Creative Journey to the B-Side
Satibara marked this year with an inspiring and exciting project. Marija Rodić, as part of the Creative Leaders Exchange grant, visited the B-Seite Festival in Mannheim, Germany. She named this process of exchange, learning through experience, and connecting with diverse artists Creative Journey to the B-Side.
Marija tries to capture the experience in words:
Collaboration with the B-Seite team lasted just over two weeks, during which intensive encounters with people and audio-visual live performances intertwined, along with immersion in the fascinating spaces of the Alte Feuerwache building (the former main fire station in Neo-Baroque style, with a 42-meter-high tower), and exploration of the festival exhibition installations… On top of all this, I decided to document this journey to the B-Side on camera, resulting in the short documentary film B-roll, an audio-visual echo of the visit.
Thanks to the festival’s stylistically and formally diverse program, I gained a much broader picture of the contemporary international new media art scene. I discovered interesting ways of merging digital and analog technologies, and I was surprised by the degree of critical positioning regarding artificial intelligence. I was especially captivated by the innovative use of interactive mechanical elements in stage performances and exhibition works. I expected more abstract, coded, and geometric pieces, but I encountered dynamic analog influences and socially engaged works, which significantly expanded my understanding of contemporary trends in digital art. I was particularly intrigued by how the current widespread use of AI was balanced with a return to analog technology and the frequent need for an equal presence of human and machine on stage. I watched “live stop-motion animation,” listened to music made from different languages, bumped into a walking act in outer space, danced with a robot, and even learned that a serious avocado mafia exists in Mexico…
The B-Seite team consists of a small group of passionate people (Mel, Jo, Beni, and Marco), similar to our MikroFAF, which made it easy for me to fit in and exchange experiences from the perspective of a small, non-profit festival that wants to remain just that. For me, essential learning and the nourishment of enthusiasm happen through these relaxed collective activities rather than through courses that try to compare the organization of artistic events to corporate frameworks of large companies.
Of course, as always when someone from our region travels to an EU country, I noticed differences in cultural policies and the support the arts receive. It felt completely natural that a non-profit festival would receive regular support from the city, that they would plan development strategies together, that a city representative would attend the opening, and speak passionately about contemporary digital art and its importance. Indeed, it appears that on the capitalist West, the independent and non-profit scene is valued, that the people responsible for funding it are professionals themselves (imagine that), and that alternative cultural spaces don’t just survive, but truly live. For example, besides Alte Feuerwache, where I spent every day, it was also exciting to visit Alter nearby, a participatory urban space transforming unused city areas into an open, inclusive, and creative hub for culture, music, and community experiments. And visiting Barac (a cultural laboratory in a former American military complex that underwent urban transformation) made me feel like I was in a SimCity universe where someone randomly dropped in an experimental arts district.
The city, with approximately 320,000 inhabitants, does not lack alternative artistic events, and I would also highlight visiting Off Photo Festival and the Cinema Quadrat, which bypasses mainstream programs, and thanks to Germany’s famous autobahn, I even managed to visit several nearby towns…
So much for Marija’s visit in text, and you can experience her impressions through audiovisual language in the film below.
The “Culture and Creativity for the Western Balkans” (CC4WBs) is a project funded by the European Union that aims to foster dialogue in the Western Balkans by enhancing the cultural and creative sectors for increased socio-economic impact.
