The first NOW. Constructing Contemporaneity festival organized by Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Colta.Ru and Heinrich Böll Foundation attempts to gain insight into what is behind the fast changing time, the time of social tectonic shifting, disintegrating unities and counter-globalization that replaced the so-called post-history.
Where are we today? What brought us here? Why have national and religious identities become so important? How is economics related to it? How is our consciousness moulded by new means of communication and labor? And finally, what will tomorrow bring us? The goal of the festival is not only to raise these questions and find possible answers but also to discuss them with the audience in lectures, films and debates.
The festival has four theme blocks: The New Archaic, Media, Resources and Money. Each block includes films and lectures on these subjects.
Invited to participate in the festival are intellectuals of international renown: Karen Armstrong, one of the world's leading commentators on religious affairs; Guy Standing, author of The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class; Franco "Bifo" Berardi, Italian philosopher, a close associate of Félix Guattari and Paolo Virno; and Daniel Miller, renowned British anthropologist.
Sociologist Alexander Bikbov, political scientist Viacheslav Morozov, global coloniality analyst Madina Tlostanova, philosophers Keti Chukhrov and Artemy Magun will also take part in the discussions.
The film section of the festival includes a number of award-winning fiction and documentary features: The Overnighters by Jesse Moss, a film about economic desperation and religion; Big Men by Rachel Boynton, a documentary novel about oil, produced by Brad Pitt; Timbuktu by Abderrahmane Sissako, a film about jihad; Inequality for All by Jacob Kornbluth, a film about the global multi-crisis; and In Limbo by Antoine Viviani, a film about how the digital era is transforming mankind.
Lecture program curators:
Art historian Gleb Napreenko, Democracy program coordinator at Heinrich Böll Foundation (Russia) Nuria Fatychova, science journalist Borislav Kozlovsky.
Film program curator: Colta.ru deputy editor-in-chief Mikhail Ratgauz.
