Ezzelino Live Cams, Part One

I went to Wiesbaden, Germany last Friday. I didn't have any real reason to go. In fact, I didn't actually want to go, but you have to be somewhere in the universe and three days in Frankfurt was about two days too long. My boyfriend had to go there for work so I hitched a ride. It was pretty much a no-brainer: if you're lazy and like cappuccinos you can entertain yourself in any European city for a day or two. While looking for parking Boyfriend pointed out a sign advertising a Biennale -- an art festival held every other year. "You are lucky," he said. "Eh," I replied. Maybe some people would have been excited but to me it was like being in England and running into a street food fest.

After Boyfriend left for work, I glanced at the unimpressive buildings and made a snap decision: this was yet another German city where the highlight would be a cappuccino and a comfy chair. As I walked toward the old part of the city, though, another sign pointed to a temporary new art attraction so I ventured a few steps off my path.

My brain still tells me I couldn't have seen what I thought I saw. The city had a spectacular beaux arts theatre that had to be two hundred years old -- and they'd let an artist open a cheap little supermarket inside it.

The juxtaposition between the theatre and the market couldn't have been more dramatic. Half of me was dazzled by the murals, the statuary, the stone work, and the frescoes, and the other half couldn't believe that muffins were just $1.29.

This had to be the most exciting art piece I'd seen in a long time, and I'd just blown $247,000 to spend 17 years in New York.

Maybe the Biennale wouldn't be to art what Germany was to music, design, architecture, dance and comedy, I decided. After I had my fill of cappuccino and comfy chair, I went to check out more.

I've lived in Germany for 18 months now but I still don't speak the language. After a painstaking month-long course I learned a bit of grammar and vocabulary, but even asking for directions to the bathroom requires twenty-eight words, one of which is RAMPSPUTENUMFALLRICHTUNG. So, I've temporarily put off learning more and resigned myself to being permanently confused. I found a brochure for the Biennale but rather than try to decipher it -- even Artforum leaves me scratching my head, and it's allegedly in English -- I headed for their information booth.

The clerk described some of the works and it sounded like I'd already found the highlight. However, right next door was an art installation in an old shopping mall. It opened in half an hour so I wandered Wiesbaden and discovered that, like every other German city, it had an old church in an old square and forty miles of cobblestone streets lined with really boring chain stores. At opening time I was in front of the old mall next to maybe eight other people. This was probably the reason in Germany stores outnumber pop-up art galleries by 800,000 to 1.

I'm an avid fan of ruin, as you can see from my apartment and workout plan. While there's a lot of ruin in Germany, it's mostly seen in Medieval buildings and not malls built in 1972. This place had evidently suffered the same fate as the dated low-rise malls in America: tastes changed, shoppers left, and the place was just locked up tight.

They were right to abandon this place. Totally enclosed within a claustrophobic building, there was no sunlight and no fresh air. Now the escalators didn't move, the stores were shuttered, shop windows were smashed. Most of the doors were chained shut but flashing lights and strange noises beckoned me into others to confront the Biennale's theme, which was Bad News.

After fifteen minutes of wandering I started to feel a little freaked out. Seeing babies cut up rats with scissors can do that to you. The lighting, the setting, and the creepy sounds were straight out of a horror movie. I walked from floor to floor without seeing another soul, with the only signs of life spray-painted on the walls. I tried to dispassionately admire the artworks while ignoring the darker side, that they scared the shit out of me.

I ran out of water and started to get hungry but the Chinese restaurant I passed looked like it had closed fifty years before. I'd wandered in so far in and taken so many twists and turns I had no idea how to find my way out. Even the game room, or Spielhalle, seemed intimidating. The Bad News had gotten to me, that was obvious. Even when I wasn't being assaulted by some frightening new work I could hear the menace of the last one echoing in the halls. I'd clearly been in here too long when a simple blue facade seemed menacing.

Inside, a life-sized sculpture with a friendly cartoon face hung by a rope from its neck.

The darkened room was nearly empty. In one corner, a plywood door had a push-button combination lock. Next to it, a glass window looked onto a makeup table in a fully-stocked dressing room. Three television monitors hung from the ceiling, all showing the same image. Words in German listed a phone number and website, and small squares contained video footage from tiny white rooms somewhere. In some of the squares you could make out shadowy figures moving around. Across the bottom of the monitors were the words "Ezzelino Live Cams."

I didn't even notice the man approach. He had to be fifty, with handsome features, but his loose clothing couldn't disguise a hefty paunch. He said something to me in German but when I said I didn't speak the language he switched to broken English. "Google it," he said, pointing at the monitor. "There's an explanation online, in English. 'Ezzelino Live Cams.'"

Online porn doesn't interest me so I hesitated to follow his advice. He was kind of handsome, though, and I was curious, so I got out my cellphone and typed in the words. I didn't move as we both scanned the tiny screen and his arm rubbed against mine. Google turned up nothing. "Try 'Wiesbaden,'" he added. "Ezzelino Live Cams Wiesbaden."

I repeated the process but again found nothing. He took my phone. "This must be some kind of tourist Google," he said. "This is different from what I get."

He played with my phone for probably ten minutes while my interest dissipated. I reached to get it back but he was focused on the screen and missed the hint. "At three-thirty they will open the door," he said, nodding toward the corner. "I talked with them online and they told me to be here."

I looked at my phone and it was 3:26. "Oh," I said. I let him continue using my phone but fifteen minutes later the door remained shut. He tapped keys on his phone and then held it next to mine. "See the difference?" he said. On mine, the search had turned up nothing. On his was the explanatory link. I took his phone and emailed the URL to myself. Then, at 3:48, I gave up. I took back my phone and said goodbye.

I was retracing my steps down the frozen escalator when I heard the man shout. I turned and saw him in front of the Spielhalle, poised to run back in. "They opened the door!" he yelled. "They opened the door!"

He turned and ran back into the Spielhalle. I froze for a second, then sprinted up the escalator. I reached the Spielhalle just in time to see him dash through the unlocked door. I got there a second before it closed. Inside a young man with long hair and a wispy moustache shot me a cautionary look, and said something sharply in German. I guessed he was asking me if I had permission to be there, if I had talked to someone online and gotten an invitation. I nodded and said, "Ja."

To my right, the man I'd followed was sitting next to two young women who looked Scandinavian. I took an empty chair as the long-haired young man addressed the group in German. The handsome man pointed at me and said, "Can you speak English? For him?"

The guide nodded. "I am your tour guide," he said. "This is a studio for filming that is arranged like a house. There is a living room, a bedroom, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Ordinary people like yourselves send us scripts, and we act them out in webcasts that continue 365 days a year, 24 hours a day."

I looked around at the rooms. To my left was the bedroom, with the dressing area and makeup table. At it, a woman was painting her face white. Another strange figure, something like a cross between a skeleton and a scarecrow, hung in the corner behind her. In the kitchen to my right a man and a woman were acting out a scene. Judging by the costumes, this scene was not supposed to look natural: the woman had a beehive hairstyle and wore a 60s-style housewife dress, while the man wore a dress that was slightly more provocative, revealing chest hair. The woman sat on a counter, the man sat in a chair, and they stared at their new audience as they argued in German. Small microphones extended in front of their mouths.

The guide smiled at us with his hands clasped across his shirt. "Welcome to Ezzelino Live Cams," he said.