intacta Ltd.
2006
The project is an ‘environmentalist hoax’ for which we adopted guerrilla communication methods in order to reach the South-Tyrolean population with a highly provocative news story.
The basic questions of the project
What, if the last areas of intact natural beauty in the Alps were fenced-in with a 5 meter high concrete wall?
What, if the access to these areas was exclusively granted to the wealthy guests of intacta Ltd. – Alpine Nature Resorts?
What, if intacta Ltd. was on the point of building the first “isle of intact nature”, complete with concrete barrier, in the Sarntaler Alps (South Tyrol, Italy)?
In order to reach the population with these questions, we set up the fictitious tourism company intacta Ltd. – Alpine Nature Resorts. The philosophy of intacta Ltd., the core of the action, had to be absurd and plausible at the same time in order to make the fake work well: the company fences-in the last areas of intact natural beauty in the Alps with a 5 meter high concrete wall and designates these areas to an elite of wealthy tourists, the guests of the wellness hotels situated along the limit of these isles of intact nature.
Conceiving the companies philosophy, giving it an appropriate CI and a website that imitated the look and feel of wellness resorts and providing it with valid contact addresses, were all part of the project as like this intacta Ltd. got so real that not even investigating journalists could find out about its falseness.
The tools used for the preparation of the hoax
1. The website www.intacta.org 
Sections: welcome, news, about us, press kit, contacts. All the provided information (contacts and about data included) prove the existence of intacta Ltd. and their falseness is nearly impossible to proof as we respond when the company is contacted.
2. Publication of the concept of intacta Ltd. on Un Erhört, a book about the future of the region
The book Un Erhört – Visionen des jungen Südtirols (Outrageous – Visions about South Tyrol), edited by Thomas Kager and Angelika Burtscher for Raetzia was the perfect chance to have the concept of intacta Ltd. published on paper. Marco Eggerz, the imaginary founder of the company, figures as the author of the essay. His CV was published as well.
3. The politician Hans Heiss as supporter
The South-Tyrolean politician Hans Heiss (Green Party) supported the action from the beginning: He played the role of intacta Ltd.’s contact person in South-Tyrol and published a praise to the company’s concept on his personal website and confirmed everything when investigating journalists contacted him.
4. Working official contact addresses (telephone, fax, mail, e-mail)
intacta Ltd. is based in Munich; the physical address exists for real. The telephone number (with Munich dialling code +89) was activated through a VoIP provider and we could answer the incoming phone calls from our pc, connected to the internet in Italy. Telephone number and physical address were registered at the on-line German telephone book and could be seen on-line.
The tactic to launch of the hoax
Once all the single elements of the hoax were put in place, through a well designed tactic of secret news about intacta Ltd. leaking through to the media, we made local journalists believe that intacta Ltd. was on the point of realizing its first resort in a South-Tyrolean natural park.
To do so, we composed a fake fax from Marco Eggerz (the imaginary founder of intacta Ltd.) to Christoph Engl (the director of the South-Tyrolean Marketing Company), in which Eggerz talks about secret negotiations with South-Tyrolean politicians and the realisation of the first concrete barrier in the region. 12 copies of this fictitious document were then handed over to the local media by an anonymous (non-existing) clerk of the South-Tyrolean Marketing Company, together with a protest letter in which the fake clerk complained about the ongoing secret negotiations.
The fake works
These news were shocking enough to the journalists to be published on the front-page of the Dolomiten, the most important regional newspaper (56.000-77.000 copies sold daily; about 250.000 readers) and on other local papers.
Press conference
One week after the first articles on the newspapers, we organised a press conference together with three tourism experts who supported the project and gave us feedback during the research phase. This, in order to explain the hoax, underline the message behind it and start a discussion.
The experts on our side were Hans Heiss, the local environmental politician from Bolzano, Duccio Canestrini, a tourism anthropologist from Trento and Paul Rösch, director of the Touriseum, the tourism museum of Meran/Merano.
A big thank you to our friend Arni Eggerz, who moderated the discussion.
This event was followed by more newspaper articles, making the discussion last for about 2 weeks.
This project was developed during the academic year 2005/2006 as final thesis at the Faculty of Design and Art at the Free University of Bozen/Bolzano and was supervised by Simone Krois and Kris Krois.
