Autoren Archiv

What Is Art?

4. 10. 2013 // // Kategorie Randnotizen 2013

whatisart

Weird Hotels

3. 10. 2013 // // Kategorie Randnotizen 2013

weirdhotels

In Graz I’ve been staying in the Hotel Daniel, right by the train station. Nothing strange about this hotel at all – although there is a huge contrast between the modern design of Daniel and the very old-fashioned hotel I stayed in last time I was in Graz. These differences brought to mind my stay at the Sorrento Hotel in Cherry Hinton Road in Cambridge (England) about a dozen years ago. I was shacked up in The Fens for a week and working on various digital art works up the road at The Cambridge Junction. I left the hotel one morning and I didn’t have a great day because Tessa Jowell – who was at the time the newly appointed UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport – had decided to come in and visit The Junction to see what new media was all about. Along with two guys who worked full time at The Junction, I had to explain how the equipment we were using worked. When we said that people could access the material we were making on their computer by using a modem, Jowell looked at the besuited guys who were accompanying her and asked: “What’s a modem?”

Things remained as surreal when I returned to the hotel. I went to the door of what I thought was my room, opened it with my key and then did a double take – thinking I’d gone into the wrong suite. I rechecked the door number and found I was actually in my room, despite the fact the furniture definitely wasn’t the same as when I’d left in the morning. I looked in the new wardrobe (not the wardrobe that had been there when I’d left 10 hours earlier) and my clothes were inside it. I then when down to the reception and asked if the furniture in my room had been changed during the day and I was told that it had been upgraded! When I asked why the hotel hadn’t warned me this was going to happen before the switch around, the receptionist informed me he couldn’t answer my question. I left it at that, although I now wish I’d asked if acid casualty rock musician Syd Barrett – who at the time lived a couple of minutes walk away at 6 St Margaret’s Square – was advising the hotel on psychedelic customer care! I was, however, happy to have a new bed – as I’d not found the old one particularly comfortable!

Use It & Lose It!

2. 10. 2013 // // Kategorie Randnotizen 2013

useit&loseit

Use It Or Lose It!

2. 10. 2013 // // Kategorie Randnotizen 2013

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