How do artists intervene in everyday life? What strategies and forms of action do they employ? The project Mit sofortiger Wirkung — Künstlerische Eingriffe in den Alltag (With Immediate Effect — Artistic Interventions in Everyday Life) assembled interventions, performances and installations that took place in the public space — from Günter Brus’ Viennese Walk in 1965 up to Banksy’s current graffiti. The exhibition invited people to actively examine various artistic strategies of intervention und their intentions, aims and effects. In parallel, the artists Oliver Hangl, Marlene Haring, Maruša Sagadin, Anna Witt and the Institute for Everyday Research around Karlsplatz intervened in the everyday life of the Viennese: with especially developed works, routines were subtly subverted or the passers-by were once also directly addressed.

Oliver Hangl: La La La
With the acoustic, mobile guerrilla action, Oliver Hangl aimed at the unconscious perception of the numerous passers-by on Vienna’s Karlsplatz. More than 80 “agents” humming, whistling or singing, recruited by call, placed an earworm at this urban hub for a week. In the process, the acteurs individually and unobtrusively flooded the many passageways, gates and paths with a short, musical refrain, so that an acoustic loop emerged in the minds of the accidental listeners.

January 16 to 20, 2012 (daily from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.)

Marlene Haring: Mirror Holdings
Marlene Haring stood with a fulllength mirror in front of various shops in London and Vienna — as she had in 2007 with the performance Marlène derrière le miroir on the Paris Champs-Élysées. For three hours she then held a mirror in the middle of the entrance area of the Guerlain shop. The shoppers reacted in passing, but also turned directly to the artist. In London for example the security guards asked her to stop the action and next time to obtain permission. In Vienna, in reverse — people seemed to be afraid to look at their mirror image or to express themselves aloud.

Maruša Sagadin (supported by Chris Fladung): MC for you on the spot
Neither subtly nor discreetly but like a market crier, the artist advertises something we think we already know. The artist carried a homemade ghettoblaster as a sound object in public space and advertised it as a product of an undefined supplier. It was colorful, made of cardboard tubes, a bit jarring and hip, a bit trashy and urban. Street culture as it is, that was the motto. Passersby found it on wall projections, telephone boxes and windowsills, and were simply left to wonder!

Anna Witt: People in Front of Banks
Economic crisis, bank failure, speculative bubbles: the shortcomings of current financial systems risk throwing the current economic world out of joint. One has an idea of how the people who seem to be directly responsible for these processes work. But what about those who are rather indirectly involved in the situation? Anna Witt hired security personnel in front of banks as “think agents” and asked them to reflect on problems and alternative forms of capitalism. After closing time, she met them to talk about it live in front of a camera. The people involved remained anonymous. The video interview only shows their hands sketching details of their ideas on writing pads. The artist provokes examinations of one's own thought and action patterns.

Institute for Research in Everyday Life: And Suddenly…
In passing, passers-by find apparently lost purses on the pavement. If they pick them up, they discover a small amount of money in them and a card with instructions on how the money is to be used: “This is a measure by the Institute for Research in Everyday Life to enrich your everyday life…” A response is requested.
The intervention surprisingly but decisively subverted the everyday life of the finders. It encouraged them to break their current routine, made overcoming the inhibition threshold noticeable and reminded people of the question of how the availability of time and money conditions our daily procedures.