Vienna Round-Up! Our adventures in Austria in November

Artists in Residence

 

We spent November 2017 living in the Museumsquartier in Vienna, Austria as Q21 Artists-in-Residence. We were invited by the artist collective, monochrom.

Q21 artists-in-residence during Vienna Art Week!
[monochrom is an art-technology-philosophy group having its seat in Vienna, Durango (Colorado) and Zeta Draconis (aka 'Left Wall of Purple Forbidden Enclosure'). monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science, context hacking and political activism. monochrom has existed since 1993.]

monochrom

monochrom is an international art- technology- philosophy group, publishing house and film production company. monochrom was founded in 1993, and defines itself as "an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science and political activism". Its main office is located at Museumsquartier/ Vienna (at 'Q21').

We had an insanely inspiring and rejuvenating time meeting and learning about the work of international artists, exploring Vienna (including its many museums!), participating in Vienna Art Week, building a cocktail robot for Roboexotica (our primary project while there), hosting a seminar and creating a film in three hours with the Nerd Institute, and of course, filming as much as possible! Some of our footage will end up in a future web-series, and we also happily shot a few scenes for Johannes Grenzfurthner's new film, Glossary of Broken Dreams. We had the pleasure of meeting many visiting and local artists, got to play a great custom-to-the-environment role-playing adventure helmed by Chris Sims!

Stay tuned! We have many videos to edit examining all of those parts of our trip and talking about the various events and endeavors we participated in! Vienna was a very fun place where magical pop-up Christmas markets and punsch (mulled wine) huts appear in the blink of an eye! Lisa even came to visit us from Switzerland!

 

Michael walks amongst the australopiths!

A post shared by Sophia Cacciola (@sophiacacciola) on

It is important for Americans to know that if they ever go to Austria, the toilets have a special shelf that we dubbed a "poop shelf." Other travelers have written extensively (also here and here) about this phenomenon and its many pros and cons, but for now, we'll just show it to you sans poop.

 

 

Roboexotica

Our official project for our residence was to build a cocktail robot for Roboexotica.  This was the event's 19th year of celebrating robotics and drunkenness! We built a robot, using the angry spirits of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Strauss that taunted you while you desperately tried to play a simple ten-note melody in order for it to mix you a cocktail. We served about a thousand drinks to the unsuspecting viennese maestros!

Listen to their taunts! (The project was also inspired a bit by the types of carnival attractions at the Prater - photos a little later on!)

Sophia was interviewed on (and dubbed into German!) on the Austrian News about our robot! And, we won an amazing 3D printed award for Gamification!

Mensch gegen Maschine - wer ist der bessere Barkeeper?

Roboter die Cocktails mixen konnte man dieses Wochenende bei der Roböxotica bewundern. Sind sie uns Menschen voraus? Im Wettkampf mit dem besten Barkeeper Österreichs finden wir es heraus. Kann da der digitale Barmann mithalten?

 

Glossary of Broken Dreams

We were invited to Austria by Johannes Grenzfurthner whom we met while both of our previous films were on the film fest circuit. We have similar work-ethic sensibilities (which is to get out there and MAKE THE STUFF) and became fast friends. As soon as we landed, he wasted no time putting us to work, shooting some scenes for his upcoming film, Glossary of Broken Dreams (IMDb, Facebook).

Plot Outline: Puppets! Pixels! Anime! Live action! Stock footage! Lumpennerd Johannes Grenzfurthner gives an ideotaining cinematic revue about important political concepts. Everyone is talking about freedom! Privacy! Identity! Resistance! The Market! The Left! But, yikes, Johannes can't tolerate ignorant and topically abusive comments on the "Internet" anymore! Supported by writer Ishan Raval, in this film, Johannes explains, re-evaluates, and sometimes sacrifices political golden calves of discourse.

We had already done some audio recording in LA for the film with Amber Benson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) before going to Austria.

Recording in LA with Amber Benson for Glossary of Broken Dreams

We helped work on several more scenes in Austria, shooting with a variety of great people and props including capitalist puppets (literal puppets), Max Grodénchik (Star Trek: Deep Space 9), and most importantly, Johannes' mother! All of the shoots were a blast and we couldn't be more excited to see the finished film!

Prater!

One of our favorite places to visit in Vienna was the Prater, a huge public park full of independently operated amusement park rides and booths. 

It's strange, fun, kitsch and even houses the micronation, the Republic of Kugelmugel!

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