Nach dem Aufwachen, der Film in meinem Kopf transportiert mich nach Südbrasilien, nach Santa Cruz do Sul: Sonnenschein, Vogelgezwitscher, der Jabuticaba-Baum. Hier in der Schweiz, in Sargans: Sonnenschein, Vogelgezwitscher, der Apfelbaum.
Ich habe mir angewöhnt, nach dem Erwachen liegen zu bleiben und meine Gedanken zu beobachten – es ist völlig irre, unfassbar und faszinierend, was da abläuft: Rasant wechseln die Schauplätze an diesem Morgen. Gerade noch war ich in Oberschan und jetzt bin am Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles, Dann tauchen Bilder vom Innern der Klosterkirche Disentis vor meinem inneren Auge auf, von meiner Mutter auf dem Sterbebett, von meiner Nichte, der Turnerin, von A, in die ich mich vor Jahren heftig verliebt hatte. Kurz darauf bin ich in Maienfeld, nehme den Weg durch Weinberge nach Landquart. Dann, übergangslos, wieder in Sargans bei der Tochter eines strengen Lehrers, die einen erfolgreichen Geschäftsmann geheiratet hat, dessen erste Frau mich bei einem Spaziergang über ihn 'aufklärte'.
Dieser ständige Strom von Bildern und Emotionen, die sich (vermutlich) in Millisekunden abwechseln, lässt mich zwar staunen, doch er hinterlässt auch ein Gefühl von Hilflosigkeit. Niemals bin ich verletzlicher als beim Aufwachen, wenn die Schutzbarrieren noch nicht hochgefahren sind.
Die Vorstellung, wir könnten das Leben in den Griff kriegen, gehört angesichts dessen, was wir beobachten, erleben und erfahren können, zu den absurdesten, die wir zu denken imstande sind. Kein Wunder, suchen wir bei diesem ständigen Wirbelwind Halt und das Gehirn, unser Illusionen-Produzent, liefert ihn. Es erzählt uns nicht, was geschehen ist, denn dies ist zu komplex, als dass wir es verstehen könnten, es erzählt uns (im Nachhinein, wohlverstanden) die Version, die wir zu verstehen imstande sind – die vereinfachte, logische und für uns nachvollziehbare.
Konzentriert euch, fordert der Lehrer in der Schule. Was er nicht sagt, ist: Vergesst alles, was euch durch Kopf und Herz geht. Nehmt nicht wahr, was ist, nehmt nur wahr, was ihr wahrnehmen sollt. Kein Wunder, fragen wir uns hin und wieder, worin der Sinn eines solchen Lebens liegen könnte.
Hans Durrer: Gregors Pläne. neobooks 2021
Yet my restless mind does not stop at Ipanema and the folks depicted there, it transports me to other Brazilian beaches in the South and the Northeast. And then — my mind does what it wants! — to beaches in Southern Thailand and and and …
The power of photographs lies in their ability to direct our attention. Returning to the ones by Sandra Cattaneo Adorno in Águas de Ouro brings me once again to Rio and Ipanema. Contemplating them not only makes me dream but also fills me with the wish of going there … “… must we dream our dreams and have them, too?” Elizabeth Bishop asked in Question of Travel. Sometimes that would indeed be nice …
For the full review, go to www.fstopmagazine.com
An der Busstation von Porto Alegre. Innerhalb von zehn Minuten wurde er drei Mal von Buspassagieren um Auskunft gefragt. Warum fragten sie ihn? Wie kam es bloss, dass sie ihn für einen Angestellten der Busbetriebe hielten? Er sah, jedenfalls seiner Einschätzung nach, überhaupt nicht wie ein Busfahrer aus. Andere sahen das offenbar anders. Bis es ihm dämmerte – er war wie einer gekleidet, Busfahrer im Süden Brasiliens trugen hellblaue Hemd und dunkelblaue Hosen, die Fahrkartenkontrolleure ebenso.
Ähnlich fatal kann die Kombination weisses Hemd, schwarze Hosen sein. In einer gut besuchten Pizzeria in Basel versuchte er lange vergeblich den Kellner auf sich aufmerksam zu machen, der jedes Mal in einem Affentempo an ihm vorbeirauschte. Bis es ihm reichte und er laut durch das Lokal rief: 'He, Sie, kann ich bitte bestellen!' 'Ich bin Gast hier', gab der Mann indigniert zurück. Und jetzt bemerkte auch Harry, dass er zwar die typische Kellner Kleidung – weisses Hemd, schwarze Hosen – doch statt des roten Blumenbouquet des Pizzeria Personals um den Hals eine schwarze Krawatte trug.
