The process of Trichtlinnburg
	Liina Siib

	A City is a place where everybody has things to sort out: to survive, get rich, boost one's cultural angst etc. Trichtlinnburg (TLB) is a fictional city whose existence is limited to the duration of an art project of the same name or, to be more precise, slightly over two years. (1) Through various events the partners from three European cities Maastricht, Tallinn and Salzburg actuated a dialogue process under the subtitle an urban affair addressing mostly changes in public space taking place due to estate preservation/ development and increasing numbers of mass-tourism. Making use of the possibilities of these historical towns, TLB points to rarely used places, or tries out extremely dense territories oriented to increasing sales, thus carrying out a process that could raise an argument about employment of public space. What would Italo Calvino have had Marco Polo tell Kublai Khan about Trichtlinnburg, that new invisible city, at a time when the entire world has turned into one never-ending tourist empire? (2) In each third of this fantasy city, the image of a medieval town dominates; Old Tallinn emerged in the media as a possible source of foreign currency during the Soviet era. Tallinn is still mostly sold as a place to rediscover medieval Europe.
	Some of the variegated undertakings of TLB in Tallinn would not perhaps have been possible in a larger city, for example London, although the idea of artists' walks was taken from there. This idea, supplemented by the practices of everyday life by the French thinker Michel de Certeau, has offered the participants in Tallinn amazing discoveries of the topography and historical development of the town. A walk should be differentiated from a guided tour, where no individuals stand out. On a walk the participants can talk about their experiences and impressions, and the organiser does not assume the role of the leader as the only source of knowledge. The choice of location made the character of the walks different from the usual flânerie, moving rather towards the wanderings of a fugueur as described by Ian Sinclair. (3) The image of such a lunatic traveller, the key figure of which is for example van Gogh's painting The Painter on the Road to Tarascon, is not unknown in Estonian culture either - the poet Juhan Liiv was a wanderer who wrote the following lines: Back from town, snow is falling, did not get a job... The modern wandering person acts sometimes like a pilgrim, pondering the problem of his post-modern unfixed identity, at the same time seeking who knows what, just like a tourist. (4)
	Architects Siiri Vallner, Heidi Urb and Indrek Peil, who headed the walk of the Tallinn 'waist', had prepared a concentrated trip through the narrowest part of the town, with a length of 2.3 km. People of all ages who turned up each received a 30 cm ruler (see the picture) that showed the map of the route; some climbing was occasionally necessary, partly helped by special construction. Four thoroughfares were crossed between the sea and Lake Ülemiste and the walkers could get a first-hand experience of different landscapes and building types (from the French-style park to a shopping centre). Such diversity in a relatively small area is perhaps the best indicator of Tallinn's originality and rhetoric. The 19th century railway, soon to be taken apart, which runs around Kalamaja district, was an obvious path to follow (led by architect Toomas Paaver). Important industrial urban areas of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries are located within the iron loop, some of which have found a new function and are therefore closed to viewers. The Tallinn backyard trip took the participants around a prison, hospital, cemetery and along the bed of a former river (architect Karri Tiigisoon). The existential dimension was augmented by the 'back backyard' of Tallinn, or a tour around the Tallinn airport (Toomas Paaver). This area was crammed with the 'summer cottages of the city's outcasts'; the walkers could see a sign on a dilapidated shack saying there was really nothing more to be stolen. This is an unknown territory for most locals, not to mention tourists. The wanderer can easily be a detective who is faced with evidence of stories that could not possible even have happened. The TLB boat-trip around Tallinn Bay (initiated by architect Veronika Valk and executed by the ship belonging to the College of Estonian Maritime Academy) along the quays helped to convince people on board of the practicality of sea taxis just as in Venice, for the sea connects most of the Tallinn urban districts.
	Everyone who bothers to visit the Paljassaare Peninsula is captivated by its splendid natural reserve and historical navy landmarks; the Trichtlinnburgers examined it on their bikes. The Iru fort-hill could easily sell just as well as the image of Old Tallinn. It is an ancient and magical place, where the administrative centre of Tallinn used to be before it was transferred to its present location on Toompea Hill. Here is another loop, this time formed by the river. In the early spring and therefore deserted milieu, the tour leader, artist Andy Rool, recited a song of a few dozen verses about past times. The performances accompanying the TLB mostly dealt with enfolding the viewer in one of the most touristy places in Tallinn - the Town Hall Square and its close vicinity. Katrin Essenson's dancers and musicians flirting with the big city; Helen Beck waving an empty flagstaff on the Square and Laineli Parrest, who engaged everyone on the square in Sabatants (Tail Dance) - all that created a psychic shift in the restaurant visitors of the Square, mainly tourists, but even more so in the restaurants' staff. Not bothering with profit-making is not exactly a common phenomenon in this milieu.
	A round object, Plats (Square; authors Silja Saarepuu and Villu Plink), 6 m in diameter and 4 m high, evoked similar sensations. Inside the object that graced the square for a week, the visitor could see an advert-free panorama, without people, of the Town Hall Square, and on the outside everyone could admire their reflection against the background of the square in the distorting mirror. Places where the veil of consumption is ripped off tend to exude melancholy. A person suddenly stands alone, face to face with himself and has to decide how to relate to locations without any signposts or product labels. The entering visitors still quickly solved the insecurity caused by unnerving emptiness by having themselves photographed against the background of the deserted square - the tourist identity therefore serves as a shield in any situation. TLB headquarters were located in the Hobusepea gallery, where in the course of 10 days various films about Tallinn, some known and others not quite so well known, were screened in the small improvised cinema hall. Two floors were joined by a display (photo and prints) which aimed to show the town relatively impersonally, in order to bring to light new points of view of the city. To make this easier and introduce another identities, besides Estonian authors (Arne Maasik, Mark Raidpere, Mart Viljus, etc), various photographers from abroad (David Bate, Charlotte Eliasson, Mats Eriksson, Anu Pennanen etc) presented their work as well. David Bate's photo series Voluptariae Cogitationes, specially made for TLB, emphasised the idea that the medieval religious battle for moderation had by no means ended, referring to the popular stag parties of British men in Tallinn. TLB joint projects - Sanja Ivekovic's (Croatia) video (If) I lived Here. Tallinn. Salzburg. Maastricht and Gold Extra's (Salzburg) VJ & DJ evenings, Love City, in three towns (Jasper Zoova and Raul Keller from Estonia), mixed aural and visual urban images from different sources, also producing a subjective image, which transgressed the borders of location. Now that the Trichtlinnburg stories have come to their end, the dreamers and practitioners find themselves in a situation where, just like any other town, TLB must deal with its own rubbish, with all its debris that does not really have a place even in an archive... (1) trichtlinnburg - see www.tricht-linnburg. org and www.cca.ee the project partners were salzburger kunstverein, jan van Eyck academy in maastricht and the centre for contemporary arts, Estonia. Events in tallinn occurred 5-15 may 2005 (2) Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (London: Vintage, 1997) (3) Ian Sinclair, London Orbital: A Walk around the M25 (London: Benguin Books, 2003), pp 146-147 (4) according to Zygmunt Bauman in his book From Pilgrim to Tourist Liina Siib (1963), artist. curated the Tallinn part in Trichtlinnburg project
	| Estonian Art 1/05 (16) | Published by the Estonian Institute 2005 | ISSN 1406-5711 (Online) | ISSN 1406-3549 (Printed version) | einst@einst.ee | tel: (372) 631 43 55 | fax: (372) 631 43 56 |