What’s the deal
Schmiede Hallein
Cover: Workspace Electro Picture: Workspace Upper Wood
Schmiede
Schmiede is a network of people strongly engaged in various fields of arts, design, technology and performance. Members are called Smiths. They get together for intense cooperation and experiment for ten days every year at Schmiede Hallein. Smiths are based all over the world. The visualisation shows where Smiths have been traveling from to Schmiede Hallein in the last four years. Though for a lot of them their country of origin does not reflect their current residence. Following projects, work offers and study opportunities some live a rather international life. Given these mobile or even nomad ways of living this portrayal is just an approximation. The cars represent participants from Vienna, Salzburg and Linz, Berlin, Munich and other parts of Austria and Germany while the airplanes represent countries from all continents, identifiable by flag like Korea, Argentina, India, Nigeria, USA, Australia, Denmark, Hungary, Canada, Lithuania, Taiwan, Kenia, Russia and Ireland just to mention some. Scale-wise cars are folded half as small as airplanes. Consequently a car represents twice as many Smiths as an airplane of the same size.
Schmiede Hallein — 05
Smiths by country of origin Cars from Austria and Germany – scale: 1 Smith / 32 cm2 transparency foil Airplanes from all continents – scale: 1 Smith / 16 cm2 transparency foil
The annual Schmiede Hallein is the creative hub of Schmiede network. It takes place in the almost endless and multifarious spaces of an old saline, located on a river island in the small city of Hallein, surrounded by Salzburg’s mountains. Cooperations, collaborations, network-activities, mutual support and assistance are going on during througout the whole year by digital means of communication as well as on several local, self-organised meeting points. After Schmiede Hallein 2014 the Smiths' facebook group counted 760 members. The *white area at the right of the mountain range shows the difference between male and female participants. In the last four years Mr. Smiths accounted for approximately 60 percent while Ms. Smiths made a little more than 40 percent of the attendances at Schmiede Hallein.
Schmiede Hallein — 07
Schmiede Hallein participation by year
In the last years the average participant at Schmiede Hallein has been 30 years of age. In statistical terms Schmiede is a universe of high variances. Age-wise the oldest Smith (60) is three times as old as the youngest (20). This heterogeneity can also be found for a lot of other characteristics besides age and origin. Smiths are involved in various fields of arts and cultural production. They work with music, video, sculpture, dance, photography, electronics, performance, poetry, game, sound, grahic, stage, software, industrial, and human interface design as well as in not art related areas. Smiths vary significantly in professional positions and experiences.
Schmiede Hallein — 09
Smiths by year of birth
One becomes a Smith, when they first participate in Schmiede Hallein. Some Smith come once, others keep coming more frequently. The picture on the right shows participation patterns of the last four years. The number of onetime attendances has risen. This corresponds to the overall growth of the festival (see page 7). If one Smith comes three times, he counts as one smith but is represented with three attendances. Half of all the attendances are coming from Smiths, who have participated more than ones. They make about a quarter of all Schmiede Hallein participants 2011-2014.
Schmiede Hallein — 11
Participation patterns of Smiths 2011–2014 The stich density indicates the size of the group.
Embedded in a society with changing regulation systems, growing influence of economic frameworks and challenged social imperatives trans-local communities of interest emerge as places of individual and collective resources and counter-/ juxtapositions. If Schmiede is a realm of interdisciplinary exchange, mutual support, non-hierarchic knowledge transfer as well as open and alternative culture the contribution of its voluntary members plays a constituting role. To understand the structures of involvement in Schmiede festival and network one must look at the individual biographies of Smiths. In nine qualitative interviews* Smiths with different backgrounds gave an account of how Schmiede has or has not maintained their artistic work and cultural production; how it has or has not influenced their personal and creative development as well as their professional progress; in which ways Schmiede is sustainable and how they contribute.
*for details see Research Notes page 26 Picture: Performance Rehearsal
How does Schmiede relate to young creative biographies?
