Another Water Highline

Highline over Landwehrkanal at Görlitzer Park. About  20m long, 4m up. Full man on-sight.
Photos by Susanne Schmidt.

Playground fun

Earlier this year in Vienna, Austria.


 

Waterline on Havel river

Summer in Berlin

This blog seems to be a litle sleepy. But the Berlin slackline scene surely isn't. Here's photos from a line set up this summer (30m long, 6m up):

ART FILM

We have been having conversation about creating films of slacklining through the artistic direction of Traveler TT. (can i call you Traveler TT? it reminds me of Booker T and the MGs)
Every slackline video is the same: either a documentary style educational video, explaining how it works and why everybody should do it, or a show off "we did it bigger and better" video from california. Thats not what we want to do.

Videography is an art. Art can stand alone. With a subject as serene as slacklining, we want to create slackline videos of visual serenity. videos that capture the beauty of the sport in creative juxtaposition, or creative harmony with the surroundings. The video is not just about slacklining, its about being a beautiful video.

so here is an excerpt from a brainstorming style episode of emailing that we experienced recently. my personal favorite is the alligator pool.

Traveler:
"this place inTurkey where there are fields of 30 meter high penis shapes rocks,
rig a line there and explore the culture and history. another line i
am thinking is one high in the trees, like the giant 70 meter high fir
and cedars i saw in British columbia Canada recently. just a breath of
wind in the high emerald green canopy. Another one would be a line
out in the middle of a pure white snow covered field, just pure white,
with A white line and one slacker. the image is beautiful and the
line with its incredibly low contrast would be really hard to walk. i
have a million more ideas that create challenges in very aesthetic
conceptually interesting places and situations. it would be like an
art film about slacklining."

Ivonne:
"Another idea which I had in mind since I went to
Australia in August is a highline between
two rocks of the Twelve Apostle in the ocean along the
Great Ocean Road. That could be nice. Or in Berlin
between the towers on Frankfurter Allee, with the
Fernsehturm in the background."

Traveler:
"-walk a line across that last remaining section of the Berlin Wall,
-Rig a long line across a fast moving river.
-over cravasses on a glacier,
-what about setting up a line in a really foggy (nebel) place and
walking a bright, flamy red line through thick tick fog"

Daniel #3
"-how about multiple lines, three simultaneous slackliners, perhaps one
above the other, or side by side.
-a series of slacklines through treetops in a forest that extends as
far as you can see.
-our slack games would be great to video, the one where a slacker on
either end tries to capture a flag from the middle, a game like that
on a highline above an abyss would be VERY intense!!!
-naked slacklining.
-a studio situation, using the invisibility of the line from profile
to create interesting "walkin on air" effects
-over the top of a smokestack on a factory, through the filth.
-deepwater free highlining

Kris:
"ok, i´d like to do slacklining in a tropical butterflyhouse or a big
aviary with little birds in a zoo, but only if we don´t kill any of
the animals by falling off the line. OR in a monkey house with lemurs,
practising the lemur leap, as long as the monkeys don´t attack us too
badly.
(...and how about a line across the alligator pool? or the shark pond?)"

More slackline picts

Not giving a damn about winter! (John Borland. Photo: Kelsey Gray www.alaskamountainforum.com)


Highlining at Peilstein/Austria. (Photo, Robert Skarka)


Slacklining in germany. The blue flags are registered users in the new forum http://www.slackliner.de/forum/ .
Seems like slacklining’s avoiding berlin! Please register there! I’ll update this picture soon!

Preparing to go longer

So: Longlining doesn’t stop at the width of this beach volleyball dint! It get’s even more exciting! The wavering of the line gets stronger and more complex. And rigging becomes quite a project!
Here are some picts of our planning and practicing:


Longline distances at Volkspark Friedrichshain.
google maps link





Two versions of a line loosening system.


An attempt on a 120 meter (390 foot) slackline.

Transformations

I just had another look on the photos traveler (Traveler Taj Terpenings http://www.travelerphotography.com/) made some time ago.
It’s interesting to see that they completely resist to go along with my “gap – personality - social context” theory (http://slackline-berlin.blogspot.com/2006/09/my-very-favourite-slackline-picts.html):


(http://www.travelerphotography.com/)

• They are not about a gap! Not about a spatial relation, - not about the immediate challenge, - not about the slackline! He cuts it out!
• They are not about the personality either! As faces are blurred and hardly recognizable.
• They do feature some social contexts, but this seems to be quite a peripheral aspect.

You recognized what’s happening to the figures in the photos?
They get .. ..

(http://www.travelerphotography.com/)
.. penetrated by the sun ..



(http://www.travelerphotography.com)
.. rinsed by visible air ..


(http://www.travelerphotography.com)
.. bended by trees ..


(http://www.travelerphotography.com)
.. surrounded by the sky

-they’re like a ball in a game of forces; - part of an ongoing fusion with their ambience. They do not appear to walk to the end of the slackline, - they still strive – but they get touched and overwhelmed by mysterious forces.
He tries to expose a metaphysical reaction we haven’t recognized that’s taking place, pointing to the transformations we undergo in these moments.
I found two pictures on his website that go along nicely with this motive:


(http://www.travelerphotography.com)
-don’t know what exactly the figure’s doing there, and who it is. But he’s on the edge of something transcendent happening to him!


(http://www.travelerphotography.com)
-by what she’s doing - at that moment – she melts with her ambience. ..she transforms - she’ll be different afterwards!

Indoor Highline

Our first highline and the next best slackline so far! (16 meters long, 6 meters up - in the T-Hall Berlin (www.t-hallberlin.de))



It's like a metaphor on how we attempt (spatial) freedom: You fear it, you discover it, get used to it, love it, never want to loose it again! - What a poor experience to step on a normal slackline afterwards!

• About "Fear": Not this time! We were too excited!
• About "Discover it": Undeniably it's new! You still know how to slackline but you kind of start it all over again.
• About "Get used to it": You feel no longer attached to the ground. The slackline appears to be insignificant. - You learn the space under you!
• About "Love it": I now see (potential) highlines everywhere!
• About "Never want to loose it again": No, we did not marry! But this one is going to become a permanent feature of the T-Hall!!

What an impressive way to be proven wrong(!): The first Berlin highline contest got won by a woman! Chris has a unique style: Her arms straight, moving quickly! She's from Halle and we're planning to set up a highline together in Löbejün next summer (June 23/24)!

And so many new ..

.. talents all over!

Video Snippets

.. found on Andys Digi-Cam. They are in no way special or anything, - just a glimpse ... Hope we'll have a proper one soon (..) Aaanndd .. as long as this one ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=catecph87qQ&mode=related&search= ) is online - they are not even the worst slackline videos on youtube!!

Pan


70 meters