Week 22/2025

Über uns bloß Neonlicht

Nikolaus Forgó

May 23, 2025

Banksy Museum, Brussels

NSFW

I believe it’s time for a song from Resi Reiner again (see Weekly 33/2024 for “Naja, geht so”).

It’s also on YouTube with a nice eulogy to the Prater.

Here’s an interview with her on DIFFUS - which seems to be a good YouTube channel on DACH-music (that I had never heard before).

Retrospect

Legal Design Sprint

I spent Saturday in Juridicum to be part of the jury of this year’s legal design sprint (more on last year’s edition in Weekly 23/2024). We had five student teams with very good presentations and two winning teams - one dealing with immigration (law), one with employee location tracking. Iris Eisenberger and Tobias Schweitzer awarded the first prizes.

Winkler Symposion

I attended the memorial for Günther Winkler on Monday evening and learned, a lot, about the Juridicum in a lively session jointly given by (from right to left) Miloš Vec, Michael Hiesmayr (the architect Ernst Hiesmayr’s son) and (Hiesmayr’s then assistant) Reinhardt Gallister.

There are two books on the building, one from Hiesmayr and one from Winkler that are of interest if you want to understand more about the architecture, about the cooperation between those two men and, perhaps in particular, about academic governance in Austria. Miloš Vec published, inter alia, an interview with Michael Hiesmayr and Reinhardt Gallister with more on the architect and his, possibly, most important building and an interview with Winkler held a few days before he died.

One of the things I learned (from Reinhardt Gallister) was that there’s a library in Mexico City with a very similar architectural concept (the building doesn’t stand on the ground, but rather hangs from the ceiling) -

© Alberto Kalach

- the Biblioteca Jose Vasconcelos, a touristic site in the city today.

Wikipedia

I had a very interesting conversation with Claudia Garád from Wikimedia Austria/Europe on the uphill battles they are fighting against the Trump administration.

The good news is that this doesn’t (directly) affect European Wikipedia chapters today, the bad news is that this can change quickly.

Legal Literacy Project

The Legal Literacy Project (LLP) held its annual conference in Juridicum on Tuesday that I attended.

The panel with (from right to left) Univ.-Prof. Dr.in Magdalena Pöschl, Prof. Dr. Konrad Lachmayer, Ege Onay, LL.M. (WU) (moderation), Mag.a Simela Papatheophilou, Mag.a Dr.in Brigitte Heller, MBA, MinR Mag. Oliver Henhapel discussed vividly how the young can be better adressed to participate in legal/political debates. Some of the facts and figures presented were particulary alarming (25 % of students in vocational schools are active voters, for example) and not too much consensus was found on what could and needs to be changed - but, as a minimum, everyone appreciated the role and importance of the LLP.

LLP published a new episode in their podcast that I have the privilege to host on Wednesday.

It’s an interview with Mag.a Sabine Matejka on the judiciary in Austria.

Prospect

KI in Politik, Verwaltung und Public Affairs, do´s and dont´s, Chancen und Risiken

The Austrian Public Affairs Association kicks off a new event series on Monday: „ÖPAV Digital Connect“. I’m giving a keynote on AI and law there. It’s, probably, members only, but as it’s also online only, it might be possible to participate remotely after an expression of interest.

AI in the Creative Industry

I will be in Graz delivering a speech on Tuesday, May 27th, at the “KI-Workshop-Tag”. This is a full day event on AI in the creative industry, free entry, registration needed.

Digital Sustainability

Vienna University of Economics’ Legal Tech Center organises a conference on Digital Sustainability (Digitale Nachhaltigkeit – Nachhaltige Digitalisierung) on Wednesday. I’m one of the speakers in the afternoon, talking about “Nachhaltigkeit im EU-Digitalwirtschaftsrecht?” (Spoiler: No).

Free entry, registration required.

Look and Feel

Banksy Museum

Before leaving Brussels, I visited the Banksy museum.

It’s relatively costly, but worth a visit. If your internal copyright alarm goes on at the moment, may I provide you with two of his statements: :-)

The copyright issue is a little more complex, however, as one can see easily on Pestcontrol.

There’s more from him on his website. The BBC has a story about what we (don’t) know about his identity (sounds much like Satoshi Nakamoto, by the way). And you can (and should) follow him on Instagram.

Banksy’s - somehow - anti-mainstream and anti-market approach fits well to the other major input I received this week:

Sayaka Murata, Konbini ningen

Following a hint I almost certainly read in Falter but can’t find in their archive any longer, I read Sayata Muraka’s wonderful novel on a person working in a Japanese Konbini: Konbini ningen (Convenience Store Woman). I read it in the German version “Die Ladenhüterin” (which is, in its ambivalence, a nice title).

It’s a very nice read, in partciular if you’re interested in Japanes culture. Konbini are 24/7 convenience stores that are omnipresent everywhere in Japan. The main character tells about her life in the store and about her problems to adapt to normative expectations of modern (Japanese) societies.

The book received some, well deserved, attention and appraisal: here are some more opinions and here’s a 50 minutes critique on YouTube with everything you might expect in it: incels, autism, Adorno, Peterson, marxism - but, in my view, still not full understanding of some of the genuinly Japanese elements of the book (that I, of course, don’t understand either).

There are shorter and more critical opinions on YouTube too:

Here’s the author reading and discussing the book in Berlin (very poor video quality, unfortunately). And this is a video explaining what to expect in a konbini.

If you want to read the book (which I woul drecommend), here’s also the right soundtrack on YouTube (as always, I am not the first one finding this, there is a whole thread on the book in the comments here):

Google I/O

Banksy’s copyright claims fit quite well to Google presenting “Flow” at their yearly developer’s conference on Mai 21. Just think briefly how this technolgy is going to further disrupt (independent) moviemaking (and everything elese).