The International Guerrilla Video Festival (IGVFest) is a form of mobile exhibition that intends to integrate moving image and the urban/social environment, liberating video from the confinement of the 'black box'.
Initiated in 2006, the festival collaborates with artists and communities to articulate a diversity of perspectives, share stories and provide a public platform intervening directly on the city through projections on monuments, buildings and temporary structures. Each site functions 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 ultimately becomes an integral part of the exhibition.
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 a dialogue and counters the atomizing effects of the urban environment.
A self-contained, transportable GPU (Guerrilla Projector Unit) facilitates the incursions throughout the urban environment. Composed of a multi-channel sound system, digital projector, and a self-contained power source: the GPU is a completely autonomous cinema-on-wheels. The design enables 'rapid incursions' into the public arena showing a number of different works at different locations throughout an evening. This fluidity allows the festival to mimic the rapid pace of urban life, defined by a constant state of motion. The hit and run tactics also intentionaly add a pronounced vibrancy and spontaneity to the urban visual atmosphere, ultimately transforming public space into a fertile ground for experimentation toward new possibilities in the relationship between art and society.
The International Guerrilla Video Festival was founded by the curator Jason Waite as a non for-profit arts initiative focused on art and public space. The first edition of the festival happened on the 5th October 2006 in Florence, Italy, followed by Milan on the 12-14th July 2008, and Dublin on the 19-20th February 2009.
Please direct all inquires to igvfest@gmail.com