(Traces of Tyranny, Spectres of Resistance)

Monstrous construction projects and their human sacrifices in the cities of Austria and Germany are not the only evidence of the Nazi tyranny. Rather, there is a smaller “topography of terror” all around, and often right under one’s own nose. This is also the case at the Paranoia TV Headquarters in Herrengasse: the business that once occupied these premises was forcibly Aryanized in 1938, as were many other shops in the city center of Graz. Nothing remains today to commemorate such events. How do you deal with such lost traces? What are the differences between artistic and historiographic approaches, and what do they have in common? What is the European history of iconoclasm against monuments, as it was often committed by Nazis, Ustasha or nationalists, or in the case of the removal of Lenin statues, stipulated by Ukrainian law? And what kind of visualization of historical traces in urban space would be worth striving for? Heimo Halbrainer and Hito Steyerl discuss these and similar questions live in Herrengasse and on Zoom.