AV Festival was an international festival of contemporary art, film and music, based in
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle ( , Received Pronunciation, RP: ), is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located o ...
but taking place across the north east England, it ran from 2003 until 2018. A biennial event, the festival was thematically curated in relation to contemporary artistic practice.
Festival Editions
AV Festival 2018: Meanwhile, What About Socialism? (Part Two)
AV Festival 2018 ran from 3-31 March.
AV Festival 2016: Meanwhile, What About Socialism? (Part One)
AV Festival 2016 ran from 28 Feb - 31 March.
Artists: Masao Adachi (Japan) ,
Amber
Amber is fossilized tree resin. Examples of it have been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since the Neolithic times, and worked as a gemstone since antiquity."Amber" (2004). In Maxine N. Lurie and Marc Mappen (eds.) ''Encyclopedia ...
(UK) ,
Lindsay Anderson
Lindsay Gordon Anderson (17 April 1923 – 30 August 1994) was a British feature-film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and of the British New Wave. He is most widely remembered fo ...
(UK) , Bianca Baldi (South Africa) , Eric Baudelaire (France) , Berwick Street Collective (UK) , Tim Brennan (UK) , Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo (UK) , Kris Canavan (UK) , Hugo Canoilas (Portugal) , Cinema Action (UK) , Oleksandr Dovzhenko (USSR) , Arthur Elton and Edgar Anstey (UK) , Claire Fontaine (France) , Luke Fowler (UK) , Ranu Ghosh (India) , Peter Gidal (UK) , Ruby Grierson (UK) , Humphrey Jennings (UK) , Marc Karlin (UK) ,
Mikhail Kaufman
Mikhail Abelevich Kaufman (; 1897 – March 11, 1980) was a Soviet and Russian cinematographer and photographer. He was the younger brother of filmmaker Dziga Vertov (Denis Kaufman) and the older brother of cinematographer Boris Kaufman.Petric, ...
(USSR) , Sergei Loznitsa (Belarus) , Madhusudhanan (India) , Oleg Mavromatti (Russia) , Ken McMullen and Stuart Brisley (UK) , Naeem Mohaiemen (Bangladesh) , Pallavi Paul (India) , Dan Perjovschi (Romania) , Karel Reisz (UK) , R.E.P. (Revolutionary Experimental Space) (Ukraine) , Mykola Ridnyi (Ukraine) , Roee Rosen (Israel) , Paul Rotha (UK) , Felix Sobolev (USSR) , Haim Sokol (Russia) , Thomas Spence (UK) , Test Dept (UK) , Robert Vas (Hungary) , Dziga Vertov (USSR)
AV Festival 2014: Extraction
AV Festival 2014: Extraction ran from 1–31 March 2014. The curated programme featured 11 exhibitions, 36 film screenings, 10 concerts and 11 new commissions.
The festival included newly commissioned art works, sound walk and performances by Akio Suzuki, as well as new commissions by Susan Stenger and Lara Almarcegui, with weekend focuses on Digging for Sound and Post-Colonial Cinema. In the closing, the
Test Dept
Test Dept, sometimes credited as Test Department is a British industrial music group from London, England, that was one of the most important and influential early industrial music acts. Their approach was marked by the use of "found" materia ...
returned with their debut event since the group disbanded in 1997. This event took place at Dunston Staiths. Viewed from boats on the
River Tyne
The River Tyne is a river in North East England. Its length (excluding tributaries) is . It is formed by the North Tyne and the South Tyne, which converge at Warden, Northumberland, Warden near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The ...
over three nights, the event marked the 30th anniversary of the Miners' Strike.
AV Festival 2012: As Slow As Possible
AV Festival 2012: As Slow As Possible ran from 1–31 March 2012, and had the curatorial theme of slowness. Titled after '' ASLSP (As SLow aS Possible)'', by artist
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...
