30×MFRU: Three Decades of Worrying about Technology
18. 10. 2024 – 27. 10. 2024
Location: Velika kavarna
This year’s In Focus exhibition marks the 30th anniversary of the festival and revisits three decades of radical change in computing. It’s important to remember that the Internet became widely known and used locally after 1994 and 1995, coinciding with the rise of video art, net art, and new media art in this country. By the late 1990s, numerous institutions, initiatives, and platforms had emerged, and by its fifth edition, the pioneering MFRU festival was already well-established within the art scene.
One of the oldest festivals of its kind in Slovenia, MFRU has played a significant role in shaping the intermedia art landscape. Throughout its rich and diverse history, the festival has continuously influenced the development of this art form in our region. Each edition, under different curatorial teams and artistic approaches, offered new reflections on the past, present, and future of technology.
For the exhibition entitled 30×MFRU, this year's curatorial team returned to the festival's archive, engaging with its history through conversations with key figures in the intermedia art field who have contributed to various editions of MFRU. The interviews, conducted earlier this year, aimed to explore the festival’s 30-year journey—to better understand their perspectives, the mechanisms behind the festival, and to document key reflections before embarking on the next 30 years.
Excerpts from the conversations provide a fresh interpretation of the extensive archive of this pioneering institution. They are published on the official website and festival social media channels, where the full conversations are available as well. The anniversary’s subtitle, Three Decades of Worrying about Technology, captures the underlying theme, addressing a range of challenges in intermedia art practices and festival organisation. At the same time, this thematic focus offers insight into contemporary technologies and hints at future challenges in the field.