As Canadian Art magazine wrote in their Fall 2007 issue when contemplating the state of international biennials, “Undoubtedly, the biennial model as it was developed during the 1990s – a global overview show of contemporary art – is now bitterly outdated.”
La Biennale de Montréal 2009 proposes a new model for a biennale by widening our focus on developments taking place in contemporary culture at large, encompassing a wide range of cultural practices, allowing the forces at work in this shift to be part of the actual creation of the biennale.
The most significant of these recent developments in global contemporary culture is the shift towards open models, manifested in the transparent relationship between the creative process and the resulting work. Accordingly, the Biennale will use elements of this shift in creative activity and cultural production to generate some of the content of the Biennale. Thus, La Biennale de Montréal 2009 will focus on the central narrative of Open Culture, working across the fields of open music, open cinema, open design, and open methods of visual art production and display. Open Culture will resonate within the Biennale in a broad definition of the term:
Enabling ideas and projects which are created as open platforms for creativity, contribution, and collaboration by individuals other than the originating artist. For La Biennale de Montréal 2009, the artist becomes the enabler, and its ideas serve as catalysts.
Exhibiting some of the best open projects and openly created works to come forth in recent years.
Celebrating projects which show ways in which individual creativity operates in the day-to-day experiences and interactions of people as they rework their surroundings and immediate environment, transforming them to their own desires and needs.
Bringing the margins of contemporary culture into the centre; from the edges of Internet culture to urban intervention. A key tenant is that all of culture is an open playfield, and, as such, it is time to learn from the laboratories existing at the margins of the mainstream.
View the press conference (Cinémathèque québecoise, May 26, 2008)
6 responses so far ↓
1 Tim // 26 May 2008 at 9:01 AM
I’m happy to see Open Source Culture in Montreal on such a scale. Exciting News!
2 Sarah L // 26 May 2008 at 6:17 PM
Very exciting!!!
Can’t wait to join in and see what the world has to bring to Montreal in May 2009!
3 IM2 | OQP » Montréal 2009 : Open Culture - Culture Communautaire // 26 May 2008 at 8:49 PM
[…] conférence, creativecommons, culture, french, logiciel-libre Robin @ 19:57 (722 lectures) La Biennale de Montréal 2009Tout comme le mouvement Source libre a été au coeur des développements technologiques dans le […]
4 Clint Wilson // 2 July 2008 at 6:04 PM
OPEN CULTURE does not equal CURATED CULTURE.
Any comments?
5 Scott Burnham // 3 July 2008 at 9:54 AM
I agree – which is why I am not the Curator of the 2009 Biennale, but the Creative Director. There is a big difference. The 2009 Montreal Biennale is providing the infrastructure for a wide array of Open Culture projects, created by the public. Unlike the traditional Biennale model, I am not selecting a set of finished works done in isolation by an artist, but providing a focal point for a series of catalysts for open creation and contribution by the public, and providing a platform for the celebration of some of the best projects created by open processes. Taking Open Source software as a comparison, infrastructure and platforms are essential – anyone can download and contribute to the code for Firefox, but without Mozilla providing the infrastructure and the organizational platform for the final release, the project wouldn’t work. Wikipedia is another model of complete openness, yet a first entry has to go through their team of editors for inclusion, then it is open to the public. The 2009 Montreal Biennale is yours – visit our Open Music project, or Open Cinema or Open Design and create part of the Biennale yourself. If you’d like to get more involved in the infrastructure itself, email me at scott.burnham [at] biennalemontreal [.] org and let’s see what we can do. Thanks for the comment!
6 laurent rabatel // 16 August 2008 at 5:23 AM
alors que penser de la triennale ?
Cette question n’est pas vachE, je crois que la réponse pourrait l’être
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