Performance art as a named (inter) medium is relatively young, it is old enough however to be able to cross the threshold of painful initiation. We recognize live art a fact in art history, therefore – instead of its endless sanctioning using paradigms characteristic for its assertive period – we propose to start observing the changes within this very fast expanding genre. Why don?t we try to revise some of its so well established imperatives of time, space and context by looking deeper and more honestly into its processes, not only final representations and obligatory interpretations.

We start from the acknowledgement of the inevitable loneliness and subjectivity as the challenge for the performing ?I?, and of the awareness of performance practice as constant alternation of action and cognition.
We want to present artists who are highly conscious of the specificity of the medium and convey a strong personal need to work in this particular area of art. It is especially important to remind this attitude when performance is becoming ?performativity? or ?performatics? – one of many strategies to be used in spectacular projects smoothly fitting into imposed discourses.

We are particularly keen on the multi-layered, uncanny actions that oppose obvious interpretations, are not afraid of ideological irreverence, show the risk of exposing one?s complexity as a subject and challenge the conventions of performance art itself. Saying this, we appreciate the widespread differences in invited artists? attitudes and want to see how they will choose to appear in their work. We asked them for statements written in first person.

The programme of the festival will also include theoretical presentations and discussions especially concentrated on the role of the ego in performance practice, the gesture as sublimation, and the psychoanalytical view on art as human need filling the space within the three Lacanian orders ? the Real, the Symbolic and the Imaginary.

Is it possible to widen a theoretical perspective with complex issues and actually unblock a more honest and artist-friendly way to address a creative process? Yes!

Małgosia Butterwick
Angel Pastor

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