'What would you do in my place in Vienna?'

We asked this question to 38 people - our friends and co-workers - and we recorded their answers that reflect their views about a place they know only in a mediated way, but which is more or less physically inaccessible to them. We tried to realise the actions they asked us to do in Vienna and symbolically fulfilling their wishes. We documented these actions and we will send postcards of these actions to their initiators.

The people we have interviewed are associated to the projects of the contemporary art space H.arta, in Timisoara (Romania), a space run by our group. The work at the H.arta space is an attempt to overcome the limitations young artists encounter in the Romanian art system: traditionalist education, lack of information and communication, marginal position concerning art events - isolation. The majority of the people who gave us their answers travelled very little outside Romania and have never been to Vienna. Even for the ones who visited Vienna before, this wasn't something they would do on a regular basis, but it was a kind of exceptional event. Although borders are open for Romanian citizens, the economic conditions make travelling very difficult. All of their answers - the playful ones as well as the more serious ones - reflect the fact that they see the West only as a space they could encounter as tourists and not as an environment where they could perform professionally. Just to be here, to stay in this hardly accessible place seems to be enough.

We also asked some of our public from Vienna "What would you do in Timisoara?", so the project will continue mediating the ideas of pleasure, communications, and comparisons connected to the travelling from one (art) context to another one.

Maria Crista
Anca Gyemant
Rodica Tache
1-30 of June 2003, residence in Vienna, offered by A9 Forum Transeuropa (Museums Quartier); the project was presented in their room, inside Museums Quartier

Answers-wishes:
Alin Neagu - art student:
Look up a squat for me and socialise with the guys there. Find contacts, addresses, anything…

Luminita Baboianu - television editor
Look for the biggest fountain in Vienna and take a bath in it.

Ioana Eremias - art student
There were a few things I couldn't do the last time I have been to Vienna. I wanted to visit a sex shop but I was too young to enter it. So you do it for me and take me some photos.

Gabi Cosma - art student
Find out where is a really cool terrace, but not a coffee shop, it should be a club with a lot of people partying, dancing on the latest electronic music. One evening, around 11:30 you should smoke hashish in someone's place or on the street, and than at midnight make your appearance at that cool club. There you should drink vodka with cola, feel good, of course and meet a lot of people, as many as you can.

Rares Moldovan - art student
If I would be in your place in Vienna I would go to see everything, museums, galleries and document everything I see, I would collect leaflets, catalogues, CD-s (of course in the limits of the budget) so I could show them to my friends back home.

Daniela Stancu - computer administrator
If I would go to Vienna I suppose I would like to relax in one of the parks of Vienna, let's say Belvedere park, I know it is one of the prettiest parks there. I would lie on the grass and look at the flowers… they have some beautiful flowers there.

Alina Tache - pharmacist
Let me think… what would I do… I know! I would go to the botanical garden there.

Miti Mihaica - journalist
I want you to convince 10 people of different ages and social status to stay in a line and than I want you to take a photo of them and to bring that photo to me.

Sabina Carstea - journalist
If you go to Vienna, look for an old couple on the street and convince them to dance with you for a few seconds on some trendy music. It is a very stupid idea, I know, but that's all I could think of.

Alin Rotariu - artist
I don't know what I would do in your place in Vienna, because I don't know Vienna, but I would take together with my friend here, Ion, the carpenter, the train to Amsterdam to see the Red light District.

Dinu Botnariuc - art student
I would walk on the streets of Vienna and I would stop there where I would find the place which fascinates me the most… buildings…trees…rivers…

Dorin Paslariu - Journalist student
I would go to visit the Natural History Museum

Estefan Arnold - artist
I would wash dishes for a month, so in the end I could buy a digital camera like the one you hold in your hand.

Cosmo Levente - artist
I would just live there… at the most… That's what I would do.

Sorin Vreme - artist
You are staying there for a month. I myself, for two weeks I would do nothing, that is very clear to me…Than I would start to be stressed in the third week and in the last week I would do nothing again.

Otilia Stanga - watch shop owner
I would visit a lot of jewellery and watch shops in Vienna and I would find out which is the cheapest watch and which is the most expensive one and I would ask for all kinds of details about them. I would stress the salesmen the same way we are stressed here by our customers.

Liviu Graur - sociologist
I read these days an article in 'Dilema' that policemen in Vienna are really polite and they are always saying 'bitte schon' and 'danke schon'. So bring me a photo of a policeman saying this.

Patricia Iustin - art student
I would like to visit Hundertwasser house.

Andreea Marusinski - art student
I would like you to bring me 5 minutes of ballet in Vienna.

Ovidiu Mat- bartender
Go to clubs and see how clubs are in Vienna.

Radu Negru - architecture student
Go up there to Schonbrun, I have been there 3-4 times before but I was always too lazy to climb up there.

Aura Balanescu - art student
I would like to see all the entrances to Vienna because I am really interested in what is happening there.

Ciprian Bujor - journalist
I would like to see all kind of strange looking people.

Bogdan Demetrescu - architect
The most interesting thing for me in Vienna would be to live for a while in an Austrian family, to be cared for as an Austrian teenager and to see how it is to live as a teenager from Austria who thinks about Eastern Europe.

Cosmin Iancu - architect
I would walk a lot on the Danube shore and I would visit all the clubs there.

Iulia Pordea- art student
I would go to the Opera, I would dress up really nice, I would buy tickets to a balcony seat and I would listen to the music… anything but not Wagner.

Andreea Bancioiu - art student
I would just walk, I would leave early in the morning with a bottle of water and with something to eat and I would walk on the streets, without any guide, without a map. I would get lost and I would come back home probably the next morning.

Mihaela Petric - artist
I would like you to take a flower for me, which I could plant in my balcony, so I could also have something from Vienna.

Roxana Clepce - medicine student
If I would be in your place in Vienna I would like to go to the Prater, to that big wheel and to see the whole city from there. I would do this in the evening.

Adi Buzas - computer programmer
I would drink beer on the corso.

Gabi Paratschi - teacher
I would like to admire the scenery holding hands with a man from Vienna.

Oana Colcea - medicine student
I would go shopping for my friends.

Mihaela Dan - businesswoman
Me and my husband Mircea would take our little girl and we go shopping for her.

Lucian Sava - journalist
I would drink 15 kinds of coffee.

Mihai Colcea - lawyer
When you get to Vienna, look for images, which are really similar to Timisoara, for places, which would remind you of Timisoara.