Ark in the Part

Villa de Riseis, Pescara, luglio 2009

Introduction

During the weekend of july 9-12 Pescara will host a festival involving 30 students coming from different countries, to contribute and exchange on artistic practices as well theoretical discourse. The students are encouraged to expose their artistic productions and integrate their visions and languages in a multi-faceted Mediterranean environment, interacting with a local and global audience.

"Ark in the Part" is a Mediterranean art-camp involving students from different places to meet, develop and show their creations. It will unfold during a week of practical and theoretical exchange on themes like radio making, media design, recycling and cycling, involving art practices flowing in public spaces and social networks.

This event is co-organised with a collaboration between the cultural association "La Grotta dell'Elfo" focusing on game cultures and the foundation "dyne.org" focusing on free software and new media art. It will host a concert, a theatre representation and a role playing game tournament, while the art-camp concerning this document will be a complementary space for exchange, presentations, hands-on workshops and a laboratory for installations and performances.

The artistic installations and presentations are facilitated and selected by a committee of local practicioners, following a cooperative and inter-disciplinary approach to artistic direction: Denis J. Roio (media art), Andrea di Cesare (installation art) and Piero di Silvestro (performative art) are blended in action by the producer Elisa Petaccia.

This draft is a call for participants to confirm their presence and contribute ideas for the initiative, initial coordination will be via e-mail.

Art left abandoned

In recent times Pescara has been theatre of controversial urban plans, hosting many unused buildings and spaces within the city. The most important art festival is Fuori Uso, held since many years (resisting, with difficulties) exhibiting various international artists in abandoned urban structures, trying to re-activate them somehow. Another recent festival capable of bringing over several electronic artists is the PEAM.

As of now and despite being very succesful, both these festivals aren't able to continue their activity. The most recent metaphore of the decaying of art in Pescara: japanese artist Toyo Ito was called to make a statue in its main square, it costed a million euro and it broke down in half a year.

In this festival we don't intend to hide these problems: celebrating a good image of our city would be extremely naive. While we embrace the rethoric of Arte Povera rather than that of excess, our focus on artistic creativity will be dedicated to recycling practices, grass-root production and participatory community interaction, to specifically address existing problems and to propose a new approach for their solution, hopefully leveraging the participation and impact of cultural activities in a Mediterranean city like Pescara.

Location

The city of Pescara counts more than 120.000 inhabitants, growing up to almost a million people in the summer, when lots of turists, mostly Italians, come to have holydays on the beach. The "entertainment industry" is well developed in the city, dense of pubs and kilometers of beach are privately owned by Stabilimenti, including disco and restaurants activities.

Below is a map of the park:

VILLA-DE-RISEIS.jpg

And some pictures of the spaces http://korova.dyne.org/ark.in.the.part/

Outline of activities

Radio Oltranzista

We will experiment with micro-FM radio transmission in the park: everyone is invited to bring a small radio and place it near a bench, on the trees, on a bycicle, and sit with us in an improvised radio studio, to re-invent the art of making radio in the third millennium. With us making radio in the Ark will be the media artist and philosopher Federico Bonelli.

The idea behind Radio Oltranzista is simple: produce a radiophonic event using crossing media platform. We thought about it not from the format point of view but from the content one: the people and the things they want to say have to make the method and the tools to be used. Then embed this radio flowing from the bottom to the sky into a festival to be able to broadcast in FM.

Broadcast to a media that you ear in the traffic or while cooking, without computers or invasions of your space. A so called “not yet fashionable media”. Radio: open to casual contacts, as any radio should. Technologically easy to make and to be used, perceived as a close thing, a wisper, in the era of screams and invasion of privacy. Radio from any media, in any time, and that you might be able to call-in if you find your way to it, if you are motivated enough!

http://www.radioltranzista.net

Video Art

The Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMK) hosts one of the most important video-art catalogues in Europe and kindly supports our event offering a selection of works from international artists.

We will screen short videos by various artists distributed by the collection at NIMK

(list of exibited artworks ready next week)

Recycling meets design

During the days of the event the park will stage an open flow of art interventions using low consumption electronics and mixed media installations: after an initial workshop with all students invited (6 july) we will start a collaboration with local artists and artisans, recycling will meet design as various found materials will be employed to immerse the visitors in an inspirational media-scape armonised in the park.

Any contribution referring to the collective process of reconstruction after a catastrophy is very welcome: Abruzzo, the region where the city of Pescara is situated, has been badly hit by an earthquake this year and many people are still suffering from it. With creativity and invention we hope to inspire more practices that can empower and motivate our community in this hard task of reconstruction.

Darko Fritz

A full evening in the projection space will be dedicated to the presence of Darko Fritz: he will personally visit Pescara and contribute to our initiative!

Darko, originally born in Split (Pescara's twin city on the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic) is a media artist, curator and graphic designer who studied architecture at University of Zagreb and art media at Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. He worked with reproductive medias and technology in artistic and cultural context, working with video since 1988 as TV virus and computer generated environments. He is a founding member of artist groups Cathedral (1988), The Imitation of Life Studio (1987 - 1990), Young Croatian Electronic Films (1991) and The Future State of Balkania (1998).

Involved in various on&off-line networks (Syndicate, Spectre, Nettime, Culturenet.hr ...), Darko curated exhibitions 'Culture of graphic design in the Netherlands' (1999), 'I am Still Alive' (internet art and computer art fom sixties, 2000), CLUB.NL (art and art networks from the Netherlands, 2000), 'Lights from Zagreb' (interactive light installations, 2001) and <dis.location> (2003). Darko Fritz compiles the first overview of media art in Croatia (since 1960s) also as editor for culturenet.hr web portal.

Cyclown Circus

A workshop will be held by Piero, member of the artist collective Cyclown Circus, illustrating their last trip on tallbikes around the world, lasting 3 years from Roma to Yogyakarta, across all Eurasia.

We will discuss ecological issues, bicycle cultures around the world, slow traveling as a form of performative art, watch photos and listen to sounds recorded by this amazing group of gypsyes. Piero is also a tallbike artist and we'll have an occasion to learn more about his art.

Logistic Briefing

So far so good, we hope you like it and that you will actively contribute to all this

The time-line follows, please help us be punctual and contact us in time!

* 3 june

all participating students must be confirmed, along with a short description of artworks and at least a statement of interest

* 15 june

all press material for the event will be printed: contributions are frozen by that day and full range of necessary information will be made available for flyers and posters

* 4-5 july

suggested day for arrival in Pescara. Please note that since 3 july will be activated a new cheap fly route to Pescara from Eindhoven and more airports. If you can, please act fast and reserve your flight ASAP! we will reimbourse it promptly.

* 6 july

first workshop for participating students in Pescara

* 9 - 12 july

Ark in the Park, day and night (and very close to the beach :P )

For any further information at this stage of things you can contact us via email: jaromil@dyne.org and elaiza@gmail.com

Thanks! a thousand flowers will blossom!