Tri-Drive 2011 / Jul 21-25 Venzeia Alpi

more soon

Tri-Drive 2010

August 2009: another Triangulation Drive (starting to become a habit, just like millions of others)

Triangulation Drive 09

This year’s triangulation drive adhered to a theme of the slightly absurd, somewhat dark humor of Germanic ilk, beginning with an exhibition of Wilhelm Busch and some contemporaries in the Felicien Rops Museum in Namur...  aside from an extensive view of drawings and originals, especially of the well-known ‘Max &Moritz’ stories, there were interesting cross references to caricature  and political satire of the day, and for me surprising: Busch’s prowess as a painter & draftsman...

(object-table by A. Morttiaux) There was an interesting installation of objects for the young visitors by co-boursier back in the eighties Ann Mortiaux... the road then took us to Luxemburg and the French frontier were the ongoing collection of franco-german war-architecture was amended with some prime bunker-shots, and a sojourn in the once thriving steel-town of Dudelange... then on through the Saarland to Karlsruhe and on into upper Bavaria, for a tour of the old stomping ground of a ridiculous hero Herbert Achternbusch... Though the films ‘Servus Bayern’ and ‘Das Andechser Gefühl’ along with ‘Der Depp’ and such were all time favorites, the area had never really been visited aside from short passages in the seventies... This time the tourist trap ‘Kloster Andechs’ had to be investigated... a short-lived affair laced with the wafts of stale beer and burnt meats... but it was worth a try.

just gotta do it... gotta get away...

sunpatch on an Austrian Mountain above the Achensee - photo LL)

 The whole investigation of Bavarian attitudes ‘anarchist’ Achternbusch would say, had to do with a long-time fascination of the short visit Marcel Duchamp made to Munich in the summer of 1912. Though a lot has been speculated about this period and aside from other influences I was interested in having a look at the Karl Valentin Museum for information of the year 1912 – always having a suspicion that Duchamp might have seen some of Valentin’s cabaret-work while in Munich... but concrete information is hard to come by, that year being quite turbulent for Valentin also... but as with speculation on the chance encounter with Kandinsky (always denied) who knows?

encounter of a pretzelballoon and a Valentin-Karlstadt-brochure on a train.... why not?

And who cares (?) in effect someone pondered when I explained my interest... far from attempting to make Karl Valentin into a Dadaist – his influence is obvious and has been illustrated by an exhibition at the Münchener Stadmuseum in 1982 curated by Daniel Spoerri and also figuring the work of fluxus artists...

'Marmorkuchen' in the Valentinmuseum just befor you enter the café at the top of the tower run by Petra Perle

that is one of the main notions gathered from the ‘Valentin-Karlstadt Musäum’ – the sheer number of artistes vying for money and attention at the time in any city at the beginning of the 20^th century... so in fact one might have picked up a visual joke or vernacular pun just about anywhere... But it was important to have a refresher, having last been to that particular museum some 25 years ago and seeing things with a different and younger eye... more easily impressed and looking for obvious and delineated causal connections... but dada wouldn’t be fluxus and fluxus couldn’t be dada if that was so... and isn’t – leaving this researcher with more questions than answers... and, getting back to Busch: Achernbusch would say “Du hast keine Chance, ergreife sie” (Atlantikschwimmer).

Gefahrenzone Muenchen- standing under one of the Frauenkirche's towers...

sun emerging after a downpoor on the margarethenhöhe just before reching the Rhine...(Photos LL)

On the way back we stopped at BN-51 to look at the renovative progress and had a snack on the banks of the Rhine before heading back into belgium.

----not see such an extensive runabout as lat time (see below)

Temporary Mobile Submersible / triangulation drive 2008

an insert as post-BN-51 interlude of sorts...

This little interjection / intersection should be considered ‘hors serie’ although it is inextricably linked to the main investigation of submersibles both geographically and chronologically (as intermediary to the sections OE-29 and BN-51) Here we have a basic outline of the trip, the specific and subjective impressions are for a later, more personal account. Though the trajectory begins (and ends) in Antwerp, the real point of departure would be the OE-29 in Avelgem, where we loaded up a carved bench to take to the oldest (OE)-sibling’s place of residence in the Charente region… following the river Scheldt and Somme along country roads past Paris, the Seine (P-18, passing close to St. Germaine-en-Laye, site of the first photo-series done at the beginning of this project) and skirting Versailles and further on towards Chartres, but turning south towards Le Blanc, a place that has a tenuous connection with the BN-51 section by way of name.. but due to schedule considerations decided to take the freeway to arrive at Nanteuil-en Vallee at a reasonable hour.

