For 33 days, art and new media make their way into a remote and dying Alpine valley.
vision
The population in the Bschlab Valley is shrinking year by year, and there is a lack of future prospects. This is exactly where medienfrische comes in and lets new possibilities 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 bring new ideas to the people who live here. Carving art and digital art meet. It is also about questioning working methods and breaking up encrusted traditions.
Meeting place of the unusual. At 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 have to be left behind in order to tread new ones. We want to go these ways together with the population, the artists and all contributors. The medienfrische is movement. It emerges from all the ideas, stories and experiences that unfold in the common time through the gathering of people on site and thus open up undreamt-of potential.
The will-o'-the-wisp is a mostly colorful, restless light phenomenon. It is constantly in motion and changes incessantly. Extinguishing is as much a part of its nature as its appearance. It can take on any form. In the 2020s, the will-o'-the-wisp appears in an open source 3D engine, computer games, music bands, theater clubs, movie titles, magazine novels, among other things. In the various arts of the past centuries, the will-o'-the-wisp has also haunted the world as a productive force in countless configurations and expressions. Will-o'-the-wisps still appear in legends and fairy tales on all continents of the earth. However, the brighter our world is illuminated, the rarer they are perceptible. The Bschlabertal is a dark continent that even Joseph Conrad would have enjoyed.
Creative breeding ground. One's own artistic creation is questioned in such a remote place as the Bschlabertal and must be reconsidered. At 1400m altitude, where there is neither a supermarket nor the usual urban needs can be satisfied, an existential approach to oneself and to one's own understanding of art can have a fruitful effect.
medienfrische wants to anchor art and new media in the countryside. Our goal is to become a cultural fixture for the region in the long term and to take up residence in the Bschlabertal every year. We already have many ideas for the future, which we want to realize together with the population and the artists.
