Milan 12-14 July 2008

Open Call: All entries must be received by Monday 9 June 2008


The International Guerrilla Video Festival (IGVFest) is a mobile festival integrating video art with the urban and social environment. Removing the technologically complex medium of video out of the institutional situation, the videos are re-positioned as an approachable medium in the public domain. The works engage and reflect the unique historical and interpersonal context of each site in the festival. Touring to different sites each evening the videos are projected directly onto the facades of buildings, monuments and temporary structures.

The International Guerrilla Video Festival Milan 2008 will be held 12-14 July in 3 distinct areas of the city: Isola, Chinatown, and Corso Como. The International Guerrilla Video Festival is open to new single channel videos based on the specific conditions of the areas where the festival will be held. Artists who are active in the areas and artists elsewhere addressing similar situations in a different context are invited to apply. Artists are invited to work directly on site where the festival will be shown or elsewhere with similar conditions in other cities.

The same billboards and advertising have become ubiquitous, transforming the urban setting into a homogenous landscape in every city. The festival aims to re-occupy that space infusing it with a reflexive locality showing work created in concert with the community and focusing on issues related to the site. One of the intentions of the festival is to generate discussion between residents of a community fostering new connections between disparate groups and strengthening existing ties. Beginning with the act of viewing the artworks with a neighbor, the common experience provides an opening to start an informal dialogue and counters the atomizing effects of the urban environment.

The IGVFest engages the public on public territory, integrating art with the social environment while liberating video from the confinement of the 'black box'. The festival collaborates with artists to create work specifically focused on the conditions at each site, approaching each site as a confluence of actors including visible and invisible boundaries, the effect of past and present migrations, physical infrastructure and architecture, and the nodes of exchange present. The site itself becomes an integral part of the presentation as its particular characteristics shape the context of the art while the videos add another layer of identity to the space.

Submission Deadline: 9 June 2008


Submission form and further information at www.igvfest.com/festivals.html



The festival is sponsored by UNIDEE Cittadelarte-Fondazione Pistoletto