Andrei Tudose, SoMe Festival: "The concept behind SoMe festival is a fluid experience of film viewing, where the video works are available on each person’s mobile device"

This autumn, Bucharest hosts also SoMe Festival, an alternative video festival experience, encouraging the public to explore the city through a treasure hunt in order to view the videos selected under the Inhabitat curatorial theme. Initially rooted in photography, Andrei Tudose, the artistic director of SoMe Festival, has ventured into new media, delving into contemporary societal issues concerning human interaction with themselves, others, and their ever-evolving environments, both physical and digital.

With a rich academic background encompassing marketing research, sociology, and visual studies, he champions a transdisciplinary approach at the intersection of art, social sciences, and technology. Firm in his belief in art’s transformative power in society, Andrei has cultivated Marginal as a platform. Through this initiative, he seeks to integrate art into the fabric of everyday life, catalyzing a fundamental shift in our perception and approach to pressing issues and challenges.

What is the concept behind the SoMe Festival, and how does it differ from traditional video festivals?

The idea for SoMe Festival sparked sometime last year. It was supposed to be a regular movie festival – 3 – 4 locations, a selection of films, presented in a video art exhibition-like setup in some places, or projections in others. Soon enough, we realized that most people (ourselves included) are slowly growing tired of this format, especially after the lockdown period when we were stuck on our couches in front of a screen. Slowly, we pivoted towards a more flexible structure, where the public is free to explore the festival selection at their own pace, while at the same time discovering the city they live in (a little heritage from a previous project we developed a couple of years back).

The concept behind SoMe festival is a fluid experience of film viewing, where the video works are available on each person’s mobile device. But there is one catch – you need to move in order to discover the videos, as they are spread out throughout Bucharest, in 33 different locations, ranging from art spaces (both museum and independent ones) to small coffee shops, corner stores or residential buildings. During the 3 weeks of the festival, we will publish an online map on www.marginal.ro and, using a free app available on iPhone and Android for augmented reality interfacing, people will be able to discover both the 33 video works submitted by artists from around the world, and 33 gems of Bucharest’s social and cultural life.

How are the videos selected for the festival, and what criteria do they need to meet to fit under the Inhabitat theme?

The Inhabitat theme started from our desire to be aware of our surroundings, starting with the city we live in and expanding in the entire world. It’s about becoming conscious of the direct and indirect effects we have on our environment – ranging from the architectural surroundings, to the people we interact with and our more-than-human co-inhabitants, plants, animals or other critters. As such, the selection jury, consisting of Sabina Suru (who is also the festival co-founder), Suzana Dan and Paul Dogioiu, are looking for short videos that might surprise the viewers, offering a glimpse into an alternative way of looking at our daily existence, through one of the three different lenses we have defined: technology, environment and human interactions.

The definitions of these three categories are quite relaxed as we wanted contributors to have as much freedom as possible to surprise us with their unique perspective of the world. Environment-related videos are informed by nature or natural forms, address or question environmental issues, investigate connection between nature and science, or reflect on human connection with the wide ecology of the more-than-human world.

For technology-related videos, we are looking for works that questions our relationship with technology, potential mediators for the human-machine conversation, critically assessing technology as a threat or as a savior.

As for human relationships, we are looking for reflections of contemporary society, talking about emotional closeness or distance, reflections on art as a mean to facilitate connection and mutual understanding between people.

What types of locations were you seeking through the open call in Bucharest? Can you give us a sneak-peek?

We are actually looking for as many types of locations as possible, throughout the city. We aim at encouraging the public to get off their beaten path, to explore the city they live in and to discover some interesting places in the meantime. At the same time, we were aiming at integrating spaces of any kind into this cultural circuit, opening a wider dialogue between the city and its inhabitants and active agents of the urban environment. The location list is not yet final, but we will certainly have a wide variety of typologies – ranging from local coffee shops, hidden bars, bookshops, museums and independent art spaces. We were surprised by the openness of people donating a bit of their more or less personal space for hosting the festival and we are looking forward to seeing the public walk around the city, stumbling upon new places and new perspectives on the world.

