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 Arts 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 up close.
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 Hendrix (Germany), Andreas Müller-Polle (Germany), Ken Rinaldo (USA), Ana Petrovic (Croatia), Carlo Zanni (Italy), Nico Angiulli (Italy), Klaus Obermeier (Austria) and the duo Varvara & Mar (Estonia). Among the Bulgarian participants in the programme are the young artists Axinia Peycheva, 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 framework of the Worth/Value project. The festival programme will reveal different aspects of the rich spectrum of this kind of
arts - digital video and photography, interactive performance and installation, audio-visual performance, virtual reality, streaming, three-dimensional mapping, networked
art, sound art, bio-technology, robotics and generative systems, etc.
interdisciplinary forms.
OPEN CALL
The organizers of DA FEST [8] invite artists from all over the world to submit original work to the festival's video art program. Proposals are accepted that showcase new perspectives and artistic interpretations, including experimental film, animation and other video forms that relate to the festival's theme.
The theme of the eighth edition of the festival is "e-valuation" - a play on words between the meanings of "value" and "worth". The inspiration for it comes from constant calculations, that make up the "life" of a digital work, which have the potential to turn one "dry" values into conceptual values. At the same time, "e-valuation" is a code message for multilayered reading of the concepts of value and worth. On the one hand, the nature of of digital artistic practices implies the handling of different values (e.g: environmental information data - real and virtual). On the other hand, we question about the values of digital art as a value commensurate with its innovation, social reflexivity, emphasized dialogicality with the audience, the environment and the community.
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS:
- Duration of the video - up to 20 minutes;
- A text file with a brief annotation to the video, the name of the author, year of creation, length and technical characteristics of the video material;
- A link to the video (uploaded to Vimeo, YouTube or similar platform);
- A short creative biography of the author (up to 100 words);
- A 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).
CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS
Become part of the eighth edition of the largest digital arts festival in the country by working in a team with the Bulgarian and international festival participants. DA
Fest 8 gives young people the opportunity to get directly involved in the preparation and running of the festival, while gaining new contacts and valuable knowledge and experience.
The festival programme includes exhibitions, audio-visual, theatre and dance
performances, video art screenings, lectures and presentations, creative workshops, concerts that present the diverse research and artistic practices in the field of digital arts. The festival is organized by the National Academy of Arts and the DA Lab Foundation. Curators are Venelin Shurelov and Galina Dimitrova-Dimova. In the framework of the festival artists from all over the world present contemporary artistic trends, research and technologies and showcase new advances in digital arts. The eighth edition of the festival will take place from 26 to 30 October 2021 at the Academy Gallery, ONE Gallery, Credo Bonum Gallery, Serdika Gallery and the gallery space at the Triangular Tower of Serdika at the Sofia Museum of Art and Culture and other art and culture spaces 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 hosting major international contemporary arts events. It is desirable that volunteers are fluent in English. Volunteers will work from 24 to 30 October 2021. The time is floating, and will work according to a pre-specified schedule tailored to volunteers' availability. Working as a volunteer is an opportunity to get a peek into the "kitchen" of a large 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 to: 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.