The first perspectival
From July 13 to 16, 2023, the first perspectival took place in Damüls and Fontanella under the motto “[Off] borders”, during which over 500 visitors were invited to discuss, think, create, celebrate and argue together as part of various event formats — for a respectful and tolerant society.
With a mix of cuisine, music and exciting participants, such as Angelika Simma Wallinger (editor-in-chief of ORF Vorarlberg), Peter Iwaniewicz (Head of Department of Sustainable Development and Awareness-Raising at the Federal Ministry for Climate Protection) and Jens Schröder (science journalist), the start of a special evening.
On Friday morning, during a hike up the Elsenkopf at [Grenz] Funk, special people such as Nina Horaczek (chief reporter of the Viennese weekly newspaper “Falter”) or Marc Girardelli (former ski racer) shared borderline stories about their lives.
A swing exhibition
The swing exhibition opened during the perspective focuses on the borders between the digital world and deceleration and can be visited at the FIS Ski Museum Damüls for the next two years.
The world in a high-tech and digitized spiral of acceleration on the way to seemingly always “higher — faster — further — better” is reaching its limits in many ways — and we are with it.
The rushed person, who strives from innovation to innovation, always feels like he is missing out on something when trying to improve himself. Climate crisis, wars, refugee movements as social conflicts that are seemingly becoming independent. An unsettled humanity is drifting ever further apart into a gap between acceleration and innovation on the one hand and existential crises on the other. It is now becoming obvious that, despite all progress, we have lost ourselves many times and have hardly any answers to the pressing questions and conflicts of our time. Has the mechanization of our environment really meant that we have more time and freedom? Enjoy more and live a more relaxed life? Looking forward to old age and death with peace of mind? Or is it not more the case that we have long been trapped in the spiral of acceleration culture and intensity and are afraid to exit in ignorance of what could hold us and the inner world together and carry us together?
A search for clues.
Can slowing down, returning to seemingly pointless action or the playful qualities within us be a key to getting out of the hamster wheel? Could humanity and encounter represent a counterweight to uncertainty and baselessness? Can we leave the limit of acceleration that we are facing here again without having to go through an existential loss experience? Is it possible to experience digitization and mechanization as supportive again in this context? Could it perhaps then also be possible to develop answers to the crises of our time?
Anyone who likes to swing will remember: The intensity of speed, height and fall, the borderline experience of the body. The games, the laughs. The sun in your face, the wind in your hair.
The simplicity of action, movement, silence, peace in continuous progress and back. The thoughts that can wander around and come to mind.
The deceleration.
As an introduction to the exhibition, Wilhelm Schmid (philosopher, Berlin) read from his recently published book: “Schaukeln, die kleine Kunst der Lebensfreude”.
Performance artist Nezaket Ekici
Audiovisual summit climbing
Together with performance artist Nezaket Ekici, exhibition visitors were invited to the opening to swing into a poetic space and audiovisually accompany the artist on her summit climb along the Damüls swing hiking trail. At the opening, Ms. Ekici read from her summit journal, which was created on the Damüls swing hiking trail, in which she will record her thoughts, impressions, feelings along the hike and present them from an artist-specific perspective.
Ms. Ekici was accompanied on the hike by film, so that a permanent projection in the exhibition space will remain accessible to visitors for the duration of the exhibition.
Experiments with the future
This search for clues is expanded by a look at our digital future on the upper floor of the exhibition. With all the opportunities, but also the dangers of our current and future opportunities, it is likely to become increasingly important not to lose sight of people as people themselves. In this sense, “with the future” can be experimented with!
In a second room, viewers are invited to confidently travel through the past, present and future through the journey of life, both not losing track of childhood and not afraid to encounter old age. The implementation of this work would not have been possible without our technical capabilities and yet at the same time speaks a human and “decelerated” language.
The framework for the discussed topics is provided by image, text and film material, which deals with the history of swinging. We have succeeded in borrowing the original photographs from the book “Women who swing” (Claudia Grabowski, Bremen) for the exhibition, which provide a historical insight into the paintings of rocking women from 1880 to the 1960s. In terms of art history, there will also be a short excursion into the painting of the swing motif.
Sarah Solderer presents contemporary photographic works in the exhibition, which makes two of her projects from 2017 available in the form of photographs and a film: swings installed at various bus stops in Athens and Cuba.
The swing that swings back and forth is a metaphor for the rhythm of commuters walking and coming, in their daily routines: Sometimes faster, sometimes slower — on a smaller scale. For Damüls, we will take up and expand these interventions in urban areas in a separate project.
