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www.shiftfestival.ch
Shift 2009 will take place from October 22nd to 25th. This year's theme is "Magic. Tech-Evocations and Assumptions of Paranormal Realities".
Shift Theme 2009
Magic. Tech-Evocations and Assumptions of
Paranormal Realities
At the latest since the 19th century, when spiritists and occultists claimed they could send
telegraphs to the beyond and take photographs of spirits, a rich interaction has persisted between
magic and all recently emerged new media. Technical media are generally a product of rational
science, an ingenious, albeit sometimes accidental invention. Yet they seem also to have a touch of
the supernatural or wizardry about them. They thus make a perfect projection screen for
paranormal associations and magic powers.
Be it with fascination or fear, gleeful expectation or even faith, people even today tend to regard art
and new media as magic channels. This begins in everyday life, for example when a computer does
something ‘all by itself’.
A renewed interest in magic practices and their history can be observed lately in the art world,
perhaps due precisely to the omnipresence of technical communication, and the permanent,
excessive demands that this implies. This interest generally indicates not so much a drift towards
esoteric vistas but rather, an experimental investigation of interactions between visions of
technical omnipotence and playful subversions of an alleged subjectivity and sovereignty.
The theme has a significant historical component. Technical media played (alongside spiritual
mediums) an important role when spiritism and occultism boomed around 1900. Media
technologies were (and still are) used to track down or make visible paranormal phenomena – and
they were associated frequently with conscious charlatanry: spirit photography, camera obscura
and holography.
But this year’s festival will also and above all examine more up-to-date connections between
media and magic. There are ‘magic’ and evocative, optimistic and pessimistic ways and styles of
dealing with ones relationship to media and technology, to (literary and musical) automata and
(industrial) automation, in everyday life and in politics (states, religions, sects). Everyday life
confronts us with the magic and monstrosity of the Black Box ‘computer’. That we react with tech-
evocations and assume that paranormal realities exist is therefore hardly surprising.
Ultimately there exists a strong artistic interest in magic practices. Such interest within
artistic circles (particularly since World War II, in the context of totalitarian systems), is often
levelled against the role of the artist as a sovereign subject, which is to say, it feeds on scepticism as
opposed to a rationalism that harbours the threat of totalitarianism. On the other hand, there
exists a strongly personalising tradition: magic visions of the artist’s positive genius, of the artist as
a magician or shaman. Furthermore, magic as the content of (neo-) conceptual art-as-research is
back on the artistic agenda.
Shift Live acts and DJs
Will be published end of August.
Shift Exhibition
Will be published end of August.
Shift Screenings
Will be published end of August.
Shift Headphone Concerts
Will be published end of August.
Shift Panel
Will be published end of August.
Shift in Progress
Will be published end of August.
Shift Kids
Will be published end of August.
Shift do it yourself
Will be published end of August.
Shift Tickets
Will be published end of August.
About Shift
Founded in November 2006, Shift is governed by an association comprised of four Basel organizations active in the fields of film, video, media art, and electronic music. Specifically: [plug.in] art and new media; sinus series, platform for electronic music; the videofilmtage Basel and the DVD magazine compiler.
Past Shift performers include:
Antonio Muntadas, Beat Brogle, Martin Brand, DJ Q-Bert, Brian Mackern, Cio, Plaid, Garrett Davis, Kieran Gillen, Christoph Wachter/Mathias Jud, Coldcut, Cornelia Sollfrank, Christian Fennesz and Lillevan,
Dominik Brun del Re, Dopplereffekt, Junction SM, Graffiti Research Lab, Gülsün Karamustafa, Yan Duyvendak, Hachi & Christian Walt, Alexandra Domanovic,
île flottante | Nica Giuliani & Andrea Gsell, Birdy Nam Nam, Jennifer Cardini, Alejo Duque, Lorenz Schori, Jenny Marketou, Jorge Castro aka Fisternni,
Jorge Haro, Lana Lin, Marc Lee, Etoy Corporation, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, The Goldfinger Brothers, Christian Marclay, Michael Eberli & Filip Wolfensberger, Mikomikona, Murcof,
Platoniq, Raphaël Cuomo / Maria Iorio, S-Biene, Solotempo, Sutekh, Lucien Samaha, Ubermorgen/Alessandro Ludovico/Paolo Cirio, David Troy
and many others