Live. Experience.

I saw a commercial yesterday. It was advertising an HD programme and it was full of bursting colours and mind-blowing sounds, and of course a happy couple watching the huge flatscreen taking them to another world. I neither possess a huge flatscreen, nor am I a happy couple watching, nor am I delighted by watching explosions I could lose my eyesight from. But nevertheless, watching that scene you cannot escape the thought that an HD programme is the one thing missing in your life. 

What was really striking, was the slogan. "See more. Experience more." Have we reached the point today that we need to sit in front of the TV to experience things? Isn´t experiencing an activity? I watch other people sing in casting shows. Am I experiencing singing? No. There are enough karaoke parties, where I could experience it. I am watching a clumsy detective buying a magazine at a store. Am I experiencing it? No, I have a store downstairs myself, but at the moment I am watching TV, I am far too lazy to go for it.

Where does the idea come from, then, that we experience by watching TV? I believe that it has become especially hard nowadays to have the feeling we are really experiencing something interesting, exciting, or simply beautiful. We are flooded with sensations through television shows and movies every day, and nothing in our everyday lives could possibly be only half as terrific in comparison to the scenes that are boosted with special effects and too-good-to-be-true-sceneries. 

It has become very hard to recognize a ladybug that lands on your hand as a beautiful experience. Or just enjoying a beautiful panorama as an enriching moment. All of that is just not sensational enough. 

Ph.: K.P.

Thinking about the degradation of experience, I realised that the concept of experience differs significantly in English, German and Serbian. In English, experience is gained, it is a goal to be reached and you collect it like you collect photos in an album. There is an equivalent for experience in German, "Erfahrung", which is treated in the same way as the English "experience", but in this text experience is used in another sense. In German, there is the concept of "Erleben", stemming from "leben" - "live". In Serbian the concept functions in the same way "doziveti": "ziveti" - "live". In German and in Serbian fulfilling moments we "experience" are seen as the moments we live for, something that enriches us without having any further use for us. 

It is just the moments that make life really worth living. And they certainly cannot be found inside a box with moving pictures called television, no matter how flat the screen is and how huge the dimensions of the screen.

Dreams

How is it that we all start our lives full of dreams and destroy them one by one. When we are children, we imagine a splendid future. We are certain to be come superheroes, popstars, famous artists or, of course, princesses. Every approaching day seems sunny, colorful, exciting. Then we start going to school. Slowly a massive amount of numbers and letters flood us, leaving no freedom in the way we can combine them. We start to think about how to become a successful and admired personality. A lawyer, doctor or professor. Some of us will achieve it, some of us won´t. At the time we go to university, we start to call the quest for success and earnings our dream and we forget that our profession is not who we are, it is only what we do. After all, what do dreaming and considering law cases or cutting open human bodies in order to heal them have in common? Dreams should let us feel light and invincible. And our life would seem a lot brighter, if we wouldn´t stop to create them as soon as we reach puberty. Often, former dreams become nightmares, when we reach them. The ambitious fifth-grader who wanted to become the best lawyer in the district has achieved what she wanted now. She dreams about loosing her cases every night and wakes up feeling her heart racing and sweating. Dreams turn to goals, we dream of going to the seaside, of buying a wonderful house above the sea, having children, driving the car we like and similar. Why don´t we dare to dream the impossible anymore? Is it because we are too grown-up and are afraid of coming down to earth with a bang after all that dreaming? I think the opposite would happen. The more we dare to dream, the more is possible. And maybe we would be surprised what can be if we would stop to follow the given and "realistic" paths...

Some Images and Associations

Ph.: Katarina Peterke

 I imagine the beginning of the 20th century. The three abandoned chairs are waiting for three ladies in fine gowns and with little hats that just arrived from Paris to sit down and enjoy the view for just a few minutes before they continue their walk around the fortress and probably, after a chatty afternoon, meet their husbands to drive them home in a horse-drawn carriage.

Ph.: Katarina Peterke

A fiest in the Middle Ages. The musicians are playing, there is this uge pig on the table and a really oversized king is the first to take a bite or two. The first drunk jesters are already lying under the table and on the outside very sophisticated ladies bare their rotten teeth when laughing. The cutest guest is, of course, a little dog - white, with brown spots, who eagerly waits for a bite to find his way into his snout.

