Iany films feature good hotels that are centrally located and where the political, intellectual and economic elite meet. I have always perceived this as something very elitist, colonial and power-hungry. What I missed in the films, and was probably rarely a topic there, is the networking that takes place in such places. [...]
Arriving in Auroville
MMy perception changes when I arrive in India. The smell, the sounds, the slowness, the intuition, the acceptance, the hope are wonderful things that I see. Others may see stench, noise, inefficiency, irrationality and doom and despair. I think it is this different view that allows me to feel comfortable in India. So I have quite [...]
Birdsong
Auroville was founded in 1968 by Mirra Alfasse. The architect Roger Anger developed the city plan for it. It is based on a cosmic spiral nebula. The land that was made available to Auroville was a dry plateau. A forest has been planted since the early years. There is a beautiful, slow documentary about it (Ever Slow Green (2020) - S.O.S. [...]
Attention
An a boulevard in Paris, café and bad music, sun and lots of people. So many people want to be seen. They are busy, sexy, cool, knowing, adventurous, sporty, educated, cultured or indifferent. Many want others to take notice. They see themselves as what they want to be. Perhaps they live their lives in a certain [...]
Flusser
Goday, after many years, I finally drove to the center of Roubion. Vilém Flusser lived here for many years. I quoted his books a lot in my seminars and used them as a basis for discussion. Especially his philosophy of photography. Flusser is a wild theorist. He has written a lot about images, media, language, technology, signs, history... It seems to me that [...]
Packing
What should I take with me to India? I want to live a different life, in a different society, with different ideas and goals. It's warm there, life will be easy. Apart from the basics like a few items of clothing, I'll need my technical devices such as my laptop, cell phone and camera. And what else? A good flashlight, because the field paths there [...]
Knowledge
Ehere was a time in Europe when it was said that there were universal scholars. In Germany this would be Alexander von Humboldt or Goethe, in France an Enlightenment philosopher, in Italy the Renaissance man Leonardo da Vinci. In antiquity, Aristotle, there are certainly wise people in many cultures and epochs, of whom history tells us that they [...]
Encounter
SI've been waiting for some time now. Actually, I like waiting. Waiting is a space and a time in which there is nothing else to do but wait for time to pass. As a rule, there's not much else to do apart from read, talk or think. Waiting times are therefore always free spaces for me. [...]