Creative Digital Arts Festival
Punted as a space where artists can embrace innovation and explore new ides through technology, this year’s inaugural Creative Digital Arts Festival promises to be an exciting addition to an already jam-packed programme where festivalgoers have the opportunity to interact and participate in a number of events aimed at expanding the mind.
Through a series of talks, workshops, exhibitions and performances crammed into the first four days of the National Arts Festival, the new offering marks a significant departure from what the NAF has done in previous years, NAF CEO Tony Lankester said.
“[Creativate] will capture some of the new and exciting ways artists are approaching their art, and audiences are experiencing it.
“It’s a playground for artists and audiences interested in how the digital age is helping to bring our imaginations to life, and who want to experience the creative tools of the future,” Lankester said.
Aimed at the curious and creatively minded, Lankester encourages audiences to spend a full day wandering through the spaces and events created.
“We’re expecting the events to appeal to those aged 12 - 80, and technical fluency is less of a pre-requisite than an enquiring mind,” Lankester said.
Headlining the Creative Engage series, which incorporates a number of engaging lectures and talks, UK-based Monika Bielskyte will present a mindbending journey through what could be, while sharing her experiences in designing sci-fi worlds for the entertainment industry.
Other lectures include: Collaborator – William Kentridge; filmmaker and museum designer Yoav Dagan, WeChat co-founder Brett Loubser, UK-based South African innovation consultant Tom Grey.
Maximillian Kaizen will share her insights into how artists can use new tools to make their careers sustainable and to build independence using tech and storycraft.
Attracting more diverse audiences, Creativate Installations will merge traditional arts and technology genres through digital infusion.
“Certainly, this digital infusion has the potential to expand the role of the arts, attract more diverse audiences and brings new skills and ideas to the creative space,” curatorial advisor Ashraf Johaardien said.
“It’s an exciting growth area and we are attentive to how this will also play out in the South African context.”
The Creativate programme will also showcase two international performances which illustrate how artists are integrating technology into their work. These include the Swiss production
of Hamlet by author and director Boris Nikitin.
Nikitin rewrites the most famous of all theatre pieces and transforms it into a contemporary performance, mixing experimental documentary play and music- theatre.
Danish Makropol’s virtual reality dinner party, Doghouse, a 20-minute virtual reality play offers the audience a melange of traditional theatre and virtual reality.
Critical to Creativate is giving participants the opportunity to not just hear about new tools and technology but to roll up their sleeves and to play through workshops.
“Often the biggest barrier to using new technology is fear – fear of breaking something, anxiety that something is too difficult, remote or foreign to be useful,” Lankester said.
Creativate will give participants the chance to engage in workshops more resembling playrooms than laboratories, he says.
For details of all Creativate events or bookings, check out the printed version of the festival programme or online at www.nationalartsfestival.co.za