origin

“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.