NEULANDHAUSRUCK – ORIGIN

Neuland Hausruck Part 4

Michael Knoll — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 07:35:48 +0000

The clues are inexorably accumulating in Hausruck, interest in the region’s history is on the rise. One facet—a not insignificant one—is the question of what role National Socialism played in this part of Upper Austria. It’s only been in recent years that the process of coming to terms with this issue has made some headway.
The mission of the ARGE Schlier http://www.schlier.at/ initiative is preserving, documenting and providing orderly access to the architectural remnants of Schlier, a Nazi armaments production facility in the town of Zipf, Upper Austria. On its website are images of numerous documents that reveal a few little-known details of Hausruck’s history. For instance, during World War II, no beer was being brewed at Brauerei Zipf; the facility was converted into a rocket proving ground, and all the buildings were painted black to hide them from Allied eyes at night. Probably the most famous member of the staff was Wernher von Braun, later one of the leading lights of the US space flight program. During the war, he was involved in the development of the V2 rocket, and helped Hermann Oberth upgrade the rocket test facility’s safety features after Oberth’s daughter and others died in an accident. “Saurüssel”, a documentary film by Chris Müller, takes up this topic and reports from Hausruck about things that used to be in these parts, things that had long been forgotten but are now resurfacing nonetheless. The film is being screened at Ars Electronica 2011 in conjunction with ORIGIN CINEMA.

Re: Hausruck—Neuland is filling up; the discovery site is attracting researchers; photographic material showing an investigator on a fact-finding mission has been leaked to Ars Electronica. If you want to be there on September 1 in Hausruck for Neuland, then follow this link to wherever it takes you nachrichten.at about Wernher von Braun.

Neuland Hausruck Part 3

Michael Knoll — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:16:33 +0000

“Of course we’ve had our share of skeptics during the planning phase. The question: ‘Do you really think they’re going to be able to pull that off?’ was heard quite a bit in these parts. But now the naysayers are going to have to eat their words.” And Mayor Josef Senzenberger of Ottnang am Hausruck ought to know what he’s talking about. He’s been a regular at Theater Hausruck performances since 2005, and not just because he and his constituents live at the foot of Pettenfirst, one of the locations of previous years’ productions and the setting of the opening event of the 2011 Ars Electronica Festival.

Pettenfirst as such has already been immortalized at another location on one of its flanks, in Thomasroith on the opposite side of this low-slung mountain. In St. Barbara’s Church there. What makes this town interesting is the fact that it was pretty much completely designed on a drawing board, optimally adapted to efficient mining operations and thus a life-size mock-up of an English Midlands town. Quite an unusual sight, albeit one outshone by the church and its altarpiece.

The altarpiece depicts a group of miners receiving the Holy Grail from St. Barbara, and thus the Holy Spirit being bestowed upon common, secular men. To be sure, an endowment not often found in this form. And the miner to whom the Grail, the source of knowledge, is being handed over is the spitting image of none other than Viktor Schauberger, Hausruck native and the fellow responsible for the Repulsine, a flying machine that’s received a lot of attention in connection with various UFO sightings.

And what of Pettenfirst? It forms the background of the scene described above. In the right upper corner of the altarpiece, you can see the spot where Ars Electronica and Theater Hausruck will be jointly revealing what has heretofore remained covert.

Neuland Hausruck Part 2

Michael Knoll — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 09:53:55 +0000

Theater and investigation; archeology; unearthing what’s buried—layer by layer by layer. Upper Austria’s Hausruck region is the site of a fascinatingly dense concentration of events, stories and history. Since 2005 Theater Hausruck has been uncovering these strata, digging and stirring things up, and its successes has been rewarded with sold-out houses and rave reviews. It has transported audiences to the absurdest of locations, left them to grope in the dark and figure out for themselves if they’ve crossed the border between fiction and reality, strapped them into emotional roller coasters, and left them substantially impressed indeed. The Ars Electronica visits the Hausruck and kicks off this year’s festival in an once in a lifetime experience. The first part of the Hausruck-story can be found here.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EmpIE0BZv8
€AT – Kapitalismuskrieg in der Konkurshalle, Theater Hausruck, 2010

There are the disconsolate charged with dispensing hope to left-behind losers, the Ferraris you can win by touching them long enough, the giants and gnomes who accompany you on your way into an uncertain future—the play with symbolism characterizes their theatrical productions.
And by no means of least importance is the fact that Theater Hausruck is a genuine product of the region. Instead of buying the rights to put on somebody else’s play, they prefer narratives that emerge from the very place the drama is being produced, portrayed by amateur actors. Thus, local artists depict the fascinating world that opens up when one enters the horseshoe-shaped Hausruck landscape, and thereby contribute to conveying the region out of the shadows and into Austria’s cultural limelight where it belongs. And Ars Electronica will help to further expand this influence onto science and research, since the theater’s long-term mission is to bring together art and science at this place of origins and to give investigators the opportunity for profound encounters with the matters and issues that rear their heads here.

We recently spoke with District Administrator Peter Salinger about the cultural and economic significance of the collaboration between Ars Electronica and Theater Hausruck.

AE: Theater Hausruck has made quite a name for itself over the last few years and audience response has been tremendous. Ars Electronica is one of the world’s largest art & technology festivals. What sort of impact do you expect this alliance will have in the Hausruck region?

Check out the blog of Theater Hausruck for the latest news of rehearsals, research and what’s happening around the sight of the Ars Electronica kick-off on September 1st.

Neuland Hausruck Part 1

Michael Knoll — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 10:24:43 +0000

If you pay a visit to a rather out-of-the-way region of Upper Austria named Hausruck, you’re immediately struck by the moderate weather. Its horseshoe-shaped chain of hills extending from Waldzell to Haag am Hausruck acts as a natural barrier. It doesn’t take long to see the light. As Theater Hausruck’s Chris Müller so aptly puts it: “The show must go on, even in case of clement weather!” And who could argue with that? In this spirit, Ars Electronica cordially invites you to go on an outing to Hausruck on the evening of September 1st, a trip that will neither be rained out nor called on account of oppressive heat.

Once you’ve shaken off the weather, this region—one of the largest contiguous areas of forest in Europe, by the way—unfolds its own special charms. An appealing flair you’ll be able to experience up-close-and-personal on September 1st.

So far, so good! But what’s the real reason why Ars Electronica is staging this excursion to Hausruck? Now, when you spend some time chatting with the locals and getting the lay of the land so to speak, you realize that you’ve arrived at a place of origins, at a source of knowledge, and that a lot of things have gotten their start here, things that you’ve heard about as well as things that are still to be excavated, brought out, illuminated and evaluated but that, in not a few instances, do all they can to resist such revelation.

This collection of stories, “Neuland Hausruck,” will be running here as a lead-in to the festival. They’re accounts of episodes and chapters that get across what’s so special about this place and why it’s a rewarding experience to make your way here from Linz.

Kicking things off will be a trailer describing the performance that will premiere on a lonely Hausruck ridge in conjunction with the start of Ars Electronica 2011. It promises to be, among many other things, something utterly unsuitable for delicate constitutions.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A2HDTb3-As