DA FEST [8]
The eighth edition of the international digital arts festival DA Fest will take place from 26 to 30 October 2021 in Sofia. The festival is organized by the National Academy of Art and the DA Lab Foundation. Curators are Venelin Shurelov and Galina Dimitrova-Dimova.
The festival programme brings together prominent artists from the international art scene and young artists. Many of the international participants are coming to Bulgaria for the first time, which gives the audience a unique chance to meet their art. The events at DA FEST 8 include exhibitions, audio-visual, theatre and dance performances, video art screenings, lectures and presentations, creative workshops, concerts that showcase the diverse research and artistic practices in the field of digital arts.
DA FEST 8's selection includes over 30 artists from different countries and disciplines, including Maurice Benayoun (France/Hong Kong), Jochem Hendricks (Germany), Andreas Müller-Pole (Germany), Ken Rinaldo (USA), Ana Petrovic (Croatia), Carlo Zanni (Italy), Nico Angiuli (Italy), Klaus Obermaier (Austria) and the duo Var & Mar (Estonia). Among the Bulgarian participants in the festival programme are the young artists Aksiniya Peicheva, Vladislav Iliev (Phormatik), Marina Genova, Veronika Tabakova and Yana Melamed, Ivelina Ivanova and Martin Lukanov, whose projects presented in the festival were produced earlier this year by the DA Lab Foundation within the project "e-valuation".
The festival programme will reveal different aspects of the rich spectrum of this contemporary art forms, like digital video and photography, interactive performance and installation, audio-visual performance, virtual reality, streaming, three-dimensional mapping, network art, sound art, bio-technologies, robotics and generative systems and other interdisciplinary forms.
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ОPEN CALL
The organizers invite artists from all over the world to submit a video art work, experimental film, animation and other moving image forms to the festival's program. Proposals are expected to present new approaches and artistic interpretations that relate to the DA Fest 8 theme.
The theme of the eighth festival edition of is "e-valuation" - a play on words between the meaning of the terms "rate" and "value". The inspiration for it comes from the constant calculations that make up the "life" of the digital work, which have the potential to turn some technical rates into conceptual values. At the same time, e-valuation is a code message for a multi-layered reading of the concepts of rate and value. On the one hand, the nature of digital artistic practices presupposes the handling of different rates (for example: information about the environment - real and virtual). On the other hand, we raise the question of the meaning of digital art as a value commensurate with its innovation, social reflexivity, emphasized dialogicity with the audience, the environment and the community. Digital art, as we summarize various interdisciplinary practices using nowadays technologies, goes beyond the use of computer systems for visualization, management and control, demonstrating its potential to reflect contemporary socio-cultural phenomena in a new way.
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS:
✔ Duration of the video - up to 20 minutes;
✔ Text file, with brief annotation to the video, name of the author, year of creation, length and technical characteristics of the video material;
✔ Link to the video(uploaded to Vimeo, YouTube or other similar platform);
✔ Short creative biography of the author (up to 100 words);
✔ High quality photo of the author;
✔ 3 photos of the work (with the same title as the video) in JPG or TIF format;
✔ Preferred video format: MPEG4 or MOV (PAL compression, H264).
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INVITATION FOR VOLUNTEERS
Be part of the eighth edition of the largest digital arts festival in the country, by working in a team with the Bulgarian and international participants of the festival.
DA Fest 8 gives young people the opportunity to get directly involved in the preparation and the running of the festival, while gaining new contacts and valuable knowledge and experience.
The festival programme includes exhibitions, audio-visual, theatrical and dance performances, video art screenings, lectures and presentations, creative workshops, concerts that showcase the diverse research and artistic practices in the field of digital arts. The festival is organized by the National Art Academy and DA Lab Foundation. Curators are Venelin Shurelov and Galina Dimitrova-Dimova.
Within the festival artists from all over the world present contemporary artistic trends, research and technologies and demonstrate new achievements in the field of digital
arts.
The eighth edition of the festival will take place from 26 to 30 October 2021 at the gallery Academy, ONE Gallery, Credo Bonum Gallery, Serdika Gallery and Gallery Space at the Triangular Tower of Serdika at the RHM-Sofia and other art and culture in the capital.
Volunteers will help at:
- welcoming and accommodating international guests;
- the technical preparation of the halls and other spaces of the festival;
- installation and uninstallation of the projects in the exhibition;
- preparing and running the workshops;
- assisting in the preparation of the performances, presentations and audio-visual
program.
We are looking for young, ambitious and energetic people who are interested in conducting large international events in the field of contemporary arts.
It is desirable that volunteers are fluent in English.
Volunteers will work from 24 to 30 October 2021.
The time is flexible and will be arranged according to a pre-specified schedule in accordance with volunteers' availability.
Working as a volunteer is an opportunity to get a peek into the "kitchen" of a great international event and become part of a community of active people involved in contemporary arts in Bulgaria.
Want to volunteer at the festival?
Send us an email with a short introduction and why you want to join the festival at dalabfoundation@gmail.com with "Volunteer" in the subject line.
Please also indicate which part of the festival you would like to participate in.
Send us the letter by October 20, 2021.
If you have any questions, email: dalabfoundation@gmail.com
Image and vision for the festival: Ivelina Ivanova
