Amalgam—named after a hard-to-separate alloy of disparate materials—is an interdisciplinary art project that already spanned three floors of Forum Stadtpark in 2024. What is often used for dental fillings in everyday life—a replacement for what has become brittle—here becomes a metaphor for collective production under precarious conditions: a temporary structure that does not cover up the cracks but flaunts them—with artistic diversity, social friction, and the luster of the unfinished. In an age of authoritarian pragmatism, in which Styria is leaning toward democracy at a right angle, Amalgam responds in the only appropriate way: with open processes, questions, and shared spaces. Against isolation and the pressure of representation: temporary connections and contradictions. In 2025, Amalgam once again focuses on the improbable and creates a place for collaborative work between resistance and escapism, an artistic reaction to a climate that is tipping—not only ecologically, but also socially. A festival as a hub of collective self-empowerment, a space of possibilities in which nonsense becomes systemic. Feel like participating? Reach out: info@amalgam.at

Good to be an offering is an installation that deals with the precarious situation of artists in Styria after the budget cuts in 2025. A dead deer hangs from the ceiling and bleeds out. A pump cycles the blood around the deer into a bucket and back - creating a closed system, a system that is self-referential. The anthem of Styria is projected on the body and follows the flow. From top to bottom. The anthem reveals a truth: That ideologies ooze through their symbols, institutions, buildings and songs. Sometimes they are hidden. The anthem Dachsteinlied is hiding in plain sight. The hymn consists of 4 verses but the original has 10 verses and can be found on the official website of Styria: https://www.verwaltung.steiermark.at/cms/ziel/74835831/DE/ The song with the text was originally presented in 1844 in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Styrian agricultural association which was founded by Johann von Österreich. It is at its core a mirror of its time: Hail the emperor, Hail the patriarchy. And in an unsettling way, through its representation and through the dynamics of power which are self-referential, it is also a mirror of our own time.

Performance for eggs and rubber band

Once we move beyond potential, there is no EGG. There is no going EGG is a performance that condenses change into an artistic act. The EGG, as a symbol for possibilities, has to move on, change, hatch, or get cooked in order to fulfill its potential. There is no such thing as being uncooked or unmade. The performance seeks to demonstrate this integral aspect of life. There is only forward. There is no EGG.

Audiovisual installation for two 6½-inch subwoofers and jersey foil.

The speakers play a sine tone that slowly rises in frequency over a time span of 100 seconds, creating waves that overtake each other. Although the input signal is very simple, the fabric patterns repeat themselves similarly over every iteration, creating a system of digital precision and analogue complexity.

Performance for 6 m jersey foil, multichannel system, and microphone.

Sound Waves is a transmedia performance depicting a specific location on the half island Peniche in Portugal. Here, nature has created its own organ: over thousands of years, the sea carved tunnels into the stone coastline. As waves enter these tunnels, they generate filtered white noise sounds, each delayed according to the tunnels' distances from one another. The composition draws exclusively from recordings of these natural sound chambers. Following the conceptual theme of waves, the performer creates undulating movements with fabric, activating a microphone concealed between two layers of jersey. This microphone acts as a sensor, controlling the composition's playback. Sound waves travel through the space, beginning behind the fabric and moving through the room at a speed determined by the performer's movements. Synchronized lighting follows the sound's path, amplifying the wave-like motion.

Installation-performance for heartbeat, feedback, fabric and 6-1/2-inch-subwoofer.

The work reinterprets the artistic tradition of self-portraiture through the reflective materiality of jersey foil. Using the performer's heartbeat as the primary sound source creates an intimate connection between body and image. The patterns emerge from the interaction between two speaker membranes and the fabric, constantly evolving over the two-hour duration. By consciously altering their breathing rhythm between fast and slow, the performer modulates their heartbeat, directly affecting the visual patterns. As the universal rhythm we all share, the heartbeat transcends gender, race, and culture, inviting viewers to see beyond these boundaries.

