Transitions Online_Around the Bloc - 20 September
News: Kovesi’s EU job; a new art space in Tallinn; Georgian presidential pardons; the Moldovan laundromat; and anti-LGBT violence in Ukraine.
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News: Kovesi’s EU job; a new art space in Tallinn; Georgian presidential pardons; the Moldovan laundromat; and anti-LGBT violence in Ukraine.
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The inner discord between belonging and non-belonging has been the germ of many outstanding artistic achievements by authors who feel part of Polish culture.
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When the coronavirus emptied streets and city centers, people found a retro solution to social isolation: drive-in theaters.
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„The Planet of Lost Dreams”, part of the „Tele-Encounters” Creative Europe project, is performed simultaneously in Romania (Buzău) and Spain (Murcia) by Romanian and Spanish actors, with audience in both spaces. It tells the story of a family separated by migration: the mother has gone to work in Spain, while her husband and little daughter have stayed in Buzău. The performance is telematic, as it was built on the online interaction of actors located thousands of miles apart, connected in real time via video-conferencing and Kinect-controlled digital animations. The article analyses the „levels of organization” of this telematic performance, borrowing Eugenio Barba’s terminology: the narrative dramaturgy, the dramaturgy of the space, the actor’s dramaturgy and the spectator’s dramaturgy, to which it adds „technology’s dramaturgy”. It also proposes an extension of the notion of telepresence in the context of telematic theatre and a re-examination of the dramaturgical role of technology in dramatic theatre. How do you build a telematic performance from ground zero, integrating technology to tell a coherent story?
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This paper presents an artistic research developed in 2018 starting from the Deleuzian concept of space-whatever as a nonmathematical, emotional space. The space-whatever can be encountered in the modern cinematography of Antonioni be it the deserted, abstract space, the so called space of the void, or be it the emotional, noncartezian space, the so called space of the colour, in the films of Godard. The present research extended the use of the concept to the large sphere of contemporary visual art (performance, installation art, video art). Two groups of students (one from the National University of Arts, Bucharest the other a mix from the University of Bucharest and the National University of Theatre and Film „I.L. Caragiale”) were involved in the concrete construction of a series of such emotional spaces of fear, passion, joy or contemplation.
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Contemporary scenography is in the process of reconfiguration, using technology as the main instrument of artistic creation. Means of the new visual artistic language are: movement, immersion, interaction, testing of perception. Digital worlds tend to unite arts in a single means of communication. Web culture is a new aesthetics and digital technology leads to the emergence of hybrid fusion in the performing arts. The main feature is the mix of real elements and virtual elements, and the dissipation of boundaries between them. Digital scenography is associated with digital imaging and the use of techniques 3D modeling, scenography from light, interactive screens, video mapping projection, animation techniques, virtual reality, augmented reality, virtual sets, or holographic illusions.
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Cinema, although it is one of the newest architecture programs (appeared in the early twentieth century), has seen a rapid and continuous evolution of unexpected complexity. The history of cinemas, albeit relatively short, becomes a true story of glory, decadence and reinvention, somehow similar to the scenarios of films projected on its screens. The complexity of this history has been determined by a wide variety of factors: the development of technology, the evolution of architectural styles, the changes in the public’s way of life and taste and, finally, the cinema’s commercial side.In the city of Cluj, since 1910, there have been 14 historically documented cinemas. Of these, 7 are still working today and the 8th one is near the end of a rehabilitation and reopening process. The large number of functional cinemas make Cluj a special and happy case among the other cities in the country, which are suffering from the lack of functional halls.Of the 8 functional cinemas, four examples were selected for this study, each of them relevant for a different era: Arta Cinema - the pre-war period; Victoria Cinema - the interwar period; Cinema Florin Piersic (Republica) - the communist period and Cinema City Iulius Mall - the contemporary period. The opportunity to study 4 cinemas from different epochs, operating in the same city and sharing the same cultural sphere and the same public, enables us to do analyzes and comparisons with a significant degree of relevance.The history of the four examples will be briefly presented, highlighting the most important moments from opening to the present. Their current situation will be analyzed by highlighting the way they function and are being managed, the networks they are part of, the problems they are facing and their degree of adaptation to the requirements of the current public.The comparative analyzes will be made from a variety of points of view: architectural, urbanistic, social, operational, and cost-effective. These comparisons will also be based on a series of analysis sheets done by the author in the last two years of study at various screenings and events hosted by the four cinemas.
