Shaping Public Space. Moving Cityscapes
The Screen City festival is dedicated to the moving image presented in public spaces, on the city`s facades, shop windows and urban venues enlightening and changing the vision of the urban context of Stavanger. It will take place for the first time from October 25th – 27th 2013. The program will experiment with the reshaping of public space through Media Art, presenting a program of video art, animation, creative data visualizations, projection mapping and participatory urban media interventions. Here the whole program: http://www.screencity.no/program/
The festival explores different perspectives on how we construct and deconstruct our city and most of all – space. From the spatial practice of everyday life in comparison to the representations of space, how we perceive our city – to how we conceptualize our city – through mapping, planning and the intellectualization of space.
The moving image: new cinematic experiences in public space
The moving image is a classic artistic medium for storytelling, which is currently experiencing a rapid change through new media tools. Its history shows the potential and power it has to visualize current tendencies, political resistance and poetic layers in everyday life. We believe it deserves its space in public, in the urban realm to catalyse change and progress. We believe in the cinematic experience outside the theatre room – not replacing – but offering a new format for the genre.
Stavanger – a city of change and development
The city of Stavanger is currently undergoing rapid city development, mostly driven by the wealth from the Oil business. Like most places facing rapid growth, it meets challenges of gentrification and conflicts of interests. Our point of departure, for both content production and sites for screenings, are those areas with development potential currently in the middle of an urban transformation, which we think need careful identity and community building.
Pedersgata street and Nytorget is an important focus of the urban development being a ”bridge” between Stavanger City Center and the growing east side. It still consists of several empty spaces facing future transformations. How can artistic interventions guide and support reflection on this process by giving a voice to different parties and ideas? What fears are there and what kind of city do we dream of and want to live in?
We have invited artists and filmmakers to reclaim the city, challenge the concept of public space and use it as a canvas for telling urban visions – to rethink, imagine, reveal, animate, transform cityscapes and revive Stavanger’s neighbourhood through the moving image.
Curated by Daniela Arriado (NO/CL) and Mirjam Struppek (DE)