A fantastic evening with the artists Marina Rützler, Frieda Paris und Katharina Halus. Organised by kulturmelange in cooperation with Künstlerhaus Wien. With graphic design by Laura Besler and music by David Lipp.

Around the short story "The Spinning Top" by Franz Kafka (1920)

The Spinning Top

A philosopher would always linger wherever children were playing.
And whenever he saw a boy with a spinning top, he would start lurking
around. As soon as the top began spinning, the philosopher would
chase it, trying to catch it. The fact that the children were making
noise and trying to keep him away from their toy didn’t bother him. If
he managed to catch the spinning top while it was still spinning, he
was happy, but only for a moment; then he would throw it to the
ground and leave. He believed that understanding even the smallest
thing, for example, a spinning top, was sufficient for understanding the
universal. Therefore, he didn’t concern himself with the big problems;
that seemed uneconomical to him. If the smallest detail was truly
understood, then everything was understood. That’s why he
concerned himself only with the spinning top. And every time
preparations were made to spin the spinning top, he had hope that
this time he would succeed. And when the spinning top started
spinning, and he chased after it breathlessly, hope became certainty.
But then, when he finally held the stupid piece of wood in his hand, he
felt sick, and the children’s shouting, which he hadn’t noticed before
but now suddenly roared in his ears, drove him away. He staggered
like a spinning top under an awkward whip.

Image Copyright: Sofija Palurovic