AV FESTIVAL 08
28 February – 8 March 2008
Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland and Middlesbrough, UK

http://www.avfestival.co.uk

AV Festival is a festival of electronic arts, and features visual art, music and moving image. It takes place across Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland and Middlesbrough from 28 February – 8 March 2008. The theme of the festival is broadcast. In October 2007 the BBC begins to switch off analogue television signals, paving the way for television to become entirely digital. At the same time the internet and mobile networks have created opportunities for us to ‘broadcast ourselves’ in entirely new ways. As the landscape of broadcasting changes irrevocably, AV Festival 08 will be a catalyst for debate about the future of broadcasting, and an event to celebrate a century of on-air and online transmission.

It will feature large-scale concerts, performances and exhibitions at major culture venues around the region, outdoor events, a major symposium, seminars, hands-on workshops, radio stations and club events.

Confirmed events include a talk by original BBC Radiophonic Workshop member, Dick Mills, a rare UK appearance by French electronic music luminary, Jean-Jacques Perrey at The Sage Gateshead, Yokomono an installation of radios and toy cars called ‘vinyl-killers’’ at Newcastle’s alt.gallery, a Radio Rally led by Waygood Gallery in Newcastle’s Historic Grainger Market and Australian artist, Joyce Hinterding will turn Sunderland’s Reg Vardy Gallery into a giant radio receiver by wrapping it internally with copper wire.

AV Festival works in close collaboration with many of the region’s leading cultural institutions to commission and present new world-class artworks, including The Sage Gateshead, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, mima (Middlesbrough) and Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens.

2008 marks several key anniversaries, which AV Festival 08 will use to celebrate key aspects of broadcast culture:

• 80 th anniversary of the invention of colour television by John Logie Baird (July 3, 1928)
• 50th Anniversary of the BBC Radiophonics Workshop (1958) & the 10th anniversary of its closure (1998)

latest programme additions:

AV FESTIVAL 2008 ANNOUNCES THE UK PREMIERE PERFORMANCE OF JOHN CAGE 1960’s LEGENDARY VARIATIONS VII
AT BALTIC CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART
Friday, February 29th 2008

One of the highlights of AV Festival 08 will be at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art on Friday February 29th. It is the first ever restaging in the UK of John Cage’s Variations VII, a work rarely heard since it was first performed at 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering, held in October 1966 at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City.

«My project is simple to describe. It is a piece of music, indeterminate in form and detail ……….using as sound sources only those sounds which are in the air at the moment of performance, picked up via the communication bands, telephone lines, microphones together with, instead of musical instruments, a variety of household appliances and frequency generators……. they produce a situation different than anyone could have pre-imagined.»
(John Cage on Variations VII, 1966)

Whispering in The Leaves by Chris Watson
Rain Forest Sound Installation in Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens
(29 Feb – 9 March, Live performance 6th March at 8.30pm, Talk & Life of Birds Screening Saturday 8 March).

Deep Play by Harun Farocki
The 2006 World Cup Final from Every Angle on 12 Screens!
First Major UK exhibition for German Film-Maker and Artist
(29th February – 12th April, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland).

At The Top of The Game presented by Jimmy McGovern
Top screenwriting tips from the writer of Cracker and The Street
(4th March at Cineworld, Middlesbrough, 7pm)

For You, Only You
Video Installation by Sonia Boyce with music by Mikhail Karikis and the Alamire Consort.
(Friday 29 February – Sunday 9 March, Great Hall, Castle Keep, Castle Garth, Newcastle upon Tyne)

National Grid by Disinformation vs Strange Attractor
Literally bringing the house down!
(5th March, Life Theatre, Centre For Life, Times Square, Newcastle upon Tyne)

Now Hear This – Marcus Coates, Zoe Irvine and People Like Us
Publicly sited audio works, various sites, Middlesbrough
28 Feb – 8 Mar 08

Autechre
(Sunday 2 March, 9pm-1am, Digital Newcastle)

AV:ISION is the Official After Dark Programme of AV Festival 08
Presented by NOVAK

AV Festival never sleeps. Last time, in 2006, a series of club events proved so popular that it was inevitably going to be repeated – and, of course, improved upon. North-East producers Preamptive, Name and Retina Glitch who form NOVAK collective produce the party aspect of this year’s night-time programme, AV:ISION.

This is the festival strand for those who come alive after dark and also for local Vjs and Djs whose understanding of audio-visual entertainment is unparalleled. AV:ISION have a programme of night time club and lounge events cross the ten days of the Festival at Basement in Middlesbrough, Secco and Bernaccia in Newcastle and The White Room and National Glass Centre in Sunderland .