City workshop

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Stadtwerkstatt is an open event and project house in Linz . Founded in 1979 by youth activists , it is the city's oldest autonomous cultural center . In addition to several music events every week, other cultural and artistic events take place regularly . Three different associations work in the Stadtwerkstatt building : the Friedhofstr 6 association ( commonly known as Stadtwerkstatt) with the Cafe Strom departments , the art projects and events, as well as the independent radio FRO and the net art and culture initiative servus.at .

history

The Stadtwerkstatt was founded in 1979 as an association in Linz with the "aim of critically examining the conditions of life in the city and promoting cultural initiatives on a local level".

In 1980 the association moved into an empty factory building in the Urfahr district of Linz , near the Danube. The building was used for both residential and exhibition and event purposes. Shortly before the demolition was threatened in 1983, the association started the “Sgraffito Alchemia” campaign, in the course of which the entire building facade was designed. The house was demolished in 1990 in favor of a dormitory and the association moved to the much smaller house in Kirchengasse 4 owned by the municipality of Linz.

From March 2001 the building was fundamentally redesigned and renovated. The offices located in the building and Radio FRO were temporarily relocated until they reopened in May 2002. In 2006, the Stadtwerkstatt's events attracted around 19,000 visitors.

The Stadtwerkstatt publishes the Versorgerin newspaper on a quarterly basis , to which you can subscribe free of charge. In 2015 another cooperation with the newspaper the speaker started.

In 2010 an annual artists-in-residence program started on a houseboat in Linz's winter harbor.

In 2012 the currency Gibling was initiated under the label punkaustria.at . With this circulating currency , the currency loses value every year. Every year an artist is invited to create this currency. The artists were Oona Valerie, Leo Schatzl , Deborah Sengl , Michael Aschauer, Judith Fegerl, Julius Deutschbauer, Eva Grün, Peter Weibel .

1985, art installation: "Breakfast in the curve" by Rainer Zendron. In the background the Stadtwerkstatt building at Friedhofstrasse 6

building

The Stadtwerkstatt was founded in Friedhofstraße 6 in the building and has been located in the neighboring building, Kirchengasse 4, since 1990, almost directly on the Danube, the Nibelungen Bridge and next to the Ars Electronica Center . In the Stadtwerkstatt building there is the café and bar “Café Strom” on the first floor, the great hall and the Radio FRO studio and an adjoining room that is often used as a bar or DJ room at events.

The Stadtwerkstatt since 1990 in the house of Kirchengasse 4, 4040 Linz

Actions

In accordance with its aim, the association promoted “cultural initiatives” such as the “Independent Filmer Linz (ULF)” and took part in exhibitions and in the production of plays. But the members and artists of the Stadtwerkstatt also regularly undertook - often unusual - activities such as an "escalator concert" in 1983 in the shopping arcade of the Lentia building complex in 2000 or the "engine room concert" in the Linz " Hofstöckl Gallery " in 1982 .

Poster exhibitions such as “4 years of optical megaphone” in 1984, as well as the design of the facade of the old club building in 1983, or the facade painting “Glowing Vehicle” in 1986, were among the artistic activities of the Stadtwerkstatt.

In 1995 the book was presented in the Landesgalerie for the exhibition of the same name, “Stadtwerkstatt in Arbeit 1979–1995”. The artistic debate took place and continues to take place in all genres, but above all in social sculpture and in the field of new media. From this, the art and culture server servus.at developed in 1996 and the Free Radio FRO in 1998 . Both initiatives are independent associations and work in the Stadtwerkstatt building.

STWST-TV

Video productions found their way into various film events and since the founding of "STWST-TV", which was rarely actually seen on television, the Stadtwerkstatt was able to make its own broadcasting concepts available to larger audience groups several times. At the 1987 Wels Film Festival, “STWST-TV” presented a five-day live broadcast called “Hoteltelevision”, which could be received in a Wels hotel using its own TV system. In 1989 "STWST-TV" was shown at the video festival "Querspur", and in 1990 the media activists in Buffalo, New York , broadcast a total of 12 hours of interactive live TV called "Shuffle Off To Buffalo", which 320,000 households via cable, on six consecutive days could receive. One of these broadcasts was scheduled to be broadcast on a weekly broadcast by radical Christians. In order to initially conceal the fact that “STWST-TV” is now broadcasting instead of the show that was usually dealt with at the time, the broadcast began with Bible texts and a presenter disguised as a priest. In this way it was possible to reach an audience that would probably not have watched a program organized by “STWST-TV” on their own. A total of seven programs were broadcast, covering a subject area from religious fanaticism, youth mania, the US urge to invade, treatment of Austrian clichés, the US image of Europe, punk as an art term, and an entire program without sound and only with images.

