SKOGEN söker stöd för samarbete med teaterkollektivet BADco Bakgrund SKOGEN är en nystartad plattform för konstnärsdriven produktion av scenkonst och tvärkonstnärliga processer. Genom att undersöka hur scenkonsten på olika sätt kan lyftas ut ur sina traditionella format, rum och ekonomier arbetar Skogen med att frilägga scenkonsten som ett mobilt kunskapsfält som kan inta nya platser, skapa nya gemensamheter, situationer och erfarenheter. Fokus för arbetet flyttas därmed från teaterhändelsen som representation och produkt till dess potential som producent av alternativa och experimentella erfarenheter och kunskapsfält. Skogen har ett intresse för processer som kunskapsproduktion. Vårt öppna arkiv (löpande producerat av oss och våra gäster) samt produktionen av publikationer blir viktiga delar i Skogens verksamhet. Utifrån dessa synsätt producerar Skogen egna eller andra konstnärers verk. För att fördjupa och skapa sammanhang kring verksamheten, och för att undersöka hur vi kan skapa rum för ett konstnärsdrivet undersökande av scenkonstens presentations- och produktionsformer, organiserar vi verksamheten i form av olika “block”. Blocken produceras i form av fristående, konstnärsdrivna enheter eller situationer. Varje block drivs av oss eller en inbjuden konstnär eller konstnärsgrupp. Under blocket ger Skogen konstnären/gruppen möjlighet att arbeta med egna processer och produktioner, bjuda in gästspel, konstnärsresidens, arrangera seminarier eller utveckla samarbeten. Skogen startades 2012 och har sin bas i Göteborg. Våra studios ligger på Masthuggsterrassen 3 där vi också genomför en del av vår publika verksamhet och har vårt öppna arkiv i vår foajé. Skogens studio är också bas för Skogens internationella residensverksamhet. Konstnärliga ledare är Johan Forsman och Johan Rödström. Skogen stöds av Statens Kulturråd & Göteborgs Stad och verkar i nära samarbete med olika institutioner, festivaler och konstnärsdrivna plattformar både i Sverige och internationellt. För mer information om vår verksamhet: www.skogen.pm Ansökan om regionalt stöd för samarbete med BADco Ansökan: 140 000 kr. Samarbetet med BADco är omfattande och sträcker sig över hela april månad. Vi har arbetat intensivt med att förbereda samarbetet och har även ansökt om stöd från Statens kulturråd. Projekten kommer att knyta an till Högskolan För Scen och Musik och Akademi Valand samarbetspartners som Trappan, Röda Sten och Göteborgs Konsthall. Kontakterna är etablerade. Projektbeskrivningen är på engelska eftersom det blir vårt arbetsspråk i det här samarbetet. BADco. proposal for Gothenburg: TVolution won't be televised (working title) A site-specific interactive television environment and a public programme for SKOGEN. Background BADco. is a Zagreb-based theatre collective. The collective, a confluence of interests in choreography, dramaturgy and philosophy, is nowadays made up of Pravdan Devlahovi, Ivana Ivkovi, Ana Kreitmeyer, Tomislav Medak, Goran Sergej Prista, Nikolina Prista, Lovro Rumiha and Zrinka Ubinec. Since it was founded in 2000, it has systematically focused on theatre and dance performance as a problem-generating rather than problem-solving activity - questioning the established ways of performing, representing and spectating. BADco. approaches the theatrical act as an unstable communicational exchange, a complex imaginary, challenging the spectator to look beyond the homogenising media reality and reclaim her or his freedom of spectating. Over the years BADco. has produced over 20 evening-long stage performances and a number of off-stage educational, scholarly, interactive art and publication projects (more at: www.badco.hr). In 2011 the company was commissioned to do an installation work for the Croatian presentation at the 54th Venice Biennale. This work forced the collective to rethink the theatre performance in the absence of performers and lead the collective to develop a site-specific installation and a multi-channel interactive video work to live up to the challenge. This initiated a series of investigations and experimental setups that the collective is currently developing alongside of its performances and that are dealing with the recontextualisation and remediation of theatre performance into other artistic, scholarly and social practices. Concept for SKOGEN BADco. intends to create at SKOGEN a small-scale closed-circuit television environment. It will be a continuation of our series of works investigating 'theatre by other means'. In one location we'll fuse together both the production side and the reception side of the TV medium, transforming SKOGEN into a dwellable installation with separate TV studio and TV watching room situations. To run this TV environment we'll install our algorithmic live video system (ALVES) we initially developed as a commission for the Croatian presentation at the 54th Venice Biennale. The custom-developed system with 6 computers and 6 cameras allows us to capture live action, to store it in a video data-base, to edit it together algorithmically based on criteria we set in advance and perform various transformations during playback. Using the system at SKOGEN, we intend to create a short feedback loop between the act of production and the act of reception. And this short and closed video circuit at SKOGEN we open up by interjecting the general social interaction, a workshops that we'll conduct, rehearsals that we'll do and a public programme comprised of performances, talks and commented broadcasts that we'll facilitate. The public programme and our work with the system during our time at SKOGEN will be recorded and stored in a video data-base, and regularly screened back at visitors in the space. Circumstances permitting, the programme might be rebroadcasted or streamed to another location. The television is a public medium that has seen its zenith come and go. TV was a companion to the post-war moment of democratic welfare states, nowadays it is again companion to their dismantling. While through the 60s, 70s and 80s the TV was a generator of a shared experience, a mitigator of a common public sphere, a propaganda machine for the state, the coupling of broadcasting and commodity has slowly shifted the focus of TV's social function from a public service to a marketing machine, replacing information with entertainment, expertise and education with opinionated and partisan commentary, public interest with attention-value. At the same time the proliferation of channels and programming has fragmented the collective experience, a development that has culminated in the rise of other screen technologies that make it now easy for everyone to create a programme to their own taste and for their own viewing. However, internet won't replace the television. TV will stay with us, this public medium that has seen its zenith come and go. In this project we take the inspiration from the works of early television artists such as Dan