PFF Salon ^{【AUT-GER】}

PERIPHERIES – Seen from the Edge

Thomas Köck, Brigitte Rath et al.

At the PFF Salon, we’re exploring why the periphery is always the more interesting place – not just geographically, but also in social, temporal, and aesthetic terms. In peripheries, meanings shift. They’re zones of unstable mixtures, volatile and shadowy. What exactly do we want – and what should – be brought to light from the peripheries? What’s better left in the semi-darkness? What support do peripheral spaces offer to art, especially to a festival called Positive Futures?

These questions will be discussed – alongside Renate Plieseis (PFF) and Jakob Häusle (20er) – by author Thomas Köck and literary scholar Brigitte Rath from the University of Innsbruck.

Thomas Köck works at the intersection of text, stage, music, and film. His plays aren’t self-contained dramatic texts, but rather interdisciplinary open fields – for exploration, for sound, for disruption. They layer the vanishing lines of capitalism, climate catastrophe, class affiliation, and political absurdity. Köck was shaped by music and studied philosophy in Vienna, as well as dramatic writing and film at the Berlin University of the Arts. He worked with theatercombinat wien, was invited to Berlinale Talents with a documentary film project about Beirut, was a resident playwright at Nationaltheater Mannheim, blogs with colleagues on nazisundgoldmund.net against the right, and develops concertante readymades with Andreas Spechtl [Ja, Panik] under the label ghostdance. In 2024, their collaborative work evolved into a band, which expanded to include Katharina Ernst, among others. His texts are published by Suhrkamp Verlag, most recently Chronik der laufenden Entgleisungen (Chronicle of Ongoing Derailments, 2024). He also writes for radio and opera; for example, the Tiroler Landestheater will stage the music theater piece missing in cantu – eure paläste sind leer [Austrian Premiere – Music: Johannes Maria Staud, Libretto: Thomas Köck] in spring 2026.

This event is a cooperation between Positive Futures Festival, Wissenschaft & Verantwortlichkeit and 20er – The Tyrolean Street Newspaper.