Simultaneous Arrivals

In an increasingly interconnected world, threatened by both political instability and ecological crisis, we rely on practices of shared responsibility and care. The prevailing economic order demands exchange and exchangeability of knowledge, services and goods to maximise their effectiveness, hand in hand with digitalisation leading to accelerated demand for interfaces and connectivity. Can we find forms of working-together and thinking-with that resist the tendency towards compatibility and uniformity, practices that allow the interrelated individuals to maintain a respectful and careful distance from each other while developing common strategies leading to a tangible correspondence in the artistic results? While history is rich in collaborative and participatory practices, the project seeks novel ways of working together within the research process. Here, artists from different fields (sound art, digital art, intermedia and installation) come into contact without necessarily aiming for a unified artwork. The idea is to develop methods of avoiding works or drafts from remaining parallel to each other. They should instead cross-fertilise, permeate and complement each other. One hypothesis is that spatiality and simultaneity can serve as concepts to create an internal cohesion without matching intentions, languages and work rhythms. The word simultaneity derives from the Latin simul, meaning together, at the same time, implying a certain independence or coexistence among what is together, the absence of cause-and-effect or of the exercise of power of one over the other. Simultaneity arises from a movement towards each other, unfolding in a simultaneous arrival. This arrival needs a space, a place, and a particular focus is on the sensory and architectural investigation of the working spaces where artistic research takes place. What are the connections between these physical spaces with the aesthetic spaces created through art practice and with the thought spaces in which we organise and communicate our ideas? Project team The project takes place as a cooperation between the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz and the Institute of Interior Design (IRG) at the Graz University of Technology. The team consists of Hanns Holger Rutz (sound artist, project lead), Nayar Castillo (installation artist), Franziska Hederer (architect), and a group of international guest artists.