PRESS CONFERENCE IN SITU History Goes to Town: National Socialism in Linz Wednesday, March 11, 2009, 9:30 AM Linz09 Pressecenter (Linz09 Infocenter, 1 st Floor) Hauptplatz 5, 4020 Linz Immediately afterwards, a site on Hauptplatz will be sprayed. Featured speakers: Ulrich Fuchs (Linz09 deputy artistic director and head of project development), Dagmar Höss, Monika Sommer and Heidemarie Uhl (project initiators) The aim of Linz09 s IN SITU. History Goes to Town: National Socialism in Linz project is to make visible the Nazis multi-layered policy of annihilation and to inscribe it into everyday perception. Temporary signs in public spaces in Linz will mark 65 sites of National Socialist terror. The title IN SITU Latin for on site is emblematic of this effort to link places to their history. The IN SITU project has already gotten started temporarily marking a total of 65 locations in Linz. Large-format stencils are used to spray-paint a brief text on site IN SITU that makes reference to what happened at that place during the Nazi era. This initiative does not focus exclusively on well-known locations amidst the topography of terror in Linz such as Gestapo headquarters on Langgasse or the synagogue on Bethlehemstraße. We are also pointing out buildings and public squares to which scant attention has been paid heretofore and that give little indication of being anything out of the ordinary. We indicate their historical significance as places where National Socialist despotism was implemented in real life.
Topography of Terror Many Linzers evidently know quite a bit about several aspects of the city s National Socialist past. It is above all the architectural manifestations of the Nazi regime that are still present as defining elements of the cityscape: first and foremost, the VOEST steel mill (the former Hermann Göring Works) followed by the Nibelungen Bridge and the adjacent Brückenkopf Buildings, and the housing projects that have come to be know as the Hitler Homes. On the other hand, the topography of terror, of the actual implementation of the Nazi s policies of persecution and extermination on site, has with few exceptions hardly made a mark on the city s collective memory. The Principle of Quiet Impact: Four Levels of Communication In line with the principle of quiet impact, IN SITU is steering clear of dealing with the Nazi era by staging an event that is, in the pejorative sense of a big show consisting of little substance amidst lots of hoopla. Instead, there are four levels of communication: 1.) In the public sphere beginning in March 2009, we will be using stencils to spraypaint markings on the ground at 65 sites in order to briefly make reference to what happened there during the Nazi era. Because of the high density of marked sites in downtown Linz, even a short walk there brings out how tightly intertwined the exercise of political power was with the application of terror by the state as a whole and by individuals as well, but also shows the instances and extent of the behavioral latitude that was at hand. 2.) This is also made clear by the city map developed especially for this project. It creates a new framework for the perception of the city with respect to the selected sites and the stories connected with them. 3.) Our website www.insitu-linz09.at provides information about the project and goes into detail about its content. Numerous scans of original historical documents provide insights into the concrete structures of Nazi terror on site, as well as into its impact on the lives of the regime s victims. There are also suggestions for further reading and
references to scholarly research in the respective field. There are also guest contributions exclusively for the website by experts who discuss additional Linz sites and stories. 4.) The book IN SITU. History Goes to Town: National Socialism in Linz offers locals and guests detailed and comprehensive information to accompany their routes through the city. It also includes photographs of the locations at which the events described took place whenever such material was discovered in public collections. The sequence of images created expressly for the project by Linz artist and photographer Norbert Artner is designed to trigger a changed perception of the present. IN SITU has also been conceived as a means of imparting knowledge that seeks to implement new artistic-scholarly forms of publicly dealing with the commemoration of Nazi despotism. 23 of 65 sites beginning on the outskirts of town have already been marked and, depending on the weather, will be supplemented over the coming weeks. Sites already marked: Wiener Straße 545-549, Ebelsberg Dauphinestraße 11 Siemensstraße / Daimlerstraße Ramsauerstraße / Uhlandstraße Spallerhof housing project on Glimpfingerstraße Wiener Straße 150 Wagner Jauregg Hospital on Hanuschstraße
