Peter Troxler

In 2004 I talked artists in Aberdeen into founding urbanNovember, movement of urban culture. In return they talked me into becoming chair of urbanNovember. Together we held Aberdeen Urban Atlas and are now busy with Oil and the City.

In 2003, Adi Blum, Beat Mazenauer and myself founded p&s culture net : Netzwerk Kultur. This is a now international network of artists and academics with bases in Luzern (Switzerland), Melk (Austria), Aberdeen (Scotland) and soon Rotterdam (The Netherlands). We work on creative projects at the interface of analogue and digital culture and arts, of academic and popular formats, and of cultural, societal, economic and political domains, e.g. the EU-funded project readme.cc, the creation of The Virtual Library, a European forum for books and creates a readers community beyond all boundaries of language and culture.

In 1996 I helped draw together the over 100 independent actors, drama and performing artists in and around Lucerne, Switzerland, to form an association to strengthen the drama and performing arts scene. Two years later, in 1998, I was producing their first 2-week fringe festival in Lucerne with 16 shows from local companies, including a collaborative production that involved all the local artists. This association is still the most active regional branch of the Swiss Association of Drama Artists.

In 1994 musician/author/dramaturg Adi Blum, professional actor Michael Wolf and myself (lighting/production) founded zusammenstoss, a theatre company and production collective named after Kurt Schwitter’s libretto “Der Zusammenstoss”. Over the years zusammenstoss produced a variety of social and cultural events, performing arts projects (drama, theatre, performance etc.) and local arts festivals (LiOs, pulp). In 2002 zusammenstoss produced Translitterale, the literature section of the Swiss national exhibition expo.02.

In another part of my life I also help companies and local administrations to find solutions to new problems, e.g. how to sustain a viable local business in a globalised economy, how to transfer results from environmental research into business practice, or how to maintain the automotive supply industry in Switzerland. I received a PhD in Industrial Management from ETH Zurich and worked as a researcher at ETH Zurich and as a research manager at the University of Aberdeen.