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The article illustrates the way in which it is necessary to use technology in exhibitions from art museums. I shall analyze the means through which the institution, respectively the public is mediating the artistic act through digitalization, virtual medium and social media. When the public is emotionally involved and is distributing information regarding the works of art in the online medium, the showcase of the cultural object is done efficiently and rapidly, but out of the museum’s control. In order to reach this goal, I shall be taking three exponential parts into consideration. Firstly, I shall present the types of art museum collections existing internationally and nationally, which already are using technology in their curatorial style. The preliminary conclusion shall investigate whether this approach was able to bring an improvement to the museum experience or to the level of participation. In the second argument I shall focus on the impact that the new manner of museum exhibition has towards fulfilling its basic functions, stipulated in the legislative act that institutionally authorizes it. The art museums that already make use of technological ways of distributing information shall be taken into consideration. The preliminary conclusion shall encase a hypothesis regarding the long-term advantages existing for the art museums that are going to utilize information technology in the future. Lastly, I shall argument the necessity of this approach in the visual art’s museum exhibition, for maintaining the institution at contemporary expectation standards. Finally, I shall conclude with deciding upon the attractiveness criteria that a museum acquires when using new media of broadcasting information.
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„Into myPlanet” is a multimedia conceptual performance created by the Romanian Association of Women in Art, Inter-Art ansamble and Augmented Space Agency in partnership with Cinetic and it embodies virtual scenography, dance, film and electronic music. As a whole, this complex opus by composer Mihaela Vosganian is inspired by Kabbalistic Annual Planetary Cycle, Hindu and Hellenistic phylosophies, and mythologies combined with real frequencies of planets and stars recorded by NASA.„Into myPlanet” has evolved on stage as multimedia show, during the contemporary music festival Meridian 2017 in Bucharest, Romania, as well as experimental film proposed by the Romanian Cultural Institute to be projected in the Planetarium of Beograd, Serbia. This ongoing development may result in different products such as multimedia theatre dance show, experimental film series, planetarium show and VR content.At the moment, the creators have finalised four of the seven moment of the entire Planetary Cycle – HelioSun, Lunar, Mercurian and Jupiterian, which are analyzed in this article. These are to be continued with Mars, Venusian and Saturnian, as the Annual Planetary Cycle is formed out of seven figures: Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn. The creation of the video art was inspired by the music and its history which has been a guide through the process from the beginning until the end. This article will explain, from the point of view of a filmmaker, the process of the artists when combining myths and archetypal rituals with the possibilities of tehnology today.
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The study entitled „Choreography for Camera”, on the history of dance in the experimental film, was undertaken as an initiative to identify and develop projects that the Film Faculty and the Theatre Faculty, respectively the Department of Choreography, of the „I.L. Caragiale” National University of Theatre and Film could do together. A salutary dialogue, dare I say, if we take into account that both arts directly share the visual characteristic of their representation. This initiative arises as the 21st century announces itself, from its debut, thanks to the amazing technological development in multimedia, to be one dominated by image and sound. In this sense, a retrospective look at the development of the relationship between dance and film is imperative, not an easy endeavour, but one full of revelation. The purpose of this study, through its theoretical basis, is to support the development of original projects made by the students of the two faculties.
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The (TV) Theatre and the Sacred is the main subject of my PhD thesis, a theme through which I will now look at the creative possibility of the three main elements: Actor - Director - Audience, the dimensions through which, following the sacramental thematization of the new televison theatre, these can forgive, save. I have often spoken of the possible salvation of the media as well as of those who produce or receive such messages. It's not just a mystical pedantry. This is my faith backed by centuries of religious writing - and not only - through which art is an opportunity for salvation. The famous Parable of the Talents from the New Testament shines a light from Ancient times on my conviction.
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To educate others, it is necessary to be yourself in a continuous preparation and to be open to new teaching methods.To educate through the theater requires a single thought of love and opening to its world. Children need little to create much, their imagination is endless and nourished by playing. So let children play, play with them and turn classes into joy.
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Review of: Via regia – 800 Jahre Bewegung und Begegnung. Katalog der 3. Sächsischen Landesausstellung, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Görlitz 21. Mai bis 31. Oktober 2011. Hrsg. von Roland E n k e und Bettina P r o b s t . Sandstein. Dresden 2011. 395 S., Ill., Kt. ISBN 978-3-942422-34-5. (€ 7,95.); Menschen unterwegs. Die via regia und ihre Akteure. Essayband zur 3. Sächsischen Landesausstellung, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Görlitz 21. Mai bis 31. Oktober 2011. Hrsg. von Winfried M ü l l e r und Swen S t e i n b e r g . Sandstein. Dresden 2011. 240 S., Ill., Kt. ISBN 978-3-942422-33-8. (€ 20,–.). Reviewed by Vera Henkelmann.
