Margarethe Maierhofer-Lischka

My name is Margarethe Maierhofer-Lischka, I was born in Germany and live in Austria now since almost 10 years. If you ask me what I do, I would say I am a musician, researcher, cultural activist, curator and sound/media artist (in free order). In short, I would consider myself as a kind of „node-in-a-network-person”, since I am active at the crossroads of several disciplines and structures, and often my role is that of a communicator, thinktank or mediator.

I see contemporary music and art as a kind of empowering and self-directed, subversive practice, which is the reason why I work a lot with improvisation and found materials, give workshops and do collaborations to create performances and installations. Searching for feminist role models in a male-dominated field (I am a bass player by training), and getting in touch with the philosophy of open source and hacking has shaped my way of thinking. I owe a lot to Joelle Leandre and Charlotte Hug, with whom I studied.

In 2013, I founded an experimental music group, Schallfeld, with which I have been working as a curator, producer, musician and cultural facilitator since then. One of Schallfeld’s main concerns is to search for alternative ways of making music and art, and to create different formats to get into dialogue with people that have so far not touched contemporary art or music. Besides, I am member of several local collectives that work in the spectrum of interdisciplinary art and address political and educational issues. I love to collaborate with people from all fields, approaching current issues with creative means. The past three years, I have also been working in academia during my PhD, engaging in theoretical and critical discourses.

My main motivation for joining the RESHAPE program is to get in dialogue with other theoreticians and practitioners, to exchange ideas and build a further-reaching network that allows me to get input and develop new possibilities for future practice.