PPC – A PROJECT TO CRITICAL REAPPRAISAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE MÜHL "COMMUNE".
(2023)
author(s): Elisabeth Schäfer
connected to: Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
published in: Research Catalogue
This open exposition was designed by Elisabeth Schäfer, Paul-Julien Robert, and Ida Clay as members of the PPC FWF PEEK project to critically examine the history of the Mühl "commune"/sect at Friedrichshof/Burgenland Austria.
Founded by the Viennese Actionist artist Otto Mühl in 1972 and dissolved by the Communards in 1990, the "AA Commune" was initially dedicated to raising awareness of habitualization through domination in everyday socio-cultural life practice and to liberating people from the sphere of influence of powerful social institutions. Their declared goal was to overcome authoritarian institutions such as the state, the church, the bourgeois family, capitalism, and patriarchy with the help of science, art, and liberated sexuality. The social experiment ended in a highly authoritarian system within a controlled community. Mühl was sentenced to seven years in prison for multiple sexual abuse.
Together with contemporary witnesses, the project strives for a re-examination and reappraisal of the commune and its effects through "research in and through the arts" by building a research space collaboratively designed by artists, contemporary witnesses and scholars as a reservoir for the joint exploration of individual and collective historical aspects of the AAO: (Re)writing of Reality Through Discourse.
This open exposition is one share of this (re-)writing through discourse. It presents an overview and excerpt from the three-year artistic research project in the form of a research landscape in which various formats can be visited as stages of research. In the form of a mapping we have embedded audio, video and text products into the research landscape of our project. Central locations of this landscape are the Friedrichshof in Burgenland, Austria, site of the former "commune"/sect & the Volkskunde Museum Vienna as national cooperation partner of the project.
Title of the project: PPC - Performing Primal Communism. (Re)writing of Reality Through Discourse
Principal investigator: Paul-Julien Robert
Project Team: Ida Clay, Thomas Marschall, Elisabeth Schäfer
Research location: Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (Institute of Fine Arts | IBK) | Karl-Schweighofergasse 3 | 1070 Vienna
Cooperation partner: Volkskundemuseum Wien
Funding: PPC is an FWF PEEK project [AR568] Project duration: 2020-2023
"No Self Can Tell"
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Laasonen Belgrano, E. and Price, M.D.
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
The research explores 'ornamenting' as a transferable method in inter-disciplinary studies, inter-faith dialogues and artistic/therapeutic practices. Adapting techniques of Renaissance musicology, the processes we have developed de-create and re-create vital connections. It is a communica-tions strategy for times of crisis. Starting with simple sonic relations we extend the method far be-yond its traditional musical setting. The practice utilises 'Nothingness' as a component of creativity, providing a novel response to figurations of nothingness as mere negation. Preliminary results sug-gest its potential as a counter force to nihilism and social dislocation.
The work divides into four areas. 1. Primary research on relationships between sound, meaning, and the sense(s) of self, exploring how sense is made of Otherness via processes akin to musical praxis: consonance, dissonance, 'pure voice' and ornamentation. 2. To apply this new perspective to a range of exile experiences – mourning, social disconnection, ex-communication and aggres-sive 'Othering'. 3. To investigate the cancelling of normal time-conditions in crisis situations such as trauma, dementia, and mystical experience, relating non-linear temporality to creative practice and healing. 4. To widely disseminate our results and methods as contributions to the methodology of artistic research via journal articles, live workshops and performances, and a book of original, praxical, testable, and teach-able interventions.