Monday, October 30, 2006

Schnitzel and Noodles - Panierte Heimat

My home country is not just place for funny food creations such as "panierts zeigs", even funnier costumes we wear when we are "mia" (a notion for differentation of those ibelonging to the Austrian culture from the others "ia"), but also a place for sentimental but critical reflection on our idiosynchrasies we sell so well into the rest of the world: In a live video performance Claudia Rohrmoser and Marcel Schobel artistically combine various kitchy elements of Austrian film history into a spectacle of patriotism and Austrian mentality. Dealing with the conflict of our self-created image in the outside world of "ia" and our own self-perception (is it actually really that different? ;) they draw attention on the typical Austrian behavior of repression.
"I simply remember my favourite things. And then I don't feel so bad" (quote from the famous sound of music) - something that seems not just inherit into Austrian culture, but reflects in behavior of diasporic societies in general. That the Austrian is proud of its Schnitzel and Strudel is not a secret. For the longest time I couldn't deal with this sometimes to me appearing simple-minded mentality... Until I realized another intrisic quality: we are strange, and we know it and we love to make fun of it in this so unique Austrian way - a conclomerate of humour, sentimentality and a little bit of pride.
"We are friendly Austrian people...".

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

love strudel too :))

12:08 PM  
Blogger lia said...

it's all about the strudel :)

12:42 AM  

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