Graz (or, Falco and Early Computer Art)

Trip Start Jan 09, 2007

Trip End May 11, 2007

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Flag of Austria Graz, Austria
Saturday, May 5, 2007

Today I woke up early and took a train to Graz, the second largest city in Austria. It's more or less known as a college town with a good art culture. I totally dug the place. I think if I compared each city that I've been to in Europe on a scale of relative coolness, computed by dividing the city's total coolness quotient by the number of inhabitants of the city, Salzburg or Graz would come out on top. Vienna's my favorite place in the grand scheme, no doubt about it, but I've become biased. And Frankfurt, Geneva, Budapest, and so on are all quite cool, but not quite as cool per person when it comes down to it.

Anyway, so I walked down to the city center and noticed a spaceship by the river; it's the Kunsthaus (art house), which featured Werner Reiterer (awesome) and Cerith Wyn Evans (significantly less awesome). Nearby is the Murinsel (Insland in the Mur [River]), another piece of crazy architecture

Chinese Pavillion and Rathaus

. I walked on it later but it's just a cafe and a little playground. I walked around the center area of town for a while and checked out the Stadtpark (city park). I found myself climbing up some pathways to the Schlo�berg (mountain castle), which was actually demolished by treaty a long time ago, but parts remain and the whole area is really nice. Several winding paths, a little armory museum, a clock tower that has become the symbol of the city... all very nice. Eventually I took another path/stairway down to the city. I found another art museum, the Neue Galerie, which had two main exhibits. The first was incredibly awesome and I spent well over an hour perusing it. It was "bit international", a collection of early computer and electronic art, seemingly almost entirely coming from a group of artists in Zagreb, Croatia in the late 60s and early 70s. Totally great. The second exhibit was probably my least favorite type of art possible: 18th and 19th century genre painting. The awesomeness of the first part more than made up for it. (There were a few smaller exhibits of varying interest, too.)

I then hit the streets again. I found a record store, where I bought another Falco album, and a gummy bear store, where I bought.... gummy bears. Then I went to another museum, the Stadtmuseum (city museum). It was less cool and a bit more esoteric (in a manner that I didn't connect to, i.e

Felsensteig and Uhrturm

. an exhibit of 26 interviews with an artist I wasn't familiar with. 26 friends rambling at the same time in German with thick Austrian accents didn't really tell me much about the guy. The place did have a bit of city history and some other interesting stuff, so it all worked out. Upon heading outside again, I found it to be raining. It was just about 6pm, which is when everything closes, and whereas the streets were vibrant and full of street musicians earlier, the city appeared nearly dead at this point. I was a bit disappointed, and I scrapped my plan of finding a good restaurant or exploring the university area in favor of escaping the rain via a slightly earlier train home. Outside of the whole rain/empty street thing, I found the city to be really awesome. I'm sure if I had gone around the student area I would have enjoyed that area too - it just feels like a cool place.