Stadtverführungen in Wien (Mis-Guide in Vienna)

This output investigated the concept of 'Mis-Guidance', a recurrent focus in the practice-as-research work of Wrights & Sites since the collaborative group’s inception in 1997; Persighetti is co-founder/core member. In conjunction with Tanzquartier Wien and Wiener Festwochen (Vienna Festival), Wrights & Sites selected, led workshops for and mentored Viennese artists, culminating in a series of public events/performances in June 2007 (see published programme detailing all events). Core areas for exploration here included: relationships between text/body/image and site/architecture/cityscape; journey and narrative; personal and public material. Wrights & Sites led tours through the city, responding to personal, found/gathered, fragmentary and questionable material, whilst encouraging strategies of playful subversion in relation to the Heritage or Municipal frameworks employed in conventional guided tours.

Having framed the final pieces of work under a collective title, 'Vienna Mis-Guided', Wrights & Sites invited artist-participants to create a 'mis-guided' work for a chosen site or journey through the Viennese cityscape, drawing from their own practices: e.g. choreographed scores, discrete artist-led walks, meetings in unusual places, work with new/locative media, provocations taking the form of maps, apparently mislaid personal letters, lists or timetables.
An expert jury from the disciplines of sociology and urban planning (Anette Baldauf), cultural philosophy and anthropology (Herbert Lachmayer), composition/music (Bernhard Lang),and architecture (Bärbel Müller) selected 16 projects from 140 Mis-Guide proposals submitted by Viennese artists. Wrights & Sites mentored the development of projects during a three-week working process; performance events took place throughout the city. This festival of events was previewed with a presentation by Wrights & Sites, and a lecture by philosopher and chair of the Da Ponte Institute, Herbert Lachmayer, on ‘Walking and Talking into Existence’.