Jörn Hintzer and Jacob Hüfner are media artists and professors at Bauhaus University Weimar in Germany. Recently the two brought living, breathing vignettes of today’s frenetic, ‘heads down’ online-centric world to train goers traveling the 19 mile (30 kilometer) route through Germany’s Saale Valley. Their Bewegtes Land (Moving Land) performance art project was staged with the help of 400 volunteers from small towns along the rail line who worked together to present 50 quirky and eclectic skits for train passengers. The local performers had one hour to re-set and prepare after each ‘show’, making for a very busy couple of days during the last week of August for everyone involved in Bewegtes Land’s run. Their hard work paid off; people on the train had an excuse to put their cell phones away and look out a window for a change, not at a screen.
Culture
Germany’s Moving Performance Art for Train Passengers
The Moving Land art project featured a sneaky shark and long-distance runners out-pacing a train in the German countryside for one August weekend.