Ph.: Katarina Peterke

There is something mysterious about this place. Guarded by the tripartite tree, the well seems to tell a silent story, probably a story of grief and sorrow. But it cannot easily be heard.

 

Ph.: Katarina Peterke

Somehow there is always something inspirational about trees. The image of life in spring, they turn to images of loneliness in winter. But for sure they always offer a suitable seating accomodation for birds. And for cats that need to be rescued.

The Eye of the Camera

These days I went for many long walks and I decided to experiment with the camera. And suddenly the world looked different.

Ph.: Katarina Peterke

The eye only waits to discover a scene, a moment, an object, which would look good on a photograph. Earlier I liked to save my impressions in my mind...at least I said so, what do I need the photos for, I will have my memories. Now I must admit, that it was laziness. When I saw something nice, I just thought "oh, the time it will take to take out the camera, to find the ideal position, to take a few pictures just to be sure one of them will turn out as it should - better to observe the scene a bit longer instead". I realize, better later than never, that the camera is a medium between the real world and our mind. If I don´t use the AUTO-mode, I can modify what I see in the way I would like to see it. Well, that´s not a great discovery. But I guess that most of the people just forget that other than AUTO-mode exists. Especially nowadays, when everything must be fast, automatic and as simple as possible. But modifying the images takes just a few seconds of pressing the right buttons and has such a great effect. What I enjoyed most was that I was not taking the pictures that are now so dear to me on a trip, in an exciting, far-away country, but at home, in my beloved city Novi Sad.

Ph.: Katarina Peterke

It is a truth, that we become blind to the beauty that lies in the place we live in. We walk past a beautiful park every day and we just don´t see it anymore. The only thing we see maybe is the garbage thrown behind that bush on the lawn, just a perfect opportunity to get furious about the boorishness of our fellow citizens (something that seems to be an indispensable everyday activity to many). The camera teaches us to rediscover the beauty around us, to use our phantasy to create the perfect light, colour and scenery.

Ph.: Katarina Peterke

And now, with digital photography, you don´t even have to wait until you see the outcome (a huuuuge advantage for impatient people like me). I couldn´t believe what I could make of ordinary images only with the smallest portion of image editing. My pictures suddenly felt like travelling through time and space.

Ph.: Katarina Peterke

The long and the short of it: Long live digital photography!

Ph.: Katarina Peterke

Experiencing Pina

 

Pina (directed by Wim Wenders) - a film that fascinated and moved me. When my friend invited me to watch the movie about Pina Bausch, I expected an ordinary biography about a modern ballet dancer and choreographer. 

Modern dance is not something I can easily identify with. I love the nostalgic, the classical, the romantic. Opera is my world, where I prefer the sceneries that let me live in another century for a few hours. If I want to see today´s tragedies, I certainly don´t go to the opera, I just open a newspaper or watch the news. If I want to see today´s minimalism, I go to an exhibition, where I can admire a plain canvas with one red line and the imaginative title "The red line" - in "La Boheme" I expect a bit more of adornment than a single chair and a watch. 

I see a huge digression emerging, back to my topic, before it´s too late. When it comes to classical ballet, I admire the graceful moves, the fragility of the dancers, and their lightness. Nevertheless, I was always more for the temperamental dances (maybe because me and my stature can cetainly not identify with the tiny ballerina-body). Flamenco, Salsa, Tango, and even the "cool" hiphop-moves - I could watch them for hours. Watching a ballet perfomance, I was wishing for the dancers to open their mouths and sing for the whole three hours. Well, with modern ballet it is different, I agree. But after my first and unsuccessful contact with the classical ballet, I decided that anything with "ballet" in its name just is not for me. I proved to be wrong. 

The beginning of the film, that is, the first choreography shown, is disconcerting, disturbing even, and I didn´t really know what to think about it. The moves are very edgy, the story is about violence, sacrifice, grief and fear. And about a whole group of people plotting against one person, without mercy. The music is powerful and lets the scene go even deeper under your skin. Already in the second scene, I was completely banned and dragged in Pina´s world. It is literally the world, she is creating in her choreographies, the world in all its facets. I was deeply impressed, how powerfully she managed to express every human emotion and to combine it with the elements of nature. Somehow Pina returned to the roots of dancing to achieve that effect. Original forms of dancing were dances of conjuring, rhytmical and simple labour moves and moves expressing joy, hope, grief and desires. And that is exactly what Pina´s choreografies are about. She doesn´t moderate the expression with too rigid guidelines, she leads her dancers more to the competence and self-confidence necessary for a free and artful performance. And her dancers mentioned exactly that, that Pina had the talent to tell them exactly what they needed to free themselves. To make the performances even more powerful and interesting, their setting is mostly a natural one. I will never forget the dance in the water, or another in the sand on the top of a hill and at the brink of the abyss. In other scenes, there are wonderful contrasts, for example a ballerina in ballet shoes in front of an old factory. Through this freedom of expression and natural settings and locations from everyday life, the audience loses track of time and melts with the dancer himself.

