The Red Thread of New Media Art: In this selection of events Franz XAVER tries to mix his own experiences with works from the STWST environment.

Context Franz XAVER: The selection is a subjective view of projects that influenced my concept of art. It is important to have an independent view of media, art and social issues in order to better assess the impact of digital information media on our society. To achieve this, it is about space-expanded sculptures in a social context from 1977 to 2022. The expansion of space also brought a more exact handling of time. This happened in the media art age before the internet via analogue signals. They coined terms like LIVE signal and REAL TIME in a new artistic perspective. However, digitalisation made it more difficult to deal with these extended space-time constructions. And it offered new possibilities of manipulation in the present. For these reasons, I distinguish an “art with technological support” into an area before and an area after the Internet. Because the internet hit our society in the mid-90s as the WWW. It changed many of our perspectives, we switched from push to pull media within a few years.

Titel:Nike, Idee: Hausrucker&Co, Foto:ORF
One of the first new artistic perspectives on our socio-cultural slush of the 1970s was brought by the Hausrucker&CO architects' association with the Nike on Linz's Hauptplatz.

Titel:Tvind-mill, Idee: Tvind-Schule Jütland, Fotos: Jens Bludau + tvind78
Tvind schools in Jutland(Denmark) showed the first functioning autonomous energy, art and education structures as a holistic solution. Pictured here: The hippies built the first modern three-bladed wind turbine.

Titel: Stadtwerkstatt Idee: About a lecture at the Kunstuni - Wolf Sator Photo: Archiv STWST
For me, a new socio-political approach in the context of art also begins with the STWST in the early 1980s as a housing experiment and venue where art, life and social politics mixed. Photo: STWST archive

Titel: 7000 Eichen, Idee: Joseph Beuys, Foto: Baummapper Wikipedia
The expanded concept of art was consolidated by *Josef Beuys* with his steles and oaks (here in Wahlerhaeuserstr.) at the Dokumenta7 in Kassel..

Titel: Bangkok. Idee: minus delta t, Foto: Karel Dudesek
The team - “minus delta t” transports a 5 tonne stone from the south of England to Asia with media attention.

Title: Housing situation in the STWST, Idee: Workflow STWST, Foto: Archiv STWST
The housing situation in the Stadtwerkstatt led to the exhibition “Wohnen von Sinnen” in Düsseldorf in 1986 - curator: Wulf Herzogenrath.

Titel: Trans World Concert, director: Wolfgang Georgsdorf, Foto: Archiv STWST
The “Trans World Telephone Concert” took place at the STWST (Friedhofstrasse 6). Initiator: Wolfgang Georgsdorf

Titel: Neue Fliesen und Nomaden, Idee: Gotthard Wagner + STWST, Foto: Archiv STWST
A plow is driven into the ground “to finally make the field of culture fertile”. (Idea: Thomas Lehner

Titel: Automaten TV, Idee: Xaver Lehner Binder Ritter + STWST, Foto: Brucknerhaus Kohl
With AutomatenTV, STWST's first 3SAT LIVE programme was created at ars electronica. LIVE meant acting in the moment. Initiators: Lehner, Ritter, Binder, fx

Titel: Sphärenklänge Idee:fx Foto: Wolfgang Woess
APERTO - Biennale Venedig: LIVE data from a weather satellite (Metsat4) and the projected LIVE images of the earth. With the LIVE image of the earth, the sculpture expanded spatially into orbit.

Titel:MIX Idee:STWST Foto:Ritter/Hauenschild/Max
Invitation card of an exhibition by Hauenschild-Ritter 2006, mounted in a fish can lid. The motif of this drawing comes from the STWST project “Niemand ist sich seiner sicher”, another 3Sat LIVE programme. For me, the social context of the new concept of art is also shown here. This context is represented here by Max, who was able to live in the STWST as a socially marginalised person through a social project and of course helped with the project.

