Crossroad Fahrenheit North

Momentum

Backgammon players inside a coffee house at Kabatas jetty. Istanbul, March 2009, European shore of the Bosporus. A cold wind is blowing from the Black Sea. Travellers have tea here before crossing over by ferry to the Asian shore.<br/><br/>00:56 min Ride with the Metro number 5 from Bastille to Porte d`Italie, Paris, December 2008. After the  Quai de la Rapée station, the Metro surfaces and crosses the Seine. The train is slowing down in a narrow bend, the squealing of wheels is drowning out the conversation of young women inside the carriage.<br/><br/>01:07 min From the terrace of Dauphin House, the calm waters of Mobile Bay north of it come into view. The fountain inside the courtyard is shaped like a dolphin. A supply vessel is disappearing in the morning mist.<br/>Dauphin Island, Gulf of Mexico, February 2011.<br/><br/>01:10 min Brooklyn Bridge Park. A couple, just married, being photographed in front of the Manhattan Skyline. A Subway approaching on Manhattan Bridge. A cold sunny day. The East River bank is still covered with snow.<br/>New York, Brooklyn, February 2011.<br/><br/>01:21 min The street-car to French Market just having departed the platform is empty. Only birds can be heard inside the wooden frame-work of the historical Dumaine Street Station. A paddleboat is taking berth at the northern Mississippi bank.<br/>New Orleans, Moon Walk, February 2011.<br/><br/>00:58 min Three boys and three girls are reciting the history of the Zeynel Bey Mausoleum that dates from the 15th century, thus earning a little money. The vault inside the tomb tower situated on the northern bank of the Tigris amplifies their voices. By the time the Ilisu dam  is finished, all the buildings will disappear, covered by the waters of the reservoir.<br/>Hasankeyf, East Turkey, November 2009.<br/><br/>01:14 min A vault inside a wall just above a basin is echoing the voices and steps of passers-by. The water is of turquoise colour, cold and potable.<br/>Basel, October 2010.<br/><br/>01:10 min A blind singer in the Grande Rue de Pera, formerly one of the stately avenues, today called Street of Independence - Istiklal Caddesi. Midday passed, the pedestrian area is black with people and music comes roaring out of all the cafés. The old man and his assistant, probably his daughter, constitute a center of calmness amongst the crowd.<br/>Istanbul, Beyoglu, March 2009.<br/><br/>01:16 min At the canyons bottom, erosion has carved basins out of the rock deep enough to allow a bath in the small rivers cold clear mountain waters.<br/>Gorge de la Méouge, Alpes Provençales, road leading from Laragne to Sederon. May 2009.<br/><br/>00:29 min A pizzeria in the old centre of Apt. The oven is located behind the counter, at the head of the small vault. It`s the beginning of the week, only a few guests are inside.<br/>Apt, Provence, May 2009.<br/><br/>01:20 min Busy naval traffic on the Bosporus. A cold spring day.  Foam is regularly blown beyond the jetty, moistening tables and chairs of the street cafés.<br/>Istanbul, shore walk of Kabatas, European shore. March 2009.<br/><br/>01:20 min The moment municipal catholic dignitaries are leaving the church San Felipe de Neri, a Mexican orchestra starts to play.<br/>Albuquerque, Plaza Vieja, New Mexico. October 2009.<br/><br/>01:26 min Laundry on Route 7. Chinle, Navajo Nation, Arizona. October 2009. Native American women having in front of them large baskets filled with dirty linen keep the machines running. Their children are playing hide-and-seek in the aisles.<br/><br/>01:11 min Dorothea-Schlegel Platz, South Exit Station Friedrich- Straße. The noises of ICE and Citytrains are distinctly audible in the cold dry evening air.<br/>Berlin, January 2009.<br/><br/>01:28 min Wharf in Karaköy, close to the entry of the Galata Bridge. Ferryboats to Kadiköy on the Asian shore and further to the Prince`s Islands in the Marmara Sea start from here.<br/>Istanbul, Karaköy Iskele. April 2009.<br/><br/>01:26 min Auction sale of Navajo carpets in the elementary school of Crown Point. This monthly event is of great importance to the widely spread Navajo craftsmen and artists. The two auctioneers who take turns are white Americans.<br/>Crown Point, Navajo Nation, New Mexico. October 2009.<br/><br/>01:04 min A warm summer evening on the bay of Eckernförde. Passers-by, bicycle riders and seagulls.<br/>Eckernförde, shore walk, August 2009.<br/><br/>00:51 min Indian merchants below the arcades of the old Governor`s Palace of Santa Fe. A group of Harley-Davidson riders is parading around the tree-skirted Plaza.<br/>Santa Fe, New Mexico, October 2009.<br/><br/>01:00 min Coffeehouse terrace, Kleinbasel bank, right beside the central Rhine bridge. The cathedral`s chime on the other Rhine bank is blending with the voices of German and French coffeehouse guests.<br/>Basel, October 2010.<br/><br/>01:04 min Feeding of cows at an organic farm in Schleswig-Holstein, Northern Germany. The animal`s breath freezes immediately in the cold air.<br/>Götheby close to Fleckeby, January 2009.<br/><br/>00:39 min A street orchestra plays at the corner rue Royale, rue Saint Louis in the French Quarter. Businessmen go past in a hurry, a woman pulls her wheeled suitcase over the irregular pavement. According to the calendar it`s still winter but light and temperature evoke summer.<br/>New Orleans, French Quarter, Louisiana. February 2011.<br/><br/>03:52 min The Hubble Trading Post, built in the traditional Adobe-style and situated on the road between Ganado and the Hopi reservation First and Second Mesas, has been settling the commercial relations between the white population and the Navajo, Hopi and Zuni Indians since 1876.<br/>Ganado, Arizona. October 2009.<br/><br/>00:38 min An evening coming to an end  in Karaköy Lokantasi. Most of the guests have left already, the waiters start clearing the tables, only now is the music truly audible. A block further, large cruisers take berth.<br/>Istanbul, Karaköy, April 2009.<br/><br/>01:26 min Early morning above the Bosporus. Only a street peddler is on his way in the steep alleys between Taksim Square and the ferry docks of Kabatas.<br/>Istanbul, Beyoglu, April 2009.<br/><br/>02:21 min

