| Specific
kind of festival
Apart from the expansion of the traditional and highly-representative
European festivals, there appeared a large number of festivals of very
specific production forms. The specific of hEXPO festival is a critique
of existing central-european models, as observed by the its participants:
critique 1:
- festivals have mostly representation character.
They (re)present knowledge and art - they don't spread it.
Instead of representation, reduced and compressed in
time of a couple of days, the hEXPO festival presents events in their natural
duration. The participants can get to know each other and establish collaborations
between themselves and in the local space. Easy going schedule allows that
they grow into the local grounds and intensively take part into on-going
workshops, lectures and simposiums.
critique 2:
- international festivals usually present locally
less known or unknown practices. In this manner a large amount of resources
is spent on specific technical infrastructure, for which the local
activities have no knowledge or use and gets dismantled after the festival.
hEXPO festival provides the participants with relatively
standardized platforms, that are established before the festival starts
based on criteria, that it will function regularly in the local environment.
Participants will prove and provide knowledge of the best use under given
conditions and will adapt and translate their artistic practices. The combined
knowledges that they bring from their specific social backgrounds will
provide necessary knowledge of more effective social models of cultural
exchange.
hEXPO festival selection is based on the ideas of the
competent individuals about the needs of cultural developement of the local
area. As the festival activities are multiplicated in a couple of paralel
local areas, there are opportunities for comparison, adaptation and especially:
coordination of exchange, collaboration and expansion of activities. |
Original
principles
hEXPO festival aims at the '(w)holistic' self-education
of the most effective individuals - cultural organisers and artists, confronted
with all the new possibilities and needs to function. In this areas this
individuals, apart from the production of art&culture, have to take
care of their own technical means and infrastructure, archive their work,
promote and distribute their work, educate themselves...
The originality of hEXPO festival regarding the complexity
of combined knowledges is in the structural look upon the strategies
of cultural production, that by its nature do not conform to the existing
formalized models proposed by the 'main-stream' culture. Every segment
of culture has its margins, where research, experiment, innovation take
place, and especially the search for new social and organisational forms,
that might prove more in tune with the on-coming demands.
In this manner, hEXPO festival is primarily a festival
of new and original self-organising forms in the culture and arts, that
combines the various areas on the level of their patterns of function,
reproduction and teh strategies of survival.
hEXPO is therefore transgressing the genres as much as
it is transgressing the existing practices, with the view that margins
nowadays use the same technology, be it the high culture or youth culture.
The more marginal they are - the more they depend upon the rare individual,
and the more complete and transgressing should be the knowledge and approach
of those individuals in order to extend their activities.
Put simply: with hEXPO, we are interested to get together
those creative individuals, that - in order to successfully function within
their structure - have to create a complete cultural environment.
|
International
exchange
hEXPO festival approaches the relations between global,
universal and local, regional extremely actively. Internet will be
used especially as a tool to enhance the local cultural life but also as
an amplifier, synchroniser, that will launch the local activities into
the world and link them to the similar activities in the neighbouring regions.
hEXPO festival will establish the neccessary media platforms
for visual and audial transmission of performances, concerts, public debates,
as much as it will establish an audio-visual conferencing system among
Graz, Maribor, Ljubljana, Koper and Trieste, which will enable regular
international communication. The key performing spaces will be linked together
by way of an electronic announcement board, which will allow for the synchronisation
of events and a better use/ productivity of visiting projects, from all
the areas of humanistic, cultural and civil life. Such coordination of
events will effectively increase the number of visiting guests, appearing
in this region, as much as help the better distribution of local projects,
that will be able to exceed their local limits and join into the international
distribution networks.
Pekarna in Maribor and MKC in Koper already have the infrastructure
that enable the realisation of a project which goes into definition of
independent production, be it a concert, dance, theater or multimedia performance,
installation or exhibition, cinema or video projection. So-far Ljubljana
does not have a similarly equipped performing space, so we will focus on
Metelkova, that they reinforce the infrastructure and organisational structure.
We want to encourage especially the forms of co-production among the various
places, with a view that this would allow the independentent producers
to be able to more effectively perform the coordination of visiting projects.
Maribor (Kibla, Pekarna), Ljubljana (Metetlkova, Kapelica, Ljudmila, Kino-Uho)
and Koper (MKC Koper, Pina) - they all have seasoned organisers and long
traditions. |