The Angewandte Festival 2020 will take place June 23–26, 2020, in digital as well as public spaces. The University of Applied Arts Vienna (Die Angewandte) will present the works, projects and its various activities of the year.
In 2019, the Angewandte Festival took place for the first time as the new format of the yearly exhibition of the University of Applied Arts Vienna. During the festival, not only the main buildings in the center of Vienna, but also the square in front of the University was used to host the event. The square was closed to traffic and used as a stage for encounter and a multifaceted programme. This temporary appropriation of the square and the opening of the University was a particularly important gesture for the new format.
This year, the Angewandte Festival reflects on and reacts to the current situation that has confronted the University as well as nearly every aspect of life with uncertainty and new challenges. The Angewandte Festival 2020 is an experiment as a whole and is transferred into virtual space, while also incorporating alternative displays in public space. The holding of the festival plays into the commitment of the University to support the production conditions in the arts and cultural sectors, which are massively restricted by the current situation and which necessitate critical examination and discussion.
Already in the run-up to the Angewandte Festival, the University of Applied Arts Vienna is inviting artists and scientists to outline their respective views of tomorrow, within the framework of the discussion series “Dialogues for Tomorrow.” In times of upheaval and crisis, the need for critical reflection on current social conditions is particularly pertinent, as it forms the foundations for innovative and transformative processes. This discussion series with guests such as Helga Nowotny, Srecko Horvat, Renée Schröder, Holly Jean Buck, Ibrahim Mahama, Caroline A. Jones and others, only constitute a small part of the broad collection of programmes of the Festival.
During four days, various contributions and projects from different departments of the University can be experienced and visited via the Festival website, which was developed for the occasion and which holds together the diverse programmes. The Live Programme online includes discussions, video-screenings, readings, virtual tours, performances, sound-sets and much more, but represents only a part of the Festival.
Many projects, in fact, opted to display works in public space. Over the entire city of Vienna, advertising pillars, small (moving) trucks (Asphalt Gallery, Photography department), billboards and shop windows are used as alternative exhibition venues for the students’ works, which can be experienced while walking or cycling. Other projects either used the current limitations for its purpose or counteracted the digital shift. This is exemplified by an online panel about “speculative souvenirs” between the Art&Science department and inhabitants of Fužine, a small village in Croatia, within the framework of European Culture Capital Rijeka 2020 or the DaTa film project by the Department of Sculpture and Space, where an analogue camera was handed over from one student to another after 2-minutes of recording, similarly to the game of the situationists Cadavre Exquis.
The live programme starts on Tuesday, June 23, 6pm, with a live-stream of 23 advertising columns in 23 districts of Vienna opening the festival. By spreading into the whole city, the Festival counteracts the impossibility of a physically attended opening held at the square in front of the University as last year.
Many more projects can be discovered and experienced from June 23 through to 26 “live” at the website. Some projects happen only at that time, while others stay. We are looking forward to four festival days and invite you to a journey of discovery in public space and to regular visits to our Festival website.
Curatorial team of the Angewandte Festival:
Lena Kohlmayr, Elisabeth Falkensteiner and Martina Schöggl together with Eva Maria Stadler (Vice Rector for Exhibitions and Knowledge Transfer)
