Berlin, 2012
I’m just a guy starting a blog for some pictures and writing. Living in England but originating from Austria, I mostly post in English but might write one or another post in German.
The name sinnspiel is German and translates into “sense-play”. Herein, “sinn” may refer to our senses or to meaning, as in “making sense of something”, while “spiel” subsumes “play” and “game”. I believe that we cannot make sense of what we sense, if we do not allow for a free interplay between our senses and other faculties in mind and reason. In this way, the idea to this name came about; after all, it should make sense.
The logo… too dark, too unclear, and whatever else I got to hear. True or not, I have liked this picture, since it occurred to me in Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof, the city’s modern art museum. The picture happened inside a large installation of Bruce Nauman that created a void which forced people to search for something meaningful to hold on. But there was nothing, except the people themselves, just like the guy in my picture. In the bareness of the installation, only the human being created some ambiguity that could be construed into meaning. In the end, not even two of my friends could agree on what they saw in this picture, as it seems to evoke — quite fittingly — a sinnspiel.
I thank the people who told me their stories and allowed me to picture them!
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