„Mobilise/Demobilise“ cyberformance von Eva Ursprung, Alexandra Gschiel und Helen Varley Jamieson + Open Improv Jam

Performance

For fifteen years now, Eva Ursprung and Helen Varley Jamieson have been working together on the cyberformance platform UpStage, while also being connected through the online community Faces. [1] From 2020 to 2022, Ursprung and Jamieson developed the EU project Mobilise/Demobilise as part of Creative Europe, which brought together artists from Germany, Austria, New Zealand, and Sweden. As part of this project, Ursprung also conducted research in Feldafing, which can be traced on the computer in the side graphics room of HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark.

Based on Mobilise/Demobilise, the local performance was created at the same time: the artists work with the texts and sounds created during the project, using mirrors to project text fragments onto the walls. The cyberformance takes place both analog and digitally, with the digital audience able to participate directly. This merges tangible bodies and digital projection, real and digital stages into an experience between reality and virtuality, in which light, sound, and pixels become a language that simultaneously touches viewers in physical spaces and transports them into virtual spheres, while boundaries between performers and audience, space and time, analogy and code become flickering transitions.

In addition, the simultaneous closing event of the exhibition The Art of Surfacing will be accompanied by an open improv jam from the Graz scene, featuring Madeleine Dietrichstein, Reni Hofmüller, Majda Krivograd, Michl Laab, Bela Pogosian (St.A.i.R.), Patrick Wurzwallner, Nikos Zachariadis, and others.

[1] Faces is an international online community of women in media arts, founded by Kathy Rae Huffmann, among others.

Artists

Participating artists

Solo and Group exhibitions, projects (selection):

Steirische Kulturinitiative (2025, 2024), kunstGarten, Graz (2025, 2021, 2016, 2011), Kunsthaus Graz (2025, 2021, 2012, 2007), prison wall Justizanstalt Karlau, XENOS & Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Steiermark, Graz (2024), Taman Budaya, Yogyakarta (2023), BACC (Bangkok Art and Culture Center) (2023), La Terminal Zawp, MEM Festical, Bilbao (2023), IMA Institut für Medienarchäologie, St. Pölten (2022), Künstlerhaus München, Munich (2022), Schaumbad Freies Atelierhaus Graz (2021, 2018, 2008), Steirischer Herbst, Graz (2020, 2014, 2013, 2006, 1999), <rotor>, Graz (2019), Gakerija ALU, Sarajewo (2018), Künstlerhaus Klagenfurt (2017), POST, Los Angeles (2016), Flux Factory, New York (2016), Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania (2015), Les Kurbas National Theatre Arts Center, Kiew (2014), APO33, La Plateforme Intermédia, La Fabrique, Nantes (2014), MAD Emerging Art Center, Eindhoven (2013), Literaturhaus Graz (2011), Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina / Institut für Kunst im öffentlichen Raum, Novi Sad (2011), Stadtmuseum Graz (2010), galerie wildwechsel, Frankfurt am Main (2008), Freiraum Transeuropa / PiroschkaREV, MuseumsQuartier, Vienna (2004), Cornerhouse, Manchester (2002), Laznia Center for Contemporary Art, Gdansk (2002), The Substation, Singapore (2002), Ottis Gallery, Los Angeles (1998).

is a digital artist, writer, theatre practitioner and producer. Her artistic work includes cyberformance, digital installations, playwriting and various collaborations, addressing social and environmental themes such as disposability, waste, water pollution, the impact of technology on humans and the environment, and feminist topics.

In 2003 she co-founded UpStage, an online platform for live online performance (cyberformance). Helen has a long involvement in feminist and open source networks, and is the “Web Queen” of the Magdalena Project (international network of women in contemporary theatre and performance). She has organised numerous online festivals and events, as well as theatre and performance festivals in New Zealand and Germany.

She holds a Master of Arts in cyberformance (QUT, Australia, 2008) and a BA in Theatre and English Literature (Otago, NZ, 1992).

is a photographer. After training in classical photography, she works across media with photography, video, installation, sculpture and textiles. From 2009 to 2021, she worked at Schaumbad – Freies Atelierhaus Graz, including many years on the board and in conceptual and organisational work. From 2022 to 2024, she worked at KiG! – Kultur in Graz.

Exhibitions (Selection): Residenz und Präsentation Saraiki (Liepāja, LV, 2025); Photo Graz (Altes Kino Leibnitz, 2022, 2024); Insurgent Flows (KiG! Kultur in Graz, 2023); and I – Alexandra Gschiel (KiG! Kultur in Graz, 2023); PLATFORMS PROJECT – Independent Art Fair (Athen, GR, 2021); Mobilise/Demobilise (hybride Performances, Graz, Malmö, online, 2021 – 2022); Zaungäste (Kunst im öffentlichen Raum, Graz, 2018 – 2019); We have a situation! (Furtherfield, London & international, 2013); Fronteras en cuestión (Havanna, CU, 2015).