Graham, Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, Frank Gillette and Ira Schneider or Nam June Paik. In the early days of television, before it became a colossal commercial closed circuit, they tried to construct a different circuit of television production and consumption, an open one. Thus, retracing some of the critical proposition of work of these artists in our interactive environment, we want use our time at SKOGEN to publicly reflect on the current state of television, create experimental setups and draw alternate futures for this late medium. TVolution won't be televised, it's alternate evolution might however get performed. Activities at SKOGEN and in Sweden: Our work at SKOGEN will thus include following segments: 1) A site-specific interactive television environment at SKOGEN. This will include the setup of the space and installation of ALVES technological system to double as a television studio and as a TV watching room. As we'll work at SKOGEN, through the public talks we'll organize and the work with the workshop participants, we will produce a body of programme that will be available as an interactive installation to visitors at the hypothetical TV watching room in SKOGEN. 2) A five day workshop with students of performing arts, new media or film, based on our pedagogical work in dance, use of digital tools in choreography and dramaturgy of time using our technological system ALVES. Depending on the composition of students, the workshop will, in part, reflect on the late medium of television, our dance work and choreography in contemporary dance, but in greater part it will focus on using the ALVES tools for algorithmic editing to experiment on the dramaturgy of time when working in performative setups. 3) Ten days of rehearsals for our new stage work, starting from the situations we will be developing in the television environment at SKOGEN. Part of the rehearsals might be done in collaboration with Swedish artists, creating short 5-minute pieces that might expand the BADco.'s existing work "Is There Life on Stage?". Potential Swedish collaborators are listed in Appendix I. 4) A programme of public lectures, talks and collective TV viewing sessions that will focus on the state of television as a public medium today and alternate evolutions that can project for the medium. Potential participants are are listed in Appendix I 5) Programme of performances by BADco. at SKOGEN and other venues in Gothenburg. This will include showings of three of our performances: 1. Semi-interpretations, or Point of convergence, or Is there life on stage?, at SKOGEN; 2. Fleshdance, suggested for Gothenburg Kunsthall; 3. 1 poor and one 0, suggested for Folkteatern. 6) Exhibiting of the interactive video installation Responsibility for Things Seen, which BADco. presented in 2011 at the 54 Venice Biennale. If a proper venue can be found for the installation. 7) Initial work on a small joint publication with SKOGEN documenting and reflecting on our work with the television environment we're setting up there and our work beyond that. In order to produce the publication, during our time in Gothenburg we would find a local person to help us develop and write initial parts of it. 8) Presentation of the cooperation between BADco and SKOGEN on the SKOGEN’s website. The contributions will give background of BADco.’s work through a selection of texts written by theatre experts on our work and a video documentation of our work with the closed-circuit video system at SKOGEN. 9) A lecture of BADco. at the Stockholm’s Weld. Goals With the workshop, rehearsal work, installation, public lectures and performances within the program TVolution won’t be Televized at SKOGEN, BADco. intends to continue its series of investigations on the transfer of principles of theatre into other contexts - i.e. ‘theatre by other means’. These investigations delve into the fields of visual arts, digital arts, popular media, scholarly research and publishing. With the TVolution won’t be Televised we’re taking as the focus the old medium of television, investigating its social and aesthetic relevance nowadays once it has been supplanted by other screen media. The installation environment at SKOGEN is intended to engage the local public with this investigation, but also during this one month create a different interface between the space of SKOGEN and the public. The program that includes performances of three of BADco.’s stage works and its installations, which will be presented in different venues in the city, is also intended engage the Gothenburg audiences, who in 2009 had a chance to see one of the performances - The League of Time, more extensively with BADco.’s work. Lastly, the residency aspect of our work at Gothenburg will allow the collective an intensive time together that should help us in the work on our new production that we will be in the midst of production during our Gothenburg stay. This will be also a chance to work with the Swedish artists with whom we have previously worked together. Target audience TVolution won’t be Televized is primarily steered toward the general public, for whom BADco. wants to create an experimental situation and program at SKOGEN. It is also steered toward theatre and visual arts audiences, who want to get to know our work more in detail through three performances, two presentations, a publication and an installation. Lastly, it is steered towards academics and students who will get a chance to acquaint themselves with our research work and participate in our workshops and public talks program at SKOGEN. Evaluation SKOGEN have the ambition to stage one or two extensive collaborations every year. As this is the first really extensive collaboration that SKOGEN will engage in it is of the outmost importance to reflect and evaluate the process and content from several positions. What will be achieved? What values created? What will happen? Lets find out! Evaluation about the working process and collaboration between: SKOGEN and BADco and in relationship to our other partners in this block. See Appendix 1. Evaluation of the activities in regard of artistic purpose and if it has been achieved, changes from what is planned in this project description and the reason for this, number of visitors and the constitution of the groups of visitors (student, professionals, age, sex). External feedback on the concept of the block with BADco. What meanings, values, weaknesses and risks is involved in this kind of co-operation? In the final public talk SKOGEN and BADco. will reflect on what has happened in a dialogue with invited international guests. This will give input into the texts about the block that will be published. SKOGEN has built a public archive where documents from the process will be stored and made public. SKOGEN also has its book about what has been done during the year. This is part of the ambition to share the experiences and knowledge created.