Literature

For the third time now the experimental festival for new literature and sound "hoergeREDE" takes place as a festival in the festival: on two days the "Kulturzentrum at the Minoriten" shows world premiers of acoustic art pieces created especially for this event by authors and musicians: political poetry meets avantgarde jazz, sound poetry meets noise, lyric and prose meets distorted guitars, electronic and bass. Following the thematic motive "Elevate the Apocalypse?" in times of a global crises the "hoerGEREDE" festival takes a focus on the motives of disappearing, self-dissolving, change, new beginnings, disappearing again and the regaining of order, form and structure. What is behind the conception of the disappearance of the world - a metaphor used to describe the overcoming of the old, petrified order? A utopia of the individual freedom from ideology, authority, regulation and compulsion? Or is it the immediateness of a real threat from a world out of its angles? As much can be stated: scarcity of resources, climate change, extreme social and economical inequality, exploitation, dehumanization and a shift to the right wing attitudes are actual and concrete challenges of our time. The retrospect of the last century with its world-wars, its industrial killing, its totalitarian opression and its disappearing of identity within the delusion of alignment in collectivist dictatorships leaves behind an atmosphere of catastrophe that continues to have an effect - as semi-conscious trauma of mankind, as alarming insight into the human desire for homogeneity, leadership and command, as perplexity of the seemingly unstoppable of a time- and systemdependent circuit of domination and being dominated. The grand utopias and visions of a fairer, more social and more peaceful world drained in the increasing scepticism about ideologies and their changing prophets. For decades now the value of figure dominates the ruins of trodded down values - the market has become the last standing power of modernity. The outcome is desatrous. Alternative concepts gain in importance - the world is, as it were, at the eleventh hour. But is it possible to change into an open, dedicated civil society that opposes the economical power by providing sustainable concepts? While commonly interpreting the world and reality, is it possible to push the coexistence of different world outlooks even when it leads to the disappearance of now stable structures of meaning or is it the return of the old longing for uniformity, for simple answers, for a scapegoat and strong leadership in the end? Does everything have to change so the things we know, the world as it is now, can stay that way? Or has the ongoing global crises already lead to a different way of thinking that makes broad levels of the European population act more sensitive in terms of dividing power, using energy and the necessary changes needed to fight hunger, war, adversity and poverty? And where does abstract art fit into these very concrete questions?

While the discourse programme of this years' elevate focuses on positive initiatives by civil society, on the course of action and concrete strategies to make and build our world to become more livable, the "hoergeREDE" festival, in cooperation, takes on the theme of disappearance seen as chance. Beside the traumata of mankind, the inconceivable events happening around the world and scenarios of horror building up everywhere, not only the potential to elevate global protest and will for change that can actually move mountains is hidden behind the picture of the apocalyptic end of all life but there is also an abstract , wide network made up from metaphors, cultural relations and visions in which an unsatiable longing for a better, fairer world can be found. How, in a time of actual powerlessness from a dystopian downfall - which is probably the overall figure for the paralysis of the unchangeable - a new utopia of self-determination and co-organization will become the appreciation of every individual; What parts contemporary literature and music play in this context and how, to avoid the danger from old hierarchical structures, the digging in the ruins of pseudo-reflected events has to be sensitized over and over again: that are central questions of this years' festival programme. Repetitively, it is about the insisting of the insistence, the artistic expression far away from purpose and function. Everthing is transient and appropriate, anyway.

Christian D. Winkler - Curator