Impakt will host an elaborate presentation at the Russian National Center for the Contemporary Arts, NCCA, Kaliningrad on 20 and 21 October. The presentation will reflect on Impakt’s mission, the Impakt Festival 2013: Capitalism Catch-22 program and recent developments in the contemporary arts from a critical perspective, in the Netherlands. The Impakt delegation is invited to NCCA Kaliningrad in the framework of the NLRF2013, the Netherlands-Russia year.

This festival is organised in the framework of the Dutch-Russian Bilateral Year 2013 and is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, National Centre for Contemporary Arts, and in cooperation with the New Art Foundation, KROO ArtMission, Zarya Cinema and club Kvartira.

Guests: Christiaan Fruneaux (Monnik, Amsterdam), Melle Smets and Arjon Dunnewind (General Director Impakt).

Monday, October 21
11:00h: Press presentation
A press presentation introducing the Impakt program in Kaliningrad, Impakt’s history and cultural and artistic strategies. Participants: Christiaan Fruneaux (Monnik, Amsterdam), Melle Smets and Arjon Dunnewind (General Director Impakt).
Club “Kvartira”, Kaliningrad, ul.Koloskova, 13

15:00h: Presentation by Christiaan Fruneaux (Monnik)
Christiaan Fruneaux will present the “WORKS SONGS” program in the Impakt Festival 2013 and talk about his work in general.
Club “Kvartira”, Kaliningrad, ul.Koloskova, 13

20:00-22.00h: Impakt Screening “Free to Choose”
Arjon Dunnewind presents a screening from the film programme CRUDE ECONOMY of the 2013 Impakt Festival, curated by Florian Wüst.
Zarya Cinema, prospect Mira, 43

Tuesday October 22
16:00h: Presentation of artworks by Melle Smets
Melle Smets will present his work and highlight the Smati Turtle 1 project, presented within the Impakt Festival 2013 in Utrecht.
Club “Kvartira”, Kaliningrad, ul.Koloskova, 13

17.00-18.00h: Round table in the framework of Capitalism Catch-22
A talk with Arjon Dunnewind, Christiaan Fruneaux and Melle Smets about the Impakt Festival and contemporary art.
Club “Kvartira”, Kaliningrad, ul.Koloskova, 13

20:00-21.30h: Impakt screening “Inside Jobs”
Arjon Dunnewind presents highlights from Impakt’s recent past.
Zarya Cinema, prospect Mira, 43

Stealth techniques, culture jamming, hacking and harmless questions during lunch break. The artists in this program use various techniques to mock authorities or challenge the limits of soft and hardware. They question existing paradigms and change our perception of art, culture or reality. Most artists in the selection use their work to infiltrate en investigate the more visible and apparent powers structures such as copyright, surveillance camera systems and corporate regimes, but the final piece The Third Man by Erik Bünger takes matters to a more subconscious level and changes the perspective 180 degrees.

Video Hacking – Manuel Saiz (Spain/UK 1998, 4:22 mins)
“Hello, I’m a video hacker. I do it because I like chaos. Because copyrights make me throw up. Because I hate artist that stamp their names on their works. It’s nothing to do with morals: good or bad doesn’t matter. It’s just a very primitive impulse and … I wanna have fun. I’ll show you how it works…. ”

The Evil Empire – Federico Solmi (USA 2007, 4:11mins)
The video animation takes place in the heart of Vaticanal City, in the year 2046. Surrounded by the glorious frescoes and wealth of his St. Peter’s Basilica apartment, a fictional Pope will be portrayed as a young man struggling with his porn addiction, similarly to all ordinary men who cannot avoid the temptation of the contemporary society. The Evil Empire is made in collaboration with 3D New Zealand based artist Russell Lowe.

Hello – Matthijs Vlot (The Netherlands 2012, 1:18 mins)
Matthijs Vlot is responsible for one of the biggest internet hits of 2012 with his collage of Hollywood film excerpts set to Lionel Richie’s epic Hello. Forty-four actors, one song.

Surveillance Chess – Mediengruppe Bitnik (United Kingdom 2012, 7:00 mins)
Equipped with an interfering transmitter !Mediengruppe Bitnik hacks surveillance cameras in pre-Olympic London and assumes control. The artist collective replaces real-time surveillance images with an invitation to play a game of chess. The security staff’s surveillance monitor located in the control room becomes a game console.

Workers Leaving the Googleplex – Andrew Norman Wilson (USA 2009-2011, 11:03 mins)
Workers Leaving the GooglePlex investigates the marginalized class of Google Books ‘ScanOps’ workers at Google’s international corporate headquarters in Silicon Valley. Wilson documents the yellow badged ScanOps workers, while simultaneously chronicling the complex events surrounding his own dismissal from the company. The reference to the Lumière Brother’s 1895 film Workers Leaving the Factory situates the video within motion picture history, suggesting transformations and continuities in arrangements of labor, capital, media and information.

The Third Man – Erik Bünger (The Netherlands/Germany 2010, 50:00 mins)
In this film Erik Bünger tries to trace the footprints of an elusive entity called ‘the Third Man’. It is this entity that takes up residence in the ecstatic body of Julie Andrews, turning seven innocent children into musical puppets, each one reduced to a note in the diatonic scale and it is him that lures the children of Hamelen along with his music. He is in the voice of every pregnant mother, bathing her defenceless foetus in song and it is him that Kylie Minogue means when she sings: “I just can’t get you out of my head.”

Bünger integrates scientific theories, philosophy and religion together with video footage and musical elements like vocals and inventive music boxes. In the footsteps of ‘The Third Man’ Bünger takes us along on a quest for the true meaning of music.