On the Autonomy of the Intervention Christian Hasucha Interventions are not to be included in the usual rituals of art presentation. The classic art product has a convergent development, receiving at a temporal and spatial point an intended form. From then on it is perceived by its audience and distributed or stored. Interventions appear unsuitable for exhibition openings, not least because of their procedural character and because they occur in everyday, urban spaces. The throng of invited art lovers turns out to be a foreign body at the intervention site, newcomers are only able to gain a distanced overview of the intervention’s components and its sphere of influence. The incidental perception of puzzling things and events remain reserved for passersby and residents. The first signs of the intervention, its progression, the reaction as an involved viewer, the gradual adaptation into the everyday or the induced, sudden disappearance of the strange in the simultaneous opening of a gap, all this remains closed to the arriving short-term onlooker. My discomfort, and that of other interventionists, in regard to the ‘invasions’ of art lovers at opening events and on art tours can thus be explained. Circumventive concepts were developed, including: The anonymous intervention. Interventions and additions are realised, unannounced and unlabelled. An example is ‘Expedition LT28E’, a one-year-long working trip through the border areas of Europe in which the ‘audience’ consisted of random passersby and the work for each respective community was left behind to make use of as desired. The guided intervention. The intervention is realised with participants. This participatory group is gathered through an initial letter asking the addressees to be witnesses or users of encounters, implants or additional equipment in their environments. ‘Public’ is again produced through casual newcomers. If the intervention group is established and it is identical to the audience group, the initially referred to distance in fact disappears. However, the constituents mutate into a closed event. It must therefore be documented for outsiders. Documentary exhibition (e.g., the use of gallery and museum spaces as an archive or information centre for the interventions realised elsewhere) are currently quite common, but often leave behind a somewhat nasty taste if the information might just as well have been transported through print media. Relics, furniture or props used in an intervention have, at best, a fetishistic quality; helped by a museum-like aura, attempts to ennoble them as artistic goods are not uncommon. The documentation’s role in this must be considered separately. The commissioned intervention. A third form of intervention is the commissioned, approved, operating within approved parameters - and the art tourist is drawn into a special image - sequence of changes (e.g. JETZT II with topping-out ceremony, PULHEIMER ROCHADE with inspection image). Here, the cooperative agreement with the project sponsors, craftsmen and other contributors is decisive for the success of the work. However, because the openness to act beyond quota thinking and outside entrenched structures is rarely encountered, this form of intervention does not happen often, but obviously has more and more supporters. During the preparations for PULHEIMER ROCHADE, for example, the cooperation with civic leaders developed into a fascinating discussion and decision sequence in which, step by step and highly concept-based, the final appearance, the feasibility and the potential effectiveness of the intervention were balanced out. As a counterpart to the prevailing ‘Disneyland-isation’ of art, the intervention, in the forms described here, is as effective as ever. It is comprehensive, aesthetic, perceptible, direct and able to be experienced in its multi-faceted manifestations, but only by casual observers, residents or participants. As a commodity it is no good at all. It is rather a posing of questions.