Playfullness — 14 “You sit and talk and then you just start doing it. At Schmiede you just do it – like an interdisciplinary impro-session. It’s not important, where people come from or who they are. You just play together.” "100 to 150 creatives from all fields take 10 days to work together and next to each other. I haven’t seen this kind of interdisciplinary collaboration before. It's the perfect place to build bridges.“ "You can simply learn incredible stuff with really excellent people.“ "You come to work – everybody supports everybody. It's this happy, playful approach towards work which makes it special.“ "If you hear game developing it first sound’s complicated. But in 10 days at Schmiede you can create something with the right tools and the right people.“ "The output doesn’t matter – the journey is the reward: tinker around, see what’s happening and have fun!“ "I’ve seen a lot of exciting stuff there, which made me think at first: What the hell is he doing? You pass by again and again and see the development.“ "Schmiede inspires. You realize what kind of things can be done.“ “It’s inspiring to watch processes while in normal life you just see products. But the process of making is far more interesting. Here you can follow the progress of many project closely.” Picture: DIY-Grill
Playfullness — 15 Listening to Smiths you get the impression Schmiede is all about PLAYFULLNESS. We talked to nine Smiths, who participated at Schmiede Hallein in different years and from one up to six times. Coming from different fields of arts and design, being in different phases of their (professional) lives, living in different countries and cities. They all define work at Schmiede as the opposite of commercial or employment work. Though they consider what happens at Schmiede Hallein work in their professional realm.
solutions and might join in. Or a project comes to a point, where you are stuck respectively where you would think about parts you are not firm with, like sound or video – then you go and find someone who can do it. Chances are promising, as the technological knowledge present at Schmiede is said to be versatile, state-of-the-art and sound. You go to the next desk, room or to one of the more specialized labs, which have emerged in the last years. Sometimes people get inspired by something and try to engage in their artistic language. For example a sculpture They draw a picture of inspiration, inspires a musician, he produces experiment and collaboration. It’s a track, a poet contributes some rather about input than output. The lyrics and to make it a performance freedom to do and not to do is very they ask a video artist to map on the important for our interviewees. Almost sculpture. Of course, people also everybody mentioned something like come as existing teams or team up for a Schmiede spirit meaning mutual projects they want to realize together interests in other people’s projects, in advance. a cooperative atmosphere and the commitment to share – the space, the equipment, but also the know-how. So if you come up with an idea, even if you have little to no experience with the tools needed, people would support you giving Smiths the chance to learn “a great deal” and trying themselves in challenging or sophisticated areas. Classically, you would just chat with somebody, spin ideas and – different to a lot of other context – go on to try it. Asked how joint work evolves, they describe situations as following: people pass by your desk, ask what you do and contribute ideas, offer
Shared work table
If you come to Schmiede, you either see what’s happening and develop or join mutual projects, you bring your own idea, or you bring something
Playfullness & Belonging — 16 others can continue to work on. Though giving everybody the freedom to make it their's is an important (not to be frustrated). As emphasized, Schmiede is not the place to find employees, it’s a place to find collaborators. From the perspective of the interviewed Smiths to experience open processes of making inspires the own creativity. And the amount of equipment which is present – partly provided by Schmiede partly by Smiths makes a lot of different and large-scale projects possible. Ranging from cupboard to multiple projections on the face of the saline tower a lot of things can be realized. Smiths take home inspiration, and feelings of empowerment and appreciation. Being described as creative playground, Schmiede is said to be not the place to concentrate on one piece individually. Due to the things, which are going on, it’s a place of compromises and unfinished projects, in other words a work-in-progress place.
