LIVE ACTION 16 

Live Action celebrates its sixteen years, and in this second pandemic year continues its health-aware covid-safe online format. It is today in most countries the only safe way to experience contemporary art. Although the screen experience is different from a live action, video is an art medium historically linked to the very beginnings of performance art, through the early works of Wolf Vostell, Yoko Ono, Nam Jun Paik, Charlotte Moorman, James Lee Byars and Joseph Beuys just to name a few. The origin of screen art is intimately linked to the field of live action, as an object as well as video as a tool to record the ephemeral appearance. Although different, both mediums are linked, and with todays social media art we see its potential to expand and reach out towards new audiences.

When we began to research which format to use, we never really considered live streaming, which gives the artist little or no control over the visual result. Something we see as essential, since a screen is always and only a screen. Instead we researched the early beginnings of online art, or television art as it was called in the late 1960s and early 1970s. We studied the breakthroughs made by film directors and tv-producers like Gerry Schum with his groundbreaking Fernsehgalerie, or for that matter the productions of the Belgian Jef Cornelis. It made us understand the importance of limited duration for any screen-experience. Something which further corresponded with two other variables, the actual time most visitors to galleries and museums today spend to look at an art work, and the time limitations of  social media.

Live Action 16 explores through yet another broad artistic commission a new territory. It investigates the possibilities of articulating an art of social media through classical contemporary art forms like performance and video. It is a inter-generational, gender equal and international showcase of a visual and conceptual diversity which also characterizes Live Action productions.

16 female and 16 male artists was asked to realize a 60 second performance-for-video work in a square 1:1 ratio format. Live Action 16 will go on for 16 days and will just like in the previous edition in 2015 showcase two artists per day on our website liveaction.se and on the social media platforms instagram, vimeo and facebook. The festival opens on August 8 2021 at 16:00 pm local time. We hope you will find it as interesting and rewarding as we do. 

Welcome to experience Live Action 16 online.

 

Jonas Stampe & Joakim Stampe, founders LIVE ACTION

 

LIVE ACTION 16

AUGUST 8 - 23 2021 - 16:00

www.liveaction.se

instagram.com/live_action16

 

CURATOR

Jonas Stampe, Sweden/China

 

ARTISTS

Analía BELTRÁN I JANÉS, Spain

Philippe BOISNARD, France

Gustaf BROMS, Sweden

Yingmei DUAN, China/Germany

Angelica FOJTUCH, Poland/Germany

Arti GRABOWSKI, Poland

Alejandra HERRERA SILVA, Chile/USA

HUANG Rui, China

Joël HUBAUT, France

Helinä HUKKATAIVAL, Finland

Enrique JÉZIK, Argentina/Mexico

Kurt JOHANNESSEN, Norway

Sandra JOHNSTON, UK

Katri KAINULAINEN, Finland

Magnús Logi KRISTINSSON, Iceland/Finland

Liina KUITTINEN, Finland

Léa LE BRICOMTE, France

Jason LIM, Singapore

Jodie LYN-KEE-CHOW, Jamaica/USA

Rita MARHAUG, Norway

Siobhan MULLEN, UK

Irma OPTIMIST, Finland

Tanja OSTOJIC, Serbia/Germany

Rainer PAGEL, Germany/UK

Olof PERSSON, Sweden

Peter ROSVIK, Finland/Sweden

Tomáš RULLER, Czech Republic

Dimple B SHAH, India

Tomas SZRAMA, Poland/Finland

Carl-Michael VON HAUSSWOLFF, Sweden

Martha WILSON, USA

XI Jianjun, China/UK