A few other projects by the media artists : In
1991 and 1992, “STWST-TV” designed programs for Ars Electronica with the mottos “Out Of Control” and “Endo and Nano”, which could be seen on 3sat and ORF 2 . In 1993 a STWST TV presentation was shown live on Kanal 5 on the Amsterdam cable . In the same year the media group presented its program “CBB Por Ejemplo” at various universities in Cochabamba , Bolivia . All those involved in the exhibition were then actually made honorary citizens of the city of Cochabamba.

All of this innovative and creative media work did not go unnoticed, because in 1993 and 1994 there were several awards:

  • State Culture Promotion Prize for Video Art to Herbert Schager (1993)
  • Talent promotion award of the state of Upper Austria for media art to Thomas Lehner (1993)
  • State prize for initiative cultural work to the Stadtwerkstatt (1993)
  • Award for media art from the Federal Ministry of Science and Art (1994)

Events

From the very beginning, the association held numerous events of various kinds. There were exhibitions, plays, lectures and of course numerous concerts. In 1982, for example, the “ Einstürzende Neubauten ”, “ Abwärts ” and also “ Konstantin Wecker ” played in the building at Urfahraner Friedhofstraße 6. In 1983 Hermann Nitsch read from the “Orgien-Mysterien-Theater”.

In 1998 Black Market International was in Linz and presented performance and action art from November 16 to 20 .

The Stadtwerkstatt is known to the general public in addition to readings and actions, but above all because of regular concerts by alternative - local and international - bands ( rock , punk , electro-pop , etc.) and DJs ( electronic music such as drum and bass and techno , hip- Hop , Reggae etc.) . The premises of the Stadtwerkstatt can often be rented by local organizers (mostly DJ collectives ), and we work in close cooperation with the Stadtwerkstatt to ensure that the respective event runs smoothly.

For example, in February 2006 a two-day event for experimental electronic music took place, the “Interferenz 06 Extreme Music Meeting”, which was organized by “Hirntrust Grind Media” and “Artonal”. In addition to local bands, whose play was accompanied and edited by the Japanese DJ "KK Null", as well as DJs from the regional collectives "Chemotaxis" and "Morphed", other experimental musicians and DJs from Germany, Australia, the USA, Holland and Belgium ( Sickboy ) on.

Web links

Commons : Stadtwerkstatt, so-called Altes Krammerhaus  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

literature

  • Martin Wassermair: City works differently. Review of the establishment of the Linzer Stadtwerkstatt in: Johannes Porsch, Hedwig Saxenhuber , Georg Schöllhammer (eds.), Who was 1968? Art, architecture, society, Verlag Anton Pustet (2018).
  • Upper Austrian State Gallery with Stadtwerkstatt: Title Stadtwerkstatt in progress 1979–1995. ISBN 3-900746-86-9 .
  • "Possible Answers" 1990, publisher Stadtwerkstatt, editors: Markus Binder, Rainer and Silvia Zendron [1]
  • Drawings from the environment, Stadtwerkstatt 1979–99. A picture book. Stadtwerkstatt Linz and Triton Verlag, Vienna, 2002, ISBN 3-85486-105-2
  • City workshop. In work 1979-1995 subtitle: "Alles was ab geht". Publisher: Landesgalerie & Stadtwerkstatt, Linz 1995, ISBN 3-900746-86-9
  • Günter Hochegger, "Brandzinken" Günter, Don't give the fire food! edition pro mente, 2011, ISBN 978-3-902724-14-4
  • Andreas Kump, There must be something, The beginnings of the alternative music scene in Linz, Verlag Bibliothek der Provinz, 2008, ISBN 978-3-85252-840-3
  • Franz Blaas, Grandma's Little Earth, a kind of novel. Grosser publishing house, Linz 1995, ISBN 3-85267-015-2 , chapter “Stadtwerkstatt”, pp. 89–124

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Linz in Figures 2006 (accessed on September 23, 2007) (PDF; 1.5 MB)

Coordinates: 48 ° 18 ′ 36 ″  N , 14 ° 17 ′ 5 ″  E