SCIENCE ON THE MOVE

Joseph Franz Rock, impressive, contradictory and headstrong, these are the ingredients for this Austrian researcher from the beginning of the 20th century. Shrouded in legends, itchy feet, escapism, bachelorhood, the carryings of a prince; but also a successful life as a scientist.
Born in Vienna as a valet‘s son, he learned Chinese in an autodidactic effort — the beginning of an exceptionnal scientific career based on three main axes:
Botanic: Rock’s collection includes a herbarium that encompasses the province of Yünnan, which remains valid today. He collected 80,000 samples of plants. Hundreds of Rhododendron varieties originate in his collection.
Ethnology: 800 glass chromatographies and films about Dongba rituals.
Linguistics: Rock has secured 6,000 Dongba of pictogramme scripts. These scripts have a particular value because those remaining with the Naxi minority were almost completely destroyed during the cultural revolution. The project “Rock – Science on the Move”  follows traces of  Rock  today: a hundred years after, the Oikodrom team goes to Lijiang in the role of foreign visitors. A moment of reflection for the research: Who are the »Rocks« of today? What can be impact of research in a foreign context, what footprints does it leave with the local people? How will today’s Naxi representatives react to the photos that Rock made? How would they like to represent themselves? How would they like to see themselves represented?
A second research strand focuses on the Naxi scripts: Joseph Rock has studied the Naxi (Dongba) language, and the highly complex religious script system developed in the 13th century. Since 1995, the script is once again in usage (moderate), while some selected old priests and shamans pass them on to the younger generation.
The graphic designer Stephan Pfeffer explores ways, how this one-of-a-kind script system can be adapted to a contemporary, esthetically and adequate computer font. He will continue Rock‘s work on the Naxi-English Dictionary by developing a typeface that pulls of the Dongba Script to now, thereby giving it new values, contents and life. Long term objective of the research is to cooperate with the Museums in Lijiang, Yünnan