MACHINISTA 2003 REPORT
.
Pointless Creations travelled from Glasgow to Russia ( 9-22/04/03) to perform and research.
We participated in the Machinista Festival In Perm (Ural region) and club dates in Moscow.
We also documented the little known city of Perm ( published as a feature in Sleazenation magazine) and the Perm 36 Gulag museum - a camp which dealt with intellectual/artistic dissidents until 1986.
In addition we fulfilled our aims of getting to know the event organisers
(Sergei Teterin/ Danya Lebedev) in order to study their organisation model
and the impact of "media art festivals" as a regeneration tool
in isolated areas. We plan to organise a follow-up event in Glasgow next
year.
The group:
Pointless creation video performance artists are:
David Bernard, Will Adams, Rory Lowe and Jay Townsend.
The Festival:
Machinista is the first edition of a new type of media art festival almost
entirely curated online. The participants email their work to the site
(video showreels, artistic software or link to their own site), these
files are automatically uploaded into the gallery. The entries are compiled
on a CD-ROM.
The Perm arts centre(Telta: Telephone Factory Cultural Centre) hosted
a day of conferences, presentations, installations and a club event.
This year's theme was "faces of machinic ingenuity"
3 categories:
-machine as the artist
-machine as the co-author
-VJs versus visualiser software. (the category we entered)
Over 120 artists had their work exhibited through the site. In Perm and Moscow, the Machinista events featured talks, presentations, screenings, installations, performances and a club event.
.
The show:
The pointless Creations live set is as digital video/ music performance
using the Video Switchboard (homemade controller) to play sounds and image
simultaneously. Our music and graphic themes include many "machinic"
references particularly suited to the festival s theme. Our sets
were very well received and we found it easy to set up improvised collaborations
with Russian electronic musicians and video performers.
Saturday 12/04/03:
-Festival opening ceremony. Perm arts centre. Pointless Creations Wins participation award and Arkaos VJ software prize.
-3hour Performance at the Machinista club event.
Thursday 17/04/03:
-Club event organised by "Mewark organisation" music label in "16 tonns" Moscow.
Performance alongside Moscow s established visual artists and electronic musicians.
Friday 18/04/03:
-Machinista closing event. Dom arts centre, Moscow.
Collaborative performance with russian electronic musician "Lazyfish".
Field work:
-Visit of the Perm 36 Gulag museum.
Video session currently being edited into a new piece of work.
-Video documentation/ interview with Sergei Teterin (director/ curator)
and Danya Lebedev (Perm co-ordinator) currently being edited into Machinista
03 documentary/ Machinista 04 promo.
.
Publications:
- Web reviews on a number Russian sites:
www.machinista.ru/en
www.dom.com.ru/event/2003/04/18/
www.gif.ru/art/
andrius gallery
.
- 5 page feature/article about Perm/Machinista in the june 2003 Sleazenation
issue (Written by Graeme Bowman).
The future:
-Machinista 2004
We are planning to co-produce the 2004 edition of the festival with the
online part being organised by the Russian team, co-curated with UK-russian
artists and the final events to take place in Glasgow in april 2004.
-Break 2.2
festival (Ljubljana, Slovenia, 28/06/03)
-Kazantip festival (Ukraine, August 2003).
From contacts established during the Machinista festival.
-Pointless
Cinema:
installation/ experimental video/ live audio visual performances/ VJ-DJ
sets.
A new regular pre-club/ exhibition taking place at The
Chateau gallery (Glasgow) which will be the seed structure for the
upcoming festival organisation . In the near future, one of these events
will be dedicated to the Machinista festival, where our participation
was made possible by the Scottish Arts Council financial contribution.
.
And a big thank you to all those who helped us along the way:
Scottish Arts Council Funding:
Pointless Creations received money towards the costs of sending 4 artists to take part in the festival.
.
Related sites:
Machinista :
Scottish arts council :
Perm 36 gulag museum:
www.sitesofconscience.org/gulag.html
Article by Clem Cecil about Perm36
Oleg Novosselov' s rock-line(Perm promoter)