Cities Live On Passion, Says the Man Who Has Plenty

Yesterday saw another interesting lunchtalk at the Fortress Hohensalzburg as Christoph Schäfer, currently teaching the class Drawing as Wish-Machine there, stepped up to the podium to deliver a lecture he warned would last 5 hours. He then delved into explaining two of his recent projects, one of them still in development, that both deal with public space, the histories clinging to it and the way they are seen and represented, and more importantly, how to flip them and tell a story of his own. He splits these stories and features different aspects in 3 locations, unearthing new angles and adding dimensions.

After asserting people are still with him, he then dives into a completely different topic, a book featuring his drawings called Die Stadt ist unsere Fabrik - The City Is Our Factory that deals with the developement of cities, their roles and how they change people's way of thinking, but also with the specific development of Hamburg. A big topic for Christoph is also the right to the city, as the term has been coined, meaning to defend quarters from speculation and rising rents, trying to preserve grown structures and keeping art scenes from becoming cash cows and unwilling aides to development managers.

The artist keeps his talk interesting by showing illustrations from the book, reading from it and leaving out the parts that might be too specific. At one point the drawn image of a record pops up behind him, his cue to turn on house music as he feels that its DJ's revolutionised the relation between performers and audience and is thus very important in the whole context of urbanisation, and breaks into dance. He promised this beforehand, but judging from the looks of the audience most people thought it was a joke.

This little intermission makes me hopeful for the finissage, as a good party always needs a person to break the ice on the dancefloor. Christoph Schäfer might be just the man we need for that.

For those interested in his book, more information and excerpts can be found on the artists website: http://www.christophschaefer.net/ [mp]