WHAT IS OMSK?

Rules and Regulations

1) omsk is always written in upper case.

2) OMSK is always an affirmative utterance (louder or higher in register)

intent/desire:

OMSK is always a live event

OMSK is always happening for the first time

OMSK distracts film from dance,from performance, from installation, from music and in the simultaneity of these occurrences becomes none of the above

OMSK is site specific

OMSK gives choices and takes chances

OMSK is intimate, flirtatious, always a one night stand

OMSK doesn't think everything they are is good and that this is good

OMSK is never finished

OMSK is vulnerable, ie open.

OMSK Film ! Video ! Performance ! Sound! Mayhem ! Events happening regularly in London, other towns, other countries! For makers and unmakers who want to develop their work in front of an audience.

Neither gallery nor cinema nor club nor theatre - omsk is a testing ground, a smorgasbord, an awkward party of art...

We've been to Tokyo, Oslo, Thessaloniki; we've taken over squatted banks, railway arches, former garment factories; we've even been funded! We've put on around 30 events and each one was perplexing. We get it right as we get it wrong.

So... you can show your film or video, try out a performance, test an installation or intervention, make a noise, attempt anything.

You can get involved : by helping out on the night and showing your stuff you can get more involved by programming and organising an event. You can do fly posting at 6am on a sunday morning. . .

The following manifesto was drafted by Steven in March 2001 (and much disputed since. . .)

OMSK is a platform and a laboratory where makers of sound, performance, film and other visual media (or combinations of all) present new work.

OMSK is a place where an audience encounters work which is either unkown to them, or known to them but represented, in a fresh way.

The programming of an OMSK event is ordinarily in response to a space or context, or in response to an idea or a question asked. The work presented is for the most part ideas based (it has some kind of concept). If it is not ideas based, then the work programmed is creatively experimenting with formats of presentation and reception. OMSK sets out to challenge an audienceÕs expectations.

OMSK is a place for the emerging and not the established, although OMSK can be a place where an established maker or an established piece of work can be read and received differently (to its former reading).

OMSK is not seeking to entertain although it is enjoying of the fact that people often are.

OMSK is not crowd pleasing.

OMSK is not easy and is not seamless.

OMSK is a place where things can fail and work may be weak.

OMSK is a place of discovery in which the audience is actively a part of the success and completion of the event. It is difficicult to describe to your friends.

OMSK is a place to exchange, debate, disclose, disarm, encounter and charm.

OMSK is not: a theatre; cinema; club; gallery; party; lounge.

OMSK is rather an occurrence, carnivalesque, site-specific.

OMSK resists the constructs of existing orders such as: the generic ten minute short film: the banging tune; the club visual; the acted scene...

OMSK is not curated and not themed.

OMSK is oppositional but inclusive.

OMSK misbehaves.

OMSK is, wherever possible, a live experience (even if this is an attempt to make watching a film feel more live).

The OMSK collective operates on a project-by-project basis, whereby differing members come forward in coordinating/production managing/programming roles.

OMSK events are programmed in response to the dictates of space and economy, and always in the ethos of the mission statement. Chaos is allowed. Elements which are overly familiar, or overground, are undesireable.

Makers are invited by programmers to submit a paragraph describing their proposed piece to the collective. If collective members do not assert an opinion then programmers go ahead with booking.

OMSK is a collective of (at present) twelve members, supported by an administrator/fundraiser who works in the OMSK office (a shared office) one day a week.

OMSK runs on a three teer basis: (1) Regular OMSKs, (medium scale) in which crew and artists/makers are unpaid and profits go to subsidising Cleo1s post. (2) Funded projects (large scale, one or two each year) in which coordinators, programmers, crew and artists are paid. (3) Other Projects, such as invitations to other events and video compilation.

OMSK collective runs on an organic and democratic basis in which ideas and innovations are brought to meetings and discussed. Authorship is largely shared. Perhaps OMSK still needs a captain though..

omsk is always written in upper case.

OMSK is for new work - a testing ground no matter how established/ well funded or not the artist is.

OMSK is not just one of the collective.

OMSK is the relationship between pieces that occur when they are presented at the same time.

OMSK is a production company, but this among other things.

OMSK is unexpected

OMSK will always be re-defining itself, through monthly meetings and emails addressed to all collective members - to talk about different projects, to decide whether an event can be an OMSK and who can help with that event.

WHAT IS OMSK NOT? not a club, not a gallery, not a cinema - even though it inhabits all these buildings.

SMOK, KOSM etc are to be separate events that are not judged as OMSKs.