This morning it struck me: dance festivals are like apple chargers. Always around, far too many and absolutely identical.
In a working session yesterday somebody said and I’m not kidding: “-I think my charger (the white cube) is cool. It’s like so worn out.” I love it. I think that’s the only reason to be proud of a dance festival… it’s identical with every other festival, but it has patina, and the surface is a little bit scratched. Looks like it’s been around and part of the action. If you know what I mean…
“… anybody got a charger?”
“-What kind?” – oh that moment is really embarrassing, it is always only an apple charger. Same goes for dance festivals, you don’t need to ask what kind, when, where, under what circumstances, there is only one… and the compatibility is endless.
Mine is marked with a piece of tape, just in case. Precisely like dance festivals the only difference between them might be a piece of tape with a name. But just like me and my charger, the dance festival seems to be totally incapable of doing anything else than putting a little tape. In other words they are not just identical but really bad in marketing strategies.
Chargers like dance festival are always around, they always function and make nobody, except exceptionally anal people, produce a comment, but fuck me when they are not around, when my charger is lost, vanished, disappeared – at the moment the dance festival is the most important, life saving, thing in the entire world. When it’s gone, not there OMG – it’s a disaster.
But then, I changed my mind – felt really shitty about it all and Sunday morning. Seriously I prefer to spend a week with an apple charger instead of a dance festival. Why? Well, at least apple chargers have some style.
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Spangbergianism 
I’ve come to think that there is even more variety apart from tape with initials-
-Length (extended or not)
-Cleanliness level (white, gray, brown, dark brown)
-Newness (magnetic 1, magnetic 2, non-magnetic?)
-Scratches…
Applecare – how neatly do you pack your charger? how often do you lose it? do you grab the first charger available? sharing? do you plug in at all times or right before power off? battery life?
But it’s true the more your charger is different the less it’s compatible the less available the less you are flexible..aha
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2part_triumph-of-nerds-steve-jobs-bill-ga_tech
… festivals are maybe more like apple video-adapters
Working observations from Gothenburg
1. PROGRAMMER: travels when no one else can, watches, is allowed and sent to go to see and propose to selectors the people and the shows to be bought for the festivals and houses he or she works. He or she buys only with the consent of the selector.He or she is not allowed to program but rather to propose.He or she is smart and friendshippy and should chat to artists to see if they are smart enough. Since he or she is powerless, artist will not be angry of them since he or she is also powerless.
2. SELECTOR: travels, watches, buys with the consent of a curator. He or she chooses and buys people and shows but only with a consent of the curator.
3. THE CURATOR: i have no idea
3. ART DIRECTOR: travels but shouldn t – he or she is basically the general director that works closely to financial director since his or her role is the representative body of the whole organism. He or she chooses curators, programmers and selectors who go to choose the convenient people and shows to buy with the money they provide from talks to funding bodies and in accord to the financial director whose role is to keep the money tight. The artistry in the name is there only to confirm that she or he deals with arts and not with other goods, and by all means it should be avoided that art director thinks that he or she is in any way artistic. In a difference of other general directors that usually prefere to call themselves general directors rather than milk director or bulbs director, depending of what product they deal with, this artistic one is quite the opposite and likes the name but he or she should know that is a lie that he or she deals with arts.
An art director should not do or bring any decisions or have any influence on: buying shows and people to present, suggesting ideas for concepts or give any other ideas that deal with “creativity”, because they don t have good ideas since they do not have time to read and think and develop the knowledge about the content and they rather harm than help arts.