Moving forward into the next world
- Par Mathieu SCHOENAHL
- Septembre 2020
In the mood for livestream
On the occasion of the release of our first magazine "Périscope Magazine", which came out on the occasion of our Jazz Connective project, we asked Mathieu Schoenal from the Météo festival in Mulhouse to give us a mood bill on the crisis we are going through. The verdict is indisputable: algorithms and blue thumbs will never replace the in-depth work we have been doing for years on innovative music.
“The next world” was promising. It is still in its infancy.
All over Europe, the cultural summer will have taken a virtual form that is hardly satisfactory. In streaming, concerts and festivals, live or in archives, fill the void left by the ban on gatherings. A highly energy-consuming alternative at a time of a necessary ecological revolution. A form of renunciation too, a counter-productive message to partners. A livestream in his living room would be worth a concert with an audience.
It’s just the opposite of a fundamental work carried out on a daily basis: go out to the shows, be curious, don’t let yourself be trapped by algorithms and blue screens.
In the last few months, the forces from the territories seemed to have taken a slight ascendancy, but now it’s time for injunctions from above. Cultural mediation projects have been rushed through to meet the demands of a “learning summer” that once again forgets that artists and cultural structures are active in the field with inventiveness and creativity. Autumn is already pointing its nose, and with it the desire to resume as soon as possible, to reconfine theaters at high speed, sometimes forgetting very quickly that this cursed virus has caused more deaths in the world in recent weeks than during the two months of forced confinement. Cultural seasons are announced, festivals unveil gargantuan programming, and little room is left for the possibility of reacting to crises, protest movements, and the sometimes sudden emergence of inevitable social issues. Even more, always more. Things will have to change, raise their voices. Music, jazz, improvised, experimental, creative, can hardly stand mawkishness. They only affect all categories of people when they have something to say. So don’t give in to relative lukewarmness, don’t confuse localism with nationalist withdrawal, and don’t play it personally at a time when collaborations and mutualizations are essential.