Mission Statement

Battle Zones? Networks! Hallimasch!

A Brief History of the donaufestival, or: Curating as Mixing  Tomas Zierhofer-Kin in conversation with Chris Standfest

“Expansion of the Battle Zones” was the programme title for the launch of the new donaufestival in 2005. How did the proclamation of “battle zones” in Lower Austria come about at that time? What did they refer to? And have they changed?

Tomas Zierhofer-Kin: The title by Houellebecq (translator’s note: Houellebecq’s novel “Extension du Domaine de la Lutte” was translated into English under the title of ‘Whatever’)  simply called for it. But the main idea wasn’t to make a festival for contemporary art forms in the style of an educated middle class avant-garde on a collision course with the establishment; rather it was to counter the mainstream with artists who make distinct statements in the realm of pop culture. That was the new battlefield, and it was truly politically motivated. In the second year with “Pop Culture as the Battlefield of the Experimental”, things had already changed and we didn’t have to define it anymore.

As in the case of “Unprotected Game(s)”, 2007?

A language game. “Unprotected Game” in the sense of fair game and “Unprotected Games” as a continuation of the history of pop iconoclasts. A sociopolitical approach where we began to play with artistic-social networks and thematise the shifting of these levels and differentiations.

2008 “Angst. Obsession. Beauty.”

We consciously chose this title as if it was an advertising campaign for Calvin Klein. A game with an overtly pithy expression for an interest that had emerged in past productions. It more or less invoked Bataille – the idea of breaking taboos as a moral act, the creation of free spaces in which one tears loose from societal and moral conventions and begins to live out the abysmal, the obscene, the forbidden.

Different than in “Fake Reality” 2009?

That was easier. But it also grew out of communication with artists, with their odd synthetic hybrid worlds. It was about playing with the fact that truth and fiction have become a matter of definition.

A game that continued through changing times with “Failed Revolutions” in 2010. Or does reality become more real again when one thinks about recent protests where sometimes it was about trees, but definitely also about other life concepts, especially now when one looks at the movements in Tunisia and Egypt. Just how topical can a festival that positions itself with “topicality” be? What is actually possible with such an apparatus? And how do you come to the themes? Is it a series by the “author” Tomas Zierhofer-Kin? The festival organiser as the great storyteller?

The curatorial process is a kind of conceptual hybrid between an intensive exchange with the artists, immersion in all the possible projects, and that which I am preoccupied with throughout the course of a year. It is an ongoing process of recharging through searching and communication, where at some point the nodes set in, the festival control system. And the fact that one cannot actually be topical is obvious. It has far more to do with the relevant questions for a particular phase of a society and the global development. And there certainly will not be the one big movement anymore. It’s more scattered. People are committed to all sorts of things: protecting nature, the climate, human rights…

With this list it appears that the movements, at least for our society, can either form alliances or be antagonistic, but elsewhere it is definitely not so “easy”. Does the performance by Gintersdorfer/Klaßen and “New Black” with people from the Ivory Coast depart from other, new forms of networks? And are they, like you say, open spaces for difference and friction in the supporting structure of the festival apparatus, also as an attempt to temporarily rewrite or reframe the local?

Yes, there are a number of formats that we leave extremely open. For example, Wiener Art Foundation which invites artists to performances every day in a former electrical shop, along with almost classic productions such as Gisèle Vienne, who again reflects on Bataille and the ritual, and a cooperation with the Kunsthalle Krems with Ole Aselmann and Jonathan Meese. Then there’s Future Fluxus that deals with hackers and Internet theoreticians…

Topicality as contemporaneity and in place of “hipness”? It seems to me that you are not focusing so heavily anymore on the phenomena of the “wild ones” who invade this partly stuffy, partly charming town. I also like that. It has something carnivalesque, festive, and the bruteness of partying – which also changed the theatre and its reception there – but often there is this chasm between the music programme and the somewhat strange performances from which one now and then exits feeling adrift, bored or uncertain. In discussions there are often totally interesting descriptions but many do not trust their senses. Nevertheless, the strength of the donaufestival lies precisely in its exceptionally mixed audience and the way in which you create multiple permeabilities.

It is also not about booking a programme. For us it’s about artistic networks, bringing together many people from a universe of collaborators and creating an atmosphere that stimulates new connections. And even if not all of the visitors go to the performances, one can only hope that it resonates somewhere in the mind – in a billionth of its potency, where the poison cannot be measured anymore.

