Hello Ursula, folks, this was posted to the Spectre list yesterday:
-------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht --------
Betreff: [spectre] Open letter to transmediale
Datum: Sat, 1 Feb 2025 11:47:51 +0100
Von: Aram Bartholl via SPECTRE <[email protected]>
https://openlettertransmediale.onlyoffice.com/s/nPrbbRCPvBNvLbG
Open letter to:
transmediale e.V. (Filippo Gianetta & Magdalena Ritter) and the advisory
board: Nora Al-Badri, Asia Bazdyrieva, Gabriele Horn, and Jussi Parikka.
*Why is transmediale not hiring a new artistic director?*
We care about and love transmediale as one of the most important
critical and experimental media art institutions in Germany and Europe
which reaches out to the public of Berlin and an international audience
once a year. The festival is deeply rooted in the city's fabric of the
media art community with its many project spaces for almost 40 years.
Therefore, we are concerned about the recent changes in the governing
structure of the festival.
Nora O’ Murchú, the first female, and now last festival artistic
director was surprisingly let go in summer 2024. Her leaving was
announced, although many knew of her plans for the coming years of
festival editions. Of which several components are executed without her
as we speak. The circumstances of her departure remain unresolved and
not transparently communicated with the community of artists and
participants who have supported transmediale in the past.
At the same time former production team member Filippo Gianetta becomes
managing director of the institution, which was initially assumed to be
an intermediary position. Filippo Gianetta is also one of only two
people (Filippo Gianetta & Magdalena Ritter) on the board of directors
of transmediale e.V. according to public records. For several months
transmediale promised to release a call for a new artistic director
position as soon as possible, while the coming festival’s edition (2025)
was announced to be organized by the core team of transmediale (link).
It took another six months until the call was out (it is running
currently till Feb 16th (link). But to our surprise transmediale
festival is now looking for a lead curatorial position instead of an
artistic director. The contract for this position is set for 10 months
only (April 2025 - Feb 2026). The intention seems to be to hire a new
curator every year for each festival edition. Additionally the call
already lists several constraints about the festival structure, like
fully removing the exhibition element for next years edition, which
seems to leave little freedom for this new position to reflect on
transmedia.
Having an artistic director formulate a multi-year vision for
transmediale that included artistic formats from exhibitions, to talks,
conferences, performances and interventions has been essential to
providing reflection on a radically evolving media landscape. This
valuable contextualising of societal changes beyond the scope of a
single exhibition, conference or theme is what makes transmediale so
valuable to our field. To alter this characteristic, and remove a longer
term artistic lead seems misplaced in times of radical changes in our
techno-social landscapes. It negates the urgency that we all experience
within a rapidly evolving culture of censorship, and authoritarianism.
A new artistic lead will likely not move to Germany for a 10 month
position, will not obtain job security, and will not get the freedom to
take the position this community needs in these dark times. transmediale
needs a strong personality with excellent ideas and not a powerless
curator who gets hired and fired to just execute the festival in the
shape the management decided to please funding.
We urgently ask the advisory board to re-think the structure of
transmediale so that the festival remains a relevant voice within the
European art scene. We urgently ask the leadership of transmediale to
make transparent the basis for the decisions it took around leadership
changes, cancellation of the exhibition parts both this year and in
upcoming editions.
Signed by:
!Mediengruppe Bitnik
Aram Bartholl
Constant Dullaart
Danja Vasiliev
Am 02.02.25 um 11:01 schrieb Ursula Damm via nettime-l:
Hi Andreas, hi David,
is there now more information available about the transmediale that can be discussed
here? I just noticed the call that went out for the curation of the transmediale
2026. It now says there "In 2026, no exhibition is planned alongside the
festival“.
https://transmediale.de/en/news/open-call-festival-curation-2026
Although I saw this development coming, it is really a sad end that what was
once a real festival with an open call and broad participation of young artists
has now ultimately become a media-theoretical conference. Is practical work no
longer needed? Are discourse and analysis enough? Are curators better than open
calls and juries?
For me, as someone who grew up in the old, feudal art system, the media art
scene became so attractive because it was more democratic and open. Access to
exhibitions was not determined by curators and buyers, but by invited jurors
from the field. And every young artist could expect their new work to be seen.
I would be glad to know I'm not the only one who regrets this loss.
Best,
Ursula
Am 16/12/2024 um 18:45 schrieb Andreas Broeckmann via nettime-l
<[email protected]>:
Hey David, folks,
I know only little about what is going on, but it seems that Nóra left
transmediale in the spring, after the last festival. Somewhat implicitly the
current situation can be gleaned from the pages on the website,
https://transmediale.de/en/about
/team
/history
The upcoming festival appears to be taking shape, so it seems that this story
will continue...
Regards,
-a
Am 16.12.24 um 17:14 schrieb David Garcia via nettime-l:
Does anyone on the list have any intel on what's happening with Transmediale? I
had heard rumours that Nóra Ó Murchú had stepped down from the director role..
But I don't know if that is really the case... The on-line announcement for the
2025 looks pretty thin gruel. But given the state of German economy I imagine
they have had some significant cuts. Then of course there was all the cultural
politics boycotts etc around Israel's actions in Gaza- West Bank - Lebanon-and
now Syria must still be impacting the future of the festival. I ask of because
for many on the list it is a very important festival that has done great work
in the past and I guess there must be nettime people who can throw some light
on the current situation.
David Garcia
--
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: https://www.nettime.org
# contact: [email protected]
--
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: https://www.nettime.org
# contact: [email protected]
