The Akto Festival for Contemporary Arts is a regional festival in Bitola, Macedonia. The festival includes visual arts, performing arts, music and theory of culture. The first Akto festival was held in 2006.[1] The aim of the festival is to open the cultural frameworks of a modern society through "recomposing" and redefining them in a new context. In the past, the festival featured artists from regional countries like Slovenia, Greece or Bulgaria, but also from Germany, Italy, France and Austria.[2]
The festival is part of the Bitola cultural summer called "Bitfest". The main organization of the festival is: Borce Dimitrovski, director of the festival; Aleksandar Jovanovski, producer of the festival; Nikola Dimitrovski, producer of the festival; Filip Jovanovski, art director of the festival; Martin Kocovski, art director of the festival. The main objective of Akto Festival is to open the cultural frameworks of a modern society through “recomposing” and redifining them in a new context. The program of the festival is based on two concepts. The first concept is space/location. Locations have been transformed in terms of their previous meanings. The basic idea of the festival is art pieces to come out of the standard location ( galleries, museums, theatres) used for presenting art, and their setting up in new location. Re-moving of the pieces into new location transforms the piece itself ( according to the parameter space). The second concept is the topic of the festival. Akto_1 was held in 2006 as a result of the common energy of several young artists from Bitola. It lasted 2 days, from 17.09.-18.09.2006. The location chosen for presenting of the art pieces were, the abandoned factory “ Bitolateks “ and shop windows on the main street in Bitola Sirok Sokak. Artists from Macedonia, Bulgaria and Greece presented their art works, pieces on Akto_1. Part of the participants are listed as following: • Visual arts: Gjorge Jovanovik, Aleksandar Grozdanovski, Ivo Ivaljov (Bulgaria). Video art from Borjan Zafirovski, Vesna Dimugalova, Anna Lagiou Tsouloufi (Greece). Floor installation group elements of Atshuhiro Ito (Japan), Photography installation of Borche Dimitrovski, Vlatko Delovski, Ljupcho Ekimovski and Andre Mitrovski. • Music: Kink from Bulgaria and several artists from Macedonia such as Disco666, Saso Recyd, Debris, Mnemonic and Sound Diffusion. The visual part was made by Vj Ind.o.g. Akto 2 festival for contemporary arts was held in Bitola from 10.08.2007 - 15 08. 2007. Very specific and unusual locations,to perform art were chosen such as, the abandoned building of the Home of the Officers, the abandoned factory Bitolatex, roofs of buildings in the main street -Sirok Sokak, the railway station, shop windows est. The topic of Akto_2 was “Art and food”, based on the concept of HNU_the Research studio for food, science and art. Akto_2 featured artists from Macedonia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Serbia. Part of the participants are listed as following: • Visual arts: Bulgarian visual artists Borjana Pandova and Ivan Nikolov – opnn, Domagoj Blazevik from Zagreb with a series of photographs named “Empty table “ and Marko Stojanovik from Belgrade with the exhibition “art food/eat art “, retelling the history of art through cakes created on the base of popular art works from 20th century. Milco Mancevski with the exhibition from his book “ the ghost of my mother “, Zaneta Vangeli with video installation “ Home video “, Oliver Musovik, with the art installation “ Stendal syndrome “, Hristina Ivanovska – “ soup from stone“, Aleksandar Stankovski with the film “ Samit na samanite “, art group Elements from Bitola, Gjorge Jovanovik – “ Cookie monter “, the project “ Videodrome”- new Macedonian video with Ilina Angelovska. • Performing arts: The non formal theatre group “ 23 h “ from Sofia, Bulgaria performed the stage play “ One hour before midnight “ which was held in the abandoned old army house. The presentation of this play tried to create unique relationship between the audience and the performers, researching the intimate space of the performers and the audience. • Music: Electronic music artists such as Kink from Sofia, Robotek, Saso Recyd, Gamad^2, B.O.R.G, Monumental, Debris, Mnemonic, Dusko Janevski, Every kid on speed, Sin.us & Dj Yo!rdan, which were visually colored by VJ Ind.og and VJ Kiro Sopov, then the music group “ Grupa kao takva “ from Belgrade, music group “ Three minutes on the rain”, “Sasko Kostov“, “ Promasena investicija “ from Macedonia, and audio design installation of Oliver Josifovski and Filip Jovanovski, which promoted the musical instrument Olistaklofoni. • Theory of culture (workshops and presentations): The theoretical part contained several presentations and one workshop for contemporary theatre. Cultural