Sunday, July 5, 2009

KL Fringe 2/2009 - ARTIFESTO

Kuala Lumpur Fringe Festival 2/09

ARTIFESTO

ARTIFESTO is a newly coined word, combining two important words, ARTS and MANIFESTO. This word is chosen to be the theme of Second Kuala Lumpur Fringe Festival, 2009. The word “Manifesto” is derived from the Italian word manifesto, originated from the Latin manifestum. Manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions. A person's life-stance is his/ her relation with what he/  she accepts as of ultimate importance in commitments and practice of working it out in living. Roughly, it is the value system or moral code based on the intrinsic value, the personal commitments and practice of working it out in living the lifestyle. Ultimate importance may be explained by what has intrinsic value and "for its own sake".

The “Art Manifesto” has been a recurrent feature associated with the avant-garde in Modernism. Art Manifestos are mostly extreme in their rhetoric and intended for attention in seeking to achieve a new way. They often address wider issues, such as culture and society. The manifesto gives a means of expressing, publicising and recording ideas for the artist, art group or art community. Manifestos were introduced with the Futurists in Italy in 1909. Due to the internet usage there has been a resurgence of the form, and many new manifestos are now appearing to a potential worldwide audience. Manifesto is now a new communication made to the whole world, whose only intension is to the discovery of an instant cure for the artistic world.

ARTIFESTO is a renewed commitment, made by Kuala Lumpur Fringe Festival to present a selection of young, new and hidden works by Malaysian and foreign artists in dance, theatre, performance, words, visual and moving images.