INTERFACE
Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
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'Open Dialogues writers at New Life Berlin'. Photo: Christina Irrgang . A discussion on the role of invited critical writing at the New Life Berlin festival
REVIEW
Open Dialogues – In defence of an experimental model
Open Dialogues @ New Life Berlin, Berlin
31 May - 15 June 2008
Reviewed by: mary kate connolly
My what a delight; a delectable retinue of recollection, supposition and wordplay. A trove of roving consciousness in a scroll, a stream of reams and reams of descriptions, tripping downwards to where it all began….
Members of the New Life jury, I give you: the Open Dialogues Blog.
We have fed and nurtured this Oxy Moron – this beast of burden which munches a ticker tape cud of sumptuous curves and static dots - black on white. We have been egalitarian parents –sharing the strain of the night time feeds and the early morning crams (internet café at 1am this morning anyone?!). Let this monster go hungry, undernourished and it falls sick, weak – enters into a ‘critical’ condition you might say…and this would be a tragedy, as we are all agreed are we not, that criticality is the thing…
Exhibit A for inspection in this case: the illegal and immoral relationship between artist and writer – this vile bed-fellowing which threatens to tear at the very roots upon which the stable structure of arts criticism and writing was founded upon. ‘Where is your distance writers?’ asks the prosecution. ‘Where is your sense of propriety?’ To this I would posit that accountability is the key in this experiment; incest not invented, just merely legalised. We have heard testimonies from various key witnesses – the artist Per who doesn’t care as long as its better, this new mode, from the old tried and testy one. We have observed the giddy glee of writers afforded backstage passes for the final show they will be attending – insights which will both burnish and tarnish their perspectives. It would be fair to say however that in both cases, illumination is afforded – for better, for worse, warts and all. Does though, this new height of enlightenment provide only two options for the writer – kiss and tell or stay silent, complicit and masked in superlatives?
It could be, but I would counter that it doesn’t have to be. In this consensual environment where the codes of conduct are specified, an emphasis on respect prevails. An onus is placed on the writer to step up to the bar set by the programme format – a bar where artists and writers sip Tiger beer together, enter into dialogue together – an Open relationship. The Open Dialogues modus operandi has provided us with a test, an obstacle course in which artists and writers have been abashed to find themselves entered together in a three-legged race. Observe jurors, it does not set in concrete, a way of being, but it does, like much of the work in this festival, attempt to offer a fresh perspective, an alternative.
In the case of Open Dialogues, New Life Berlin, I would argue that both artists and writers made it intact, to the finish line. They can step now to the podium and enjoy the rangy, raw, experimental and colourful blog that is their prize to share.
The defence rests.
This text was developed as part of the Open Dialogues: New Life Berlin critical writing initiative http://www.wooloo.org/opendialoguesblog/
Writer detail:
Mary Kate Connolly is a freelance writer and movement practitioner based in London
Venue detail:
Open Dialogues @ New Life Berlin
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