Sauber Linz!

We don’t know yet how to embed a youtube video in this blog.
Anyway here is the link to the video we’ve done:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=PkY26BzQsv4

Again we see how the usage of public space gets more and more institutionalized and privatized. The only truly independent activities look either appointed to die or mere wastes besides the general organized activities. In fact, sometimes in Linz the only traces of life are bits of trash we can find here and there. Is this that part of our life as citizens in a city that expects to become global? Or is this a process of citizens self assuming a number of non written rules?

In a city like Linz we see extraordinary examples of how certain global policies can set high standards in cultural management generating worldwide known events and institutions (Ars Electronica and Lentos Museum are only two examples of this institutional effort). This can be understood as another attempt to transforming Linz into a cultural city. What we found problematic is the fact that, while these big events get more attention, resources and global interest year after year, local agents and independent promoters find it more and more difficult to communicate and establish their own activities away from these main stream.

Linz keeps as an industrial city in almost everybody´s mind. Despite huge efforts to transvestite it into a different city and hide this industrial nature the popular imaginary keeps going back to its roots. Is there a way to claim the right to the heritage of this industrial past without appearing nostalgic? Is not this trash history an extraordinary starting point for reconsidering most of our preconceptions of “what a modern city must look like”?

Since the very beginning of Sauberlinz one of the topics of discussion was the different perception of the cleanliness/dirtiness of the city people had depending on their social role. This perception ranged from total lack of interest (some people considered that “this is not a topic in Linz at all”) to considering it a daily scandal (an annoyed citizen stated that his neighbors were “pigs” since his neighborhood was extremely dirty according to him). Keeping away from this discussion what we found really interesting was that Linz cleanliness/dirtiness is often used as a neglecting argument. This argument can be used “to hate” your neighbors from an individual level or “to regenerate” the city from a political level.

“That is the reason why modern societies – governed by some sort of malthussian principle according to which trash grows more rapidly than the means for recycling it – need to dispose of waste lands, tips and dumps where to deposit trash in order to get rid of it so as to carry on with life and keep on wasting without suffocating amongst their own waste. And together with these no-places (to use Marc Augé’s appropriate terminology) it becomes necessary to have at our disposal social no-places to which we can transfer de remaining population that the productive and consumptive systems cannot absorb. “Trash” is that which does not have a place, that which is misplaced and, therefore, that which has to be moved to another place hoping that it might disappear as trash there, that it might be reactivated, recycled, extinguished: it is that which searches for another place where to make progress.”

José Luis Pardo, Urban Distortions. Basurama 2006

INTRO
When we first were invited to visit Linz and consider the possibility of developing a project there for 2009 what immediately interested us was the idea of discovering a new approach to trash and, therefore, a new way of dealing with our imperfections. Given the chance to work in a completely new environment our intention for this project was far from making a straightforward transmutation of a previous concept to a new place, more than ever our intention was/is to make a close approach to Linz specific aspects and develop a project in collaboration with local agents. According to our previous experience this has proved to be the best way to for us to get involved in a new context and also to broaden our limits both in a conceptual and participative way.

For these reasons we generated together with Linz 09 the idea of a meeting with a number of expert participants that could share ideas, interests (some of them based in Linz and therefore also “experts” in Linz). Our main focus in this initial experience was creating a network that might work as launch pad for collaborative projects for and after 2009. This is an important point since it arises the question of what will happen in Linz after 2009? One of the biggest concerns we share with the Linz 09 organization is establishing strong connections between local and foreign agents that will eventually remain after a temporary event such as Linz 09. The second focus for us was generating enough debate around Linz and its trash that would allow us, and also the rest of participants, to come up with new projects enriched by the exchange of points of view and the creative possibilities of this think tank. We would like to present now a summary of concepts that were discussed during the working days we spent together that we believe are extremely interesting for considering us starting point for specific projects for Linz 09. By doing this we expect to share our impressions on Sauberinz, stimulate the debate on these topics and also to get feedback from the rest of the participants that might help to shape future collaborations. After a period of approximately two weeks we pretend to make a proposal following some of these lines of research. We would like to present this as an open process in which we would like to include all those agents that might be interested in either participating in our proposal or developing a project in collaboration with other collectives. This is a subjective list of topics we pretend to study in depth along these weeks previous to our open proposal. We know there are many other topics that were discussed during the week, please feel free to let the rest know about those that interested you if they are not in our list!

Mittwoch, 3.10.2007, 19:00Themenabend „Künstlerische Interventionen“

Dienstag, 2.10.2007, 19:00
Themenabend „Visuelle/akustische Verschmutzung“

Stadterkundung (Innenstadt und Donaulände)  

Location of 4th day: ‘Am sozialen Rand’ (’on the social edge’)