17th Festival of Audiovisual Arts opens in People΄s Garden
CORFU. Corfu Town is filled with images and sounds from the festivals΄ rich programme of artistic and educational activities.
This year the 17th Festival of Audiovisual Arts is celebrating the 20 years since the founding of the Department of Audio & Visual Arts at the Ionian University, presenting an outgoing, dynamic, and rich programme of artistic, and educational activities that fill Corfu Town with images and sounds.
The festival's opening ceremony took place on Thursday evening in the People’s Garden, with the main anniversary event.
Honoured guests were Nikos Kanellopoulos and Marianna Strapatsakis, who served as Presidents of the Department of Audiovisual Arts. At the same time, in the Thanos Christos Art Hall in the same venue, the group art exhibition by the Department's teaching staff, "Moments of Meeting" (23/05-02/06), also opened.
The Festival's artistic activities include a wide range of events that, on one hand, highlight the artistic production of the Department and, on the other, showcase the work of recognised creators.
Central to the festival is the virtual reality exhibition 'On the Way to Colonus' by Loukia Alavanou, which participated in the 59th Venice Art Biennale and deals with issues of migration, displacement, and human rights. It is supported by the Onassis Foundation's Stegi and presented at the Ionian Parliament (23/05-02/06) in a specially designed installation.
Another cutting-edge topic, the hidden impacts of modern industrial society on human and other forms of life, is highlighted by 'The Mutagenic Future,' a hybrid exhibition by bio-artist and theorist Ken Rinaldo, hosted at the Public Central Historical Library of Corfu (Corfu Tech Lab, 23-31/05).
Highlighting the creativity and artistic work of the Department's students is a primary priority of the Festival.
The '17th Student Photography Exhibition' (Venetian Prisons - Old Fortress, 17/05-02/06), the group multimedia exhibition 'Department of Audio & Visual Arts, 20 Years of Creativity' (Corfu Gallery, 23-31/05), and the performance of Pirandello's 'Tonight We Improvise' by the student theatre group AVARTS THEATRE (Galinos Atrium, Old Psychiatric Hospital) are just a sample of the rich artistic life of the Department.
The programme is complemented by a multitude of performances, digital works, installations, and screenings (short films, animations, video art, documentaries) created within the framework of the undergraduate and postgraduate courses of the Department, presented at the Department's facilities and the Polytechno venue.
As every year, the festival is organised in collaboration with the Electroacoustic Music Research & Applications Laboratory of the Department of Music Studies at the Ionian University. From May 24-26, under the title 'Sounds,' live electroacoustic music concerts will be held at Polytechno with a special sound diffusion system.
The programme includes works by students and educators, musical works accompanied by video art, and mixed works for instruments and electronic music. There will also be a live electroacoustic music performance by composer, sound artist, and musicologist Matt Rogalsky (29/05).
The festival also includes the proceedings of the 6th International DCAC Conference (Digital Cultures & AudioVisual Challenges, 24-25/05) and the successful educational initiative AV-School. This year, the DCAC is being organised in collaboration with the international conference 3ai (Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, 26-27/05), emphasising the current topic of the relationship between Artificial Intelligence and Art, with keynote speakers including the leading theorist of new media and digital arts Lev Manovich (online) and the Dean of the Faculty of Sciences and Digital Technologies at Université de Vincennes - Paris 8, Professor Khaldoun Zreik.
The AV-School (28-31/05) is being hosted at the Public Central Historical Library of Corfu. Under the general title 'Impressions,' it is aimed at the academic and broader community, offering a series of free seminars and workshops focusing on artistic research, cinema, electronic games, performance, radio, feminist approaches, and ecological awareness.
Participants include internationally renowned figures such as Mark Bond (Bournemouth University), Jakob Berglund Rogert (Uppsala University), Agata Lulkowska (Staffordshire University), and director Kleoni Flessa.
The event is supported by the Onassis Foundation's Stegi, the Municipality of Central Corfu, the Public Central Historical Library of Corfu (Corfu Tech Lab), the Corfu Municipal Art Gallery, the Corfu Gallery, Corfu Ephorate of Antiquities, Voulgaris Hospitality Group, Polytechno, and Creative Europe.
Admission to all events of the 17th Audiovisual Arts Festival is free. Detailed information can be found on the following websites:
17th Audiovisual Arts Festival: https://avarts.ionio.gr/festival
DCAC: https://avarts.ionio.gr/dcac/
AV-School: https://avarts.ionio.gr/school/2024/gr/
Programme: https://avarts.ionio.gr/festival/2024/gr/schedule/
