On Tuesday in the early morning the Elevate Festival 2010 ended. For five days international guests like Iara Lee, Béatrice Achaleke and Mike Bonanno were discussing some of the most important issues of our time and tried to find ways for everyone to work against the climate and economic crisis.

At the same time Elevate offered a wide range of electronic music, which inspired conscious listening. Big names like Robert Hood, Joy Orbison und Merzbow made music aside the mainstream and showed their desire for experiments.

Since then the music has faded, but the discussed problems remain and shouldn’t be forgotten. The numerous video interviews with artists and experts are a chance to dig even deeper into the topics and the video-roundups give an overview of all festival days.

Furthermore today at 23:35 CET the festival will be featured with a half-hour special in the ORF “Donnerstag Nacht”!

FM4 accompanied the five day programme and will play many live recordings in the next few days.

on3 (Bayerischer Rundfunk) reported about the Elevate Festival 2010, too.

Free Radio Helsinki from Graz reported and recorded more than 10 hours of live material.

Numerous photos are available here.

Festival organizers Bernhard Steirer, Daniel Erlacher and Roland Oreski want to thank all the visitors, staff members, co-workers, media cooperations and sponsors and are looking forward to next year.

At 11:30 CET the last day of the festival opened with a look behind the scenes of the Elevate Mediachannel. Visitors got information about the needed technology and were able to see how products like that can be realized with small resources.

Hans G. Zeger and Gerald Bäck didn’t talk about the new possibilities but the risks that come with the Web 2.0. Under the catchword Datenkrake Web 2.0 they discussed topics like automatically scanned E-Mails and services like Facebook, Google and Twitter, which pretend to be free but make money with personal data.

After this emphasis on technology the next topics dealt with journalistic aspects. At the panel discussion Alternative Media & Activism Anjali Kamat (Democracy Now!) and Iara Lee (Cultures of Resistance) spoke about different forms of reporting and explanatory work in the areas of journalism and activism.

At 18:00 CET Robert Misik, Mercedes Bunz, Daniela Kraus and Klaus Unterberger talked about Civil society and the media regarding the possibilities of NGOs and other initiatives to use mass media in a meaningful way without oversimplifying and repeating their massages.

This year’s discourse programme ended with a live broadcast of the Big Brother Awards in Vienna. This “negative award” is given to agencies, companies and organisations, which compromise private sphere or give away personal data.

Interviews with guests of the discourse programme are available here.

At 20:30 CET the music programme started with a curiosity. Animal Collective and visual artist Danny Perez created a new synthesis of film and music with their project Oddsac. Noise pioneer Merzbow walked away from musical conventions, too and filled the Dom im Berg with swirling clouds of creative noise.

Up until 12:00 CET Armin Schmelz, Simon Riegler & Bernhard Tobola played at the Parkhouse-Afterhour and concluded the Elevate Festival 2010.

Photos of the last festival day are available here.

An article in Kleine Zeitung and an audio interview with one of the organizers of the festival is available here.

At 14:00 CET Widerstand in Haiderland – Masse ohne Macht? opened the discourse programme on Sunday. Recent elections in Austria have shown, that Frederik Bakers documentary film is more relevant than ever before. Ten years after the „Donnerstagsdemos“, which were a reaction on the coalition government of the FPÖ and ÖVP, “Widerstand in Haiderland” sums up the statements in mass media, the demonstrations and furthermore deals with Jörg Haiders funeral in Carinthia.

In the following panel discussion Civil Society Austria Béatrice Achaleke, Robert Foltin, Rahel Sophia Süß and Wolfgang Rehm talked about the impact of such initiatives and protest movements in Austria. Furthermore they spoke about their future role and broached the issue of the increasing repression of NGOs in connection with keywords like surveillance society. An interview with Béatrice Achaleke is available here.

At 20:00 CET that topic extended into global dimensions. Under the motto „It’s all about the movement! Global action in a world in crisis” Anjali Kamat, Iara Lee and Wenonah Hauter discussed the possibilities of a more effective cooperation between big NGOs, samller initiatives and social movements regarding their different strengths and weaknesses.

At 23:00 CET the music programme started in the Dom im Berg. The diverse Soundscapes A/V Event lasted for several hours and focused on the conscious experience and perception of music. Video installations and projections from Incredible Bob joined in for very special DJ sets: Moodswinger, Piece of Shh…, Wo0 and Felony Flats.

Photos of the fourth festival-day are available here.

On the third day of this year’s Elevate Festival representatives of about 20 initiatives and organisations like Attac, Global 2000 and Spektral convened in the Forum Stadtpark. Under the motto Get Active! visitors were able to gather information about the possibilities of getting active on a personal level. Many people used this opportunity to get in contact with the activists and organisations.

The next topic For Environment and Health made clear how important those initiatives are in our everyday live. In recent years, two inspiring protest movements have grown in Graz and its vicinity. Both fight against ecological destructive and health-endangering power plant projects. Without resistance the health of thousands of people and the implementation of sensible climate and environmental politics, which emphasizes really renewable energy sources, are at risk.

At 15:00 CET Klaus Schönberger and Ove Sutter looked back at more then 150 years of creative forms of protest. Afterwards Clemens Apprich was talking about present and future possibilities of social networks in the World Wide Web. An audio download of the talks and presentations is available here.

In the following panel discussion Ways out of the crisis Fritz Pichelmann, Michaela Moser and others were talking about alternative ways to overcome the worst post-war economic crisis. They showed that there indeed are models to consolidate budgets and simultaneously start the urgent change towards a more just and sustainable society. An audio download of the discussion is available here.

The Austrian premiere of the documentary film Cultures of Resistance rounded off yesterday’s discourse programme and showed how different art forms still can be weapons of piece. Afterwards director Iara Lee was answering questions from the audience.

From 20:15 to 23:00 CET the literature programme offered performances of elffriede.interdisziplinäre.aufzeichnensysteme, Jörg Piringer, Lisa Spalt, Otto von Schirach and others.

At 22:00 CET DJ Dizzi & Dorian Pearce und Dub Coretette were opening the music programme, which took place in Dom im Berg and the Uhrturm-Kasematte. Artists like Robert Hood, Actress, Altered Natives and many more were following.

Photos of the third festival day are available here.