It's a few days into 2021, and as your corespondent was occupied with other things - like trying to get out of Australia somehow - now is the first opportunity I've had to reflect on the amazing experience that was 2020's Faki Festival in the digitized space of Zagreb, Croatia.
I've written a few times now about the devastating impacts of the pandemic on culture. Culture is the best protection against authoritarianism, and so the removal of culture and its associated rituals of assembly, togetherness, and live spectatorship are extremely threatening, in a context where there are already neo-fascist and white supremacist roots growing in the United States and across Europe (for example). The COVID-19 pandemic comes at a moment of extreme geopolitical vulnerability, accelerating and widening inequalities, power systems, and hegemonies. New racisms, class antagonisms and gender aggressions have materialised over the course of the pandemic, and these will inevitably grow as it continues.
As a self-organised and autonomous festival, Faki normally has an important role to play in initiating inclusiveness, togetherness, and connection. That seemed like an impossible task this year, and yet, paradoxically, this made it also more necessary. Over the course of one week, 15 unique works from 10 countries were presented over the festival's unique online platform - the Zone of Control - as well as 3 open workshops. These performances - actually video performance works - were streamed to a global live audience, who were able to interact using live commentary. Following nearly every performance, a Q&A with the artist was presented by me and my critic colleague Jana Perković, taking live questions from the audience about the works they had just seen, and feeding them to the artists themselves.
Screenshot of the 'Zone of Control' open-format online platform. Pictured: Artists Carlota Berzal (ES) and Pablo Cernadas (ARG), Jana Perković in Berlin, and Richard -1 in Ballarat, Australia. Photo: Vedran Gligo
By any measure, that's a phenomenal achievement during a pandemic. While other platforms have adapted to offer online content from archives, or Zoom Q+As with nonchalant moderation, Faki's was, oddly, an organised, active, and productive intervention, focused on authentic access to culture within the context of an endless abyss of content-streaming. We ran an artist-focused event that tried to compensate for deficiencies of the online format, and create a sense of celebration and togetherness that simulated the live experience of being at a festival.
Highlights of the week were too many to mention. Night 1 saw Manuel Pessoa de Lima's (DE/BR) failure project Red Light Piano, a sort of sprawling monologue that Jana found a relaxing escape. LA TURBA's (ES) Attached to my Flag offered something invigorating on Night 2, with their open-format video experimentation showing remarkable on-the-fly dramaturgy via the video-editing process. Marko Nektan's (RS) Holy Martyr was a video of his remarkable Butoh investigation into nihilism, done entirely in his makeshift studio, complete with crates and storage boxes. Night 4 saw Split-based performers Dora Popić and Mišo Komenda (HR) rock the festival with the unexpected Sound and Body, a delicate and precise conversation between part-time acrobat and musician, which shared a metaphysical curiosity with objects, movement and material reality - the highlight of the festival for both Jana and I.
The online format has a potential to just kind of 'float', without being embedded in any material reality, and performers just coming and going like ghosts. Out of this situation came a bizarre role for the critic - how do I 'embed', concretely, these performances into some form, some narrative that will make sense? How do we deliver something people need, at a time when there are so many barriers to cultural access - even as these barriers are supposedly removed by web-based content? Out of this conundrum came my critical alter-ego Richard -1, a super-affirmative critic who just wants people to connect with each other, and does little in the way of productive critical thought. I won't apologise for that - it seems like in the period, we should be flexible in our positions. While I don't like bowing to this perception that critical thinking is somehow negative, I also acknowledge that people right now need the barriers to inclusion removed. So the invention of Richard -1 is my own emergency measure - a state of exception that will hopefully be only temporary, and soon replaced by that usual frustrating, craggly asshole Richard.
Until that time, expect yet more affirmation and propaganda as I take over as Artistic Director of Faki 2021. We look forward to an exciting festival filled with explosive togetherness, tireless community-building, and collective strength in May 2021. Open call for the festival theme - Escape! - coming soon.
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