from jewelry (though having gotten quite talented at making glass eyes for taxidermists) and tried to accurately capture the look of these delicate specimens that usually disintegrate once taken out of their native environment. The gorgeous creations were shelved and forgotten with the advent of photography, and later rediscovered and mended—nearly as fragile as the invertebrates they represent, displayed not just as other-worldly chandeliers and beautiful baubles but also studied as record (a novel sort of fossil) of the loss of biodiversity in the oceans over the ensuing century and a half.

Wednesday 8 June 2016

trรผmmerfrau

The secretive Bilderberg Group will be meeting at an undisclosed location in Dresden, as Quartz reports, this week, and although proceedings are not subject to public-scrutiny in any sense, apparently one item of their agenda will be the so-called precariat.
Coined by economist Guy Standing, the term refers to the working-class suspended in a precarious situation—not rightly any longer called the proletariat since they were afforded more protections and securities—unsure whether they can enjoy continued employment or face redundancy, replaced by immigrants or robots. Siding with the author’s take on this anxiety-causing arrangement in the labour-force, I agree that the lizard-people who rule the world will be rather aghast with what their underlings are facing and what kind of toll this takes on society.

Monday 28 March 2016

amenities oder unterkunft

Over the weekend, H and I got a chance to dine at the oldest guesthouse in the storied and venerable city of Leipzig. 
The institution that eventually became famous, as widely known as Leipzig’s other famous restaurant Auerbachs Keller or the Hofbrรคuhaus of Mรผnchen, as Thรผringer Hof came into existence in the early fifteenth century as the urban estate of the rector of the University of Leipzig (a Freihaus as such in town residences are called was exempt from city tax although it was afforded the protection of the city wall) who in 1466, realised that there was a significant market gap when it came to feeding and sheltering students—especially until they were sponsored by fraternal societies.
The rector opened up a corner of his home as a public-house—doing a brisk business for over six centuries, with just a few interruptions.

Multiple dining halls could accommodate some twelve hundred guests and the establishment was known to the likes of Martin Luther, Bach, whose home-church and choir are just around the corner (along with another less famed watering-hole, but I liked the name, nonetheless) and Richard Wagner.

Friday 12 February 2016

tatort oder der kommissar’s in town

Though truthfully I cannot say I consider myself a dedicated fan of the series—though I usually have it on in the background and make it a point to gyrate to the funky opening soundtrack—I think that I must give it another go after reading Dangerous Minds’ appreciation of Tatort, a crime-scene investigatory franchise that has regular parallel plot-lines in a dozen different cities within the German Sprachraum. The series has aired for four decades presently and its thousandth instalment is coming up soon. The tribute highlights some of the best episodes and offers a lucid explanation to the nonpareil format to outside audiences—however much we might already fancy ourselves forensics experts thanks to CSI and Law & Order. I have caught glimpses of familiar sights in the show’s extensive venues, especially Leipzig, beforehand—and although a recent chapter was filmed between Frankfurt and Wiesbaden, I was a little let down that Wiesbaden’s screen-presence was severely limited and confined to an underground carpark—though I could be reasonably certain I recognised it.