20.06.06 The Influencers 2006, festival of media action and radical entertainment.
The third edition of the Influencers (after the 2004 and 2005 ones), will open on July 6th at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània of Barcelona (CCCB). Previously entitled Digital is not Analog, the festival is one of the few able to express perspectives on the edge on the (mis)use of media and how this can turn out to be extremely fun. His formula is simple: every artist presents his/her most important works and then he's confronted with the public, often establishing a discourse that intertwines with the others one in a very fruitful debate. This is possible mainly because of the physical presence of the different guests that rarely (or never) were all together in the same place. This year's lineup is rich as always, perhaps even more 'pop' oriented that in the past, including artists that have heavily played with mass media (IRWIN / Neue Slowenische Kunst, Vincenzo Sparagna, Oscar Brahim and Chicks On Speed), software manipulators / producers (Vuk Cosic and Molleindustria) and the music sample theorist Paul D. Miller / Dj Spooky. A crash course in how to get rid of the unavoidable everyday media oppression.