Bubble: Main event
Venue: Litharitsia Park, Zalokosta 21, Ioannina, Greece (map).
Opening: Thursday, October 11, 17:00.
Duration: 11-14 October 2018

Bubble main event booklet programme – download in PDF:
https://bowb.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/BOOKLET-Bubble-Programme.pdf

Good things happen when you narrow your focus. Welcome to the Biennale of Western Balkans.

Bubble, Inflatable Art Installation

The temporary space of Plastique Fantastique is monumental, yet mobile, soft and transparent. Its ephemeral skin influences the surroundings as much as its inner space offers a lucid view outwards.

For the Biennale, the Bubble becomes the central stage of its event programme.

1. Ethnofest (Screenings)
Thursday 11, 20.30 – 21:30

The Festival’s aim is to maintain its status as one of the most original and creative events in Athens’ cultural file, wishing to introduce the best works of visual anthropology to its audience.

The Athens Ethnographic Film Festival, presents the best ethnographic films of each yar which are the product of research conducted by scientists of visual anthropology or relative fields. It also organizes seminars, talks and workshops with directors, academics and accomplished professionals

(For the Biennale the Ethnofest has curated a programme of films related to intangible cultural heritage.)

Related links: https://www.ethnofest.gr
https://www.ethnofest.grw.facebook.com/athens.ethnographic.film.festival

2. Voices in Limbo – Soundtrope (Screening & Music Performance)
Saturday 13, 22.00 – 23:00

Soundtrope is a sound and visual arts festival based in Ioannina. Its main purpose and key features are the experimentation and the innovation of modes of expression.

The festival develops an interesting program with live music performances by artists of the experimental, avant garde, ambient, noise, electroacoustic domestic music scene as well as special acts of various art fields.

(For the Biennale, Soundtrope Festival is commissioned with presenting a film screening followed by an original sound performance linking polyphonic traditional music to electronic sound.)

Related links: https://soundtrope.com
https://www.facebook.com/soundtrope

3. A Priori Dance (Dance Performance)
Sunday 14, 12.00 – 13.00

The new project of A Priori Dance co. entitled ‘form.at’ is a duet for two performers (Eleonora Ilia and Maria Papadopoulou) which dives into the wealth of tradition and draws inspiration from the folk legend of ‘Tou gefiriou tis Artas’ (the bridge of Arta), while peeking at the Theater of the absurd and the Rhinoceros of Eug. Ionesco, examining the function of the individual in any given social-historical context

A choreographic allegory about the endless construction and deconstruction of human relationships, the contradictions which unite and separate us, the social utopia.  ​ ​

(The performance ‘form.at’ is funded by the Ministry of Culture and Sports in Greece. It is a proposal for the Biennale by the Municipal and Regional Theatre of Ioannina and part of its Dance Week Programme.)

Related links: https://www.delta-pi.org/format
https://www.facebook.com/pg/aprioridanceco/about/?ref=page_internal

4. post global recordings showcase (Sound Performance)
Thursday 11, 22.00

An in situ live improvisational sound project of producers and musicians Toni Dimitrov and Martin Georgievski (Amplidyne Effect). post global recordings is a platform for music and sound focused on ambient, drone, field recordings, post classical and other related aesthetic forms. Finding the inspiration from art, music, nature and technology it-self, the project always tries to push the boundaries of sound or just rests in the nest of the niche.

Filled up with layers of field recordings and synthesizers, this live session takes you through a lo-fi auditory landscape journey. During the live, a generative spectrum of sounds is being formed, from long improvised sessions and recordings live on, with an arbitrary selection of instruments ranging from prepared instruments, field recordings & samples, synthesizers, electronics, piezo microphones, and other types of “odd” instruments. For those who enjoy silence, the sound of nature, soundscapes, field recordings, 12k, Rural Colours, Home Normal, Preservation…

Related links: http://post-global.com
http://ampeff.com

5. WhoLoDancE (Research project and Performance)
Friday 12, 20.30 – 21.30

WhoLoDancE is a research and Innovation Action funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme. It aims at developing and applying breakthrough technologies to preserve the cultural heritage related to dance and to promote dance learning through the use of immersive and responsive advanced motion capture technologies, EMG and bio-sensors, to transfer dance movements into digital data.

(For the Biennale the Wholodance project will capture the performance of an expert traditional dancer and will demonstrate their applications to the audience through a presentation.)

Related links: http://www.wholodance.eu

6. P2P Lab (Talks & Workshops)
11 – 14 October, see the analytical programme below

P2P Lab is an interdisciplinary research collective focused on technology and the commons. In recent years P2P Lab is piloting, through a series of activities, the production model called “Design global, manufacture local”. This model is based on the convergence between the digital commons in design and the local infrastructure and tools that exist in makerspaces. P2P Lab is affiliated with P2P Foundation, an international organization respectively focused on the research and advocacy of the commons.

(For the Biennale, P2P Lab members curated a set of talks and workshops on topics around the commons, new technologies and contemporary approaches to intangible cultural heritage.)

Related links: http://www.p2plab.gr/en
https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Main_Page
https://primer.commonstransition.org

7. Music as Memory: Storytelling by Chistopher King & Nenad Vujić
Friday 12, 22.00 – 24.00

Christopher C. King is a Grammy-winning producer, musicologist, and avid 78 rpm record collector. His book ‘Lament From Epirus: An Odyssey Into Europe’s Oldest Surviving Folk Music’ is an autobiographical novel that traces a unique genre back to the roots of musical creation itself.

Nenad Vujić is a Serbian music researcher, who’s research method and exposition practices come largely down to storytelling or, as he calls it, logography (literally: writing down words). His programme at the Centre for Cultural Decontamination in Belgrade was focused on cassette DIY experimentalism with the title ‘Sound Logography’.

Christopher King and Nenad Vujić will guide through an open participatory narrative event, while playing a set of rare recordings -unique musical, narrative and sound discoveries- of the Western Balkans’ cultural heritage of the everydayness, setting out that music isn’t just for listening, it’s for experiencing through communal experiences.

Related links: https://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks/christopherc-king-compiles-epirotic-folk-songs http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Lament-from-Epirus
http://ahogonsindustrialguide.blogspot.com

8. The OX (Screening & Performance)
Sunday 14, 20.00 – 21.00

The OX is a multi-awarded contemporary animation feature film directed by George Nikopoulos. The film combines stop-motion technique with contemporary dance, traditional shadow theater and live cinema, through an innovative approach with the use of digital media. The OX builds on a modern political allegory that reflects on the current global socio-economic crisis, inspired by King Mida’s ancient myth.

George Nikopoulos has researched the affinity of animation and shadow theater through his dissertation in the Department of Audio and Visual Arts in the Ionian University.

(The project is a proposal for the Biennale by the Ionian University, Faculty of Music & Audiovisual Arts. George Nikopoulos will present The OX through a screening of the film.)

Related links: http://bauboproductions.com/animation
https://www.lifo.gr/articles/cinema_articles/175316