Hannes Kater: Made-to-order drawings / Nr. 26


Nr. 26 - 30	Feltpen on paper

Made-to-order drawing Sample 026


Made-to-order drawings
	Nr. 01 – 05
	Nr. 06 – 10
	Nr. 11 – 15
	Nr. 16 – 20
	Nr. 21 – 25
	Nr. 26 – 30
	Nr. 31 – 35

	Nr. 36 – 40
	Nr. 41 – 45
	Nr. 46 – 50

Hannes Kater: made-to-order drawing / Letter Nr. 26_1 - 151x195 Pixel

7 years ago, I was 23, living in Oregon with my boyfriend of five years. He was a starving painter working in retail, and he was sliding into depression. I was a low-ranking ad designer, preparing for medical illustration grad school. We loved each other very much, but were very poor, hated our jobs, didn't know anyone in our city, and were thousands of miles from our families. The relationship was coming apart under all the strain, and this unspoken knowledge hung over us every day like a dark cloud.

His parents came to visit us in the beautiful Oregon summer, and together the four of us went up to British Columbia. They thought everything was O.K., and we let them think so, because neither of us could bear to fail them again.

One day they took us out on a small boat to watch whales off Victoria Island. The boat driver gave us large yellow rubber suits to wear, because the cold spray would've soaked us to the skin. The driver told us that people usually see about 3 or 4 whales on a good day. (These are killer whales, orca.)

We got out to the middle of the bay and we began to see the whales jumping into the air, four or five of them, soon many more, and they were amazing. I couldn't believe the power and speed it took to get all that bulk up in the air. It was like an explosion. The noise and splash of it drove everything else out of my head. First you would see the fin cruising along at top speed, and a hint of long, dark body under the water. Then they would come crashing up into the air, so hard and so close to us. It was so obvious that they were aware of us and were playing, hoping to be seen. My mouth hung open. I didn't blink. My throat was raw from yelling something like "holy shit!" every time I saw one.

Some of the whales came up to the side of the boat, effortlessly cruising at the speed of our boat. They turned their bodies to the side so that their enormous eyes could see us. They looked directly into my eyes, and I was overwhelmed by all the inhuman intelligence I saw there.

The whales hung out with us for about 3 hours, maybe 50 of them. It was unbelievable. When I got off the boat and stepped back into my world, I realized that my problems and my self awareness had been completely blasted out of my head while I was out there. The cloud that I was living under just didn't exist. That experience made me feel like an ant in an anthill, utterly insignificant, and it was BLISS.

Made-to-order drawing Sample 027

Hannes Kater: made-to-order drawing / Letter Nr. 27_1 - 151x195 Pixel

This is what happened:

Yesterday I sneaked into the ground zero hole.
Actually, I had no idea that this was possible, but I just passed the gate and walked down, and nobody really took notice. The first 3 levels down, everything is still quite messy, but the rest of the 119 below zero floors, are perfectly intact.
I took the speed elevator to go all the way to the bottom floor -121 to enjoy the view. It was a clear day and you could really see far away, all the way down, all of negative -Manhattan, the subways, the negative of the statue of Liberty, the roots of central park, really very nice.
I had a negative-coffee at the cafeteria and the white servant that worked at the counter, really thought I was telling here a joke when I said that all the positive had been blown away 2 years earlier.

Made-to-order drawing Sample 028

Hannes Kater: made-to-order drawing / Letter Nr. 28_2 - 151x195 Pixel

In the last night in France we took a room in an old castle, viewing huge fields of sunflowers.
It was August. The sunflowers were dead. dead and beautiful.
In the first week after coming back we talked on the phone four times a day.
In the second week we were fighting again.
After a month he sent me 15 sunflowers.
They were yellow and healthy and fresh. And the magic was gone.

Made-to-order drawing Sample 029

Hannes Kater: made-to-order drawing / Letter Nr. 29_1 - 151x195 Pixel

I started using the same audio share website he was using.
In his house this had been our main source of music.
Whenever a name of a song came up, it was downloaded.
When I went to the audiogalaxy.com it seems like it has his face all over it.
Is it possible that we start to look like the interface we are using most?
I searched for songs I knew he had on his computer.
Knowing we are both using the same server I was imagining how our computers connect.
I didn't need to rationalize it in any way; I just knew that I was downloading the songs directly from his machine.
Watching the small downloading animation, I was feeling the stream of data moving from him to me.
There was something fluid about the way the blue percentage line was running over my screen.
5% -- 10% -- 55% -- 97% -- 100% -- download is complete.
We are together again.

Made-to-order drawing Sample 030

Hannes Kater: made-to-order drawing / Letter Nr. 125_1 - 151x195 Pixel

Text in german:
Ich stehe am Morgen nach der Geburt meiner Tochter auf und sehe aus dem Schlafzimmerfenster auf den Hinterhof. Ich bin gespannt, aber ruhig, voller Erwartung, aber auch ohne Unruhe.


	Made-to-order drawings 031 - 035