, the AV Festival 2012 theme explored how artists have stretched and marked the passage of time. Some works lasted the full 31 days of the Festival. The festival ran for a whole month. It took place across Newcastle,
Gateshead
Gateshead () is a town in the Gateshead Metropolitan Borough of Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank. The town's attractions include the twenty metre tall Angel of the North sculpture on the town's southern outskirts, ...
,
Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough ( ), colloquially known as Boro, is a port town in the Borough of Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England. Lying to the south of the River Tees, Middlesbrough forms part of the Teesside Built up area, built-up area and the Tees Va ...
and
Sunderland
Sunderland () is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is a port at the mouth of the River Wear on the North Sea, approximately south-east of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is the most p ...
, including 22 exhibitions, 38 film screenings, 15 concerts, six walks, a 744-hour continuous online radio, plus 16 new commissions and 18 UK premieres. The AV Festival 2012 included: new commissions by Yoshi Wada, Susan Stenger, Phill Niblock, Jonathan Schipper and Torsten Lauschmann; the closing Festival ''Slowalk'' by Hamish Fulton; a tribute concert to John Cage;
Kenneth Goldsmith
Kenneth Goldsmith (born 1961) is an American poetry, poet and critic. He is the founding editor of UbuWeb and an artist-in-residence at the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing (CPCW) at the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches. He ...
On Kawara
was a Japanese conceptual artist who lived in SoHo, New York City, from 1965 until his death. He took part in many solo and group Art exhibition, exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale in 1976.
Early life
Kawara was born in Kariya, Japan on ...
's ''One Million Years.''
The festival's film programme included special screenings with James Benning,
Ben Rivers
Ben Rivers (born 1972) is an artist and experimental filmmaker based in London, England. His work has been screened at film festivals and galleries around the world and have won numerous awards. Rivers' work ranges in themes, including exploring ...
and Lav Diaz; concerts included a special tribute to
Peter Christopherson
Peter Martin Christopherson (also known as Sleazy; 27 February 1955 – 25 November 2010) was an English musician, video director, commercial artist, designer and photographer, who was at one time a member of design agency Hipgnosis.
He also ...
; the festival ran a 744-hour special online radio.
AV Festival 2012 achieved 94,096 visits, a 33% increase from 2010. It attracted 24% of visitors from outside the region, contributed £516k GVA to the local economy, and achieved a return on investment of £2.88 for every £1 of public funding received. In his ''Guardian'' article, Sukhdev Sandhu described the Festival as "one of the most imaginative festivals to be staged in the UK for many years."
AV Festival 2010: Energy
AV Festival 2010: Energy ran from 5–14 March 2010, and had the curatorial theme of energy. It approached the theme from a scientific and spiritual perspective. New commissions included a coal-fired computer, a café importing via social networks, a film tracking the movement of the sun, and compositions based on the 'energy' of rivers.
Highlights of AV Festival 2010 included: new commissions by
Charlemagne Palestine
Chaim Moshe Tzadik Palestine (born August 15, 1947), known professionally as Charlemagne Palestine, is an American visual artist and musician. He has been described as being one of the founders of New York school of minimalist music, first initia ...
, Graham Harwood,
Kaffe Matthews
Kaffe Matthews is a British electronic composer and sound artist. She collaborated on the work ''Weightless Animals'', which won a BAFTA Scotland award.
Biography
Matthews is from Good Easter in Essex, England.Kate Rich's ''Feral Trade Café'' with its daily menu; exhibitions by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Felix Hess, artificiel and Zilvinas Kempinas; and the closing night performance with Iain Sinclair,
Alan Moore
Alan Moore (born 18 November 1953) is an English author known primarily for his work in comic books including ''Watchmen'', ''V for Vendetta'', ''The Ballad of Halo Jones'', Swamp Thing (comic book), ''Swamp Thing'', ''Batman: The Killing Joke' ...
, Susan Stenger, FM Einheit and Stephen O'Malley. In addition, the festival included a focus on recycled film with
Kenneth Anger
Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, February 3, 1927 – May 11, 2023) was an American Underground film, underground experimental filmmaker, actor, and writer. Working exclusively in short films, he produced almost 40 works beginning i ...
