Karina Nimmerfall
Austria
The Third City (Red Vienna)
2017
“[…] Red Vienna—a ‘virtual city’. A ‘second Vienna’, which can only be reconstructed in memory, is imprinted against the back light of what Kraus called ‘the observatory of the end of mankind’. The galaxy of the Höfe forms a ‘virtual city’, bound to remain such, its intention to set itself up as other than the real one, and—at the same time—at making the real one strange. […]” (Manfredo Tafuri)
The Third City (Red Vienna) traces architect and theoretician Manfredo Tafuri’s essay “Politics and Housing in Socialist Vienna 1919-1933” and its associated locations in Vienna. Nimmerfall creates what she calls ‘alleged historic photographs’ through a digital process in which her photographs undergo manipulation to convey an authentic historical appearance, blurring the line between fiction and reality. Her images are juxtaposed with lyrical and political writings from the era, unveiling a network of relationships that portray Vienna’s social housing blocks, also known as Höfe, both as symbols and manifestations of a social and democratic strategy. Nimmerfall offers a portrait of what Edward Soja terms a ‘Thirdspace’, where historical and fictional social and experiential elements form a portrait of a unique space perceived as both real and imaginary.
In collaboration with the Austrian Cultural Forum Tel Aviv
