People go through life with open ears – they cannot close their ears, as they can their eyes, to the sounds of the world, unless they physically block them. The ear is a completely closed off sensory organ. We hear, even when we sleep. We hear sharply only rarely and perceive differently, those noises which surround and penetrate us. If we tune into ourselves and back in time, not only the sounds from streetcar, cow-, door-, recess, fire brigade, church, or bicycle bells resonate within us, but also an amazingly extensive audio cosmos. We come to learn that sounds have emotional connotations, that our feelings have different intonations.

A Hearing Perspective

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Sam Auinger is engaged with the world of sounds, tones, and noises and their geographical-cultural as well as historical differences. He thereby carries on a tradition of artistic involvement with sound in which people such as Erik Satie, Luigi Russolo, John Cage, and Murray Schäfer made history. Trained at the Bruckner Conservatory in Linz and University Mozarteum Salzburg, more »

To put surfaces into the spatial. To construct three-dimensionality which we in turn flatten under our gaze. The transference of the spatial into the visual and vice versa - which opens up possibilities of the sculptural - is what fascinates the artist Markus Wilfling.

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For him, it is the conditioned perspective on everyday things which challenge him artistically. With his work, he shakes up our usual perceptions, which are geared towards normalization and from which we habitually expect nothing - for example, in our routines, the daily first morning glimpse into the mirror, the established routes which we follow each day, the handling of objects which we use on a daily basis. more »

The production of “living pictures” has a tradition. They could already be found in the royal victory processions of antiquity and they appeared again in Catholic masses, as well as in ceremonial processions during the Renaissance and the Baroque eras. By the end of the eighteenth century, the art progressed to unmoving, held poses, which became one with the scenery, and were displayed “on stage”. Originating in France and from that point on coined Tableaux Vivants, these embodiments of historical paintings and sculptures found their way into the drawing rooms of the elite and became part of the main repertoire of the theatre and revue world of the nineteenth century.

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The artist Rita Nowak, based in Vienna and London, is carrying on the tradition of the embodiment of living pictures with her held-pose photography. Drawing from historical paintings, she composes living pictures using fellow artists as models thereby bringing the historical works up-to-date. Rather than creating mere reproductions, she investigates the possibilities of interpretation, thereby developing pictures that visualize the past in the present and modern images that are depicted through the visual language of past centuries. more »

The job description for Marten Spangberg encompasses many terms. He got his start as a dance critic, writes on theory, is active as a performer, dance dramaturge, a curator, and a choreographer, and is considered a stage producer in quite a positive sense. Spangberg has been collaborating with the Swedish architect, Lindstrand Tor, since 2004 under the name International Festival.

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Their collaborative work explores perceptions of concepts related to body and space, and has gained international attention. At the present and in the last year, they have been invited to the European Arts Center in Cologne, the PERFORMA 07 in New York, and the Steirischen Herbst 07. For the festival in Graz, they developed “The Theater”, a multi-faceted enterprise which simultaneously describes a venue for stories, characters, and illusions, the performances that take place there, and the actual spatially-adaptable theater that was constructed from freight containers. more »

She produces films every year. She stands before the camera. She directs—in recent years, together with Chris Haring. It was a blessing that she met Chris Haring, explains Mara Mattuschka. He is generous. He has an open system of working that integrates people and their respective points of view.

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Haring stages his productions in bare spaces, from which Mattuschka makes films which correspond to cinematic rules of setting and dramaturgy. She extends her perspective as a painter into her cinematic approach. Up-close views of the body, from below, from above. Views which distort perspective. With digital retouching, she designs places, architectures, and spatialities. The films resulting from their collaboration are called: “Legal Errorist”, “Part Time Heroes”, and “Running Sushi”. more »