The Book - How it came to be

2017. An early summer’s day, a flirtation of warmth and balmy breeze. Helmi and I, colleagues from my time in Salzburg, sat across from each other on the main square in Linz, drinking coffee. I cannot remember our conversation in detail. But I started by asking her if she knew how important the film was. She looked at me. Nothing more at first. I think Helmi wanted to leave space. She wanted to find out what ‹Hätte Hätte Fahrradkette› [shoulda woulda coulda] had meant to me. She let me speak for myself. I told her how much I had been touched by what I had seen. She listened attentively. I argued that this way of teaching and learning was the future. It allows us to prepare ourselves for what we really need in life: empathy, reflection, cooperation, maturity, just to name but a few. Knowledge can be found everywhere nowadays. But the ability to communicate, to enter into dialogue with ourselves and others, to accept change and to grow – that’s the difficulty. But it affects us all! This cannot be reserved for the arts and humanities alone. The Lab Inter Arts’ holistic and interdisciplinary approach is one that is needed in all sciences and on all educational levels. It demonstrates and practices ways of dealing with oneself and with others and with strangers and with novelty.

«It’s a life lab», Helmi said. «Yes, exactly ... Yes... exactly! That’s why it’s political! Those that learn to deal with the realities of life in a creative way are less prone to fear or manipulation. They are more mature and freer, to the extent that freedom exists at all. And that is why» – I was getting emotional – «the arts, art education and the approaches that we see in ‹Hätte Hätte Fahrradkette› [shoulda woulda coulda] are essential and important. Art, performance, and its creative potential are all a lab filled to the brim with possibilities and fields for experiments and experiences from which we grow. This is all the more true when we fail, when we face resistance or are confronted with what’s unexpected». On and onwards we delved into the societal, socio-cultural, and political dimensions of the life lab.

We parted with a heartfelt embrace, united in the conviction of the necessity of the life lab and inspired by the thoughts we had exchanged. At that time, I did not know that this necessity seemed so urgent to me that I would, a few months later, decide to write about it.

(Book page E.15)