There we were immediately immersed in regional history by taking a tour of the ruins of the former abbey and the treasury, which can only to be visited a few times a year…so our perspective was turned from the purely touristic towards the more cultural-historic on the first day… the whole area is littered with Romanesque edifices and ruins…

after a good nights rest we continued east and visited the ruins of Oradour sur Glane, site of the infamous massacre of a whole town perpetrated by the Germans in 1944… their My Lai as it were, amongst all the other atrocities… But this site is one of the few places, aside from the concentration camps, where time has been stopped – everything was (more or less) left as it was after the 10^th of June 1944… a macabre and impressive time-capsule which reminds one of the war in a much more poignant way than an abstract monument… (the sewing machines!) and still very much at the forefront of the discussion surrounding the franco-german relations… just recently a new investigation has been started to further uncover the reasons for this slightly mysterious occurrence (there have been trials, but these were discoloured by the cold war politics, and justice fell way short)…

Having missed out on a visit to Le Blanc (sur Creuse) on the way down, we decided to keep further north than intended to make good our promise… and it was a surprising discovery, with ample points of interest and quite beautiful in an unassuming way, being off the beaten tourist-track. Here we spent the night and enjoyed a thoroughly French breakfast-morning before heading towards La Chatre, stopping at a unique 12^th century basilica at Neuvy-Sainte-Sépulchre.

La Chatre is the town where Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin de Francueil, better known as George Sand, used to buy her ink, paper and tobacco… living mainly in the nearby town of Nohant… there are quite a number of relevant sites, houses, chateaux and mills where the literary tourist can spend long moments of pondering, but we kept it at a sort survey of the area… the surroundings where she drew her inspiration and where the metamorphosis of Aurore occurred… something which intrigues this multi-personal investigator.

by chance an exhibition concerning the local landscape...

Leaving the area of Berry by a southerly route, we passed Moulins, just south of Nevers where we had been before (town where Marguerite Duras stayed during the war, experiencing an illicit franco-german relationship which she later used in her ‘Hiroshima Mon Amour’ – quite a contrast to Oradour) and on towards the valley of the Saone & Rhone, attempting to avoid the larger arteries to continue toward the Jura. Initially there was also a plan to visit Bilignin in the department of Ain, where Gertrude Stein lived during the war, but we were too far north and out of time..)

We spent the night in Besançon, intriguing horseshoe-city flanked by the Doube and fortifications by the famous Vaubin… a very agreeable place… in the morning we had to make some haste and decided to take the freeway into southern Germany rather than passing by Basel and taking in the sights along the Swiss side of the Rhine as we had intended… instead we crossed the black forest south of Freiburg and met up with the still miniscule Danube before reaching Lake Konstanz, where we took the ferry over to the far side by way of a short break.

(all b&w images by LL)

After that we continued north of the lake rather than along it’s shores due to the summer traffic,- otherwise we would have made no headway whatsoever. Passing through Schongau (coffee break) we headed into ‘Blaue Reiter’ country passing Murnau (where Kandinsky lived with G. Münter and painted his first abstractions… this town could easily have figured in a previous investigation of subconscious submersibles, but is no longer of importance here… maybe the fact that it’s also ‘Achternbusch-country’ is more relevant, personally then…) past the former Airborne barracks at Bad Tölz and on towards the Tegernsee, Bad Wiessee, site of the night of the long knives in june 1934, and into Rottach-Egern at the south end of the lake, where by now the inhabitant and furnishings of BN-51 have been trans(re)lated/transshipped … here we spent two nights, enjoying a vacation complete with lakeside fireworks, mountain scenery, a heavy electrical storm and an evening at a beach-beer-garden with live music by ‘les beignets’…

Time for the last leg of the triangle, back north… some difficulty in deciding which route to take given that by now it was the worst weekend for driving… the Luxembourg route was discarded (earlier I had pondered driving through the Ardennes and Stavelot to re-connect the affair with the first section..) and we headed north through Germany along the autobahn, stopping for a break (kaffee und kuchen) at oldest sibling (BN) to make the trip a back-to-back visiting-affair… crossing over towards the west around Fulda along byways and reaching the Rhine by sundown… there we had a quick look at the now former BN-51 and had a small evening meal at the banks of the river just north of ‘Rolandseck’ before heading off into the night for the last stretch back to Antwerp.

How this trip fits into the scheme of things I don’t quite know  (yet)  - it does function as a sort of catalyst for the various points which have been referred to in the sections P-18 and BN-51, makes a connection with OE-29, which still has to be dealt with in some way… there are omissions of course, - like Munich, which could have been included were it not for the reticence to enter a city on this pastoral journey..; The aspect of Marcel Duchamp’s sojourn there, as referred to in the P-18 section, will have to wait… though, interestingly enough, the newly renovated and re-opened Karl Valentin Museum did come up in conversation at the Tegernsee and we did consider a visit… even if only for a moment. ( also heard that most of the archival material is in fact to be found in Cologne..)

Anyway, the trip could be considered as being peppered with associations, of which quite a few have a very dark side… a red thread through the franco-german relations, and even though rather hidden from view nowadays, it still impresses on the considerations at had, being a major part of the twentieth century experience in which this retrospective takes place.