Producing
Tinkering
The distinction to the competitive and commercial space is very important for the interviewees. They stressed their fear that this “utopian” place could become too output orientated. Schmiede is experienced as “the planet”, a planet to think out of the box and take holiday from daily business. Most of the people we talked to came to Schmiede Hallein for the first time because a friend or (study) college recommended it or invited them to join. One took notice with a project she liked. Some have spent one or two days as visitors before. Most of them had doubts about BELONGING there at the beginning. Not everyone knew people or what to expect. But they got involved in things quickly. Other Smiths, often new themselves, explained them, where to get a table, where to find sockets and where to grab food. Most people openly engaged with our interview partners right away, told
Belonging — 17 “You’re working and semi-living with this people who are doing all those creative things and you meet some really wonderful people. It is even easy to network, although I’ve never been really good at 'networking'. Somehow, even that am older than most – I am a different generation – didn’t really matter.” "First I was worried, ashamed and afraid, because I went to Schmiede alone by myself. But when I was there everyone was looking out for me: 'Hey, you are new...' and showed me around and explained 'I do this... I do that..“ "There are mainly artist, they find their own way with things. There is hardly any competition, in an economic way. People tend to have their own niche and if somebody does something similar – most of the time it’s inspiring. You can learn. If you envy you are rather wrong at a meeting like this. It’s all about being with like-minded people.“ "At the art university, where I work, I experience a lot of elbows and petty jealousy – that’s common at work, isn’t it? Schmiede is a framework, where everybody is really open and curious and just happy to work together with others.“
"It’s a fantastic place to connect to people. Musicians, people, who make stuff, textile-people, performance artists – you can just join together“ "It's a kind of an egalitarian platform. It's not about workshops with leaders and followers. Its really more people who are going on with their things.” Picture: Hiking
Belonging — 18 dominant qualities. Hallein is characterized as very pleasant and relaxed place surrounded by mountains. Consequently hiking was more then once named as a collective get-out-of-the-camp-activity. Some would have wished for hiking to be an announced 'official' mingling thing. Yet, communication at Schmiede has been described as rather horizontal. 'Chinese whispering' seems to travel Breakfast person to person usually the fastest. Announcements of the spontaneous them what they do and made them jam session, the suckling pig in the open up themselves. Compared to yard, the experiment in the base or other professional spaces people at the now working mapping elsewhere Schmiede are said to act cooperative happen often face-to-face. rather than competitive. Talking to people seems to be crucial. Also the Parties on the other hand are usually diversity in lifestyles and the amount easy to find. Smiths, also early Smith, of extraordinary people was positively who don’t come for the whole ten mentioned. In the words of two Smiths days, sometimes due to their success, we talked to, the heterogeneity and would play gigs or DJ-sets. Between internationality of “this like-minded project-talk and party people make crowd” give an “approximation to the acquaintance. For interviewees lifestyle that we all want to live, we these acquaintances have become can do our creative work, we can live in some kind of community context - a little bit outside of the normal society.” Breakfast was mentioned as the time to slowly slide into the day together. Other Smiths explained their daily routines – the tours they took every once in a while to have a look on other projects and to chat with people. The saline is depicted as a special space – in terms of dimension and architectonical characteristics. Projects have to deal with its Concert with live projection
Belonging & Responsibility — 19 friendships. Others describe the relationship as a kind of brother- or sisterhood. If you know people from Schmiede, you would approach them with a friendly attitude also in other contexts. From the perspective of the nine Smiths we interviewed a creative “open plan office situation”, where a lot of things are possible premises that everyone takes his share of RESPONSIBILITY. Personal initiative and self-responsibility are necessary. In principle one must decide for themselves when to work, whom to help, when to party, which workshop to attend or which project to join. One has to communicate if they are working or ready to chat and to share insights and one must respect each other's privacy.