Composition

12:15 min

Headset

Brooklyn, a cold sunny day. The East River banks are still covered with snow. On Manhattan Bridge a subway is approaching.

a traveller is thinking of another windy morning on the Bosporus shore, of the small cafe beside the jetty where he used to wait for the ferry to Üsküdar. And of the backgammon players who had set up the tables in a circle around the stove.

While unfolding the map upon his knees, sand trickles down on the young woman's lap sitting beside him. She interrupts the conversation she's having with a woman friend and looks at him, wondering, but his excuse is drowned by the subway's squealing. It's the squealing of the Parisian Metro in the bend after the Quai de la Rapée.

Is it sand trickling down from the sandals of men that are performing a ritual song and hurrying towards the tombs in the Valley of Falcons ?

Or is it dust from the sepulchral tower of Zeynel Bey on the banks of the Tigris ?

The children's voices are still lingering in his ears as well as the blind man's voice in the Istiklal Caddesi in Istanbul.

A Navajo carpet is being sold at auction in the school of Crown Point.

A horse-drawn carriage is crossing the square in front of the Alcazar in Sevilla and the cathedral's bells begin to chime.

On a quiet summer evening, the traveller remembers, he had had a walk with a woman friend on the shore of Eckernförde, she was pushing her bicycle, and her laughter had been flawless.

In Malta, a mortar's thunderclap is rolling through the Fjords of the Grand Harbour and glacial rain is transforming the trees in the Aarhus palace-garden into frozen tinkling silhouettes.

Having brushed the sand off her dress, the young woman beside him has it trickle into his open hand.
"Dorothea-Schlegel-Platz", she says.
"Berlin, South Exit, Friedrichstraße Station. On a clear cold day like this. We had travelled together, enjoying our conversation. At the moment of farewell, you gave me a present, a little box made of ebony. Inside there were the birds' calls in the foggy mountain forest of the Montagne d'Ambre and a whiff of the Emerald Sea at the northern tip of Madagascar. What are you doing in New York ?"

Video (coming soon)

Bildvorschau

... a reaction from outer space to the Golden Record "Sounds of Earth" aboard the spacecrafts "Voyager 1" and Voyager 2", launched in 1977 from Cap Canaveral.

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record