The European Bridges Ensemble was established for Internet and network performance. Its current members are Kai Niggemann (Münster), Marlon Schumacher (Stuttgart), Johannes Kretz (Vienna), Andrea Szigetvári (Budapest), Ivana Ognjanovic (Hamburg/Belgrade), Georg Hajdu (Hamburg), and Stewart Collinson (Lincoln, England), performing with Georg Hajdu’s interactive network performance environment Quintet.net.
Using the term bridges as a metaphor, our initiative makes an attempt to bridge cultures, regions, locations and individuals, each with their particular history. Particularly Europe with its historical and ethnic diversity has repeatedly gone through massive changes separating and reuniting people often living in close vicinity.

The first Bridges concert which brought together musicians from the former West (Germany and Austria) and East (Hungary) as well as a participant from Serbia (which is still some kind of pariah state in the heart of Europe) – all connected by the river Danube - has demonstrated the potential of Internet performance as a means to overcome national borders and political single-mindedness. The aim of the project is to further explore the potential of taking participating musicians and artists out of their political and social isolation by creating communities of like-minded artists united by their creativity and mutual interests. The focal points of the project have traditionally stood out as major centers of Central European cultural life and it is our aim to use digital technology to “(re)connect the dots.”