walk to stay
The Bschlabertal valley in Tyrol lies at an altitude of 1400 meters and is one of the most remote places in Austria. Today, fewer than 90 people live there, and the region is suffering from an aging population and rural depopulation. For the fifth time, the medienfrische festival is taking place there over 21 days. medienfrische is a contemporary art festival and artist-in-residence program that focuses on current developments. The landscape and the completely different way of life in the valley demand new and unconventional ways of thinking and ideas, as well as a questioning of traditional ways of working and living.
The theme is GOING TO STAY.
If you live in a small place like Boden, you ask yourself at least once in your life whether you should stay or go. It is a serious question, crucial to one's own life: SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? Going means not only testing the nature of the soil on which I live, but also, as it were, reading the territory surrounding me with my body. Walking, leaving, going a way also means: changing my point of view, leaving my safe position, crossing boundaries, exploring new territory, reinventing myself and my environment step by step. The rebellion begins as a walk.
In the fleeting act of walking, I explore and change existing situations, spaces, and relationships; I transgress the limits of action. Walking as art is an example of a radical aesthetic that focuses on the most elementary bodily technique of humankind. The limping Oedipus (literally: swollen foot) solves the riddle of the four-legged Sphinx: which animal can change its gait throughout the day? The anthropos (the one turned toward the other) constantly rebuilds their motor base, using technical aids to reflect on and radically alter their physical constitution, location, and orientation, and thus their position in the world.
Can walking as an artistic practice open a path for me to leave and yet remain grounded? What possibilities do technological developments offer people with disabilities to design new (performative) spaces for action? What future, collaborative forms of play do new media offer for continuously exploring the social and political nature of a secluded place like ground?
Inspired by artistic practices and scientific research such as that of Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, Janet Cardiff, Marina Abramović, Richard Long, Bruce Nauman, Rebecca Solnit, Walter Benjamin, the Dada excursion of 1921, the Situationist International, The Ministry of Silly Walks, etc., we are looking for contemporary, interdisciplinary projects and designs that open up a social space for the future and play for an alpine mountain village like Boden, in which I can decide: TO WALK IN ORDER TO STAY.