Watch the Full Cord here:

http://archive.org/details/FirewoodCutInPopularCinematography

Szilvia Nagy and Vadim Tziganasj having a curatorial chat...

The Hills have Wood

Miskolc is known as a post-industrial town. Apart from the blocks of flats buildings on the sides of the main streets, it is a town mostly formed by districts of houses which, in fact, are carrying a rural-type identity, from more or less fancy ones to those inhabited by middle- and the low-class families. Firewood burning is an alternative method of warming. But with the forest management and wood stocking becoming more and more a private business, this forces the question: for how long?

Acting as a key aspect of rural life, the firewood cutting practice finds itself nowadays at the crossroads of historical imagery of man’s careness for family welfare, and a possible symbol of rural resistance against urbanization, escaped savagery, or poverty. It wouldn’t be wrong to presume that the firewood cutter is not far to become (unless it didn’t unofficially become already) a character to follow the state of the factory worker, or the miner, in this sense completing the list of characters that changed the public perception towards them as from a person engaged in a profession involving physical activity, to one of social and/or political activism. Sharp controversies upon turning forestry and wood production into a private business and therefore reducing public access to free collecting of savage wood drives debates, while general demand for firewood continues to increase.

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Free tutorial on how to use a steam-powered log splitter offered by the workers of the main Miskolc firewood market:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxEyjYW91ms

ZIPFER

Just turn right from opposite Miskolc Gallery and walk by the left side of the street...

That's what the French diaspora in Miskolc told me. 

That's just what I'm telling you.

Lillafüred

something about hungarian képregény bizness

Former underground fanzine comix editor Feliks Trükkös aka Rohadek organized me a trip through Miskolc mean antiques shops. Much to see, few worth sharing. But it would be a crime for anybody interested in comix culture not to get at least one issue of the "Kockás" magazine - one of the most important publications of the 80s. Especially if you take into account the fact that in Miskolc, if you search good, you can find them at the half of the price they will ask you at the comix fests in Budapest.

Firewood Survey in Tapolca

intermission

Some can face the cold just like that...

Diósgyőr

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Diósgyőr is another city district which mainly contributed to the formation of the Greater Miskolc due to the industrial unification in the fifties. Nowadays it is mostly a living district and a tourist point of attraction including sites such as the Lutheran and the Protestant Church, and the Medieval Castle of Diósgyőr, built in the 13th century.

The castle is now hosting several big music and theatre festivals which take place every year during the warm season. Inside the tower, a couple of modern blacksmiths are imprinting authentic medieval coins in exchange for nowadays valuable coins. From the top of it, you can see the whole diagram of the district development during the years - both churches look dwarfish underneath the huge raw of soviet blocks of flats... In the outer yard of the castle, a group of youngsters are performing some kickboxer training out on the fresh snow-drift. A warm sober feeling arises inside-out...

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Building Warm Spirit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gad-sN1cXog

Monuments in Public Space

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Színek/Colours

Linda's solo album "ZÖLD"/"GREEN" was very popular during the 80s. She later performed a widely successful career as an actress starring as a karate-girl in hungarian TV shows

Apart from the monthly RÉGISÉGVÁSÁR, Miskolc is also a city with lots of antiquities shops. You may find, for example, the old Kockás series of hungarian comics triple cheaper price compared to those pretended mighty rare sold at the Budapest comikons, or 40 years old hungarian cigarette packs - unique design and... unique taste I might say.

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The large vinyl collections for sale offer a great portrayal on hungarian pop-culture. Original cover designs were made at high-level and could compete with the western specialized masters of album cover art. Most notable could be probably Harmati András and Kemény György, both graficians. Their work for cover albums of Locomotiv GT shows a fine esthetic taste and sense for mass culture icon production. Locomotiv GT is a popular hungarian hard-rock band of the 70s and 80s. Their song "Boldog Vagyok"/"I am Happy" is a refferential hit, while collaboration features with artists like Jack Bruce proves veritable international value.

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Lokomotív GT - Boldog Vagyok/1971:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KjEdq3HaL4

Miskolc Mostly Zsir

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Every first sunday of each month, the main street of the Miskolc downtown is turned into a huge flea market. It's like a big holiday. And good time for a wood worker to complete his studio with all the necessary equipment & materials: from all types of splitting tools - mauls, axes, chain saws, hatchet, tomahawk, to various books and magazines on forestry, firewood business&management, biomass resource, sustainable reforestation practices and wood storing DIY manuals...

Harvesting Operations

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The different colored circles represent higher and lower temperature... Attila ZEMLÉNYI (art journalist/writer) trying to get a sense out of the hard contemporary art tokens together with Szilvia NAGY (cultural anthropologist/curator). Miskolc Gallery, KORTÁRS BULVÁR exhibition opening

Harvesting or collecting firewood varies by the region and culture. Some places have specific areas for firewood collection. Other places may integrate the collection of firewood in the cycle of preparing a plot of land to grow food as part of a field rotation process. Collection can be a group, family or an individual activity. The tools and methods for harvesting firewood are diverse...

There is a statue of a dog in Miskolc which is quite popular amongst local preferences of public monuments. The name of the dog was Mancs and he is famous for his international activity as part of the Spider Special Rescue Team of Miskolc...
Our urban lumberjacking activity drives us into both the official and marginal places that form the city's cultural scene. We are not asked to clarify the things that make the different actors to stay apart from one another and therefore we'll do it. For a rōnin like us is important to maintain ethics in relation to all and find ballance in our actions in order to draw a fairly objctive thermal map. Therefore, we will tease very ethically... You are a samurai and you have a sword, but when no opportunity of performing your profession arises, there is no shame in measuring your skills on a firewood cut.

Anywhere we go, we ask all the people we meet about a person named Miklos KOVER or some group called "Holt Dog". All Miskolc is intrigued, though no barman (in this city most of them are women) can point his finger to the corner table where some listless, totally unsocial individual is just pouring the last drops of pálinka from the bottle into his glass.
All we found out by now is that holt means dead (in hungarian) and that the name appears listed only on the english wikipedia page for "Miskolc". In other words, it disappears if the same page is translated into hungarian. We don't know what is or is there any connection to the famous Miskolc dog that died of pneumonia in 2006, or is it just a lampoon on worldwide and specifically hungarian fast-food consumerism, but we are determined to find it all out...

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Urban lumberjacking is a term that defines a particular type of skipping or dumpster diving where the focus is to salvage wood either for home construction or for home heating.

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Seven Samurai - the Firewood Scene:
http://www.trilulilu.ro/tziganasj/78a5d0d471f1bd
The Spider Dog:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mancs

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KlubGaléria - FESTŐMÚVÉSZ flat exhibition opening. Szabolcs (with a glass of wine in the hand) is very modest in his speech...

Szabolcs KAKUK - "MADARAK"/"BIRDS"

KORTÁRS BULVÁR - "Andrew King"

slow combustion

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We may divide heaters depending on their form, state of matter or method of combustion. The human condition is consisted of three patterns that require vital essential warmth. Though we may sometimes be forced to give priority to one pattern or another, we should consider that, as for any type of natural cycles, the three of them form an interdependent system. Thus, in order to provide health, welfare and joy, a full warm mind, body and soul individual is eager to maintain ballance by equal heating to all identity-based components.