Aus: Harrys Welt oder Die Sehnsucht nach Sinn, neobooks 2019
These photographs document scenes from rural Cuban life that one rarely gets to see. One does not need words to describe that these people live a hard life, one can see and feel it. For this is what photographs can do – they can make you feel. This is their magic.
Although I’m not unfamiliar with Cuba (I got married in Havana), these pictures introduce me to an island I do not know. They also make once again clear to me that there are not only as many Cubas as there are Cubans but that there are also the many different Cubas of the visitors. Differently put: These photographs show a personal, subjective view – and this is their strength for the more personal, honest, subjective, the greater the chance that others will sympathise, even identify, with what is revealed.
One sees people at work in the field, fishing, sleeping, preparing food, praying, children playing, and and and – pictures of daily life in rural Cuba. Nobody seems to pose for the camera, no fake smiles, quite some appear to live in their own private universe (we all do, of course, but these photographs make it visible to me).
For the full review, go here
Reading Deanna Templeton’s introduction seemed to confirm my ponderings, although her focus is different – to my utter amazement, I hadn’t realised that I had been almost exclusively looking at young girls. “Young girls today are living in a much different world than I did, but the experience of growing up female is universal no matter which era. I see my own struggles, disappointments and bravery in these women. I decided to take these modern portraits and pair them with my own teenage journal entries from 1984 to 1988, along with some of my flyers collected from the shows I went to that reflect the bands I was into during that time. As someone who survived a turbulent transition into adulthood, I hope that this look into my teen-aged mindset and adolescent traumas, paired with these modern girls evolving into adulthood, will convey the sense that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and we will be able to look back at our own youth and smile, remembering how intense life feels at that age.”
For the full review, go here
Ich war kurz vor Mitternacht zu Bett gegangen, wachte dreimal in der Nacht durstig auf, wälzte mich ständig unruhig hin und her und als ich morgens um sieben aufstand, war mir unwohl, nahm ich eine diffuse Angst und Beklemmung wahr.
Tags zuvor hatte ich eine gelernte Psychologin gecoacht, der es schwer fiel, sich verbindlich zu entscheiden; hatte dreieinhalb Stunden Englisch unterrichtet, eine Einzelstunde mit einem Uni-Dozenten, dann eine mit einem Arzt und zuletzt eine Gruppe von Managern, die mich anschliessend, da es die letzte Unterrichtsstunde war, zum Essen einluden. Es war ein intensiver Austausch gewesen, doch war nichts dabei, das mir einen auch nur vagen Hinweis darauf hätte geben können, dass ich eine unruhige Nacht vor mir haben und in der Früh unter Übelkeit und Beklemmungsgefühlen leiden würde.
Automatisch suchte ich nach Erklärungen, betrieb die mir zur Gewohnheit gewordene Ursachenforschung und misstraute gleichzeitig meinen Einsichten – zu beliebig, zu sehr vom Bedürfnis nach Sinn und Zweck schienen sie mir diktiert. „Aber es wäre wahrlich ein Narr, wer annähme, dass irgendein Leben einer schlichten Folgerichtigkeit gehorcht, oder verdient wäre, oder selbstverständlich“, meint Robert Creeley in seiner Autobiographie.
Für meine Gefühle bin ich nicht verantwortlich, wohl aber dafür, wie ich mit ihnen umgehe. So sehr ich mich die meiste Zeit meines Lebens danach gesehnt habe, die unangenehmen, bedrückenden, verstörenden, mich oft lähmenden Gefühle endlich einmal hinter mir zu haben – sie tauchen immer wieder auf.
Sie nicht wahrhaben zu wollen, hat für mich nie funktioniert; immer wieder haben sie mich eingeholt. Ich musste und muss nach wie vor lernen, sie zu akzeptieren, sie als zum Leben gehörig zu begreifen. Denn erst, wenn ich das tue, habe ich eine Chance, nicht zum Sklaven meiner Stimmungen zu werden.