Nodes, Roots & Shoots – Programming as Mixing

In my opinion, creating the context is the message. Through a context one can tell about things without them really being obvious. Ultimately, my work is what one traditionally calls composing – componere – assembling. And it surely bears my signature, this act of collecting. Also the contrast and the complexity – because I get bored incredibly fast. Although, I also like watching something for four hours where nothing happens. For me, boredom means that certain things are used up incredibly quickly. So I tend to bring things together, even when I am not entirely sure if it is too much – and other people do this as well. David Tibet, for example, and many others, they come in and throw around names and ideas, and then one starts talking and tries together with the artists-in-residence to meaningfully combine these things. Actually, it is like Lego. As a child, I was always a Lego absurdist; I always had to put the elements together in a way they were never intended.

In retrospect the festival seems to me more like a gigantic puzzle. And one could also describe it as a model for a curatorial approach that unifies the paradoxes between networks and performances, between “roots and shoots”, and becomes a festival in the end. Without imposing a “theme”, but also without totally sheering away from certain issues.
I have to find the balance to say, okay, the audience is selective enough to cut their way through these roots, and on the other hand, I have to protect the individual artists or productions from the whole thing simply becoming a mishmash. Basically, we provide a timeline, the rest the visitors have to decide on their own. What’s constructive about networks is that people – given a complexity where much is unknown to them – get the feeling of an arch; they find the little “big story” that can suddenly unite the incomprehensible and the eclectic. It’s nice when people turn out for the big names in music, but most of the programme is only familiar to a few, with the exception of the aficionados. When we define certain parenthetic themes, in reality they are just orientation points.

Beyond the virtual, discursive or aesthetic aspects, there is the recurring question about the place itself, about “living” at the festival. Last year, one was really at the mercy of the sound coming from the halls, the catering, and the obligatory sponsor logos.

That is why we’re trying to enhance many of these places this year. For example, there is New Black in the Stadtsaal, which will be open for three days with performances, films, and an installation where one can read from the posters about what’s going on in the Ivory Coast. And they’re dancing and DJing the whole time – it is a place that you can visit more than once. On the second weekend, it is Future Fluxus with their Open Space in the cellar. And then there is our racetrack, which we sacrificed Hall Three for. In a sense, it will be this year’s “Slum” from 2009.

What is important for you this year musically speaking?

On the one hand, there are the musical networks such as those from Ben Frost or Carla Bozulich, which permeate the programme like a root with agglomerations and knots. Then naturally the associated networks from new realms of sound beyond genres and generations, political charge (also with reference to cultural differences) and queerness aspects. But, above all, the most decisive factor for me is the creation of new networks between the various media so that conceptual strands from performance or visual art weave into the music or vice versa.

This has parallels with mixing, its success or failure remains open… like a mixture of people with their strategies, methods, skills, energies, content. When putting together the festival, is there also a fiery political rage or a delirious artistic passion?

There is always political rage – only this time I tried not to let it become concrete. I watched a documentary about the Hallimasch, these mushrooms that primarily grow out of rotten tree trunks. Somewhere in America they determined that its mycelium had undermined entire stretches of land. And exactly this is the political message: to demonstrate that there are infinite hidden networks. There are shoots that one can see, but it is about the people being totally connected in an artistic manner.

So is the mycelium not the good old underground? Or counter-culture? Or does it already have something to do with power?

That is the crucial question, and it is really difficult to judge that today. Am I no longer authentic because society has caught up with me, when subversive content suddenly springs up in the medialised mainstream of society? That would actually be the best thing that could happen, also that one then wants to reinvent oneself, as they are not satisfied with what they have already achieved. In principle, that was also part of the revolution theme: at some stage revolutionaries must make utopia a reality. You don’t ever have to do that in art. The problem in this utopian story, where a “we” sees itself as part of this global Hallimasch, is more that of overestimating it. The mainstream has similar economic and societal structures, and they are naturally very strong. A tree is stronger than a mushroom. The real question is to what extent can the mushroom insert its mycelium structures into the tree so that it rots and falls over. This is naturally utopian – and it is hard to determine who is standing where. But it’s not that easy anymore to simply kill something.