Transferprojekt Damaskus
urban orient-ation

Editors: Christian Reder and Simonetta Ferfoglia
Institute for MediaArt / Art and Knowledge Transfer
University of Applied Arts Vienna
Edition Transfer at Springer Wien New York 2003
402 pages, in German and Arabic language

Catalogue-Presentation and Exhibition
Kunsthalle Wien Project Space Karlsplatz (March 8 - 16, 2003)
Beit Baroudi Damaskus (June 7 - 10., 2003).

"Transferproject Damascus" is a reader combining
audiovisal research on urbanity, views of artists and essayists,
Transcultural work on elements of social behaviour,
as experimental approach in dealing with complexity.

"Transferproject Damascus" follows views on the alien and the similar, on cities in a global world - like an unusual guide, like a cartography. Published in German and Arabic both cultures of language and writing are present. Texts and visual dimensions lead into many directions.
Discussions with the Syrian philosopher Sadik J. Al-Azm and the Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf touch Middle East realities. The city historian Nazih Kawakibi summarizes the urban development of Damascus, the philosopher Burghart Schmidt argues on the miscellaneous, the real one and those in the mind. Ernst Strouhals story irritates through overlapping realities. Dana Charkasi's subject is the ecology of the region, Sead Zimeri's the situation of women. Jamal Chehayed explains his way of thinking while translating Proust into Arabic. Christian Reder takes, additional to his interviews, the local sanctuary for Cain and Abel, to question traditional images of urbanity and migration.
On the visual level about twenty projects of young artists represent there view, developed during a research program of the University of Apllied Arts Vienna, which included intensive stayings in Damascus and close cooperations with local partners. Exhibitions in Vienna (Kunsthalle Wien / project space Karlsplatz, March 2003) and in Damascus (Beit Baroudi, June 2003) complete such summaries of the results.