Hans Durrer: Wie geht das eigentlich, das Leben? neobooks 2017
When approaching the shopping centre in Szombathely, a flock of birds takes off from a nearby roof and starts its rounds. These birds do it for me, of course, and I try to photograph them but they are too quick - I can't catch them. The same with life - it's mostly too quick for me. Only in hindsight do I know what I should have done.
I started my Hungarian week in Sopron, a place I know from previous visits (nobody in the hotel is wearing a mask despite the info to the contrary on the hotel's website - I feel uncomfortable and avoid contact as much as possible), and then proceeded to Debrecen, the second-largest city of the country, situated in the Northern Great Plain region - hailing from a mountainous country, I do love plains!
Only some elderly people and the occasional Asian are wearing masks - if ignorance were truly bliss, the Hungarians would look happier. In the stores, I put on a mask and from time to time get a hostile look.
The woman who tends the bar in my hotel is in her thirties and had worked in different locations, among them Dallas. She's fond of the American way of working - people care, she says, in Hungary, according to her, nobody gives a shit. And, while I'm in no position to judge that, the room cleaning lady is clearly a case in point - she pretends to not understand the 'please clean the room'-sign (in Hungarian).
Debrecen, 24 October 2021
The receptionist says she does not remember how she ended up in her hotel job but she's now been doing it for six years and loves it.
The old lady (older than me) on the train from Budapest to Szombathely tells me of her aunt who's 104 and wants to go but can't, and of Gershwin who died aged 39 because of a brain tumour.
Since the ride takes 2 1/2-hours and the lady happens to be a curious person, I let her know my theory of life (my strength is in theories not in practice) to which she eventually says: It's probably not easy to find people who go along with it. Well, experience in a psychiatric clinic certainly helps, I reply.
And, then there is of course also the occasional mutual physical attraction that I however did not mention while remembering the exchange of looks between the tall blonde and me at Debrecen train station a few hours ago.
“Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse. Like the credulous widow who wakes up one day to find the charming young man and all her savings gone, so the consenting subject of a piece of nonfiction writing learns – when the article or book appears – his hard lesson. Journalists justify their treachery in various ways according to their temperaments. The more pompous talk about freedom of speech and “the public’s right to know”; the least talented talk about Art; the seemliest murmur about earning a living” writes Janet Malcolm in The Journalist and the Murderer.
I share this view of journalism as treachery, and I think it is also true for photojournalism. Here’s how the British photographer Don McCullins in his autobiography Unreasonable Behaviour justifies his own: During the Cyprus conflict in the 1960's, he entered a house where he found three dead men of whom he took pictures, when suddenly the door opened and people came in, among them a woman, who, he later learned, was "the wife of the youngest man. They had been married only a few days. I'm in serious trouble now, I thought. They will think I have trespassed in their house. I had already taken photographs. It wasn't just trespass in the legal sense I had been guilty of, for I had trespassed on death, and emotion too. The woman picked up a towel to cover her husband's face and started to cry. I remember saying something awkward like — forgive me, I'm from a newspaper, and I cannot believe what I'm looking at. I pointed to my hand with the camera in it, asking for an invitation to record the tragedy. An older man said, 'Take your pictures, take your pictures.' They wanted me to do it ...“
Really? I’m not too sure about that. To me it seems more likely that these people had simply quite some other things on their minds.
Photojournalism is often nothing but voyeurism – and thus morally indefensible. We all know that. „A man gets his leg blown off taking me to pee, and then I’m supposed to shove a lens in his face and shoot? No way. Maybe I’m not made for this job“ writes Deborah Copaken Kogan in Shutterbabe. Who then, I wonder, is made for such a job?
“Every night, an unseen buzz of activity takes place all around the globe,” I read on the blurb of this formidable work. This reminds me of a talk given 14 years ago in Southern California by a biologist who informed the listeners about the dangers of artificial light during nighttime. I specifically remember being stunned that lots of birds regularly fly into brightly lit skyscrapers. Needless to say that when thinking about it this hardly comes as a surprise; the problem however is that we do not seem to think about it or, if we do, do not care much about dead birds falling to the ground because of artificial light.
In his foreword, Ruskin Hartley of the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) – an organisation dedicated to treating the nighttime as a precious but threatened resource – relates how his family, when moving from the San Francisco Bay Area to Tucson, Arizona, learned a powerful lesson. “Contrary to common belief, more light does not necessarily enhance visibility or the sense of safety.” Moreover: “Light pollution is destroying natural darkness with severe consequences: It is linked to a global insect decline, the death of millions of migrating birds, increased carbon emissions and increased disease in humans.”
