About 9000Miles
9000MILES // GENT – EINDHOVEN – BERLIN – VIENNA – PRAGUE - BUDAPEST - ZAGREB – MILAN - BARCELONA– PARIS
ASQUIDCALLEDSEBASTIAN – STEVE LOCATELLI – STANISLAS LAHAUT – RUBSKI - A.C. – HYPERCUTZ – THIRDDIGIT – JAN OPDEKAMP – NADIA ‘CYMO’ OUSSEHMINE
9000Miles revolves around the idea of bringing different artists from different genres together in one bus that travels across Europe while functioning as a mobile production platform. Our trajectory takes us past a number of predetermined locations and festivals where we are planning performances as well as collaborations with local artists. The artists on board will be working on a audio-visual final product that combines the different disciplines and will be presented to the public at a closing event that will take place in De Vooruit, the biggest cross-cultural venue in Ghent. This means we’ll be showing a documentary/travel report that narrates our 30 days on the road, there will be an exposition area with both works from our artists and a selection of pictures and of course a number of live performances, hopefully including some of the artists we meet underway. The main goal is to put our artists in touch with other creative young people throughout Europe and have them connect and collaborate during this project and afterwards. In addition, we want to establish an international network that offers opportunities for creative exchange projects in the future: we want to invite artists from all over Europe to come stay in Ghent to work on creative endeavours with local artists.
The concept of using a tourbus as an on-the-road studio/workshop is a logical conclusion of the technological revolution: a few laptops, microphones and camera’s is all it takes to turn a regular old tourbus into an independent high end production unit. This means that we’ll be able to work with basically anyone we meet at any place: any instrument and voice can be recorded or sampled, any artist who wants to work with us is welcome to. We’re bringing a bus full of audio-equipment and a trunkload of spraycans, so nobody has to bring their own toys unless they feel like it. This also means that we’ll be able to constantly generate new content in the form of webisodes, pictures, music and blogposts. That way everyone can keep track of where we are, who we’re meeting and what we’re doing.
9000Miles will cross a dozen key cities in Europe (check the travelling trajectory for further details) and close off with a final blowout event. In an ideal case, this includes bringing some of the artists we meet on the road to Ghent to paint, play, sing, film or blog. That means that the sooner we get in touch with the people we’ll be working with, the sooner we can make arrangements for travelling and finding everyone a warm home to stay in while they visit. Basically, if we meet any cool people during this creative oddisey, we’d be happy to offer them a place to stay if they were to feel like coming over to Belgium and make music or paint or do whatever. We’re sure they’ll love being here as much as we’ll enjoy visiting them.
Another one of our goals is to establish a European network of young, open-minded artists who are not yet bound by exclusive gallery deals, record labels and fulltime jobs and to stimulate them into connecting over their national borders and inviting each other over to work together. That means that next year, we might be back with a bigger bus and a lot of other people. So far, we’ve gotten positive replies from bookers, promoters and bloggers from Holland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria and Italy. But as you may be able to tell, we’re looking for more than just gigs to play. We need walls to paint. We need musicians to jam with. We need couches to sleep on and parties to crash. We need local people who can show us where the action is happening and where not to park our bus if we don’t want to continue our journey on foot and unplugged.
See you somewhere in Europe.
Project producer:
Trefpunt vzw
Co-production:
Vzw Digsville
Vzw Excentrique