Gegenspieler is a performance for a mirror, stones and water

Gegenspieler was created during the exhibition "Im Sinn", where artists were given one week to respond to work created by another artist in the previous phase, forming an artistic chain reaction. Gegenspieler deals with the emotion of hatred and the compulsive expression of this feeling.

Sound installation for waterbubbles, two euro boxes, six air valves, and arduino.

Bonfire is an audio reactive installation responding to a six-channel rain composition by Anton Tkachuk. Air valves open in response to amplitude triggers, each connected to a corresponding audio channel, simulating rain.

Sound installation for populistic content, knife, gallows, strobe light, and 6½-inch subwoofer.

The sound material includes layered excerpts from speeches by Herbert Kickl, an Austrian right-wing politician known for his anti-democratic rhetoric. The audio has been filtered and spectrally shifted. Through the membrane movement of the subwoofer, a knife attached to a steel cable is set into motion.

Performative installation with ten fluorescent threads, 6½-inch subwoofer, black light, and instruments.

During the performance, fluorescent threads are spread out and attached to various points in the space. The threads are linked to the speaker membrane, which causes them to vibrate. Unused space is occupied and condensed. Decapus breaks down the spatial distance between the musician and the audience. The different lengths of the threads create unique resonances that can be observed up close.

Performative installation using drywall panel (L: 1300 cm, W: 900 cm), stepper motor, arduino, piezo sensor, and eight hammers.

A thought experiment: Can artificial intelligence soon be compared to a hammer as a normative tool? Monolog is a performative installation connecting analogue materials with digital control. During the performance, multiple hammers are working on a drywall. The physical manipulation of the material is reflected as a pattern in the rhythm of the robotic system. In this performance, a human seeks dialogue and confronts the monologue of the digital.

Patchwork Family is an electronic music duo consisting of Joseph Böhm and Max Reiner.

Patchwork Family is an electronic music duo consisting of Joseph Böhm and Max Reiner. They met during their studies of Computermusic and Sound Art at the IEM in Graz and quickly realized their shared enthusiasm for live music performance. In their work they question performative standards, incorporating improvisation in a club setting, creating interactive situations for the audience and working audiovisually.

Movement theatre with students of Stage Design and Acting.

For Evolution!, I created an interactive sound design that captured performers' movements via gyroscopic data, transforming physical gestures into synthesizer controls and giving each performer a sonic voice

Martin Woldan, professor for movement at KUG, worked with second-year acting students to create a movement theater piece. In this production, the young actors focus on physical expression as the center of their stage art. The theme "Evolution!" serves as a guide for a dynamic narrative that makes transformation and metamorphosis tangible.

Stage Design - Elisa Weiß

Installation for tuning fork (H: 57 cm), speaker coil, and woodbox (L: 76 cm, W: 49 cm, H: 29 cm)..

Magnetic Slumber is a participatory audiovisual installation — a sonic and social experiment. Visitors are invited to lie down with their heads inside the box and listen to specially composed textures, which are transmitted contactless from a coil to a tuning fork. The tuning fork amplifies frequencies close to its natural resonance and the listener experiences these resonances in waves, further enhanced by the wooden box. Magnetic Slumber doesn’t just play sound for the ears but for the whole body.

Group exhibition with students of Computermusic and Sound Art and Stage Design.

United in Isolation was created for the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space. The group exhibition explored feelings of isolation during the COVID pandemic, reflecting how we were physically separated yet technologically connected. To emphasize this contradiction, the entire room was wrapped in a layer of plastic. Loudspeakers were installed inside the building's walls, creating a muffled soundscape that suggested a distant, longing connection to the outside world.

Interactive installation for chess board, reed switches, and arduino.

Using the properties of a chess board, I created an interactive sound installation. Each piece triggers reed switches hidden beneath the board, activating notes of the C major scale. The gameplay area spans four rows (3 to 6), offering four octaves. The program plays sequences of the last four moves, creating an evolving melody that follows the game's natural tension and release. The musical experience emerges from chess's simple rules yet complex possibilities - a game with approximately 10^43 possible positions.