3rd MovingFrames 2011

3rd Moving Frames Digital Art Festival, Mytilene, Lesvos

Concept of Festival 2011, 23-24 September 2011:

"The 3d Moving Frames Festival focuses its action on a specific space in the city of Mytilene, in order to express through the artists’ works the concerns that arise from this space. We selected the region of “Ladadika” in Mytilene through which we will try to create a frame not only for negotiating with the space but also at the same time for dealing with wider meanings that emerge from it.

The region of “Ladadika” used to be a vivid space that was mainly formed by commercial stores of soap and oil (where the name “ladadika” derives from “ladi=oil”). It’s located near the harbor and was immediately connected with the commercial life of the city. With the industrialization the space progressively began to limit its activities and small businesses were close or abandoned in the passing of time. Today some shops revive, mainly iron mongers, since it is an abandoned region in the center, which is used as space for illegal parking. Only certain cafes and abandoned buildings testify the commercial blossoming and the way of life of a period that has passed for good.

As Moving Frames acted in previous years finding spaces in the city beyond any commercial exploitation, once more it attempts to become familiar with spaces, to be inspired as much as possible by them and to make comments on them.

Considering practices that were applied in similar spaces in the cities of Athens and Thessaloniki, where regions as Psyri, Gazi, Metaxourgeio and Ladadika became a field of “reformation” through the market of cheap real estate, which consequently led to the change of the regions social composition, several questions arise that are related not only to the shaping of the space itself, but also to the economic and social practices that are applied in such cases.

We do not seek to refine and polish the space of “Ladadika” in our region, neither to change the space’s profile and its residents, but to highlight a transition, a character in suspense, which after all is one of the characteristics of this period, either economically, culturally, or politically. Accepting that “Ladadika” is an example of a general change-transition that takes place in public or private spaces, following the development rhythm of a city as well as in Greece and abroad and keeping in mind that in the middle of a transition like this, there is always a point that connects the two situations (before and after as we see the region of Ladadika), we call artists that deal with digital art forms to express themselves either in this space or to use it as a trigger. The meaning of transition marks this year the theoretical approach of the artists, that will participate, in transaction with the space.

Some storerooms will be used as spaces for the digital works, however at the same time we will use the exterior surfaces of buildings as canvas. Narrow streets of the region, corners and facades will be the field for artists to express themselves through picture, sound, text, video, interaction. The main objective is not to use the space as a gallery or museum but the space itself to become a basis for in situ projects.

 alt+ctr+del

Mytilene, Lesvos 2011"

Share this post