About the Project

Today, mobile phone data creates detailed movement profiles of their users. In the past, tracking such spatial movement patterns was only possible in rare cases. This project explores and visualizes precisely such an exceptional case. Arthur Schnitzler (1862–1931), one of Vienna's most internationally prominent authors, practiced self tracking 'avant la lettre'. The research questions of this project are: In which Viennese urban spaces did Arthur Schnitzler move? What geographical space did a bourgeois Viennese person cover around 1900? Can actual routes and his cultural interactions be traced more than 90 years after his death?

Firstly, the project creates an invaluable resource for research on Arthur Schnitzler by identifying over 47,000 stays at nearly 4,950 locations over the 52 years of his adult life.

Secondly, a significant dataset emerges for an exemplary life in Vienna from the Fin de Siècle to the interwar period. Significant perspectival limitations exist insofar as this concerns a successful, largely wealthy man who moved in upper middle-class circles. On the one hand, we believe that the dataset is nevertheless useful and offers connections for precarious or marginalized positions. On the other hand, only a well-situated man would have been able to achieve such networking in the cultural sector. Schnitzler thus becomes, beyond his specific significance as one of the most successful and influential Austrian authors, a pars pro toto for a larger context. Two project tasks arise from this: Compatibility with future research must be ensured. Through visualization and filtering options as well as map representations, the data should be made as accessible as possible.

Schnitzler is known as a diarist: he kept a diary containing entries for over 16,000 days of his life, which are primarily situated in Vienna and the Viennese cultural scene.¹ Furthermore, several records in list form can be found in his estate at Cambridge University Library. It is significant that these supplement the diary and cannot be distilled from it. Together with the diary, they are based on largely lost handwritten notes that were typed by Schnitzler's secretary. Chronologically, the lists cover the period from his 17th year (1879) to approximately three years before his death in 1931:

• List of books read
• Dream diary
• List of travels
• Attendance at concerts, theatre performances and lectures
• Attendance at performances of his own works
• Public readings
• Readings in private circles
• Singing performances by his wife Olga Schnitzler

Research has so far only partially approached these compilations in the estate through individual editions. The dream diary was published in 2012.² The following year, the reading list was edited. It is now also available digitally.³ The list of travels was processed by us in 2022 with an intern as a trial piece.⁴ Additionally, Michael Rohrwasser and Stephan Kurz published a reconstruction of cinema visits by Schnitzler and his partner Clara Katharina Pollaczek in 2012.⁵

What these editions have in common is that they evaluate Schnitzler's source materials for their information content and, where necessary, fill gaps with the help of other sources. Georg Vogeler calls this an "assertive edition", since here, unlike philological editions, historical sources are edited with regard to the 'facts' they contain.⁶ This project consists at its core of a Deep Map⁷, a movement histogram of Schnitzler in Vienna and Europe.

The project work was primarily carried out by Martin Anton Müller and Laura Untner. Katharina Sophie Kühnel and Martin Anton Müller worked through the theatre list from the estate.

Our heartfelt thanks go to Peter Andorfer, Peter Michael Braunwarth, Hannah Gehmacher, Friederike Griessler, Carl Friedrich Haak, Julia Ilgner, Eva Kernbauer, Stephan Kurz, Isabel Langkabel, Sandra Mayer and Daniel Schopper – your support was invaluable!

For valuable information about specific locations, forgotten place names and former establishments that only locals could identify, we especially thank Martin Achrainer (Bad Vöslau), Laura Bahtovic (Berndorf), Hermann Baier (Markt Mittenwald), Michele Beltracchi (Ponte di Legno), Adam Berčík (Ústí nad Labem), Isella Berger (Seis am Schlern), Beppo Beyerl (Vienna), Roswitha Duensing (Tutzing), Silke Ebster (Bad Vöslau), Kurt Eckel and the Ischl Local History Association (Bad Ischl), Friederike Griessler (Reichenau an der Rax), Simona Grisi (Gardone Riviera), Tatjana Hagen (St. Moritz), Silke Heckenberger (Berchtesgaden), Leonhard Herr (Garmisch-Partenkirchen), Julia Ilgner (Hamburg), Harald Kofler (Gossensass), Anton Lafenthaler (Gastein), Johannes Lang (Bad Reichenhall), Wolfgang Mergl (St. Wolfgang im Salzkammergut), Christian Nikolaus Opitz (Vienna), Sonja Pichler (Gossensass), Monika Reiter (Lunz am See), Christoph Rella (Payerbach), Claudia Scheidegger (Beatenberg), Hermann Schröttenhamer (Altaussee), Martin Svojtka (Františkovy Lázně) and Katharina Waldhauser (Oberammergau).

Our special thanks also go to the City of Vienna's Cultural Promotion, which made this project possible.

Vienna, Spring 2025