Gustav Metzger
Gustav Metzger (10 April 1926, Nuremberg – 1 March 2017, London) was a statelessness, stateless artist and political activist who developed the concept of Auto-Destructive Art and the Art Strike.
Together with John Sharkey, he initiated the ...
.
The festival included 24 exhibitions, 20 performances, 15 screenings, 14 talks, 3 symposia, 2 residencies and a café. This included working with 140 artists, on 18 new commissions and 15 UK premieres, in partnership with 31 venues. Over ten days, there were 70,860 visits, an increase of 65% from 2008. The festival contributed £480k of GVA to the local economy, and achieved £1.25 of economic output per pound invested. AV Festival 2010 won a Silver Award at the North East Tourism Awards.
AV Festival 2008: Broadcast
AV Festival 2008: Broadcast ran from 28 February – 8 March 2008, and had the curatorial theme of broadcast. The UK began to switch off analog television signals in 2007. AV Festival 2008 celebrated the history of transmission. It was directed by Honor Harger.
The AV Festival 2008 included new commissions by Chris Watson and Marko Peljhan, the live performance of John Cage's '' Variations VII'', and solo exhibitions by Harun Farocki, Sonia Boyce, Staalplaat Soundsystem and Joyce Hinterding. In addition, the festival ran three FM radio stations across the region, a special tribute to the radiophonic workshop, performances by
Jean-Jacques Perrey
Jean Marcel Leroy (20 January 1929 – 4 November 2016), better known as Jean-Jacques Perrey (), was a French people, French electronic music performer, composer, producer, and promoter. He is considered a pioneer of pop electronica.Honor Harger.
The AV Festival 2006 included new commissions by
Ryoji Ikeda
Ryoji Ikeda (池田 亮司 ''Ikeda Ryōji'', born 1966) is a Japanese Visual arts, visual and sound artist who currently lives and works in Paris, France. Ikeda's music is concerned primarily with sound in a variety of "raw" states, such as sine ...
,
Michael Nyman
Michael Laurence Nyman, Order of the British Empire, CBE (born 23 March 1944) is an English composer, pianist, libretto, librettist, musicologist, and filmmaker. He is known for numerous film soundtrack, scores (many written during his lengthy ...
, Gina Czarnecki, Anthony McCall and Kenneth Rinaldo; a live performance by Alva Noto ( Carsten Nicolai); Suguro Goto's robotic orchestra; and the premiere of Critical Art Ensemble's ''Marching Plague''. In addition, there was a comprehensive film programme about how cinema has played a role in our visions of the future and a two-day symposium.
AV Festival 2006 took place across Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland and Middlesbrough, and included 13 exhibitions, 29 screenings, 8 performances, 17 talks, symposia and workshops, 9 new commissions, and 4 launch events. Over ten days, it achieved 34,142 visits, of which 88% were new audiences to the Festival. AV Festival 2006 featured the festival's first exhibition programme with special preview evenings, including a new installation by Anthony McCall.
AV Festival 2003: Pilot Edition
AV Festival 2003 took place primarily in cinema spaces across the region, including the recently closed and abandoned Odeon (Paramount) Cinema on Pilgrim Street in Newcastle. Highlights included: the live performance of '' Man with a Movie Camera'' by The Cinematic Orchestra; ''Time Code Live'' with
Mike Figgis
Michael Figgis (born 28 February 1948) is an English film director, screenwriter, and composer. He was nominated for two Academy Awards for his work on '' Leaving Las Vegas'' (1995). Figgis was the founding patron of the independent filmmakers' ...
; and
Matthew Barney
Matthew Barney (born March 25, 1967) is an American contemporary artist and film director who works in the fields of sculpture, film, photography and drawing. His works explore connections among geography, biology, geology and mythology as well ...
's '' The Cremaster Cycle.'' In addition there was a Mike Figgis mini-retrospective, a series of onedotzero programmes, artist films at Cineside including Lillian Schwartz, newly commissioned Richard Fenwick films, and a live performance by Tina Frank.