SEEKing sights is a research project, carried out during five days in summer 2007 in the public space of Vienna.

The Gürtel is one of the main transit routes, dividing the inner and outer districts of the city. Due to its original concept, the Gürtel was planned as a place to take a stroll at the end of the 19th century. SEEKing sights tells the story of a traveller who is visiting Vienna for the first time and mistakes the tourist area with the Gürtel transit zone. The project deals with different questions of alternative temporary use of transit spaces, as well as forms of permeable urban development following the needs and impressions of an urban traveller, who is not taking part in the normative phenomenon of city tourism.

The research uses methods of performance, intervention and open workshops in the public space. The main results are the visualisation of research and fiction, including drafts illustrating an “urban traveller-vehicle”, a mapping of the Gürtel featuring non-commercial facilities and postcards.
The project was developed and curated by Pamela Bartar for PUBLICwienSPACE.net. Performance/ work–shop/ production: Eva Marina Strauß, Gerret Zehetbauer, Pamela Bartar and spontaneous participants from public space in Vienna. We would like to thank the Department of Urban Zoning of the City of Vienna for their support. [www.publicwienspace.net]