Mind the Fact 2020 – We need more space
In the midst of a pandemic, the second mind the fact festival is coming to the internet in 2020, inviting audiences on an online tour of a festival “microcosm”.
This year’s theme, “we need more space”, deals with the concept of space: digital, physical, personal, social, interstellar.
In these unprecedented conditions of social coexistence, people living in different parts of the world are joining their voices to create.
Refugees living on different continents meet in a shared theatrical rehearsal on the internet. Our homeless fellow citizens talk to us about their own confinement over the phone.
Native Americans are reclaiming their land, while European citizens are sending messages of solidarity and writing music for democracy.
Artists everywhere are exploring new ideas and new ways of reaching their remote audience.
In the summer of 2019, while looking for the theme of the next mind the fact festival, we accidentally came across a t-shirt on the shelf of a department store somewhere in Europe.
In its print we saw the title of the 2020 festival: “we need more space”.
From then until today, we have made and canceled our plans many times.
Keeping our eyes on human stories, we have been forced to widen our gaze and watch the great, broader history of humanity as it is being tested by an unprecedented condition.
The concept of space in all its manifestations – personal, social, natural, cyber – is more relevant than ever.
We designed a festival, from and for the internet, together with a group of bold and tireless artists from all over the world. We hope that this way we open our gaze until the moment we meet again.
Wednesday 16 December
A video of shadow play, an atavistic animation featuring figures from our shared present, past and future that are demanding more space. A small repeating clip, like an ice cream cone consumed right before entering the summer theater!
Is the mouth solely responsible for communicating and connecting the body with the world? A diigital lecture from the mouth of an absent body.
A trivia quiz aimed at the unknown.
This digital, audiovisual, first-person experience in 3D conveys the anxiety and despair of people living in isolation, as well as their longing for contact and coexistence.
An XL music playlist that expands our musical horizons in search of more space.
The radio producer of Thursday Night Live (amagi.gr radio), Paris Mexis, curates this collection exclusively for mind the fact
Thursday 17 December
A phone call: “Hello, what’s going on?” A short film inspired by the communication with the salespeople of Shedia street magazine and by the search for a new space dedicated to companionship and coming together.
A work of internet art that takes a critical approach towards the issue of fake news reproduction and the growing tendency of technological applications reinforcing gender stereotypes.
At once a participatory photography experiment and an original postal Exhibition,which invites the audience to converse with 7 Indigenous women from the New Mexico desert through a game of words and visuals.
Friday 18 December
A collective record. A group of people observe and capture invisible heroes of everyday life, unfolding of associations and unanswered questions.
Can we listen to their thoughts for a moment?
The creative adventure of a theater company faced with the adversities of the times.
A recording of the rehearsal process in preparation for a production of
The Suppliants by Aeschylus. Theater, music and movement join forces through video conferencing platforms to create a performance with an unknown premiere date. From the Musical Arts on STAGE Young Performers group.
An experiential workshop, with the participation of young girls from
different countries currently living in Greece, with the objective of cultivating attention, active listening and creative viewing, using a notebook as the only means of recording the sessions.
The girls will present the contents of the workshop in the form of an art exhibition and will talk to us about their experience on camera.
Saturday 19 December
Marius is alone in his room with a bed, a desk and a computer.He shops frantically.
A video that satirizes and lampoons our ever-evolving relationship with the space that we live in and with the objects that we surround ourselves with.
An audiovisual VR experience. A vehicle capable of taking us through space and Time reveals the greatness of a world beyond the boundaries of planet earth.
Sunday 20 December
Brief encounters between immigrants and refugees from three different continents that wouldn’t be able to meet otherwise. Spatial and linguistic barriers are overcome in a live streaming performance that uses video conferencing systems as artistic platforms.
Allothroe Europe: The Voice of a City / Polyphony
An interactive tour of a virtual city. This work includes texts based on stories and testimonies of European citizens. At the same time, texts posted by viewers on social media appear within this virtual environment, creating a collective and multi-faceted narrative.
Allothroe Europe: Echo for Democracy
A sound gallery,made up of new musical works. Starting with the artistic research on the rise of fascism in Greece and Germany, as well as the recent conviction of Golden Dawn, artists from both countries use original musical works to join their voices in opposition to nationalism and in support of non-negotiable democratic coexistence in Europe.
A video installation and a booklet, in the form of a single unified internet project.
Citizens and members of various communities from Greece and Germany talk about the many different faces of “Solidarity”, a notion which seems more imperative than ever in our time.
The project, presented at the Ruhrtriennale Festival in Germany in 2019,has been reconstructed in order to reach an even wider audience via the internet.
Communications Advisor: Paris Mexis
Production Management: Vicky Strataki
Production Assistant: Daphne Chasourou
Production: POLYPLANITY Productions
Allothroe Europe Production: Electropera.tors