own. Though participation fee and the prize for breakfast and lunch are experienced as convenient, accommodation is a notable cost, especially since the possibilities for camping have vanished. Two opinions about this have been articulated: Some compare Schmiede Hallein to
DJ-set
further education opportunities they attended in Europe and the US. They consider the cost comparatively very Few conflicts and problems have low for what you get. Others see the been kept in the memories of our heterogeneity of the group, in concern interviewees. The hierarchy is described as flat. People have to solve of age, professional background and outlook on life as a core element of social tensions and conflicts due to project demand by themselves. Face- Schmiede. As artistic biographies to-face communication about project often go along with scarce monetary resources, especially accommodation needs or utilization concepts for spaces is therefor very important. One costs put this “diversity of freaks” interviewee was impressed by the way at risks. In any case, the fact that Smiths talk about projects and explain Schmiede Hallein is situated in a little town close to Salzburg enables complex stuff. He "got the feeling, that people do better know, what they Smiths to find material for ad-hoctalk about if they talk to each other – projects and food for supper or even if they do completely different missed breakfast and lunch. As there stuff.” is no community kitchen, some bring cooking plates and people ally for Attendees have to provide rides to the closest electronic shop accommodation and supper for their and hardware store.
Responsibilty — 20 "It’s not a place for being not interested in other people’s work. It’s not a place for no curiosity. It’s not a place for ego – you have to be conscious, not selfish about your work – more open and more friendly than usual.“ "If you make it happen, you can present it. If two Smiths do their presentation at once there might be a conflict. I guess, then you learn to coordinate together next time. That’s the democratic idea.“ "If somebody is busy, they tell you, otherwise you can talk to everyone about anything. If you cross someone’s desk and see an awesome animation, you simply ask about it and he will tell you, what it’s about, how he is doing it and what he plans to do with it.“ " You easily find 100 laptops there running in the shared work space Wood. Music producer work there just with headphones because you don’t want to drive the whole crowd crazy.“ “People are mostly pretty responsible. I think society underestimates people to behave well. There are lot's of rules and regulations because we don’t trust. But in reality people are nice. ... At Schmiede it's nice to party but people are also there to work during daytime and so nobody really want to destroy themselves because they got other interesting things to do. It’s the combination of work and party, which is great. What you're gonna expect at Schmiede is a pretty nice time, a kind of utopia.”
Picture: Dishes in the Kitchen
Responsibility & Continuity — 21 Besides all of this the organization team, with his omnipresent head, provide a designated well functioning ground, in regards of organization, food and technical supply. The technical rental service – “extensive, but never enough” – works on trust. First come, first serve – or share.
Smiths
There is CONTINUITY in Schmiede activity as well as participation in Schmiede Hallein for one part of our interviewees. Also most of those, who were chosen because they have not been to Schmiede Hallein in the last years, mostly talk about Smith related network activity and would like to come again to Schmiede Hallein. Reasons not to come back are mostly work or other education (to be understood in a broad notion) offers, which are more relevant in the specific field of arts. However most of our interviewees stay in contact with other Smiths. Networking in a stress-free environment seems to be the core
activity. Social network theorists claim that weak ties (for example acquaintances) are essential the transmitter for professional information of interest. Smith report jobs, shows, concerts, productions, they have been invited to by or through other Smiths. There is an ongoing exchange about technologies and know-how. Projects, which started at Schmiede Hallein, continue to evolve in other educational or professional contexts. By most of our interviewees the Smiths network is depicted as a pool of qualified people, whose talents and strength are familiar to them. Recommendation and mutual support reach out of the saline in Hallein. Correspondently friendships next to inspiration have been described as one of the main personal outcomes of Schmiede for Smiths. Often personal circles of friends and Smiths network have started to overlap, especially for people in the geographical triangle between Vienna – Salzburg/München and Berlin. Those Smith also talk about local Schmiede
Workshop
