Gabriele Edlbauer :
Peer Group

For my project at the state trade school in Mistelbach, I wanted to do something with the two programs taught at the school: metalworking and electronics. The project was also inspired by the obvious fact that the school boasts a fantastic armada of machines. However, I was also interested in another part of life at the school that takes place in the area with benches, where students meet during recess and after school to talk about metalworking and electronics – to talk shop about cable cross sections and fillet welds. It’s a place where they meet to get to know each other better and hang out during the short session of classes that lasts only a few months. Now students can hang out there with my own “Peer Group." The peers in my group, Betoni, Zilli, Flo, and Gregorius, are artists whose work I admire and who also happen to focus on metal and/or electronics as a main element in their artistic practice. All of these artists also happen to be in the process of assembling their own fleet of machines. However, they have to make do with what they find on eBay and willhaben [an ad website in Austria] and are at the mercy of tool and machinery dealers, meaning they get by, more or less. That’s all fine and dandy, but how great would it be to have just the right thing they needed? How cool would it be to have it Mistelbach style? For my "Peer Group," I therefore proposed a deal with the collaborating artists: I would get a machine from their collection, which I would embed in clear plastic in a form also taken from their portfolio, and I would add this to my group of sculptures at the school. In return, they would get a brand new machine to replace the old one but that would also more or less meet the high standards of the trade school. (Gabriele Edlbauer)

Collaborating artists:
Toni Schmale
Cäcilia Brown
Florian Voggeneder
Gregor Göttfert