Scheduled to take place with reg­u­lar­ity in Bucharest, involv­ing with each edi­tion new cura­to­r­ial for­mats, «Ars Telefonica» project is con­ceived as a temporary plat­form for exhi­bi­tion dis­play which intends to bring into dis­cus­sion spe­cific com­po­nents belong­ing to the social and urban gram­mar of Roman­ian con­tem­po­rary real­i­ties. In the con­text of the issues approached by the cura­tors, «Ars Telefonica» proves to be more than a punctual cul­tural event. It becomes an umbrella-​concept under which a number of aspects related to the strate­gies of com­mu­ni­ca­tion of con­tem­po­rary artis­tic prac­tices and the cre­ation of a community of inter­est for this cul­tural sector are trans­lated.

The deci­sion of the cura­tors to appro­pri­ate on this edi­tion a temporary space for exhi­bi­tion dis­play – the phone booth – rep­re­sents an assumed selec­tion which responds to the actual request of the local art scene to search for new con­texts for dis­sem­i­na­tion of the con­tem­po­rary art dis­course in the absence of proper exhi­bi­tion spaces, mech­a­nisms for pro­mo­tion and to create new poles of junc­ture between art, its venue and audi­ence. The ques­tion dropped by the project is to which extend a temporary plat­form of this kind can dis­turb the behav­ior of the art public, the acci­den­tal public or of the part­ners par­tic­i­pat­ing directly to con­tem­po­rary art pro­duc­tion? Do these spaces have a potential in facil­i­tat­ing or in speed­ing up the process of social and cul­tural exchange?

«Ars Telefonica» con­sists of a series of site-​specific art inter­ven­tions dis­played in the phone booths in the cen­tral dis­trict of Bucharest and an accom­pa­ny­ing pro­gram of lec­tures, dis­cus­sions and sound per­for­mances which takes place in the space of Centre for Visual Intro­spec­tion, Bucharest. The artists’ pro­pos­als involve means of expres­sion belong­ing to con­nected cog­ni­tive fields, giving to the passers-​by the pos­si­bil­ity to choose new coor­di­nates to ori­en­tate in the city. The rela­tion­ship of the artis­tic projects with the com­mu­nity life, the cul­tural memory of a place and as well with another model of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, pro­voked by the appro­pri­a­tion of an uncon­ven­tional venue, set­tles a change in the public expec­ta­tions as far as the way art is exhib­ited and comes into dia­logue with the spec­ta­tor.

Par­tic­i­pants: Studio Basar (Bucharest); Luca Frei (Malmo); Carl Michael von Hauss­wolff (Stock­holm); Dorte Meyer (Berlin); Roland Schöny (Vienna); Bern­hard Schreiner (Frank­furt); son:DA (Mari­bor); Jiri Skala (Prague); Nasan Tur (Berlin); Joanna Warsza (Warsaw); AdnanY­ildiz (Istanbul/Berlin)