centar “ Tocka “ from Skopje, had a presentation of their works through the years in the area of culture and publishing. They presented the activities in the process of expansion of contemporary culture. From the magazine “ Margina “ to the publishing work of publishing house “Templum “, and also the work of non-governmental organization “ Kontrapunkt “. “ Body speaks ” was the title of the theatre workshop which was held by Juliana Saiska, actor and dancer from Sofia, which works in the field of the physical theatre. On the presentation for managing a publishing label and music production took part the Excel recordings production / Darko Spasovski – Packi/ Aleksandar Vidinovski, PMG Recordings/ Mirko Popov, Spectar music/ Stojce Cvetanovski and Acid Fake Recordings/ Antonio Dimitrov. The lectors managed to forward their experiences and knowledge about the production and publishing of electronic music quite precisely. With that a new theme was developed about the future of the independent publishing labels in Macedonia and their ability to manage the publishing of the works of the new electronic artists and bands. Akto_2 Festival for contemporary arts lasted for six days in Bitola and was visited by approximately 2000 visitors each of them wondering “to taste or to cook”. Akto 3 festival for contemporary art was held in Bitola from 12.08.2008 to 17 08. 2008. The topic of AKTO_3 was “Speed”. Various locations to perform art were chosen such as, Turkish pasha’s old house “Alhambra”, the abandoned factory “Svilara”, the abandoned cinema “Makedonija”, City bazar, shop windows on the main street – Sirok Sokak etc.
70 artists with their artworks participated in the festival and were present during 6 days of the festival. The participants of the festival came from different countries, such as Germany, Austria, Great Britain, France, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria and Macedonia, which emphasized international aspect of the festival. Part of the participants are listed as following:
• Visual arts: curator Bernadette Ruis with the project “ Sidewalk cinema” from Austria; art groups “Skart”, “ Galerija”, “Remont”, Marko Stojanovic, Danilo Prnjat, Renata Koler from Serbia; Jasa Mrevlje and Nika Autor from Slovenia; Ivan Nikolov, Borjana Pandova from Bulgaria as well as numerous artists from Macedonia such as Zaneta Vangeli, Oliver Musovic, Dragan Hristov, Danilo Mandic, Velimir Zernovski, Mile Nicevski, Tihomir Topuzovski etc. • Performing arts: theatre group “23 h” from Bulgaria with the project “ Spanking”; art group “Teorija koja hoda” with the project “Box match”, as well as the Academy of dramatic arts from Zagreb, Croatia with the theater play “ Maria Stjuart”. • Music: Johnny and Holly from Great Britain, Kiko from France, Wolfgang Klette from Germany; “Grupa kao takva” from Serbia; PMG Collective, Bernays Propaganda, Tanchevski, Robotek, Ilina Angelovska, Dusko Janevski,Martchin, Monumental, C-pure, Goran tech, Sonja Ismail from Macedonia; • Theory of culture: Presentations of cultural organizations such as Gallery Remont from Belgrade, Serbia; Lokomotiva and Line Initiative and movement from Macedonia. The festival was covered by the media through the regional TV station “Tera” from Bitola. There was a special programme for the festival twice a day. Also the national TV station A1 covered the festival in their programme ” Exclusive” and the national TV station Telma in their program “ T- Grad”. As in the press while the festival was ongoing it was covered by the daily newspapers “Vest”, “Spic”, “ Vreme”and the magazines “Tea Moderna”, “ Globus”, “ Life magazine”. An official video for the festival was made and it was shown on TV Tera. In order to promote the festival fully the project “Bubas on Sirok Sokak” was conducted. Seven “Wolksvagen Buba” cars were parked on several different points on the main street in Bitola Sirok Sokak and served as info points. This project attracted a lot of attention by the people. In collaboration with “Makedonski Zeleznici” the project “ Akto transport- parties on a train” was performed . It offered free transport for the visitors from Skopje to Bitola and vice versa. Several Macedonian Dj’s played music on the train. All the events that the festival offered during the 6 days were highly visited by the audience of 4000 people belonging to different age groups. Akto_4 was held from 11.08.2009 to 16.08.2009 in Bitola, Republic of Macedonia The topic of the festival was "generations" Also various different locations were chosen where the events took place, such as: ZOO Station, old factory "Svilara", old house "Al Hambra" etc. Akto_5 was held from 11.08.2011 to 15.08.2011 in Bitola, Republic of Macedonia. The topic of the festival was "weddings"
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