AV Festival announces theme: AS SLOW AS POSSIBLE

If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all. 
John Cage

Slowness is the theme for the fourth edition of North East England’s internationally acclaimed AV Festival in March 2012. AV Festival 12: As Slow As Possible is a biennial festival in slow motion, with some works running for 31 days, some for fleeting moments only, and others appearing to freeze or extend time. Spanning visual art, music, sound and film, the programme manifests in different places at different paces, speeds and times of day throughout March next year.

AV Festival 12: As Slow As Possible includes major exhibitions, new commissions and UK premieres by international and nationally renowned artists across Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland and Middlesbrough. Festival venues include: BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, The Sage Gateshead, mima Middlesbrough, Tyneside Cinema, Laing Art Gallery, Hatton Gallery, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, the National Glass Centre and found public spaces.

The range of artists in AV Festival 12: As Slow As Possible includes visual artists concerned with vast almost geological time durations, filmmakers who exceed cinematic conventions of time, artists who stretch sound to fit the context, infinite compositions that last forever, artist-led walks, overnight sleep concerts, and slow food and slow media events.

AV Festival 12: As Slow As Possible launches on 1 March 2012 with 24 hours of exhibition openings, live performance, film screenings, talks and other events across the North East allowing the whole Festival to be sampled - in advance - as fast as possible… A highlight of the Festival is Slow Cinema, featuring a distinctive form of filmmaking devoted to stillness and contemplation that has emerged over the last twenty years in opposition to the quickening pace of mainstream cinema. In complement to Slow Cinema a specially commissioned online radio station broadcasts audio works every hour of every day for the duration of the Festival.

Rebecca Shatwell, Director of AV Festival said, “AV Festival is unique in its exploration of strong curatorial themes, which have a relevance across contemporary art, society and technology. The 2012 edition stretches even further across time and space, slowing down the whole Festival experience.”

AV Festival is a biennial festival of contemporary arts and technology that had its first presentation in 2006. Since then it has developed to become a significant international event, achieving both public and critical acclaim. The evolution of what was previously a ten-day festival to a month-long ‘slow’ edition in 2012, allows for longer, deeper moments of pause, reflection and involvement. AV Festival 2012: As Slow As Possible is an empathetic response to the global slow movement, challenging the production and consumption of art in today’s accelerated world.