Samstag, 14. Oktober 2023, 21:20
Ausländer: Freak Show
Music Performance
mit Kasho Chualan | Marko Marković | Brian Lawlor | Oscar Cueto
Freak Show is a music performance and a critique of social reality in humorous, grotesque, and parodic form. Through sound, music, spoken words, and chaotic noises (acoustic and digital) that interact with the audience, people are motivated to participate and eventually become part of or take over the performance. By sharing their experiences in the „Freak Show“, the foreigners (who derive their name from the pejorative term for „alien“) reflect on the double standard of policies that exploit immigrants by integrating them into the workforce, while excluding and restricting them politically, socially, and culturally through key institutions that continue to classify them as „foreigners.“
Ausländer is a group of individuals who came together in Vienna on May 1, 2018, and consider themselves stateless to the system. Ausländer is involved in projects that take place in the underground scene and alternative venues as well as festivals, galleries, museums, and academies. In collaboration with cultural and art institutions, Ausländer provides content that creates open dialogue and allows the voices and opinions of people outside the institution to be heard.
Marko Marković is an artistic researcher on collective engagement in self-organized societies creating autonomous models of coexistence with performative communication strategies. As an independent curator and artistic producer, his interest was focused on international cultural exchanges with educational platforms in performance arts within the international performance festival DOPUST/ Days of open performance 2008-2018 (Croatia, US, and Austria). Marković was awarded the YVAA/ Young Visual Artist Award in 2011. He worked in the artistic film production and as a project coordinator of Matthew Barney Studio in New York (2012-2014). Marković presented his work at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition/ La Biennale di Venezia 2016, La Biennale di Venezia – Biennale Sessions Giardini 2019, the 2016 International Biennial Moscow, and the Kunsthalle Wien 2023. Marković holds an MA in Art & Science at the University of Applied Arts Vienna at the department where he also worked as program coordinator for the European Capital of Culture Rijeka 2020. He was visiting professor at UDK Berlin, Technical University Graz, Academy of Arts Zagreb, University of Applied Arts Vienna, and a curatorial collaborator with the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka and mumok – Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien. Frontman and vocals in Ausländer.
Kasho Chualan is a Kurdish-Canadian pianist/musician from Toronto, currently based in Vienna. She grew up trained as a classical pianist and studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music (Canada), Western University (Canada), Prayner Conservatory in Vienna, and Franz Schubert Conservatory in Vienna. She is currently studying Electroacoustic and Experimental Music Composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Kasho has been in many versatile musical and art projects from classical, psychedelic, funk, punk, performative arts, and experimental music. She is currently performing with the musical collective Ausländer and is currently focusing on producing and composing music. She has performed in festivals like Nuit Blanche (Toronto), Wienwoche (Vienna), Ispod Bine Sound Festival (Croatia), Kultur Sommer Festival (Vienna), as well as venues like Kunsthalle Karlsplatz (Vienna), ORF RadioKulturhaus (Vienna) and the Akademie der bildenden Künste (Vienna).
Brian Lawlor is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, performer and educator from New Jersey — currently residing in Vienna. In 2005, he was voted “Most Promising Inmate” at Keogh-Dwyer Correctional Facility.
Oscar Cueto was born in Mexico City, and now lives and works in Austria. He holds a TransArts MA of the University of Applied Arts Vienna. His work elaborates on narrative exercises and reflects on the mechanisms that construct notions of history, knowledge, memory, and identity. Cueto’s projects are developed flexibly in a wide variety of techniques, ranging from drawing to performative installations that can be walked through, manipulated or played with to provoke audience participation. His works have been exhibited in several countries and are part of various collections in museums, public and private art institutions. Since 2017 Cueto has been inviting curators and artists to Austria to collaborate with his nomadic anti-‐museum MUME / Museo Mexicano.