visitenkarten is business cards in english. historically, the first ones were printed at the end of the 19th century. they were very expensive. even in the 1970s, it wasn’t cheap to have a stack of business cards printed. the end of business cards came with the worldwide popularity of email. since the late 1990s, I have only received very few new business cards. at conferences, people exchanged SMS messages, and later email addresses.

here I present about 30 business cards, in no particular chronological order, which were given to me decades ago and held some significance. clicking on an individual photo enlarges it. the descriptions are provided below.

• a) in 1987 i visited my relatives in north florida for the first time. i learnt to fly there. scott was my first flight instructor.
• b) alias | wavefront was a silicon graphics company back in the 1980s. the product they developed in santa barbara in 1988 was called MAYA. i learnt computer animation, wrote books about this topic and created a youtube channel with tutorials.
• c) in 1994 i joined a multimedia company in cologne. we spent several years together.
• d) ATARI computers with a high resolution black and white screen were very popular in europa back in the mid 1980s.
• e) the lauenstein brothers created a brilliant stop motion film in 1989 called „balance„.
• f) in 1995 i opened a bank account with the online „bank 24“.
• g) in manhattan’s greenwich village i discovered bleecker bob’s record shop. i purchased lots of punk and death metal records for my german radio show there.
• h) hans has been a friend of mine since around 1990. as a graphics designer he created art for some of my radio plays.
• i) glendale enterprises with john and my cousin sylvie was my home in florida during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
• j) in 1992 i visited the compuserve headquarter in columbus/ohio. richard baker showed me around.
• k) esther has been a long time friend of mine. we shared an apartment in munich.
• l) the cologne gaylord indian restaurant was excellent. when our daughter was born i had dinner there, alone, and very happy.
• m) my gelhard car radio. back in the 1990s the anti theft system was to unplug the front of the radio when leaving the car.
• n) when i moved to cologne in the early 1990s one of my first personal contacts at the public radio station „deutschlandfunk“ was gerd pasch. as one of the editors of the science show he opened several doors for me.louise
• o) i met konrad kinard at a dance show by my friend louise. we’ve met several times ever since. konrad is a musician.
• p) lance laird was a hydro engineer and invited my wife and me to his rural tiny house.
• q) link-DO was a part of a bulletin board system which connected lots of home computers in germany. it was an important development back in the 1980s – until in 1993/1994 the world wide web took over.
• r) i had lunch lots of times at lobewein’s tiny restaurant in the heart of munich. late 1980s.
• s) lucy chung was a nurse in hongkong. wherüdigern she opened the first hospice in town i interviewed her. 1998.
• t) rüdiger m. was a disappointment. when i introduced my idea of an archive radio for the internet to him in 1997 he said nobody would be interested in „old original sounds“. a few months later archivradio.de started at another radio station and became a success.
• u) in the late 1990s and early 2000s i created a few computer animations for christoph and carolin’s company in cologne.
• v) this is an amazing name card. you could only decipher it with a built in mirror. my friend and collegue nikolai created it.
• w) park yoon suh is a master of the game of go in korea. he was a friend of my london friend stan. i spent some time with yoon suh in seoul in 1987.
• x) in 2004 i contacted porsche for an interview with the dutch car designer harm lagaay. the then press person wanted to see my article for the german tech magazine production partner before its publication. he rewrote it, which was an extreme intervention. but since his text ideas were quite good, i did not complain.
• y) the island house on the irish island sherkin was one of my stoanita wagnerps there. the last time was in 1992.
• z) anita and ilka are important persons for me. anita showed me patterns in my jobs. ilka has navigated me through many years of tax declarations.
• aa) hans-gerhard stülb was head of the german radio archive (rundfunkarchiv) when i introduced my idea of an archive radio for the internet to him in 1997. he embraced the idea and gave me precious advice.
• bb) thomas albus is a master of spoken word improvisation. he and i worked together many times, back in the 1980s.
• cc) sonny christopher was the person i spoke to when booking the washington square hotel. he was the manager in the late 1980s.
• dd) i met mr. ju zong yong in shanghai in january 1987. a lovely man.
• ee) ju zong yong gave me serval business cards, this one when he visited me in the peace hotel in shanghai.