A temporary space in which new exhibition concepts for leading-edge works of art take shape and invite those entering it to engage in intensive communication, dynamic exchange, and experimental production.Two artists, Michel Fran�ois (B) and Erwan Maheo (F), have designed a space that subtly reflects the various different levels on which it can be perceived and interpreted - individually, collectively, reflexively, and creatively. The exhibition space crystallizes here into what is tantamount to an experimental space to accommodate human behavior and action.A wide variety of projects being presented throughout the festival's run bring out the space's many different aspects and features: 'Parallel Agents', a pilot project with Leveln, who are collaborating on a critical network link-up of material and immaterial spaces and impressively demonstrate the potential of state-of-the-art reportage in the Internet, as well as a live Web-casting project on-line daily that will be interweaving the performance programs of the festivals taking place simultaneously in Graz and H�rouville. There will also be an exciting array of artistic presentations ranging from the tributes to Shelly Silver, Odile Fillion and Marina Grzinic, to fascinating works by Sabine Bitter/Helmut Weber and Heinz Klopf. Additional features include a number of roundtables and late-night talks with Robert Fischer, along with performances - such as Des Rives by Yann Beauvais and Thomas K�ner - which confront visitors with exceptionally unusual visual and tonal spaces.

Michel Fran�ois

The renowned Belgian artist Michel Fran�ois has collaborated with the Graz Biennial on Media + Architecture to install in the Thalia festival center a dynamic spatial environment in which a number of different forms of artistic expression collide.Michel Fran�ois juxtaposes computers, electronic images and sounds and merges them into a spirited composition that subtly reflects upon technology, media and mediatized society. Order and disorder - superimposition and connection - the active transformation of sequential processes blocks any attempt at classification into hierarchies.The visitors to the installation and their actions occupy the focal point of Michel Fran�ois' artistic activities. Here, the boundaries between real, virtual and staged spaces are nullified, and visitors are invited to discover their own spaces anew in a highly personal manner.

Graz meets H�rouville

From Thursday to Saturday, the Media Lounge will offer a live feed from the Festival Rencontres Vid�o Art Plastique in H�rouville, Normandy which is taking place at the same time as the Graz Biennial on MEDIA + ARCHITECTURE. Two events in totally contrasting contexts - Graz, a cultural center with a rich history, and H�rouville, a city that was built from scratch only three decades ago. In the focal point of the live conferencing link-up between the two festivals will be the question of differences as well as shared features in their intentions. Thus, the opportunities opened up by the Web will impressively illustrate the possibilities of modern communications.