The film "Pina", for me, is a highly recommendable masterpiece. Even if it doesn´t contain any biographical detail about Pina herself, it couldn´t create a better impression about her person. She lived for her art. And she was her art.

A Wilde Guess

"The recognition of private property has really harmed Individualism and obscured it, by confusing a man with what he possesses." 

Dear Mr. Wilde, I really am a fan of your always so sharp, witty and truthful thoughts. You made me laugh a billion times. In the case of the mentioned sentence you said, I am not sure if you discovered a hidden truth, or if you just shot a wild guess into the world to observe the reactions of a materialistic society.

Well, let me think about it. I was thinking that we actually get to express our individuality in wearing the clothes we like, being creative in furnishing and decorating our rooms and filling our libraries with beautiful books (some of which we plan to read every summer and never do). We are looking at the passers-by on the street and cannot avoid to make conclusions about their character from their appearance. That woman in the bus at the airport, the one with the brilliant rings, leather coat and long claws of finger nails, she must lead a busy life, love her career and luxury. That man with the glasses, long hair, a long coat and a worn-out leather bag must be an academic on his way to a literature class. We all have our mental images about groups of people and everyone fits into a certain drawer we created in our minds. I don´t like that it is that way, but you just cannot separate a human from his/her belongings. They always tell you something about his/her choices. What you are suggesting, dear Mr. Wilde, is, that everyone would need to have the same or we all should possess nothing, in order to see only the person and the character. I believe that we are not confusing the man with what he possesses, we are just making conclusions about his character based on his or her outward appearance, and sometimes these conclusions might be wrong. A wealthy man might be unhappy, have a warm heart and long for a simple life in a wooden home in the woods. 

And yes, sometimes we do care too much about how much we earn in life, how much of luxury we achieve and how many material goods we can afford. In the end, many of us realize that it was not the material goods that made us happy, it was the moments spent with dear people.

So, after all, I think that humans are not confused with what they possess by others, but they lose themselves in material wishes. And they strive to be as wealthy, as good-looking, to have a house as big and a car as fast as their idol, or maybe even next-door neighbour. And after years of buying and collecting things they didn´t really need (have you already got yourself the new apple peeler?), they realize that they haven´t spent time to find their interests and passions, they don´t know what defines them anymore. And then - what to do but to define oneself through all those splendid things exposed in one´s home and at one´s own body. And at that point, people´s possessions are everything we can see in them. So I guess, after these considerations, I must, again, agree with you. At least in a way. 

Sincerely, Katarina

Duhovi iz prošlosti (nešto malo i na srpskom :))

Duhovi iz prošlosti postoje. Oni neće nikad otići. Stoje u senkama i pokazuju se svaki put kad nam nije dobro. Oni su beg i očaj u jednom. Prate nas. I nikad nas ne napuštaju.

To su duhovi onih koji su možda mogli biti pravi. Duhovi onih koji su nam naneli bol. Duhovi onih koje smo izgubili. Duhovi propuštenih šansi.

Čovek može provesti ceo život u čežnji za tim duhovima. Ali postoji sila koja ih vezuje za senku. Blede. I možda čak i nestaju. Ta sila se oslobađa kada zaista počnemo da volimo. Onda sve ostalo postaje nevažno. Nepobedivi smo. Nepropuštene šanse nisu više nepropuštene šanse nego samo jedan korak ka ljubavi koju smo našli. Rane postaju jedva vidljivi ožiljci. Kao od mačijih kandžica.

Ljubav je jedina prava sreća. U svim svojim oblicima. 

Kao što je rečeno u jednoj pesmi koja mi uvek izmami osmeh: Život je igra napravljena za sve nas. I ljubav je njena nagrada.

Ph: by Katharina Peterke