A medieval auto installation

“I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by an unknown artist, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object” That was Roland Barthes writing, in 1957, about the new Citroen. Things changed since 1957… What is the crowning glory of our civilization… What is the magical object of today? A symbol, as clear a statement as the pyramids, the Parthenon, the cathedrals? What is this symbol? What is its name? Its name is Junk. Junk is the rusty, lovely, brilliant symbol of the dying years of our time. Junk is our ultimate landscape… Welcome to our cars! They move nowhere, and the absence of speed renders them junk… They become living rooms, performance spaces, temporary stages, confession booths, intimate concert halls, sound chambers… A junkyard of performance art.

Contributing artists: Jan Machacek and Oliver Stotz, Didi Kern, Miki Malör, Baschak Kaptan, Michael Strohmann, Erich Goldmann, Liz Art Productions (Elisabeth Löffler and Cornelia Scheuer), Anna Mendelssohn, Martin Siewert, Nira Pereg, Wagner-Feigl-Forschung (Otmar Wagner and Florian Feigl), Irene Coticchio, Yosi Wanunu, Brigitte Wilfing and Jorge Sánchez-Chiong, Silvia Fässler, Otmar Wagner, Rashim (Gina Hell and Nina Haddad), Jörn Burmester, Clélia Colonna, loop.ph (Mathias Gmachl and Rachel Wingfield), Onno Ennoson, Idit Nathan a.o.
Concept and realization: Yosi Wanunu, Otmar Wagner und Michael Strohmann with the help of: Johannes Hoffmann, Florian Strohmann
Produced by Kornelia Kilga

Danube Festival, Krems/April 24 – May 3, 2008