Collection of Festivals
The festival as an art project.
Organising a festival online was the consequence from the social activities and building networks between different art related parties, but in life thing mostly happen on coincidence.So it was in the given case.
Invited by a physical festival “Violens” in Czech Republik he created a virtual counter part online, eg. Violence Onine Festival, a complex project environemnt ongong for three years, 2002, 2003 and 2004. There were several project versions, the version 2003 on the topic of “War” was released on 20 March 2003, the day when the Iraq War began. The final version was released in the context of the global networking project [R][R][F] Remembering-Repressing-Forgetting 2004 which Agricola de Cologne prepared for the Biennale of Electronic Arts in Perth/Australia. Violence Online Festival was presented also in the context of many other physical festivals.
But [R][R][F] Remembering-Repressing-Forgetting was already the next project organised in an exchange between virtual and physical space, launched on 7 September 2004 in Perth. Like already explained, this global networking project was consisting of different Memory Channels, two of them, eg VideoChannel and SoundLAB became later independent media art projects after Perth.
SoundLAB can be also considered as a kind of festival, because it was numerous time installed at physcial festivals, but Soundlab released also the mediart exhibition “soundObjects” in the context of a media art festival in Valencia/Spain in 2008.
But Agricola de Cologne was particularly extensively active in the field of net based art. As the founder and curator of JavaMuseum, he organised a one year lasting online festival, entitled: NewMediaFest 2007 and later NewMediaFest 2010. Both online events required a permanent online presence, the way, how Agricola de Cologne mastered this challenge can be considered as a permanent online performance, including a large number of artists active in the field of online media.
The particular relevance of all these online festival was, like it has been in the case of JavaMuseum since 2000, curating virtual space, creating and designing exhibtion contexts in form of interfaces where the works of the participating artists were embedded in. But after 10 years, dealing exclusively with the online aspect, the times and with them the perceptions had changed, and the obvious future was lying in an exchange between virtual and physical space, a perception which he got also in the next following festival context.
VideoChannel formed not only the starting point of the curatorial platform for art and moving images running exactly 10 years until 2013, when it was finalized.
But VideoChannel formed also the basis for the next online festival – CologneOFF – Cologne Online Film Festival 2005, which was only planned as an online platform. But hardly released online, physical film festivals were intested to present screening programs curated by Agricola de Cologne, so that 2006/2007 CologneOFF festival changed its name top: CologneOFF _ Cologne International Videoart Festival – an alternative kind of festival withoput a static festival location – travelling instead all over the year around the globe to the best venues in collaboration with networking partnes in form of festivals and cultural institutions.
2010, Agricola de Cologne created a special nomadic festival project, which is currently running as CologneOFF nomadic, whereby the festival was travelling, but not its programs, because Agricola de Cologne prepared for all 30 annual venues individual screening programs, a challenging experimenting in curating.
2012, Agricola de Cologne was looking for another new challenge, because working with CologneOFF as a festival represented already routine. In order to find out, in which way his activities in the field of “art and moving images” would develop, he launched three new festival formats in the context of CologneOFF: animateCOLOGNE – Cologne Art and Animation Festival, 1minuteCOLOGNE – Cologne One Minute Film Festival and exDox – experimental Documentary film festival, three formats with a particular relevance in terms of moving images and art. This was the point, when CologneOFF was transformed from a single festival to an international festival platform. When in 2014, Cologne International Videoart Festival was celebrating its 10th anniversary the 10th festival edition was representing also the final edition. However, the videoart festival, as well as the other new festival formats were continued as categories in the framework of CologneOFF XP nomadic, dedicated to videoart in a global context.
In 2015, Agricola de Cologne created another event format for a local context, entitled: artvideoKOELN – audioviusal experiences, and in 2016, when the project of “Shoah Film Collection” was containing more than 100 art films, a new festival was founded rooted on “Shoah Film Collection”, entitled: d/i/light – Darkness Into Light Festival.
The latest festival context was launched on 1 January 2017, entitled W:OW Art Film & Video Festival, which is representing a corporate part of the global networking project “The W:OW Project – We Are One World – http://wow.engad.org
As it was outlined also a another place, Agricola de Cologne established a dual system consisting of virtual (online) and physical components with changing values. While the manifestation of the festivals in physical space is representing an essential aspect, the fundament will always represent the components in virtual space, complementing the physical events, as well as being archived in the respective museum department.
Violence Online Festival 2003
[R][R][F] Remembering-Repressing-Forgetting 2004
SoundLAB – sonic art projects 2004
CologneOFF – Cologne International Videoart Festival 2005
soundOBJECTS 2008
NewMediaFest 2007 2007
NewMediaFest 2010 2010
CologneOFF XP nomadic 2010
animateCOLOGNE – Cologne Art & Animation Festival 2011
1 Minute Cologne – Cologne One Minute Film Festival 2012
exDox – experimental documentary film festival 2012
artvideoKOELN – audiovisual experiences 2015
d/i/light – Darkness Into Light Festival 2016
The W:OW Art Film and Video Festival 2017