In terms of sneak-peeking, I don’t want to spoil the pleasure of the discovery, but I can share the starting point of this quest: C22 cafeteria, a lovely, little place near Calea Victoriei, where on September 22 we will launch the festival through an informal coffee-party.

What role does technology play in enhancing the festival experience, especially in terms of the treasure hunt and video viewing?

More often than not, technology is used as a form of escapism, disconnecting us from our surroundings. For SoMe Festival, we wanted to challenge this perception and actually use technology to connect people to the city, to overlay the digital content over the physical surroundings. As such, we will be using Augmented Reality to create the viewing experience, where the video will be virtually projected over the actual corner of Bucharest where we’ll place it. There is another catch here (we do love to have surprises) – even if people will be watching the videos on their mobile devices, the experience will not be mobile. The video will be accessible in those specific spots and viewers will not be able to take them home with them. We are looking for genuine, physical connection, mediated by everyday technology. But don’t worry, we are not going to keep people for too long in each spot, it’s a festival for video shorts, offering a 5-10 minute breather from the daily routine. We encourage you to stop, enjoy, reflect on each spot – even more so as moving while looking at a mobile device can be hazardous.

Could you elaborate on any challenges or logistical considerations involved in organizing a festival that combines a treasure hunt with a video exhibition?

I think that the biggest challenge was to find the best way to connect to our city, to make everyone realize that public space is, well, public, we all own it and we need to be aware of it, to take care of it – to inhabit it, mindfully. Finding the best way to do this led to all sorts of technological and logistical challenges, but we were lucky enough to have an amazing team alongside us. Starting with Ciprian Făcăeru and Sabin Șerban from Augmented Space Agency (our tech gurus) who supported us all along the way and made AR easily accessible and friendly, and ending up with Ioana Pătrașcu, our lovely community manager, who enthusiastically managed the relationship with both the festival locations as well as the contributors.

Compared to a more traditional festival, the challenges are somewhat different, as we are dealing with a lot of technological variables (as everyone owns a different form) that need to planned for and addressed so that the festival experience is smooth for everyone, no matter when they decide to watch the movies and no matter on what device they will be doing so. This involves a lot of testing, a lot of troubleshooting and a lot of patience, but we are surely getting there and everything will work smoothly by September 22, when we launch the festival.

Also, on a physical level, geographical considerations are an important factor we need to handle. The entire area of Bucharest is more than 200 square kilometers – and most of this area is our festival playground, and this is significantly more than a stadium, park or other venues festivals generally cover. Planning in advance the logistics of distributing the festival materials, always keeping in mind that we want everyone to experience as much of the content as possible, thus planning the routes in order to make them accessible but also interesting in terms of the variety of locations, was another logistical challenge that we encountered.

But, at the end of the day, it all comes down to the festival participants’ experience. We are looking forward to meeting as many people as possible at the closing event on October 12, at VAGon – In(ter)disciplined Space at Atelierele Malmaison, to hear their opinions and feedback.

How has the public response been to previous editions of the SoMe Festival, and do you have any success stories or memorable experiences to share?

Well, 2023 is the year SoMe Festival came to being. We are regarding it as a pilot edition, testing the public reactions, testing content creators’ interest in this format, and fine tuning the technological infrastructure. Although we just started out, the immediate feedback was more than encouraging. Starting from the interest in the festival, with more than 60 applications, 55 of which came from all corners of the world aka more than 20 countries, from Australia to Mexico, from Denmark to Venezuela.

Looking ahead, are there any plans to expand the festival’s reach or incorporate new elements into future editions?

We are definitely looking to expand the festival, both in terms of reach – broadening the geographical coverage in other cities besides Bucharest, but also in terms of incorporating more elements around the topics of the festival. We are looking both on the content side – workshops or roundtable discussions around the themes of SoMe Festival, as well as on the technical side, as many people expressed interest in the area and it would be lovely to create a learning and knowledge network around new technologies, in partnership with Augmented Space Agency.

Photos courtesy of Asociatia Marginal

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