RE-PLAY. Beginnings of international media art in Austria

In this large-scale project by the Generali Foundation on the beginnings of art and electronic media in Austria, Austrian achievements were presented for the first time in an international context, including their network. Artistic productions, exhibitions, and events in Austria, most of with international participation, were made accessible again in the form of an exhibition that extended to television, radio and the Internet, an archive and documented in an accompanying publication.

The development of communication and recording technologies after the World War II raised artists’ interest in the aesthetic, political and social influence of mass distribution and global communication. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, artists in Austria—some had origins in action art and Expanded Cinema—also began to experiment with the audio-visual home technologies that were coming onto the market at the time. The pioneers of Austrian media art were fully integrated into the international flow of information on current art trends and gained experience abroad themselves or contextualized their independent approaches with those of international artists, primarily from Germany and North America.

The exhibition audiovisual messages (1973) in the “Trigon”-series in Graz stands out in the course of a large number of international events in Austria, some of which were attended by todays top-class artists. In this first international manifestation of video art in Europe, a selection of videos from the USA were shown for the first time alongside projects from Austria, Italy and Yugoslavia (“Trigon” idea). In addition to an expansion of the concept of material and the associated de-materialization and mediatization of art, the focus shifted to an engagement with the recipient, a redefinition of the concept of the work and ultimately of the author, as well as the development of alternative production and distribution possibilities. At the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s, these came to a theoretical and practical head in international telecommunications projects, some of which were initiated from Austria.

With a series of interdisciplinary events on performance and media art, theory and art, in so-called information galleries and non-profit institutions, Vienna, Graz and Innsbruck became important stations for many of the best-known international artists in the 1970s, while Austrian media artists were increasingly invited to important events in the international art scene. Finally, at the beginning of the 1980s, a young generation of artists was introduced in Austria who dealt with a wide variety of new media and the international art scene as a matter of course. In 1979, the first Ars Electronica Festival in Linz presented the topic of art and technology in a new way to a broader local audience as well as to an international audience of art, science and technology professionals.

In addition to video and audio installations, RE-PLAY featured numerous video tapes and audio works by around 20 Austrian and 50 international artists. Many of the works had been restored or reconstructed for the exhibition. The Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF), respectively the programs Kunst-Stücke and Kunstradio, as well as Kunstradio online, functioned both as media outlets and as a separate section in the exhibition. In addition to a live feature on the RE-PLAY exhibition opening, historical works were broadcast on television, radio and the Internet, in some cases as premieres, as some had never been broadcast. Conversely, works from ORF’s image and sound archives were present at the Generali Foundation exhibition. The exhibition section with single-channel videos was presented in a display by Heimo Zobernig.

With works by
Vito Acconci/US, Robert Adrian X/CA/AT, Laurie Anderson/US, John Baldessari/US, Gottfried Bechtold/AT, Stephen Beck & Warner Jepson/US. Lynda Benglis/US, Trisha Brown/US, Norbert Brunner/AT, Hank Bull/CA, Peter Campus/US, Ernst Caramelle/AT, Patrizia Caire/Günther Schrom/AT, CCMC (Peter Anson, Larry Dubin, Nobuo Kubota, Allan Mattes, Michael Snow, Casey Sokol)/CA, Colette/Peter Gordon/US, Francesco Agnetti/Gianni Colombo/IT, Axel Corti/AT, Merce Cunningham/US , Douglas Davis/US. Georg Decristel/AT, Peter Downsbrough/US/BE, Ed Emshwiller/US, Wolfgang Ernst/AT, VALIE EXPORT/AT, Flatz/AT/GER, Hermine Freed/US, Terry Fox/US, Dale Frank/AUS, Bill Furlong/GB, Ladislav Galeta/YU, Wilhelm Gaube/AT, Genera ldea/CA, Bob George/US, Jochen Gerz/GER, Tina Girouard/US, Roland Goeschl /AT, Jack Goldstein/US, Dan Graha /US, Peter Grass/US, Horst Gerhard Haberl/AT, Lotte Hendrich­Hassmann/AT, Hermann Hendrich/AT, Gazi Herzog/AT, Julia Heyward/US, Klaus Hoffer/AT, Dragan llic /AUS, Sanja lvekovic/Dalibor Martinis/CR, Joan Jonas/US, Angelika Kaufmann/GER, Allan Kaprow/US, Milan Knizak/CZ, kollektive Telekommunikationsprojekte, Renate Kowanz-Kocer/AT, Karl Kowanz/AT, Richard Kriesche/AT, Shigeko Kubota/US, Richard Landry/US, Charles Loeffler/Bob Gaglioni/US, Herr Lugus/AT, Tom Marioni/US, Albert Mayr/IT, Bruce McLean/GB, Robert Morris /US, Antonio Muntadas/US, lan Murray/CA, Maurizio Nanucci/IT, Bruce Nauman/US, Juan Navarra Baldeweg/ESP, Hermann Nitsch/AT, Muriel Olesen/CH, Yoko Ono/US, Dennis Oppenheim/US, Nam June Paik/J/US, Friederike Pezold/AT, Arnulf Rainer/AT, Patrick Ready/CA, Ulrike Rosenbach/GER, Dieter Roth/CH, Gerhard Rühm/AT, R. Murray Schafer/CA, Michael Schuster/AT, Richard Serra/US, Tom Sherman/US/CA, Katharina Sieverding/GER, Hartmut Skerbisch/AT, Michael Snow/US, Throbbing Gristle/GB, Rasa Todosiewiz/YU, Goran Trbuljak/CR, David Troostwyk/GB, Ferry Unger/AT, Franco Vaccari/IT, Franz Vana/AT, William Wegman/US, Peter Weibel/AT, Lawrence Weiner/US , Norman T. White/CA, Monsti (Ingrid ) Wiener/AT, Oswald Wiener/AT, Hannah Wilke/US, Jana Wisniewski/AT, Otto M. Zykan/AT