Press Release by the GOODBYE WITTGENSTEIN Project
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.“ This is a popular quote by the Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1889 and died in Cambridge, England, in 1951. It was written down in „Tractatus logico-philosophicus“ which is recognized as a significant philosophical work of the twentieth century. The predecessor of the Tractatus, the booklet „Notes on Logic“, was mainly written in Birmingham in 1913.
Birmingham? Why Birmingham? Not only because Wittgenstein studied nearby at the University of Cambridge but also as his best friend at that time, David Hume Pinsent (1891 - 1918), lived here in Harborne. Three artists from the Austrian based art group qujOchÖ and four artists from Birmingham, Trevor Pitt, Pete Ashton, Emily Warner and Mike Johnston, take the romantic love affair between those two men as a starting point for a series of works in public space in Birmingham and Linz. The project itself is called GOODBYE WITTGENSTEIN.
W. S. Farren, later director of the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, and David Pinsent, aboard their plane in 1918
As part of an exchange program between both cities real and fictive stories are interwoven to revive the famous philosopher and his fellow. From July 25 to August 8 2016 Verena Henetmayr, Thomas Philipp and Andre Zogholy from qujOchÖ will visit Birmingham to intervene at various places that are connected to the life of Wittgenstein and Pinsent. You have the opportunity to experience the meaning of dictation of „Notes on Logic“ at 32 Paradise Street. You will find a strange animalic reincarnation of Wittgenstein and Pinsent at 44 Lordswood Road. You can figure out why Wittgenstein was annoyed by Richard Strauss's Salome at the Town Hall. You will have the chance to enter the chapel of the lonely hearts at 59 Selly Wick Road and cry about the loss of David Hume Pinsent. And you can send your messages from the intermedia state to 105 Harborne Road, the last domicile of David.
Lordswood Road 44, residence of the family Pinsent until 1913
Besides a presentation at Digbeth First Friday the artists will talk about GOODBYE WITTGENSTEIN on July 28 at 6:30 pm at BOM. They will give a sneak preview on the interventions there and reflect on the life of Wittgenstein and Pinsent in Birmingham and Linz. The public talk is followed by an informal networking on the cultural connex of Birmingham and Linz with Darryl Georgiou, Clayton Shaw (Sampad) and BOM Fellows.
Extract from "Notes on Logic", written on a typewriter Adler No. 7 from 1911. We will use this typewriter in one of the interventions in 32 Paradise Street. It's a kind of re-enactement on the dictation of "Notes on Logic". We will ask passers-by if they want to sit down at an old desk there. Then we will dictate "Notes on Logic" to them. In German of course (like Wittgenstein did in Oct 1913). They should type whatever they hear on the Adler No. 7, no matter if they understand and speak German or not. This intervention is called "The Meaning of Dictation".
There will be another public talk on August 4 at 7:00 pm. qujOchÖ will talk about their work at the interfaces of art, politics, society, technology and science. They will show what it feels like to enter a wellness area with the famous French philospher Michel Foucault, how to burn 9,6 million pounds on a Brazilian beach and why almost no one in Austria knows anything about „Sound of Music“. Moreover they will serve super sweet Austrian Kaiserschmarrn & Zwetschkenknödel to the audience.
Supported by Austrian Cultural Forum London, Austrian Federal Chancellery - Arts and Culture, State of Upper Austria and City of Linz.