How to destroy Salzburg

Drinking with Norbert Bisky was fun but risky. I was too brisk drinking and not listening to Bisky, if I would have listened to him it had reduced the risk. The absinth of course should have either been mixed with water or set on fire for a while as my friend Johnny Bliss did together with the gorgeous painter from Thessaloniki, a city with a recovering alcoholic as city mayor by the way. After swallowing a cup of absinth without any water or fire interference I lie in bed until 4pm the next day.

As my suffering has ended I walk over to the Mirabellgarten where I meet Mister Schaden, the city mayor of Salzburg admiring the artwork "The Gallows" by Roman from Robert Kuśmirowski's public art movement.

Next to Mister Schaden Stefan leans in the sun.

Stefan has cut out something from the grass.

Behind Stefan's "Stop Wait Stay" South African artist Megan Mace sits on a bird feeding house with a fish bowle on her lap.

Some goldfish is swimming in the bowle and under Megan in the bird feeding house three more smaller fish are swimming in another bowle on a romantic dinner setting. Megan sits like this for a few hours. "I try not to become attached to the fish. You form a relationship with the fish though, not becoming the fish, that is a cliché, but people look at you the same way they look at the fish. The fish becomes a performer, a spectator and a performer, you look at the fish but at the same time the fish looks at you."

Megan Mace compares the bulgy eyed fish in the bowle with the tourist. Both are somehow secure and fragile at once, locked in a condensed space unaware of what is beyond this space, beyond the glas bowle or the lense of the photo camera, a bubble of reality that remains ignorant of the social politics of the space. The fish has a memory span of 3 minutes very much like a stimulus satiated tourist.

Megan Mace's performance is titled "How difficult can it be to produce public art with fish and bowles?" Megan has been working with fish bowles in public for the past 3 years. Now she is completing her Master Arts program in Johannesburg, South Africa. When she talks about the topic of her thesis it makes me think of →Kevin Dooley.