Robert-Stolz-Straße 12 Stockbauernstraße 11 Aphrodite Temple Auf der Gugl Märzenkeller Bockgasse Wurmstraße 11 Wurmstraße 7 Rudolfstraße 18 Rudolfstraße 6-8 Hauptstraße 16 Unionkreuzung bus stop Katzenau/ now on the grounds of Chemie Linz AG Krankenhausstraße 9 / Linz General Hospital Kaplanhofstraße 40 Untere Donaulände 74, tobacco factory Gesellenhausstraße 21 Volksgartenstraße 14
IN SITU History Goes to Town: National Socialism in Linz Project location: 65 marked sites throughout the city Project duration: March to November 2009 Press photos at: http://www.linz09.at/de/pressefotos.html Marking phase: Beginning of March, depending on the weather, at 65 sites in Linz Idea and Concept : Dagmar Höss/ Monika Sommer/ Heidemarie Uhl Publications and Information Dissemination: WEBSITE The project is being accompanied by a bilingual website that goes online March 11, 2009. Content about the marked sites will be posted on an ongoing basis: www.insitulinz09.at CITY MAP The IN SITU city map providing an overview of all markings throughout town will be available in late March free of charge at the Linz09 Infocenter and all Linz09 Infopoints. BOOK The book IN SITU. History Goes to Town: National Socialism in Linz (edited by Dagmar Höss, Monika Sommer and Heidemarie Uhl; published by Verlag Bibliothek der Provinz) will be available in bookstores in early April.
Project Initiators Mag. Dagmar Höss, studied at the Linz Art University with a major in textiles and conceptual art; Curator program at the Institute for Cultural Studies (director: Dieter Bogner, Renate Goebl); since 2002 member of the Board of Directors and director of programming of the exhibition space of the Interessensgemeinschaft Bildende Kunst in Vienna; since 2005 member of the Board of Directors of Upper Austria s Festival of the Regions; numerous art mediation projects (for the OK Center for Contemporary Art, the City of Linz, the Museums of the Province of Upper Austria, et al.); numerous exhibitions both in a curatorial and artistic capacity: 2008 Das Eigene und das Fremde, OÖ Landesgalerie / 2007 The Maerz Show, Forum Stadtpark, Graz / 2006 Atelier Grant of the City of Vienna in Budapest / can t remember my own dreams, Tiroler Künstlerschaft, Innsbruck / 2005 unheim(at)lich, Kunstverein Baden / 2005 wasteland Palais Porcia, Vienna / Belonging, National Gallery, Tirana, Albania. Dr. Monika Sommer, curator at the Vienna Museum, historian; Curator program at the Institute for Cultural Studies (director: Dieter Bogner, Renate Goebl); 1999-2003 member of the scholarly staff of the Austrian Academy of Science s Commission for Cultural Studies and History of the Theater (director: Moritz Csáky); 2003-08 assistant to the director of the Vienna Museum (Wolfgang Kos); several lectureships, including at Webster University Vienna; co-initiator of schnitt. ausstellungstheorie & praxis (www.schnitt.org); since 2006, member of the administrative staff of the Exhibition and Cultural Communication Management program at the University of Applied Arts Vienna; numerous publications in the fields of cultural studies and museum studies including Storyline. Narrationen im Museum edited jointly with Charlotte Martinz-Turek, Vienna 2009. Dr. Heidemarie Uhl, historian and cultural studies scholar in the Austrian Academy of Science s Commission for Cultural Studies and History of the Theater; previously a member of the faculty of the Department of History at the University of Graz; lectureships at the Universities of Vienna and Graz as well as the Pedagogical Academy in Linz; numerous publications on memory theory and the culture of remembrance since 1945 (see http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kkt); most recently: 1938. The Beginnings of the Shoah in Austria. Places Pictures Memories, ed. by Dieter J. Hecht, Eleonore Lappin, Michaela Raggam-Blesch, Lisa Rettl, Heidemarie Uhl, Vienna 2008.