F.A.C.K. CALLING

F.A.C.K.²_the call

F.A.C.K.² calls you to collaborate with an artistic and/or theoretical intervention in any form or simply to participate in debates and thematic tables of the second public event to take place in Cesena, Italy, from 25 May to 2 June, 2013 within the public spaces of Ex Macello Comunale, Chiostro delle Palme and Teatro Valdoca.

F.A.C.K. was launched in august 2012 in Cesena, Italy in the form of an independent festival of contemporary performing and visual arts lasting twenty days, made ​​possible thanks to the contribution and synergy of Italian and foreign artists, theorists, technical staff and few local public and private supporters. An entirely budget-free, self-produced and self-organized event F.A.C.K. has included performances, concerts, meetings, exhibitions, workshops, videos, installations and round tables. The program, the press communications, the catalogues of works, the photos of the event, and other related interventions and reflections have been published by the participants themselves on the blog: fackfestival.blogspot.com. The aim of the F.A.C.K. initiative however was not simply to present artistic events for free or “at all costs" (in lack of or because of scarcity of public funds) but rather to question, in practice and in theory, how and in which frame of relationships can art be produced and presented in our already culturally altered society, and how to position ourselves as artists and cultural workers in the current political and economic situation signed by a deep structural crisis.

The second act F.A.C.K.² - which is rather a temporary container of ideas and practices than a conventional festival - calls you to join the initiative and contribute with your presence and/or work to the experiment and reflection on alternative models of organization and production in contemporary arts. The aim is to stir things up by opening a debate around the concepts and practices of self-organization and self-production, and offering various artistic and theoretical events that escape the routines of a given disciplinary milieu and of standardized art management procedures. Besides reflecting on problems of contemporary art institutions, F.AC.K.² wants to create a space for questioning what contemporary art is after all and what it means to make art in today’s post-everything society. After the initial event of 2012 this call is relaunched with awareness of multiplicity of issues and unresolved contradictions that were raised, such as the role of the artist as a cognitive worker, the (non)sense of culture for free, or more broad issues such as the consequences of artistic temporary work (precariato cognitivo), the impact of global economy on local cultural policy, culture’s sustainability, etc. F.A.C.K.² reveals an urge to continue pondering on these and other related issues both through artistic practice and through critical reflection and discussion. 

While this call is addressed to different persons and groups active in art and culture fields it is not simply open to anyone without any criteria - it rather (auto)orients toward a certain kind of sensibility and experience. Why growing number of talented and highly competent artist do not fit into the existing art system? Because they do not wish to or because they cannot meet certain of the system’s “requirements”? Which are exactly those requirements, or factors of reciprocal rejection? Do they reflect some objective and transparent criteria of selection or rather certain personal and group interests intertwined with the politics and/or the art market logic? And why numerous artists, even while “established” continue to live and work in the state of both economic and creative frustration in relation to that system and in constant fear of loosing hardly (or luckily) gained visibility? As Brecht once observed one always wonder whether an artwork is "good" for the system, while the question should rather be whether the system is good for the art.

Starting from the observation that the artwork is strongly conditioned by the art system’s context in which it is produced and presented, by the system’s modes of organization and by the relations it conveys - considering that this nexus is far from being neutral but that it strongly influences both the form and the content of the work F.A.C.K.² calls for the assumption of the responsibility by the artist in relation to the sharing of his/her work, the selection and creation of the appropriate context for its production and presentation. What is to be done when the public funds for culture begin dramatically to shrink (or when they become nonexistent), and when those funds and other culture related public facilities are ever more used in non-transparent and regressive ways? How can one react creatively to a stalemate? What alternative economical models for arts and culture can we think of?

Not only artists and cultural workers are called into question but the public too. What about the spectators assumption of responsibility in relation to her/his interest and critical judgment, in relation to the modes of fruition of an artwork, in relation to his/her role in the economy of an art event? In which way she/he can contribute to a change from the standard position of a consumer to that of a direct supporter and promoter of cultural events - one who makes an event possible both by his presence as “spectator” and by entering in an active relationship based on exchange of values?

F.A.C.K.² will be made possible exclusively through the process of synergy of its participants.   Starting from the basic condition of a given context - time/space frame – comprising some minimal technical support, each participant implements her/his own mode of participation and takes in charge the eventual expenses of his/her participation - and in that way co-participates in the production, organization and promotion of the overall event. All participants will be accredited as the sole creators of F.A.C.K.². Emphasis is on the potential value of direct initiative, of unmediated exchange and of personal professional relationships as positive forces which make it possible to produce art and culture independently of the official systems (and economical conditions dictated by them) and which are able to trigger different dynamics from those generated by the art institution mechanisms and its bureaucratic vertical management. The proposed model of self-management and self-production at this stage is functional to the desire to create an encounter and exchange that is not conditioned by personal or institutional interests, by financial transactions, by complicated administration, and by the relating power games and collateral effects arising from them. The proposed terms and conditions are off course not fixed points but options to call into question and to develop through debate.

F.A.C.K.² sets the question of “researched art” - to borrow the term by Erland Josephson - an art that wants to be searched for - not as a priori elitist art, but on the contrary as one that do not offer pre-packaged, ready-to-wear fruition but welcomes plurality and openness of artistic (pre)positions and presumes an active choice and participation of the spectator. The question then is how an organic group of proposals, heterogeneous yet compatible, can creatively combine together and develop without the mediated intervention of an art direction whose ”authorial” operations are usually simply authoritarian and exploitative. Therefore everybody is called to participate in the first person: as an artist, as a producer, as an organizer and as a spectator.

If you are interested in taking part in F.A.C.K. ² and/or if you have some questions or remarks please contact F.A.C.K. through: f.a.c.k.festival@gmail.com / FACKfestival.blogspot.com;  phone: +39 338 1889040.The program should be rounded up within the end of April.