“Nobody is going to look into that box anyway”, said Austrian federal chancellor Julius Raab, when television was presented to him in 1956. Being sceptical about the future of TV as a mass media, he assured continuous political influence on radio for his conservative ‘People’s Party’ and left television to the Social democrats.

When Wolfgang Schuessel became federal chancellor in 2000, he could finally reverse his fellow party member Raab’s false estimation. However, in the archives of the first 45 years of Austrian television, the OeVP (Austrian People’s Party) still does not look very well. That is where “The Great Television Swindle” begins: Schuessel assigns media experts maschek to go through selected programmes from Austrian TV history and to brush up and correct everything that the OeVP is unhappy with. maschek gladly accepts the bid.

“The Great Television Swindle” is maschek’s new show (stage director: Ed. Hauswirth, Theater im Bahnhof, Graz), following the series “maschek.redet.drueber”, a monthly 90-minute show on the heights and lows of television. maschek call their main technique “caraoque”: by editing television samples they create new stories, muting the original character’s voices and doing live dubbing.

maschek was founded in 1998 by Peter Hoermanseder, Ulrich Salamun and Robert Stachel. They did a weekly radio show for two years, more than 150 live shows, some 20 hours of “TV caraoque” programmes and a number of short films and TV productions, participating in numerous festivals including “Transmediale”, “Cinematexas” and “Antimatter”.Find out more about maschek on their website: www.maschek.org

maschek’s “The Great Television Swindle”
January 11th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 21st, 22nd
Rabenhof Theater, Vienna 3, Rabengasse 3.
starting time: 20:00
tickets: 01/7128282 or www.rabenhof.at