Titel: Stubnitz, Idee: Antonia, Armin, Blo u.a. Foto: fx 2017
The Stubnitz was founded as KUNST RAUM SCHIFF. An autonomous habitat. An artificially created island where art is created only according to its own curatorial rules in its own system. 1993 Opening exhibition with art lab, fx orbital sculpture - view of the earth and art lab apparatus.

Titel: Die Elektronische Galerie, Idee: fx + Kunstlabor, Foto: fx,
The electronic gallery of Kunstlabor (Oskar Obereder, Max Kossatz, F.E. Rakuschan, Franz XAVER) consisted of several viewpoints of a digital network for 50 artists. The viewpoints were set up in Graz, Linz, Salzburg, Innsbruck and Vienna. The network worked with FIDO technology - “Bulletin Board System”.

Titel: The Thing Idee: Wolfgang Staehle Foto: Wikipedia - Screenshot
The Thing. Was one of the first “Bulletin Board” Systems“ (BBS) that offered artists an autonomous information area on the net.

Titel: Silverserver: Idee: Oskar Obereder - Clemens Zauner: Foto: Dextro
With Silverserver, an artists' and Haecker community worked on a broadband network. Linux replaced proprietary systems. Open Commons and Hacktivism revolutionised art and society. Together with Silverserver, Blackbox, Public Netbase, mur.at and servus.at were founded in the Stadtwerkstatt.

Titel: T0, Idee: Konrad Becker, Foto: Kuda.org
In Vienna, work on the “Public Netbase” has been going on for a long time. Apart from the importance of the LIVE signals to spatially register the places, one always notes the referencing to time (present) or with ”-delta t“ 1982 to the not yet existing present. With the information society from 1996 onwards, this could no longer be observed so strongly.

Titel: Makrolab, Idee: Marko Peljhan; Foto: Marko Peljhan
In the new, networked world, Marko Peljhan also built a survival island for art.

Titel: Funkfeuer.at Idee: fx - Silverserver, Atnet, Foto: fx
The community project Funkfeuer.at emerged from the free radio network of Silverserver via “Team Teichenberg” in 2003, picture: Funkfeuer meeting at the Medienkunstlabor - Kunsthaus Graz.

Titel: Autonomous digital Space, Idee: fx, Foto: fx
A provider independent IP space enables me to work autonomously on the net. Later, this IP space was taken over by the Halfbit.org association, which runs the art ship Eleonore.

Titel: Medienkunstlabor Data-Spind, Idee: fx, Foto: fx
The media art lab was put into operation at the Kunsthaus Graz. A “data locker” housed 60 servers active in the art and hack scene.

Titel: Eleonore, Idee: Chris Eder, Taro Knopp, fx, Foto: fx
With the Eleonore, the scope of the city workshop was renewed. Subsequently, the Halfbit.org association took care of the ship. The Eleonore is mainly used for an artist exchange programme.

Titel: NegEntropie Cafe, Idee: fx, Foto:fx
The Infolab of the STWST was founded. Entropy, Ludwig Boltzmann and Shannon's information theory are addressed via the greening in Cafe Strom.

Titel: Die Dritte Natur, Idee: fx, Foto: fx
Could information exist without time? In 2018, two event cones were created in the From Nothing to Something project. These simultaneous events took place in Lindabrunn and in Linz, 180 km away, at STWST48. They were synchronised via the GPS network. Using true random generators, an attempt was made to divide the entropy at both locations into the smallest time units and to analyse them. By third nature we mean digital physics that questions the concept of reality of first and second nature.

Titel: Rotting Apple, Idee: fx, Foto: fx
In continuation of the project “Rotting Apple 1992”, images of an apple that has been rotting since 1992 are taken at 15-minute intervals. The checksums of the past images are written unchangeably into the METAtags of the current image.

Titel: Gibling 2022, Idee: fx, Foto: fx
After 10 years of gibling in the context of a “media art”, the community currency will be united with our blockchain in 2022. The genesis block of our cryptocurrency Givecoin was created in 2014 and largely generated via solar energy.

For the Red Thread in 2023, further artists and producers will be asked to relate their own work to STWST projects.

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