Eiterquellen:
The EITERQUELLEN series really means a lot to me. It was my first long-term project where I invested a lot of time as well as money. I was very grateful and relieved when it was widely accepted and appreciated world wide.
Initially, I believe I was attracted by the strong visual appearance of these diners and the contradiction to the idea of something very traditional. Supplemented with my sympathy and interest for the town and the people of Vienna, it suddenly made sense to dig a little deeper.
The apparent isolation of self-luminous objects surrounded by a neutral darkness is very similar to a spot light in the opera. It may seem to have something to do with loneliness or abandonment but achieves a simplification of this superficial motive. I did not visualize the relationship with the ancient surroundings in my photographs because of two good reasons: First for the sake of simplicity and second there is already a well established and worldwide perception of Vienna: Sissi and K&K Monarchy. I do believe that this imaginary perception (like a memory from a Sissi movie) perfectly covers the counterpart to the isolated diners in my photographs.
I thought about the anachronism a couple of times, but came to the conclusion that this is exactly what the diners try to avoid by adopting their appearance. And what food they serve is not really displaced in time as it's still heavily demanded by the customers. It's something which survived if not evolved.