RESPONSIBILITY?

RESPONSIBILITY?

A Sound Installation and Panel against Daily Racism
in the framework of the Municipality Festival 1070 Vienna

Where:
7*stern with sound on Siebensternplatz
Siebensterngasse 31, A 1070 Vienna
When:
June 9th - 11th, 2009, 7 pm - 10 pm
Opening Panel:
7*stern, June 9th, 7 pm

The sound installation interrupts daily life in a bar-restaurant and on the square: Loundspeakers focus on answers given by members of a Vienna mainstream society in interviews held by the media artist Alexandra Reill: "As child or grandchild of members of a war generation with “autochthonal” Austrian background, do you think that you are responsible for the Nazi atrocities?"

The responses give cause for reflection - what is today's status consciousness, what is status of today's debate? How spread are oral traditions mystifying the Austrian role in Nazi times? Are such myths collective consciousness? Are there any regularities in the replies given, any standardized answers and, if so, what do they look like? Are there still fascist traits?


People pull back to the “same old stories, my grandfather was still a boy then, it is not my fault.” (1)

(1)Fibiundchillie, May 14, 2009, posting on Online Standard [www.derstandard.at] in reply to: Petra Stuiber, Mainstream-Antisemitismus, May 12, 2009, web page visit: May 23, 2009; Translation: Alexandra Reill

sounds bad, this anti-semitism-virus!
and us Austrian, we are probably infected with it from birth - quasi like original sin.
and Is there no vaccination against it?
or that you have a kind of condom put on the tongu holding bakc all a.semitic words?
we should organize kind of an antisemitism aiding lifeball (2)

(2)kapitän nemo, May 19, 2009, posting on Online Standard [www.derstandard.at] in reply to: Petra Stuiber, Mainstream-Antisemitismus, May 12, 2009, web page visit: May 23, 2009; Translation: Alexandra Reill

To be heard on the public square for three nights, the statements of those interviewed form a public sample and reflection of existing attitudes. RESPONSIBILITY? is a sound installation creating a break in the current gears of daily life. The sound installation works with the spoken word, intervenes in the everyday life of people and creates a chance to become aware and conscious of denials in own identities, which otherwise, in everyday thinking, might be perceived as "normal", therefore being in the dark, in the unconscious but perhaps constantly active.


Opening Panel

Place and Time

7*stern
31, Siebensterngasse 31, A 1070 Vienna
June 9th, 2009, 7 pm

As opening event a panel on the theme takes place in 7*stern:

Today's self-understanding of a Viennese mainstream society with its developments since the '30s, racism in daily thinking and talking still mystifying fascistoid traits of identity and the repetition of discriminatory exclusion of people in the context of current mechanism relating to "debates about foreigners" ("Ausländerfeindlichkeit") form the framework for reflections on what is needed today for people with Austrian background to develop clear responsibility in their attitudes towards own history when further developing ways of living and communication acknowledging - in the terms of Cultural Studies - a society based on the peaceful co-existence of people with socially and culturally split in a thousand variations of identity (3).

(3) Kerstin Kellermann, Abendland in Vampirs Hand, in: Die Presse, May 27, 2009; Translation: Alexandra Reill

Speakers:
Gilda Horvath, ORF-Volksgruppenredaktion
Siglinde Bolbecher, Frauen AG der Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Exilliteratur
Hikmet Kayahan, Bündnis gegen Rechtsruck
Bülent Öztoplu, Fachbereich Integration
Moderation: Alexandra Reill, media artist and film maker

Opening words by Madeleine Reiser, Municipality 1070 Vienna, and Warren Rosenzweig, Jewish Theater of Austria


Production and Press Contact Data

Concept and realization: Alexandra Reill
Production: kanonmedia, Wien 2009


Press contact: Alexandra Reill
call: ++43[0]6991 820 70 03
write to: 12/24, Richtergasse, A 1070 Vienna
mail to: [email protected]
visit: http://www.kanonmedia.com


Support

RESPONSIBILITY? is installed on occasion of the Municipality Festival 1070 Vienna and is supported by the Municipality of the seventh district of Vienna with means of the Department of Culture of the City of Vienna / District Activities. At this point kanonmedia would like to express its thxs to 7*stern hosting the installation and to all interview partners.