Continuity — 22 “You have to come again to explore all the potentials.” "Acquaintances developed into friendships. That's the most important experience.“ "You get to know peoples strengths and of course I keep this in mind for eventual collaborations.“ "You stay in touch with the people, 'cause they take the Schmiede spirit home.“ "The network has been very relevant for the presentation of my work“ "You must not calculate it in economic terms – for every project you get something, you contribute to three other projects pro bono, so to say. But I would say it pays off anyway, I get to know people, I play concerts at their clubs, and I get paid. It’s a lot about networking.“ "It’s more or less a further education. It broadens your horizon. Simply by talking to all those people, with all their minds and attitudes.“ "Engineering has been my hobby ever since. Then it became my profession – so it’s not so much fun anymore, because you also have to do all the stuff you don’t like. But at Schmiede you just do, what you usually don’t have time for!“ "There is this facebook-platform. So you know Schmiede keeps going on.“ "Really, the network is stronger than the single events, because Smiths are also active in other contexts." Picture: Rehearsal
Continuity — 23 post. Others use it as a channel for promotion. People accept invitations from time to time and check on recent works of other Smiths. In all the interviews Schmiede has appeared as “collective resource”, based on a wide comprehension of education in favor of informal and non-formal learning and notion of profession focusing on commitment and exploration. Interview
events: the self-organized regular’s table in Berlin and the Schmiede living room at Salon 2000 in Vienna where you often meet other Smiths, have a beer, chat and have fun. In this sense Schmiede has influences the professional and personal lives of quite a lot of Smiths we talked to. Some found private partners, others professional ones. Some got relevant inspiration or support for study and residential decisions. For a lot of them the Smith network was a starting point in new life situations: after moving to a new city or after finishing studies and lacking the social and professional infrastructure of a university. Consequently the digital communication among the peers is considered a part of the translocal community of people. This communication mainly happens on a private facebook-group. Most interviewees describe themselves as passive rather than active members. They read and give likes, but rarely
Performance
Picture: Model of the saline, part of an interactive video installation
Responsibility — 25
Research Notes — 26
This Zine concludes findings of a quantitative and qualitative research on Schmiede Hallein and Smiths’ Network, conducted in the realm of the “What’s the deal?”-Project. “What’s the deal?” is a transnational cooperation project, which aims to strengthen the young urban culture scenes, support artists and cultural workers in developing their (international) careers. One part of the project was to gain information of specific young urban cultures, referring to the organizations involved: The Department of Arts and Culture, City of Munich; Kunstzentrat e.V., Munich; Kino Siska, Ljubljana; Lokaalmondiaal/ Coolpolitics, Amsterdam/Arnhem and Schmiede Hallein. ˆ ˆ
The statistical analysis is based on information given by participants of Schmiede Hallein 2011 to 2014. The numbers of participants 2003 to 2010 was complemented by information of the festival organizers. Consequently the data suffers some restrictions. Therefor the findings shed light on basic structures and trends, but must not be read as exact description, neither of the Schmiede Hallein nor on the Smiths’ Network. To understand the relevance of Schmiede for the Smiths nine of them were interviewed with a semi-narrative approach. We chose interviewees by theoretical sampling. This strategy, developed for organisation research, follows the idea of choosing extreme, typical, antagonistic or controversial positions. Further interview partners are chosen by upcoming or unanswered questions. The sample represents Schmiede’s diversity concerning fields of cultural production, (professional) age, participation frequency and gender. To reach Smith all over the world the interviews were done face to face and via Skype. Research approach: Korinna Lindinger, Michael Hackl Research and analysis: Korinna Lindinger Interviews: Barbara Glinsner, Lilian Krieger Transcript: Bettina Xaver, Lilian Krieger Data visualization: kaquadrat (Karla Spiluttini, Korinna Lindinger)
Imprint — 27
Published by : Schmiede Hallein austrian NPO for the promotion of digital culture Vollererhofstr. 372, 5412 Puch, Austria
www.schmiede.ca www.whatsthedeal.eu www.facebook.com/wtdproject
Edition Editor: Korinna Lindinger Design by: Mina Zabnikar, Ee Data visualization: kaquadrat (Karla Spiluttini, Korinna Lindinger) Photos: Thanks to the Schmiede Flickr Group! ˆ
with the support of:
This project has been funded with support of the European Commission. This publication solely reflects the views of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. Published under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 Licence.
© 2015 by the authors