The "Weltmaschine" of Franz Gsellmann
LIVE YOUR DREAM

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. 

Imagination encircles the world. [Albert Einstein]

In 1958 Franz Gsellmann, a farmer from a small settlement in Styria (Austria), read in a local newspaper about the opening of the "Atomium" at the World Expo in Brussels. He travelled to Brussels (just an enterprise at this time and having not a lot of money). Many years after this journey he said: "As I saw the Atomium, I saw in a dream my finished machine. The Atomium was the foundation of my world machine." From then on he worked twenty-three years until shortly before his death in 1981 on the machine. Almost daily he retired in a closed and shrouded barn to work on the machine, which he presented to family members only after eight years of construction for the first time. The parts of his machine he found mostly on second-hand markets or junkyards. He was often seen by his neighbors as he brought home new finds with the wheelbarrow or oxcart. The machine is about four meters long, two meters wide and four meters high. About 2000 various components are installed into a trembling, vibrating, rotating, rumbling, glowing and flashing device that is operated by 25 electric motors. The machine consists besides coils, tubes and wires from such different parts as an eagle made of porcelain, an organ blower, an infrared lamp, three blue lights, 64 bird whistles, 200 bulbs, 14 bells, a compressed air cylinder as a drive for the wind-driven parts, a toy rocket (that Gsellmann ordered in Japan), and much more. 

That are the facts.

But the idea behind this machine, the dream that Gsellmann had, was never revealed. Nobody today knows if it has any meaning at all, any function. But this doesn't matter. What matters is that he followed his imagination, his dream...

Sacrario di Redipuglia
PRESENTE

In May 1915 Italy entered the First World War on side of the Entente and declared war on Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. One war aim was the conquest of Trieste and the Isonzo river was the theater of some of the bloodiest battles of the First World War (with more than 1 mio death)

At the small village of Redipuglia, close to the border of what is now Slovenia, the largest war cemetary for the death of the Isonzo front was errected in 1938. More than 100.000 fallen Italian soldiers are burried here in 22 giant steps - only about 40.000 of them identified, the rest is nameless...

ARRIVEDERCI!

It has been a wonderfull week in Bagni di Lucca and the Bagni di Lucca Art Festival was a great event. Want to thank Shona and Michael for their hospitality and to all the people who came to visit my exhibition: Thanks, your feedback means a lot to me...

Arrivederci. Maybe next year again?

A last impression...

Meanwhile in: Italy 

FOREVER LOST?

I have written in an previous post that the "For Sale" sign can be seen frequently on houses in small Toscany villages. At least there is some hope that somebody will buy them, renovate them, fill them with life again. But there are some places for which there are no such positve perspectives...

An abandoned village high up in the mountains above Bagin di Lucca. Inhabited by bats, snakes and lizards only. Overgrown like some Maya temple in the deep jungle. A haunted place...

Meanwhile in: Italy 

INFERNO

Today I visited the Orrido di Botri, a nature reserve close to the village of Montefegatsi. This deep gorge of the river Pelago is allegedly have been the role model for the Hell's Gate in Inferno, the first part of Dante Alighierie's famous work The Devine Comedy. 

Climbing over the huge rocks into the deep gorge, where almost no sunshine is reaching the bottom of the valley or wading to the freezing cold water, the steep cliffs towering over you for almost 100 meters,  you can easily imagine why...

Meanwhile in: Italy

TUSCANYSHIRE

Tuscanyshire - thats the name which is given (with tongue in cheek) to some parts of the Italian province of Tuscany. In some parts English is the language you here most, and many of the abandoned villages where (and still are) converted to summer houses for British (but there are a lot of Australiens and US-Americans too). This is not a new phenomenon as already in the 19th century people like Byron, Shelly, Heinrich Heine used to come to this parts of Italy. In the back country of the sandy beaches or beyond towns like Florence, Pisa etc. there are todaya lot of small villages, most of them inhabited only in summer. Driving on small winding roads up- and downhill through dense chestnuts forrests I today visited some of them...

The Alpi Apuane

Vico Pancellorum

Montefegatesi

Limano

Luccio

A common sign: "For Sale"

At Luccio Castle (XI. century)

The Lima River gorge

Meanwhile in: Italy

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS OF CARRARA

Driving around a little bit in thesurroundings of Lucca. Quite impressive are the marble quarries of Carrara. Already the Romans got from here the marble for the construction of the Forum Romanum and Michelangelo has choosen here many blocks of the white stone for his famous statues...

 And from the quarries to the beach it is just a few kilometers...

Baywatch Italien style...