Folklore Museum Graz

mur.at association celebrates its 25th anniversary with artists

Artist Reni Hofmüller, founding member of mur.at, has a short appearance at the festival(Bild: Martin Gross)

The Graz-based association mur.at, which provides artists with free space on the Internet, is celebrating its first 25 years on Friday (August 23). The party starts at 6 pm at the Graz Folklore Museum under the motto "25 years - 25 people". Admission is free!

Styria not only has a rich cultural life, the organizers also have a very special place in the World Wide Web at their disposal. For 25 years now, the mur.at association has been offering an affordable refuge for all those who do not want to submit to the control of the big Internet companies.

Alternative to Google & Co.
mur.at was founded in Graz in 1999 by Jogi and Reni Hofmüller, Winfried Ritsch and Wolfgang Reinisch as an independent and above all non-commercial alternative to Google & Co. The platform uses free software and open source and offers server space for websites, email addresses and cloud solutions. But mur.at is much more than just art or the cloud. An important component is, for example, the sharing of technical know-how.

mur.at is now used by around 400 members - according to the motto "Pay as you can". SoMiBe is the name of this model at mur.at - a solidarity membership fee, to be precise. The annual costs of around 24,000 euros are covered in this way.

25 years - 25 people
All of this is a good reason for a proper party, which honors above all those artists, activists and technicians who have decisively shaped mur.at. Winfried Ritsch, Nicole Pruckermayr, Evelin Stermitz, Reni Hofmüller, Mark Pietkevicz, Helen Varley Jamieson, Eva Ursprung, Anita Hofer, Seppo Gründler and many more offer anecdotes, music, media art, performances and happenings every 10 minutes. The DJs will then take over from around 10 pm.