Centriphery Bike Ratchet Hike

Conny Zenk, Cornelia Scheuer, Kalin Serapionov, and Gustavo Ciríaco invite audiences to an exciting cycling performance, which develops its own perspective on the region and the landscape of the Machland, navigating various locations and landscapes and making them into their stage. The bicycle, wheelchair, and other mobile vehicular devices will simultaneously become actors and instruments. Regional traditions such as Ratschen (ratchets), which is recognized as the immaterial cultural heritage of Upper Austria, will also be part of the performance, in addition to an examination of mobility and the body, confrontations with passersby, and audiovisual art in public space that will be made accessible and experienced by many different people at once.

The choreography with which the cyclists will move through the landscape will connect and make the intersections between performance, sound art, media art, and bicycle history dynamic.

Centriphery will include an extensive workshop program, which is aimed at a broader public. Centriphery’s artists and Petra Sturm thereby invite you to a bike quadrille and reigen dance. In addition, Franz Ederer will show us all how easy it is to build ratschets in his workshops that will take place over several days. Christian F. Schiller will support the project with ratchet performances. And participants can modify ratchet sounds with the help of synthesizers with Veronika Mayer and Conny Zenk as part of the Grrrls* on Wires program.

Gustavo Ciríaco is a Brazilian multimedia artist from Lisbon. Ciríaco develops site-specific artworks at the intersection between visual theater, conceptual dance, and live exhibition. His works consist of encounters between architecture, visual art, and performing art.

His work has been shown in distinguished international festivals and galleries, such as Crossing the Line / New York, Casa Encendida / Madrid, Serralves Museum / Porto, Mercat de Flors / Barcelona, Alkantara, Culturgest, TNDM II, Museu Berardo / Lisbon, La Ferme de Buisson, Parisian Quarter, Les Récollets / Paris, Tanz im August / Berlin, Al- Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art / Jerusalem, Festival Theatre / Prague, Vooruit / Gent, TWS / Tokio, Digital Art Center / Taipei, CENEART / Mexico City, Panorama, Rio de Janeiro, Arqueologías del Futuro / Buenos Aires, SESC, Cultural Events / São Paulo, Salón 44 / Pereira, Walk / Azores, London Festival, Chelsea Theater, Battersea Arts Center / London, NottDance / Nottingham, Metropole / Copenhagen, NAVE / Santiago, FIDCU / Montevideo, FADJR / Tehran.

Veronika Mayer, composer, sound artist and musician, active both in experimental electronic and instrumental music, creates in her improvisations flickering-noisy atmospheres and explores the effects of minimal electronic sound manipulations. The engagement with sound materia and space, the experience of soundspheres, hardly perceptible sounds and noises, as well as the topic of listening itself are characteristic for her works. The results are reduced but clearly defined structures, developed by the sound materia itself, following and listening to the characteristics and inherent behaviour of each sound. Various collaborations with musicians, writers, video and visual artists. Veronika Mayer is lecturer at the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM, University of Music and Performing Arts Graz). Her works are presented internationally at festivals and exhibitions of contemporary music and sound art.

Cornelia Scheuer was born in Vienna and is a freelance performer and actress. She is co-founder of the performance group Bilderwerfer. She has performed in numerous site-specific improvisations and choreographed pieces with Austria’s first mixed-abled dance ensemble in Austria and abroad, e.g. in Europe and the USA. Since 2006, she has been developing independent projects with Elisabeth Löffler on the label LizArt Productions.

Kalin Serapionov lives in Sofia as a video artist. He has taken part in numerous group exhibitions, e.g. Manifesta 4 / Frankfurt am Main (2002); “Blood and Honey: Futures in the Balkans,” Essl Collection, Vienna (2003); “In the Gorges of the Balkans,” Kunsthalle Fridericianum / Kassel (2003); “Sounds & Visions: Art Film and Video from Europe” / Tel Aviv Museum (2009); “Indefinite Destinations,” DEPO, Istanbul (2010); “Grammar of Freedom / Five Lessons,” Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2015); “Art for Change,” Sofia City Art Gallery (2015); “Forms of Coexistence,” Structura Gallery, Sofia (2018).

Conny Zenk is a media artist and performer in the field of visual music. She works in space-oriented and urban contexts, researching on feminism, gender, migration, and social media using digital interfaces, gadgets, and sensor technology. Her interest lies in audio-visual improvisations and the connections between the body and vehicle. She leads and curates the participatory lecture series RAD Performance. Since 2013, she has developed numerous debuts and collaborations in the field of contemporary performance, activism, and urban spatial investigation. From 2008–2012, Conny Zenk established ffid, which was further developed within the framework of selfieDREAMER, along the intersections between audio-visual art, performance, design, and philosophy. Her works in the areas of media art, performance, film, and visual music have been presented in numerous European and international festivals and residencies.