MAKE WALLS TALK!

THE GERMAN: HYBRIS AND HIGH CULTURE

GENIUS LOCI WEIMAR IS LOOKING FOR INNOVATIVE IDEAS FOR 
THE PROJECTION FESTIVAL FROM 04 – 06 SEPTEMBER 2020.

  

In its 9th edition, Genius Loci Weimar is dedicated to jubilees and anniversaries that could hardly be more contrasting. The “Year of Music 2020” is celebrating Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Liszt and numerous other composers whose great works could not have been created without the acclaim and support that they enjoyed in Germany. 

Also taking place are commemorations of seventy-five years since “Hour Zero” – the absolute defeat that marked the end of the Third Reich. Little else has united the great and the terrible as profoundly and intimately as the twin facets of German history and culture – it is the very embodiment of Germany. 

In 1920, exactly 100 years ago, Thuringia was founded in the wake of a revolution. The federal state’s first capital city was Weimar and the first parliament of Thuringia met in Weimar’s Fürstenhaus – the princely house. Caught up in the optimism of new beginnings, the fledgling Bauhaus made this cultural city their home, while over at the German National Theater, the National Socialists were already convening and ramping up their attacks on the hated modern age.

On the trail of this duality, this year's festival route encounters past great times and worst times in a narrow space. We will allow the silent witnesses, the old walls, to speak and bring to mind the great and terrible times of the past.

The competition

Applicants have until the 17th of May to apply with a 30 sec video clip for the projection of one of the following locations: Marstall , Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv and Altenburg. 

Corona: According to the German government (as of 15.4.2020), major events can be held again after August 31. The festival is scheduled for 4-6 September 2020. In the best case, the festival can be carried out as planned. If necessary, the festival will be postponed for a few weeks later or into the next year in close cooperation with the sponsors and the government of Thuringia.

Once again this year we are expressly encouraging makers of short films, motion graphic artists and video and film artists of all backgrounds and genres to apply for the selected locations through the medium of their disparate visual aesthetics, animation techniques and narrative concepts. The three winning artists will be awarded prize money totaling € 45,000 for the realisation of a 05–10 min high-resolution audio-visual production, to be presented during the festival as a video mapping on the respective facade. 

Competition regulations and detailed informations about the locations on www.genius-loci-weimar.org/wettbewerb/. 

The Festival

Genius Loci Weimar is an annual festival for site-specific audiovisual art, especially façade, space and object projections. The festival combines the historical spirit of Weimar and the contemporary technique of video mapping, a projection technique that incorporates the object into the image design, giving objects multi-layered dimensions and audiovisual narratives.

Through the international competition, the Genius Loci Weimar Festival offers an inventory of current video mapping productions worldwide. As a meeting place for the international video mapping scene, the festival attracts culturally interested audiences from the fields of architecture, media art, design, performing arts and fine arts to Weimar. With almost 50,000 visitors, the festival is one of the highlights of the Weimar Summer. 

Genius Loci Weimar takes place in cooperation with the festival organisation MXPerience gUG. The festival is also supported by the Thuringian Ministry of Economics, Science and Digital Society, the City of Weimar, the Sparkasse Central Thuringia, the Weimarer Wohnstätte GmbH, the Best Western Premier Grand Hotel Russischer Hof, Logando and rebeam. 

 www.genius-loci-weimar.org