FRIENDLY COMPETITION 2016

While a lot of subversive writing and communication and art has emerged which challenges the status quo using its own conventions, very few of these initiatives have employed a mode of communication that is not rooted in commercial culture itself.

The "Beyond..." category hopes to bring out new visual and conceptual forms of communication and art which catalyze social change while engaging people as something more than mere consumers.

This category draws on the traditions of independent artistic practice in that the entries will have no brief other than to identify and radically address important issues on a deeply felt personal level. However, we expect that, unlike most ‘museum’ art, it will generate genuine participatory relations with its audience and be able to operate outside the traditional institutional sites and conventions. Participatory art and communication is the core principle of what we are looking for at Beyond...

Participation however should be directed in to creating new fields of experience and relations. Not necessarily, but potentially, submitted projects could employ the practice of extradisciplinary investigation. Especially interesting could be projects which are based  “on a circulation between disciplines, often involving the real critical reserve of marginal or counter-cultural positions – social movements, political associations, squats, autonomous universities – which can’t be reduced to an all-embracing institution” (Holmes, 2007). But this are hints and posible directions. It is up to you to come up with an idea and project that you personally think is relevant! We believe, in the words of the Critical Art Ensemble, that ‘the political activist and the cultural activist (anachronistically known as the artist) can still produce disturbances.’ (CAE, 1993, The Electronic Disturbance)  

Please read the following summary of what does and does not belong in the Beyond… category 

The Beyond... category is looking for submissions of written work and visual work. For more information on how to submit go here.

You can explicetly address this years festival theme or work on your own theme as long you create something that fits into participatory/art communication for social and environmental change. The Beyond... category is open to all artists, students, activists, professionals, misfits, malingerers etc. There is no age limit or any limit at all.

For more context on the Beyond.. category, please read:

- What is wrong with Market-style communication.

- Can we dream our way out of market culture and its devices?