Lars Moritz and Otmar Wagner are collaborating in various contexts since 2013. Among others, Wagner has been involved in projects of IRREALITY.TV, which was co-founded by Moritz, and, as part of Moritz' REISSAUS TRAVEL AGENCY, Wagner created the TRIP INTO THE UNCERTAIN. Moritz has been a special guest of Wagner several times, for example in CABINET OF EXHAUSTION and as a narrator in WOUNDED WORLD #End. Below are two of the projects they realised as a duo:
AKTION AKTUELL – a performative live news journal
6 editions / programs, 2014–2016
various locations + live from the Okto TV studio Vienna
Direction / Script development / Reports / Presentation:
Lars Moritz and Otmar Wagner
with the ongoing participation of:
Johannes Maile (as commentator) / Simon Mayer and Irene Coticchio (as ›dance interpreters‹) / Gerhard Naujoks (as ›The Indebted Man‹, ›Sigmund Freud‹, ›The Happy Unemployed Man‹) / Ruth Ranacher (as business reporter) / Peter Koger (media production)
as well as with contributions from:
Teresa Novotny (Vienna correspondent), Yann Colonna (editor, Berlin), Joy Harder (Berlin correspondent), David Palme (undercover report, Vienna), Tom Quaas (Dresden correspondent), Florian Feigl (Berlin correspondent), Matthias Anton (Hamburg correspondent)
In cooperation with okto.tv. Winner of the 2017 Civil Media Award. Funded by the City of Vienna’s Department of Culture.
AKTION AKTUELL focuses on re-adjusting reports and news and is broadcast live from the studio in front of a live audience.
AKTION AKTUELL has everything a news programme needs: news segments, video features, guest commentaries, sport and the weather. It also features the ›Sunday excursion‹, a dance interpreter and reports on events that take place solely so that AKTION AKTUELL can report on them.
AKTION AKTUELL: Serious. Informative. Unpredictable.
AKTION AKTUELL 01 – Safe City
ur5anize Festival headquarters – mobile urban laboratory – Karlsplatz / Resselpark, Vienna, 11 October 2014
Moritz and Wagner explore the festival theme and discuss abnormal behaviour in public spaces, mini water cannons for the little ones, standing ovations for a clock, and more.
AKTION AKTUELL 02 – Jahresrückblick (The Year in Review)
Workspace Verschwender at Schwendermarkt, Vienna, 31 December 2014
Moritz and Wagner report on what was important in 2014: from terrorist attacks, work-life balance and zombies, to the Pet of the Year and the Circus of Horrors, amongst other things. Of course, there’ll also be confetti, sparkling wine and party hats, followed by a New Year’s Eve party.
AKTION AKTUELL 03 – Geld (Money)
Live from the Okto TV studio in Vienna, 11 March 2015
Moritz and Wagner interview the debt-ridden man, take a journey through the history of money in pop culture, report on smart mattresses, defensive architecture and Reinprechtsdorfer Straße – the Las Vegas of Margareten. Also featured: ›Being and Money‹, vegetable statistics and new trends in culture and sport.
AKTION AKTUELL 04 – Angst (Fear)
Live from the Okto TV studio in Vienna, 10 December 2015
This time the topics are fitness strategies, fences and dentists, docu-soaps and insurance against fear. Moritz and Wagner interview Sigmund Freud and the ›Sunday excursion‹ leads them to the media centre for the Vienna elections. Also: quota regulations, the new Toyota, the new French post-terror cuisine, Noah’s Ark, ›prima Klima‹ (great climate), and much more.
AKTION AKTUELL 05 – Work
Live from the Okto-TV studio in Vienna, 21 January 2016
This episode deals with doping in the workplace, precarious dirty work, child labour within the SPÖ, current do-it-yourself trends, and the abolition of sleep. There’s also a report on the New World of Work straight from Microsoft’s Vienna headquarters, as well as an interview with the ›Happy Unemployed‹. And of course, as always: Sunday excursion, sport, and last but not least: the weather.
AKTION AKTUELL 06 – Zukunft (Future)
Live from the Okto TV studio in Vienna, 10 March 2016
In the final episode of AKTION AKTUELL, Moritz and Wagner take a look into the future: The croissant will no longer be curved, the Mayor of Vienna, Michael Häupl surprises everyone with his ›Fun instead of traffic jams‹ concept, and refugees cross the Mediterranean without drowning. They report on the future of shopping, balancing functionality with emotional appeal; they switch live to the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, where work is underway to abolish cash; and, in an exclusive interview, they ask the future what it intends to become. In the end, everyone dies: »Perhaps whilst brushing the teeth, perhaps whilst eating a bread, for everyone will die: then everyone will be dead!«
Excerpt from AKTION AKTUELL 02 – The Year in Review
Excerpt from AKTION AKTUELL 03 – Money
Excerpt from AKTION AKTUELL 04 – Fear
Excerpt from AKTION AKTUELL 05 – Work
Excerpt from AKTION AKTUELL 06 – Future
End of AKTION AKTUELL 06 – Future
Click here for further items: the video feature DER ZAUN (THE FENCE) and the news report GAMMLER (BUM).
CLEANING UP! – 4 evenings about work
Performance / Discourse / Training
WUK Vienna, Main Hall, June 2013
Concept / Performance: Lars Moritz and Otmar Wagner
Work-out trainers: Daniel Aschwanden (1st evening) and Simon Mayer (3rd evening)
Special guests: Moonlighters Union (1st evening), Sabine Flick (1st and 2nd evenings), Rolf Schwendter (2nd evening), Marin Majica (3rd evening), Helmo Pape (4th evening)
A Moritz/Wagner production, co-produced with WUK Vienna, supported by the City of Vienna’s Department of Culture
A monstrous collection of texts, images, experience reports, fitness equipment, sketches, maps and actions provides the material for ›CLEANING UP!...‹. Over the course of four evenings, Otmar Wagner and Lars Moritz work their way through the material. Within the confines of a trash-inspired simulation of contemporary working environments, they explore a wide variety of facets of the theme together with their guests. The discussion ranges from a personal archaeology of work, through the question of whether a slave-owning society might, after all, be an option, to the erotic debate surrounding the punch clock versus flexitime. A simple question serves as a guide: What to do? This immediately raises a series of further questions: Why doing anything at all, rather than doing nothing? What not to do? How to work? How not to work?
The materials, questions and tools that have been gathered and organised into an analogue computer folder system open up possibilities that are realised situationally over the course of the four evenings – no two evenings are alike. Depending on where the work leads, this or that folder is opened, work is done on the assembly-line chute, a break is taken, the flip chart is scribbled on, little flags are handcrafted, or a workout programme is executed. There’s no way out of strikes and acts of sabotage. Also on the agenda: an office tour, the motorway, awkward postures in stressful situations and well-paid jobs for the audience.
Click here for the video essay TAG DER ARBEIT. Ein Erlebnisbericht (MAY DAY. An experience report).