For the full review, see here
In the mid-nineties, a nervous twitch around my right eye started to irritate me. Neither the ophthalmologist nor the neurologist had an answer. It probably was related to stress, they opined. Although I did not feel stressed, their assumptions appealed to me for it meant that I was able to do something about it myself. I started to regularly ride my bike, practised meditation (half-heartedly), slept longer hours. My nervous twitch was not impressed; it expanded to the corners of my mouth.
You are suffering from a hemifacial spasm, a second neurologist told me. He treated it with botulinum toxin injections but suggested neurosurgery. I did not want to hear about it. The idea that somebody would perform surgery on my brain terrified me. And, although the botulinum injections were a nuisance, they helped.
I read about the hemifacial spasm on the internet but apart from the fact that my facial nerves were somehow damaged I did not understand much. That there was a brain connection eluded me.
I went to see an acupuncturist who couldn't help. Then I had a talk with a renowned neurosurgeon who informed me that of the thirty such operations he had so far performed twenty-seven had turned out well – I only kept thinking of the three that had not gone well.
The twitch became worse. Photographs taken at that time showed my right eye completey closed. People who didn't know me might have mistaken me for a mentally disturbed person.
I eventually got so angry about my condition that I decided to undergo surgery. The neurosurgeon explained what he would be doing. This is how I understood him: your facial nerves are covered by a tube, this tube is partly damaged, there are dents that need to be mended.
The night before the surgery, I was given a form that told me that the surgical intervention may have various unwanted effects. I could lose my hearing, my speech, my sense of balance, well, just about anything or so it seemed. Needless to say, only somebody who's completely nuts would sign such a form. Or somebody who has confidence in the surgeon. I decided to opt for the latter and signed the form.
The surgical intervention was successful yet after a few months the twitch was back, albeit not as intense as before. The neurosurgeon explained that, although he had never observed it himself, he knew from the literature that in some cases the twitch had disappeared after four years. In my case, this happened after six years, lasted for two, resurfaced again, and eventually came to a standstill.
Brain research was the basis for this ultimately successful surgery. Without it I wouldn't be able to lead the normal life I'm living today.
***
Brain research not only matters to neurosurgeons and their patients, it matters to all of us.
There's for instance the question whether we have a free will or whether our brain is wired in such a way that we are simply acting out what is already determined. Should research prove that there is no free will, then our legal system would be without basis. For how could somebody be punished if he were not responsible for his acts?
Or take seeing. I used to think that the act of seeing is defined by what the retina perceives. Yet only a very small part of the 10 billion bits that per second reach the retina end up in one's awareness. It appears that the brain is deleting the biggest part of the image in order to come up with a new image from other sources.
Moreover, in our dreams we can see images with our eyes closed. Research suggests that we see what we remember. But how come the American writer Helen Keller, who was not only blind but also deaf, was able to describe a crystal as well as a rose and could hear sounds in her sleep? It is the brain that generates images and sounds. In other words, the brain co-constructs our experience of reality.
Or take anxiety. Until the 1950s, says Professor Leslie Iversen, who teaches pharmacology at Oxford University, „we learned that there were no chemical transmissions in the brain, that it was just an electrical machine.“ Nowadays, people suffering from anxiety disorders are routinely prescribed a wide variety of tranquilizers. That however does not mean that these disorders have declined, instead they seem, together with the sale of tranquilizers, to have increased. In addition, there is a danger that patients might get addicted to these chemical solutions.
In order to answer such questions more brain research is needed.
Wir müssen uns wahnsinnig dafür einsetzen, dass die Justiz in der Schweiz unabhängig bleibt von politischen Einflüssen und nicht auf populistische Parolen Rücksicht nimmt, sagte die Juristin, die für eine neugegründete, dem kritischen Journalismus verpflichtete Internetzeitschrift schrieb. Sie habe sich letzthin total aufgeregt, als sie aus einem Gerichtssaal gewiesen worden sei, was an einem öffentlichen Prozess natürlich gar nicht gehe. Ihre Zeitschrift werde jetzt auch gerichtlich dagegen vorgehen, denn das Öffentlichkeitsprinzip müsse gewährleistet bleiben, für alle.
