focas: Forum On Contemporary Art & Society - Real Life/Beyond the Event

Real Life/Beyond the Event came about as an attempt to address the multiplicity of often interdisciplinary projects that in one way or another attempt to engage or collaborate with audiences, or to represent or document the lives of people, beyond the arts community circuit - that is, projects aiming to engage in a "real life out there." The issue therefore also concerns intersections between arts and anthropology, arts and socio-political documentation, faction and "mockumentaries."focas vol. 4 also aims and the two main themes are of course inter-linked) to interrogate the larger socio-political reverberations of these art projects, to interrogate what is Beyond the Event - beyond the biennial and beyond the festival. This process involves looking at process-oriented arts projects that (again, borrowing from the social science methodology) aim to situate themselves in a given social context, among a given group of people over a longer period of time. It involves looking at the longer term significance of arts events and the way that one event haunts the reading of another. This involves questions of time and memory, power and economics.