Went to Linz – Austria – for Ars Electronica, a mix of business and pleasure. Business was done in a day, then the next day I had time to wander. First we walked downhill from Castle Hill to the Danube, where the river flows west to east. which is wrong, somehow …. rivers should flow east to west and not west to east, at least as far as I am concerned. Ingrained expectations are the hardest to spot I think. We followed the Danube for a while – very quiet – then turned around to try and find a good coffee in the city center. Which noble goal was achieved! Us being coffee snobs, it has grown to be a perious undertaking to order a coffee, anywhere, …

Below is one of two ladies we met with at the castle entrance – she is Maria Emilia Catharina geborene von Sprinzenstein (~1635-1686). She has been captured for the ages next to her husband Joachim Enzmilner (1600-1678) and his first wife Maria Magdalena geborene Kirchstetter (1608-1659). Typical that these two women are presented as ‘beloning to a Great Male Figure, and with the last name of their fathers added for good measure. I get so impatient with history sometimes.

Then we went to the Ars Electronica festival, which was pretty cool. I should have taken pictures of the installation consisting of a grid of small golden globes in a lawn that gave off little ‘tick-tock’sounds when an invisible radiaton particle passed through them. Tried to look the work up in the catalogue later, but said catalogue was so impenetrable I could not find it. Nor did I find it on the ‘Web – a shame. So: must take care to better document the things I see and like.

The images below are from animated drawings – again: I did not document who made them & could not find it in the catalogue. But the idea of showing drawings as part-animations is one I want to preserve.

Then we wandered through the festival grounds, and listened to some classical and experimental-classical music. The experimental part being the public that got to operate water glassess – such fun!