Fresh cold spring morning, sun cutting through mist and fog, clean blue white light reflecting off the sheen of dew across tons of rusting and other steel in front of me. Itās 7:30 am or something, fresh from a bike ride down a hill, looking at a gridwork of steel tube, scattered debris, a railway track and seemingly chaotically placed mounds of steel scrap. Within a week or so three immensely long steel plates are lying on this gridwork, the montage platz will be more than a balancing act. It will be said that if one leaves the space for any period of time, sometimes even for a day or a weekend, one cannot be surprised by the complete change that has occurred in the interim. Itās 1994, and that was one of the wierdest years of my life.
It all started summer of Ī92, which could also be defined as a damn strange time. Here I am in this wierdo town, the project I came here for cancelled, even the possibility to do what I meant to do taken away by bureaucratic hassles. Into this mix throw a constant stream of freaked-out ex-pats, me living behind a cupboard in a WG that used to use the same room as a tennis court, some stupid quantity of more or less free drugs, heat, wrecking a factory in Wien and a general sense that this was going to be summer to remember. This crazed pom that I know meets a fella from the Ars whose project crashed and burned, the bane of Tesla carrying over to the opera that should have bourne his name. Heās got no cash, needs to get home to Canada. So he cashes his laptop in to a sucker like me at some giveaway price, then proceeds to spend a considerable portion of the money I gave him showing me and a friend around Linz and Wien. As well as a bunch of dead-ends, classy cafes in the first district, a taste for some particular wine that Iāve forgotten and the media space at the applied arts school in Wien, he took us to meet this skinhead in a wheelchair who has this workshop space in a scrapyard in a steel mill near here. Canāt remember much except being wow-ed outta my head at the time.
Sitting next to Leopold the guardian dog and the 8mm steel cutout of his maker, Iām watching
some people coming up to the gate. A sheet-steel construct, about two and a half metres high,
a square metre on the ground, a large numerical display on top of it, enough room for one or
perhaps two people to pass through. In the darkness the band of a lightbeam across the
entrance is apparent. Unsure of its purpose, two gentlemen stand just outside of the gate. One
pushes the steel floor with his foot, checking to see if it might be a trapdoor or something.
Encouraged that it doesnāt seem to want to open (nevermind the fact that the whole gate sits in
the middle of a tarmacked space, whoās going to dig into that?), he slips into the gate, pressed
up against the wall from which the light beam emanates. Crouching as far down as he can
whilst still rested up against the wall, he springs through the beam, cringing as he goes
through. Of course, all the beam does is register that he has passed and the direction in which
he passed, the numerical display raises one value, the population of the workshop just raised
one head. Some people are paranoid about everything.
Months later Iām finally meeting one of my cousins from the wierd side of the family in Kunsthaus in Vienna, and thereās some strange SlowScan Television in the basement. Iām pretty into meeting my cuz for the first time in my life, sheās not as straight as those on my side of the family tree, but I gotta spend some time watching this thing in the basement. A postcard for the event has these three guys wearing stupid looking sunglasses (later I realise theyāre cutting glasses); the two competitors in this Maschinenkampf, Franz Xav and Leo Schatzl, and this guy in the wheelchair betwen them, some kind of referee. His nameās Just Merit (or Merrit or Meritt or even Merritt depending upon several indeterminate atmospheric conditions), and he seems to be the one responsible for this outbreak of high wierdness. The pictures donāt tell me much, and I want to spend some more time with my cuz, you know, finally seeing that someone who shares DNA with me is interested in more than high finance and home renovations. We end up doing some cool stuff that summer, I develop a taste for metal and machines, hone some basic electronic skills, sweat a lot and generally succeed in some low- scale self-reprogramming.
End of 1996, winter approaching resolutely, clouds, rain, mess blowing in the wind. The Ruckspiegel has finished, the visit of the Amorphic Robot Works has finished, itās all looking very postapocalyptic. This is a strange point in the lifestream of a Verein, the reincarnation coming but still the Maries weeping at the mouth of the cave. Iām reminded of a text from a song I havenāt sung in over five years ³Autumn is coming, now the end of summer, fade to rust already, autumn is comingć, some bizarre combination of rust, red leaves, post industrial romanticism and hope for a new birth. I donāt remember the Ruckspiegel in detail, a few times I remember stopping still, looking around me and going ³Fuck, wowć. Then back to it. Totally inside the moment, work as Satori, like the madness of Aether only infinitely more beautiful. Contained is dead, long live Contained. Two offshoots, Justās and my project ³Timeās Upć, and the Contained Artists In Residence (A.I.R.) program pushed to a higher level. Timeās Up is under development, lips are sealed. The A.I.R. program follows on from the program thatās been running since 1994, perhaps even since Maschinenkampf. Various interesting people get invited, turn up, go ³wowć a lot and we do something. John Duncan, known mostly for his incredible dense and calculated noise collages, came in 1995 spring and left after having completed some preliminary experiments with his ³Stress Chamberć, a cold, dark and incredibly loud experience for one. In the mother of all AIRs, the Ruckspiegel, we completed this project, the final version humming and droning, throwing off waves of sound like a banshee in heat, Duncan grinning like a boy with a brand-new toy, the control staff like a stripped down guitar in his hand. AIR will run into 1997 with ome single visitors and a small group of artists late in the summer. AIR gives up explicitly on the nomadism, instead of attempting to be a nomad troupe, AIR builds an oasis, a place to replenish, wandering artists can rest, recuperate, revitalise in an environment that pushes. Watch this space.
