WAGNER-FEIGL-FORSCHUNG/FESTSPIELE was founded in 1996 by Florian Feigl and Otmar Wagner. Their work encompasses lectures, performances, installations and publications. Wagner-Feigl attracted international attention above all with their lecture-performance ›The Encyclopaedia of Performance Art‹, for which they were awarded first prize in the ›Performing Science‹ competition organised by the ZMI (Centre for Media and Interdisciplinarity) at the University of Giessen in 2007. An essay on the duo’s history can be found here (PDF), and publications on the encyclopaedia here.

HYPEROBJECTS? Wagner and Feigl are working on it…

SOPHIENSÆLE Berlin, February 2020

Concept / Texts / Objects / Sounds / Performance: Florian Feigl & Otmar Wagner
Object construction / musical consultancy: Ole Wulfers
Video consultancy / documentation: Christopher Hewitt
Production management: Marit Buchmeier/xplusdrei, Leoni Grützmacher

A production by Wagner-Feigl-Forschung/Festspiele in co-production with SOPHIENSÆLE Berlin and WUK performing arts Vienna. Supported by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin and Department 7 – Culture of the City of Vienna. Media partner: taz. die tageszeitung
Photos: © Christopher Hewitt

In the canteen of the Sophiensæle stand two halves of a car: as both a luxury item and a political issue, the car is a powerful symbol of climate change, capitalism and much more besides. But what is it, when it stands right in front of you? In the light of the car’s headlights, parts are removed and reassembled, windscreen wipers dance across the room, and Wagner/Feigl find themselves hypnotised by the rhythm of the indicators. Their experiment explores the major conflicts of our time on a material level, discovering a poetry all of its own in the process. As a prologue, Wagner/Feigl solemnly cross the threshold between the outside world and the theatre space with their car parts, creating an initial environment. Over the course of four evenings, they then present different focal points of their research work.

The performances scheduled for late March 2020 at WUK Vienna (WUK performing arts) were cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The car parts and objects, which had been stored in the meantime, were scrapped in autumn 2020.

WHAT IS THEATRE?

A theatre performance for people aged 12 +
Theater an der Parkaue, Berlin, 2007

Konzept / Texte / Objekte / Sounds / Performance: Florian Feigl & Otmar Wagner
With the help of: Ulrike Hanstein

Eine Produktion von Wagner-Feigl-Forschung/Festspiele in Koproduktion mit Theater an der Parkaue Berlin
Photos: © Christopher Hewitt

In WHAT IS THEATRE?, Wagner and Feigl emphasise the equal status of the symbols and devices used in theatre. There are no hierarchies between the different levels of symbolism: space, light, performers, text, sound, imagery and costumes interweave to form a single texture. Through their own observations, the audience experience how meanings are created and, in the very next moment, transformed. They learn that there is not just one message, but several equally valid interpretations. Through an introduction to the elements of theatrical language, their various functions and possibilities, the theatre opens up to the audience as a space offering diverse interpretative possibilities, exciting detours and promising digressions. Wagner and Feigl see their project as a sensory School of Seeing.

THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF PERFORMANCE ART

Lecture-Performances, 2002-2008

Festival ›bone 11‹ – Schlachthaus Bern / FFT Düsseldorf / Vienna Festival – ›into the city‹, Vienna University of Technology / ›Unfriendly Takeover‹ – Frankfurt am Main / Theaterdiscounter Berlin / Symposium ›Performativity‹ – University of Copenhagen / Free University of Berlin / International Theatre Congress, Hildesheim, and others

Concept / Scripts / Performances: Florian Feigl & Otmar Wagner

Since 2001, Wagner-Feigl-Forschung has been working on the development of a comprehensive encyclopaedia of performance art. With this project, Wagner-Feigl-Forschung adopts a strictly material-based, non-hierarchical approach to performance art, grounded in performance practice. The authors do not analyse individual performances in their unique complexity, but rather distil the individual components of each performance. They systematically group these into action- and material-based categories. Based on all the materials used and actions performed to date, the project of Wagner-Feigl-Forschung enables a comprehensive description and analysis of this hybrid art form. The publication of the Encyclopaedia of Performance Art will thus serve as an indispensable reference work for both academic analysis and performance practice.
In their performance lecture, the authors outline the encyclopaedia’s systematic structure and demonstrate how the enormous impact of performance art on almost all areas of socio-cultural life is documented and illustrated.

QUO VADIS?

Preliminary studies for a festival, various locations, 2001

Concept / Performances: Florian Feigl & Otmar Wagner

»We launch ourselves into outer spaces. From there, we watch ourselves as we walk through a supermarket and stock up on essentials – including petty thefts and the one or other non-essential item. QUO VADIS fills us and could be the name of the boundless whiteness beyond the door. But nothing has been paid for yet. We pass the time until the next work of art. We can hardly bear it. This feverish and purposeful expectation holds a few surprises in store. With wire brushes and nail combs, we work on ourselves conscientiously until the time has finally come. We become data and can truly travel.«