Festivals in the Time of the Pandemic
The panel discussion focused on the forms, concepts, issues, possibilities, dimensions, environments, and circumstances of art productions, presentations, and festivals in “these” times. Collaborate, connect, transmit, use the Internet, share information and programs, upgrade, create, and operate in a ‘real,’ analog world and a ‘virtual’ environment. ‘Virtual’ as ‘real’ can be antagonism and at the same time a form of realization, performance, and placement of a work of art, project, a festival in the intertwining of media – physical, at events at venues, manifestations of live broadcasts, modeled in environments of various realities. The presentation and communication industry knows what it is doing. It uses all means to place itself on the market. We use them the same way. And we buy. What? Space? Time? Possibility? Work? Ideas? Contents? Shapes? Solely possibility, space, and time. Communications and presentations. Basic. No upgrade. This is what we offer: forms, ideas, content, and work. The virtual is the illusion of enabling new forms and contents, opening additional communication channels, and preparing technological environments for communication in various forms to accept them. The substitution or parallelism of worlds, human and digital, unites in a mix of effects. Therefore, live or online is not an option. Both and always.
Moderator: Peter Tomaž Dobrila, intermedia artist and producer, co-curator of the KIBLIX festival
Guests speakers: Ena Hodžić, program coordinator and curator, KONTEJNER and Device_art, David Riff, curator, steirischer herbst, Gerfried Stocker, founder and art director, Ars Electronica