dido & aeneas.

one of the first productions i'll work for in october will be dido & aeneas by the sasha waltz company. sasha waltz transformed this baroque opera by henry purcell into a magnificant performance full of passion and emotion. that's what opera should be today ... so it's no coincindence they were completly sold out in berlin (deutsche staatsoper unter den linden) and luxembourg (grand théâtre de la ville de luxembourg).

read more:

• dido & aenas
• dido & aeneas by sasha waltz
• the critics
• dido & aeneas @ festspielhaus st. pölten

mario.

if everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough ...

[mario andretti]

sunset.

it's quite a beautiful sight to watch the sunset from my new office. still it tells me it's time to go home now ...

doors.

not the doors, but some doors. there's this complex of buildings not far frome me, the buildings there look all the same - very small and solid grey. the only difference are the doors.

[it was not quite easy to get a good shot there. some guys turned up and tried to bully me. i told them i'm from a very popular austrian newspaper making a reportage ... thankfully i had my big camera with me, so they believed me somehow.]

lazy saturday.

outdoor marketing.

had my first marketing strategy meeting in the quite nice location of the göttweig monastery ...

on my way home.

the view from within.

a new and better world.

took my brown paper lunch bag to a new destination today - the festspielhaus st. pölten, where i will try to convince the lower austrians that performing arts are not devil's work. the first day had been quite stressful, met too many people whose names i couldn't memorize at once, heard too many things. but it will be better and better and better (i hope) ...

wild, wild wels.

so you think this looks like the average austrian town where flowers blossom, lederhosen musicians play polka and mozart composed another one of his famous pieces.

you are wrong. wolfgang amadeus has never been to wels (or at least he did nothing of public interest there) and behind the glittering facade wels actually is the hell's kitchen of austria. especially in the night the natives come out and perform strange ritual acts and as always the surviving of the fittest plays a great role in these games:

surrounding themselves with up to ten participants in a local pub of their choice the "welsians" try to drink as much beer (and according side-orders) as possible till closing time. and then comes the fun part and real challenge: the pack choses a leader (e.g. by throwing dices) who will drive the whole party to the next open discotheque where the females wait for the survivors. it has something in common with lemmings ...

another opportunity for the young male to demonstrate his breeding power are big jamborees where oral communications are set aside to make place for the language of fists and other means of raw power. the simple equation behind it: more drinks = bigger fists = master-of-the-universe-feeling.


[fortunately these are just exceptions, it's still save and nice to travel to wels, even in the darkest night, no vests required.]

good morning.

woke up far too early today, at least i got a glimpse of sunshine before the clouds rushed in ...

en detail.

[vienna's most beautiful lingerie store.]

[oversizes.]

it always pays to take a closer look ...

night shift.

not too much to see in these pics, still i like the colors and the movement ...

thanks ikea.

for a good laugh early in the morning. one shouldn't really use the same product names in every country ...

more night views.

wonderful sky in the middle of the night, exp. time: 30".

what shall they do with the drunken sailor?

when advertisers go mad, the wrong way ...

yesterday the social democrats presented their new campaign, which doesn't contain anything unexpected, surprising or different from other campaigns (you can see it as a banner on their homepage).

the head behind the whole thing, luigi schober, ceo young & rubicam vienna, described his work as "pure napalm". maybe the climate control in his jag cooled his brain a little too much, maybe he just wanted to polish up his super cool impostor image a little bit ... still his comment is not only distasteful in these times but also reflects a quite weird understanding of what an electoral campaign should be.

even more: this campaign for mr. gusenbauer, the leader of the social democrats, is (as described above) boring. it doesn't contain any of the explosives luigi schober fantasizes about, it's just as average as all the work from y&r here in vienna. ironically luigi schober suddenly finds himself on par with jörg haider, leader of the right-wing bzö, who also can't keep his mouth shut and disseminates utter nonsense whenever it's inappropriate.

read also this comment: presse.

when night falls.

climbing on the concrete of history.

thankfully the third reich was just a horrifying glimpse in human history, still the nazis left their marks. in vienna there are 3 pairs of anti-aircraft towers which were built between 1942 and 1945. still sitting bold in the heart of vienna they became memorials against war and are used more peacefully today ...

[more information: anti-aircarft towers in germany and austria, information about the towers in vienna (in german)]

rain, rain, rain.

i don't hope summer is over by now ... as always people already started complaining about the cold & bad, bad, bad weather (although july has been the hottest month ever recorded here in austria).

mumok.

rainy saturday, so we chose to visit the the mumok (@ the museumsquartier) which hosts the works of joseph beuys from the mumok collection, a review of 25 years of stiftung ludwig (one of the biggest art collections here in austria, would be happy if my cellar would shelter paintings of warhol & co.) and "why pictures now" - a journey through photography, film & video today (where it's forbidden to take photographs ... sort of contradiction).