stattwerke was established 1995 by Astrid und Jürgen Arndt, Wolfgang Brodsky and mcddavid and located at the University of Hildesheim as an open laboratory for composers and improvisors of all kinds of art. From the beginning, artists of Braunschweig and Hannover joined the monthly meetings which were not a University course, but the cultivation of discussions was always wanted and accepted. To enrich the wide variety of approaches, it was always open to a public audience, and workshops were organised (for example with John Butcher, Ben Patterson, Annette Krebs, Andrea Neumann, Wolfgang Schliemann). In 2000 stattwerke moved to Hannover, and in 2013 EnnaWest suggested to transform it to a non-member organization which is based on abstract ideas and sublime dreams. It should be independent from a fixed location and social media. Interest groups of improvised literature (like The Fog Surfers and The Anonymous Stamp Collectors) were responsible for its coming-out as stattwerke international – most of its former members don’t live in the region around Hannover anymore.
As part of the programme, there will be another version of The Inauguration of the Metavirus (premiered in August at the Vortex in London); it is an improvised musical that invites all artists and the audience in the room to find and define their personal participation levels.
