For 22 days, art and new media make their way into a remote and dying Alpine valley.
vision
The population in Bschlabertal is shrinking year on year and there is a lack of prospects for the future. This is precisely where the medienfrische and allows new possibilities to grow out of the apparent emptiness. It should not only serve as a field of experimentation for artists from all over the world, but also give the people who live here new ideas. Carving art and digital art come together. It is also about questioning ways of working and breaking up encrusted traditions.
A meeting place for the unusual. With the medienfrische people from seemingly opposing worlds come into contact with each other and develop new ideas together. This creates a special moment of exchange: between art and landscape, between the new and the traditional, and not least between people.
Carrier of new perspectives. Art and culture can give new hope to a dying place like the Bschlabertal and show alternatives to prefabricated and already failed ideas. In doing so, old paths must be abandoned in order to forge new ones. We want to walk these paths together with the population, the artists and all those involved. The medienfrische is movement. It arises from all the ideas, stories and experiences that unfold in the time spent together through the gathering of local people, thereby opening up unimagined potential.
Empty time. Our society attaches no value to empty time, i.e. time in which nothing meaningful seems to be done and in which we are not considered productive. We have to constantly function and optimise ourselves, while at the same time exposing ourselves to a limitless and ever faster flow of information. The farming families in the Bschlabertal valley have not known empty time in recent centuries. It was only with the onset of mechanisation, mobility, gainful employment and the accompanying emigration that the valley became increasingly empty - as people left their homes, gave up traditional work and communication spaces and saved working hours that were once essential for survival. Art has always represented a border zone in life that invites chance, decay and emptiness. Becoming empty can mean letting go, interrupting, objecting, dissolving, reversing.
Creative breeding ground. In a place as remote as the Bschlabertal, one's own artistic work is called into question and must be reconsidered. At an altitude of 1400 metres, where there is neither a supermarket nor the usual urban needs can be satisfied, an existential approach to oneself and one's own understanding of art can have a fruitful effect.
The medienfrische aims to anchor art and new media in the region. Our long-term goal is to become a cultural fixture for the region and to hold annual events in the Bschlabertal. We already have many ideas for the future, which we want to realise together with the local population and artists.
