|
We
set out from our front door on 20 October 2001. The first week we wanted
to get accustomed again to our heavily loaded bikes. We rode along the
Albert Canal. After we crossed the Dutch border to ride through the hills
of 'the Dutch Ardennes' of South Limburg, Maya started to suffer a bad
knee ache. After a days rest we tried to ride till Aachen in Germany,
but only Bram could make it. Consequently we decided not to ride till
Frankfurt as planned, but to catch a train. We spent almost a week with
our friends of HP Velotechnik in Kriftel where we updated our web site
and made the last adjustments to our bikes and packs.
After an 18-hour train
ride, changing in Vienna, we got to Budapest. Budapest is an ideal place
to contemplate the effects of the passage of time. In the midst of the
historical architecture of the town, the future is widely studied topic.
The planned economy of the old communism necessitated mid-range as well
as longer term forecasting. So there is a significant tradition of future
studies and foresight in Hungary and these subjects are taught at university
level.
At the University
for Economics we talked with Michael Simai. The scholar has been involved
in future studies in his country since the seventies and has established
an international reputation with his work for OESO. At the ethnographic
museum of the Hungarian capital we visited an exhibition entitled 'Images
of Time'. The exhibition was organised on the occasion of the start of
the third millennium, mathematically timed correctly for 2001 rather than
2000. It also celebrated the 1000-year presence of Hungarians on the current
territory of the nation. The organisers of 'Images of Time' stated that
the 1000-year period is tremendously important symbolically. Actual human
memory does not surpass three generations, so that a thousand years becomes
an unimaginably long period of time. The exhibition then presented a collection
of historical conceptualisations of time: father time, Indian calendars,
clocks and almanacs. For the contemplation of the future a large room
was reserved. In its wide-open space a few television screens sparingly
depicted human bodies in motion. That set-up was open to interpretation,
to say the least.
|
