For immediate release
September 3, 2004
4 venues ~ 4 weekends ~ from 5 continents
November 5, 2004 – November 27, 2004
Los Angeles, CA LA Freewaves presents How Can You Resist? its 9th biennial festival of film, video and new media. The festival will present both provocative and evocative works exploring the struggles between protest and desire from the Americas, Southeast Asia, Africa, China and the Middle East. This year's festival occurs weekends during the month of November starting on Friday, November 5, 2004 and wrapping up on Saturday, November 27, 2004. Each weekend's programming will take place at a different location in downtown Los Angeles:
Nov. 5 - 7 - MOCA Geffen Contemporary
152 N Central Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90012 (in Little Tokyo)
Fri. – Sun. 11:00am – 5:00pm, opening reception Friday 8:00pm – 11:00pm
Nov. 12 - 14 - REDCAT Theater at the Walt Disney Concert
Hall
631 W 2nd Street at Hope St, Los Angeles, CA 90012, (at the Walt Disney Concert
Hall)
Box Office: 213.237.2800, www.redcat.org,
$10/day
Fri. - Sun. 7:30 & 9:30pm plus Sat. 3:00pm & 5:00pm and Sun. 5:00pm
Nov. 20 – Strategic Actions for a Just Economy
152 W 32nd St, Los Angeles, CA 90007 (at Hill Street)
SAJE, a non-profit, community-development organization in the Figueroa Corridor
Sat. night 6:00pm – 11:00pm
Nov. 27 – Galleries, bars and cafés in Chinatown’s
Central Plaza & Chung King Road
Chinatown: 900 blocks of N. Hill and N. Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Sat. night 7:00pm – 11:00pm
Late show w/ Animal Charm 11:00pm – 2:00am
As in previous years, Freewaves will also sponsor billboard works, located on
the Sunset Strip and Wilshire Boulevard, and several television programs. Selections
from the festival can also be viewed on the Freewaves web site, www.freewaves.org.
Most exhibits and installations are free, please visit LA Freewaves' site
for current information, schedules and directions.
After viewing over 1,500 works and soliciting entire programs from all five continents,
13 international and regional media curators created four wildly diverse weekends
with 150 works traversing sexuality, economics, politics, consumerism and media,
blurring the scan lines of subjectivity and objectivity, journalism and art.
LA Freewaves' founder and festival director Anne Bray talks about this
year's theme, "Resistance has many incarnations in this festival.
Some of the works take us on an intimate journey through addiction, sexuality,
and suffering; while others challenge us to consider such politically-charged
issues as security, paranoia, and moral culpability in a time of war."
During the first weekend at the MOCA Geffen Contemporary, Freewaves will present
30 video installations and projections, many arriving from Africa and India,
creating a kaleidoscope of ideas and images from the world's most adventuresome
media artists. For the second weekend, 68 works of film and video have been organized
into nine thematic programs, which will be screened at the REDCAT Theater at
the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The third weekend will be held at Strategic Actions
for a Just Economy, a non-profit, community-development organization in the Figueroa
Corridor, featuring live Blues music, food, break-dancing, MCs, and activist
documentaries entitled Globalize This! During the fourth and final
Saturday night over Thanksgiving weekend, interactive new media works, artists'
karaoke, digital graffiti and video games stretch the boundaries of technology
and veracity in galleries and cafés around Chinatown's Central Plaza
and Chung King Road.
Since 1989, LA Freewaves has been presenting these large-scale festivals all
over Los Angeles at a rate of about one every two years. Past festivals have
exhibited throughout the LA four-county area. This year, Freewaves hopes to bring
those diverse communities together in downtown LA to experience a focal point
of disparate international media art in the world's media capital.
Organizers also wanted to participate in downtown's revival as the city's
cultural center, as well as draw attention to the complex issues surrounding
the gentrification of downtown neighborhoods. Bray hopes that Freewaves can help
people recognize the interconnectedness of struggles taking place throughout
the world.
"As many of the festival's works demonstrate, it has become impossible
to
discuss political injustice without addressing economic issues as well," Bray
says. "Even the language of resistance has been appropriated by advertisers – as
in ‘how can you resist this shampoo, or chocolate bar, or cleavage'– and
artists and activists alike need to update their tactics in order to be heard
in our society."
Festival funders include California Community Foundation, City of Los Angeles
Cultural Affairs Department, The James Irvine Foundation, National Endowment
for the Arts, Getty Grant Program, LA County Arts Commission, Peter Norton Family
Foundation and Pasadena Art Alliance. Media sponsors for this year’s festival
include Downtown News, LA Alternative Press, KPFK, and Production Hub.
For more information or to interview festival director Anne Bray please contact
Lynn Hasty at Green Galactic at 323-466-5141 or lynn@greengalactic.com.
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