Transmedia Festivals and the Accelerated Cultural Sector

Authors

  • Bianca Kristina Ludewig University of Vienna

Keywords:

avant-garde, transmedia festivals, eventization, urban transformation, precarity, DIY

Abstract

Over the past couple of decades, urban transmedia festivals have gained a distinct presence in the European cultural landscape, constituting an alternative to other, more dominant, conceptions of music festivals. This article introduces transmedia festivals as a new type of contemporary festival and situates them in wider urban processes. Transmedia festivals originated on the fringes of new urban scenes, in which media art was overlapping with electronic music and club culture. Based on multi-year field research, this article argues that these festivals have become part of urban renewal processes. The core focus of this article is therefore how transmedia festivals are part of processes such as eventization, culturalization, precarization, and gentrification. Local and EU-funding-policies, moreover, impose opportunities and dilemmas on urban festivals. The article is a contribution to the still small area of cultural and urban studies on such festivals in Europe, and situates transmedia festivals within urban cultural change.

Author Biography

Bianca Kristina Ludewig, University of Vienna

Predoctoral University Asisstant

References

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Re:publica Berlin (2015) Presentation Zygmunt Bauman: From Privacy to Publicity [Online video]. Available from: https://re-publica.com/de/session/privacy-publicity-changing-mode-being-world. Accessed 3rd January 2017.

Audio

CTM festival 2013, audio recording: Panel Death of Rave UK. Input presentation by Alex Williams. Available from: https://soundcloud.com/ctm-festival/ctm13-death-of-rave-1-uk Accessed: 12 March 2014.

CTM festival 2019 panel, audio recording: Alternative Festival Models with Roskilde and Boom. Available from: https://soundcloud.com/ctm-festival Accessed: 15 February 2019.

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Interviews

Jan Rohlf, CTM director. 2018. Interviewed by author, via Phone.

Mihaela Vasile, Rokolectiv director. 2015/ 2017. Interviewed by author, Bukarest/ Berlin.

Nun András, UH Fest organizer/curator. 2017. Interviewed by author, Budapest.

Michal Brenner, SHAPE coordinator. 2018. Interviewed by author, via mail.

Tony Clark (name has been changed by author), Future Everything. 2015. Interviewed by author, via phone.

Christopher Lindinger, research & innovation director FutureLab/Ars Electronica. 2014. Interviewed by author, Linz.

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Published

12-10-2019