Der kritische, nachdenkliche und differenzierte Journalismus unterschied sich in Sachen Motivation kaum von den Populisten. Bei beiden stand das Gefühl zu kurz gekommen oder beleidigt worden zu sein im Vordergrund. Solange die Auseinandersetzung mit der eigenen Eitelkeit fehlt, wird es keine echten Veränderungen geben.
Zen oder was er darunter verstand: Wenn man ass, dann ass man, wenn man ging, dann ging man. Man tat nichts anderes als was man gerade tat. Yona war so. Sie ass ganz langsam, sie las ganz langsam, sie war konzentriert bei dem, was sie tat. Von Zen hatte sie noch nie gehört.
Zen in der Kunst des Fotografierens war der Nachruf auf Henri Cartier-Bresson in der 'NZZ' überschrieben. Seit Harry eine Dokumentation über ihn gesehen hatte, in dem gezeigt wurde, wie er Fotos „abstaubt“, genauer: Leute reinlegt, um zu überraschenden Bildern zu kommen (weiter weg vom Zen konnte man gar nicht sein), hielt er ihn für einen höchst unangenehmen Typen, der ab und zu Kunst hervor gebracht hatte. Kein Wunder, bei den vielen Aufnahmen, die er im Laufe seines Lebens gemacht hatte.
Wer wissen will, wie ein Zen-Meister wirklich tickt, sollte dessen Frau fragen.
This book commits the year to paper? Really? I don't think so for that is impossible.. What it does instead is to offer personal views of photographers that belong to the Magnum co-operative that has made itself a name covering many of the world's major events and personalities since the 1930s. In documentary photography, to be a Magnum photographer is considered a badge of honour.
The views presented in this tome are very varied. And, as it is customary in documentary photography, sometimes the words that accompany the pictures are more important than the pictures because without them you would often not know what you are looking at.
However, at times a caption is so utterly confusing that, sadly, it isn't of much help. Take Antoine d'Agata's shot of the silhouette of a mask wearing person (I'm not sure whether it shows a man or a woman) laying on the ground, followed by many very small photos that supposedly show medical personnel treating patients. The series is entitled VIRUS, so I assume that these must be Covid-19 victims I'm looking at; the caption lists numerous places from Maison de Santé Protestante de Bordeaux – Bagatelle to Clinique Mobile, Mission France – Médecins sans Frontières – Paris. I presume these are the locations where these shots were taken. As far as I'm concerned, this isn't exactly a convincing way to illustrate what Covid-19 is doing to us for it leaves too much to our imagination and interpretation respectively. I was much more impressed by Nanna Heitmann's „Hospital 52, Moscow, Russia, 2020“ that compellingly demonstrates our helplessness.
For the full review, see here
Machen wir eigentlich jemals etwas anderes als Pläne?, fragt sich der Ich-Erzähler Gregor, ein sensibler Besserwisser, dessen Leben aus nichts anderem zu bestehen scheint. Die vorliegende Collage, in der sich Aufenthalte in fremden Kulturen mit Überlegungen zur Sucht, zur Fotografie und zum Loslassen abwechseln, berichtet vom Festklammern an der Idee, das Leben sollte gefälligst so sein, wie man das gerne hätte.
Pläne Machen, Sucht und Fotografie, wie geht denn das zusammen? Alle drei sind so recht eigentlich nichts anderes als der Versuch, Halt und Orientierung im Leben zu finden. Wir klammern uns an unsere Pläne, die uns die Illusion der Kontrolle verschaffen, an unsere Süchte, die uns vor unseren Gefühlen schützen und an die moments in time, von der uns die Fotografie glauben lässt, dass es sie gibt.
Gregors Pläne ist ein fiktives Werk, das einerseits von der Suche nach der idealen Arbeitsstelle berichtet, und sich andererseits mit der Frage auseinandersetzt, ob wir mit unserem beständigen Streben nach Stabilität und Sicherheit nicht einer grandiosen Illusion aufsitzen, die so recht eigentlich ein veritabler Selbstbetrug ist.
Sich wirklich aufs Leben einzulassen, dies die Folgerung aus Gregors Monolog, bedeutet loszulassen, von allem, inklusive unserer Vorstellungen und Ideale. Doch wollen wir das? Und falls ja, wie geht das? The readiness is all sagt Horatio in Hamlet.
Hier eine Leseprobe
Hans Durrer
