~MisiFetaPortokali

Adolf Hitler spent his childhood in the Austrian town of Linz, which has, ever since tried to wash off the notoriety of this association in every imaginable way. Hence, a moderately hot Austrian August yearly endures the Ars Electronica festival. And so we shared our first coffee in absolute silence on the highstreet of this town, trying to delicately ignore the fact that, most of the ArsElectro venues we had already visited, were founded by Adolf himself, in one of his efforts to transform the town into the cultural centre of the Third Reich. And I’m sure he wouldn’t be too happy to know, that, on that same August night, three dark haired, dark eyed foreigners ended up eating Shoarma together on the banks of river Danube.

Now to those of you who believe in fate, it would seem more than mere coincidence that the three of us shared drinks, stories, a common language, a deep interest in all things technological and an Austrian hostel room in that first week. But that’s the way the cookie crumbled. Returning to Leiden we struggled together to read labels on supermarket products, found our way around town halls, banks, university establishments, and hauled as well as assembled the entire IKEA catalogue.

And days went by, like notes in Nina Simone’s Sinnerman. While spending sleepless nights solving equations, building installations, writing papers and deciphering lecture notes, we tried to pierce the thick membrane of the mundane and the static.

Almost two years later, is with great pleasure that I present to you the fruits of their work. boose is the brainchild side-project of bone and xris, put together with lots of love and meticulous devotion to the fusion of art and technology. This is a commendable effort to promote these fields to a Greek audience, and as far as I know, it is the only site of the sort.

I invite you to take the plunge in the rabbit hole – and embrace wonderland. I am sure you will frequently return to it, as do I, with admiration and respect.

With Love,
xxx
MFP