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A distant image of a boat adrift in the Mediterranean Sea, with thirteen refugees on board. Taken from a YouTube clip, the image is dealt with and stretched in slow motion. The unsynchronized soundtrack is composed of faceless voices of migrants and refugees. The fragmented soundtrack and the“processed” still frame repetitive image underscore that Havarie [Collision] is a documentary which engages not only with the refugee question. It also reflexively questions the conventions governing the representation of suffering in the media. While the visual image is undermined, the voice assumes a significant role. Thus one’ attention is drawn to listening to voices expressing their traumatic experiences of migration. The human voice is perceived as an inner expression of trauma, a vehicle that embodies ethical significance (Caruth, “TheWound” 8-9; Dolar 86) Jacques Derrida talks of specters that haunt Europe, spirits whose evasive presence cannot be controlled nor silenced (xix). Hamid Naficy shows that exile cinema emphasizes the voice, different languages, and accents (18-38). It undermines the hegemony of the picture and modernity, and moves towards the acoustics of exile that mixes the pre-modern and post-modern. I would like to argue that the divide between image and voice has ties with Jean-François Lyotard’s concept of le différend – a term relating to languages that never meet and are untranslatable, as long as one language enforces itself on and silences the other (13). In addition, I would like to connect the film’s faceless voices with the ethical concepts of Emmanuel Levinas: he intertwines the term “face” (le visage) with “the said” (le dit) and seeks a moment of epiphany through face or language (that are not necessarily visual or verbal), a moment which impels us to listen and arouses our ethical responsibility toward the Other (Totality; “The Saying” 5-7). I suggest that the film’s faceless world, where thirteen men wait for a rescue that never arrives, forces one to reflect on one’s blindness and deafness while watching the Other.
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Hanno Höfer is a musician, film director and producer of German origin born in 1967 in Timişoara and now living in Bucharest.
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The conductor of “Bodra Smyana” Boncho Bochev has been actively involved in the issues of music education in Bulgaria for four decades: he teaches, organizes teacher training courses, writes textbooks and school curricula. Through his choir he sets a successful model for working with children’s voices, which also contributes to improving the quality of singing in the classroom. Bochev has taken concrete steps to improve the qualification of teachers. He provides them with the opportunity to work with a more extensive repertoire and achieve higher results in vocal work with students. These systematic efforts for proper vocal work, for emotional and expressive singing in the classroom are the subject of interpretation throughout this text.
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Radio programmes for children were among the earliest activities from the beginning of Bulgarian public radio and within the structuring of a nationwide radio programme. Children’s radio hours on a regular basis were a natural stage for Bulgarian writers, composers, actors and other performers. New works had premieres to be then published in books, collections of poems or made into musical performances. The programmes featured concerts, poems and various music genres realized by school choirs, orchestras or soloists. The Bulgarian Radio in its capacity as a cultural institution actively produced original children’s songs. The article deals with the history of children’s music radio programmes in the said decades, bringing to the fore the contribution of certain figures in the field of culture and music. Dimitar Nenov was the first music editor of the Bulgarian Radio in the 1930s. Gjurga Pindjurova, Ivanka Miteva and Petar Raykov sang live. Composers Parashkev Hadjiev and Yossif Tzankov (in the 1930s/1940s) as well as Petar Stupel and Alexander Raychev (in the 1940s) among others, contributed to children’s radio programmes.
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Hans-Georg Gadamer defines the hermeneutical problem as “universal” in the field of modern philosophical hermeneutics, meaning not only the problem of language, but also that it “encompasses all of the Greek-speaking religious realm as art-religion as a way to reach the Divine in the flexible response of Man” (“die ganze griechisch-heidnische religiöse Welt mit umfaßt, als die Kunst-Religion, als die Weise, das Göttliche zu erfahren in der bildnerischen Antwort des Menschen”). A musician seeks not only to find the words towards another musician (the pedagogical problem) but also towards music itself, because approaching it is something more than a translation from one language into another. It encompasses the person as a whole, i.e. the emotions, mind, and the ability to foresee, to be active or contemplate his or her whole life. By mentioning the figure of “the theologian” Gadamer reminds that philosophical hermeneutics is an echo from biblical hermeneutics with roots so deep that they reach the interpretation of the holy or divinely inspired texts of humanity in general. Yet, this is pertinent to music or the musically sacred word. An example of how Antiquity foreshadows the long centuries of European music and cultural development (in this case the principle of cantus-firmus) is an excerpt of Plato’s Laws (657a, b): “To be established and made into laws those melodies which by nature represent the right way. This, however, can be the work of God or a Divine human; therefore, it is insisted that the melodies preserved for so long are the work of Isis.” At the basis of West European development of polyphony lies a sacred melody, namely the Gregorian chant chosen for that purpose [cantus pruis factus], and it is the uniting principle that holds together the whole polyphonic structure [cantus firmus]. This study briefly follows the connections of musical hermeneutics with biblical and philosophical hermeneutics by focusing on two of its founders – Hermann Kretzschmar (1848 – 1924) and Arnold Schering (1877 – 1941).
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Chris Salter writes in his study about the more and more important roles that sense and presence play in arts. Salters analyses the ways in which the technological perception of the environment influences the phenomenon of immersion, while pointing out that our sensorial processes are culturally determined, and therefore they may be different.
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Jarvis Liam writes in his volume Immersive Embodiment, published at the end of 2019, about the concept of immersion, especially from the point of view of VR creations and theatrical performances. The book analyses those possible processes, which take place inside the participant/spectator during this kind of perception, providing at the same time a multidisciplinary approach for their interpretation.
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