Beginning of 1993, Iām off home to Oz, and I have a chance to do some video work with an old band of mine there. So I talk to this Merit fellow about using some footage from the site. He gives me a bunch of tapes on the condition that I do not use it inside Austria. Iām thinking pure cyberpunkism, canāt help it. Somewhere along the line over the next few years I move away from this, getting Immediatist memes and all, but I started this journey as a tech fetishist, not quite as far gone as this woman I know who finds building sites erotic, but somehow. Tech fetishism is easy if you donāt use it, CAD models have no viration, static crackle or serial line echoes. Greased to the elbows one has to admit it aint just theory, these things have a mind of their own, gnosis walks, we get a grip.
Winter into 95 was a killer. Contained is this hulking monstrosity, madness brewing, around a dozen communication breakdown problem children thrown together, dreams floating free, manic workaholicism, living on Coke from a machine and Parisienne by the carton. January 26, Australia Day at home, middle of winter here we do ĪAether Launchā, the presentation of a fifteen metre high radio and television broadcasting tower based structurally upon early Soviet rocket experiments, Tesla towers and the fundaments of structural steelwork. Data transmission overload, pirate broadcasts of binary noise, the receivers all within 100 feet but hey. In the midst of subzero temperatures we fire off a rocket that is strapped to a launch platform that could never move, the bit of data we donāt broadcast. I donāt know how many electroshocks I received that evening, I didnāt care. It was a peak experience, as they are called, and something broke. This wasnāt no dreamtime TAZ encampment on the boundaries of civilisation, it was a bunch of crazy motherfuckers with no respect for themselves and less for the rest of the human population. Arrogant self-propagandising arseholes with nothing better to do than work like dogs, drink like pigs and denigrate everything within sight.
Freezing on the back of a pickup truck, Arnhem, Netherlands, late night, damn freezing weather, light rain, Iām wearing about seven layers of warm clothing, I was freezing once but now weāre off, fine. Iām on the Shotgun, the mobile transmission unit of the Shotgun TV project. Hey, I thought I was keeping myself purposely out of this project, I didnāt want to be involved, from the first discussions onwards I thought this was interesting but not for me; radio and television pirate broadcasts, big beam projections, live video editting, sound on the fly. Here I am, strapped into the seat, pulling off one of the most outrageous acts of my life. In Zurich we rolled past a dozen officers of the law munching on the Swiss equivalent of donuts, screeching loops from John Duncan and Matt Heckert rolling out like thunder, square wave whistles interacting nonlinear, huge lamp projections onto all sorts of buildings (the sign, a targetted fragezeichen, forced our only rule: No projections onto churches. Far too banal), a video loop of a walking figure on walls beside us accompanying like a strolling guardian angel. No, we are not advertising enything, I just wish this sort of thing happenned more often.
This mobility was what originally caught my eye at Contained. The Nomadic encampment, everything built into shipping containers to be loaded onto trucks, a train, a ship, transported to destinations unknown. Not a madman circus troupe, a shop with get-up-and-go in the literal and metaphoric sense. Not a band of hippies in flower-power Volkswagens. A hit-and-run unit for the implementation of desires, a tool to turn some barren space into an event. Within twelve months of starting, Contained had put down a root or two, put up a roof or three and became properly contained, locked to its site. A few hundred square metres of wasteland adjacent to the reputedly largest steel scrapyard in Western Europe. Within minutes another scrapyard chockablock with electromechanical wastage, infinite lengths of cable, trashed computer equipment, winches, relays, pumps, anything. A working culture that passed no news upstairs, a constant flow of old tools, found objects, strange hardware delivered to Contained for the price of a beer, the priviledge to call past and see what the wierdos are up to, an invitation to some event.
Watching the ceaseless busy-ness of the care and feeding of a large high-quality steelmill, I am still stunned by the absolute, irresolute beauty of it. Pillars of flame as a backdrop, stretched towers reaching ever upwards, clouds of steam rolling over a landscape filled with towers, cranes, movements unending. The wonders of ecology, golden smoke pouring off steel being recycled, beautiful in spite of, perhaps even because of, its inherent and irremovable ugliness. Busy cranes, huge trucks, giant magnets. A beehive of activity. Late night, shift change, stillness. The light smeared across the view, mercury vapour light almost natural, a sunset ambience that surpasses any words.
