Archive · 1999–2014
DARKLIGHT
DARKLIGHT
Archive · 1999–2014
What Darklight Was
Darklight was Dublin's festival for digital film and creative technology. Between 1999 and 2014 it became the home for a new generation of filmmakers — created at a time when digital work had almost nowhere to be seen.
Fifteen years of screenings, workshops, symposiums, warehouse takeovers and arguments about the future of the moving image. This archive preserves everything that survived — the festival's websites, blogs and photography, year by year.
Fifteen years, year by year. Some are richly documented, others survive only in fragments.
The first annual Darklight — screenings, exhibition, seminars, workshops and mixed media events exploring the creative potential of digital art and technology. Featured an open-air performance with Coldcut and the Scratch Perverts.
Returning to Dublin's Temple Bar, 25–28 May. Screenings, seminars, art exhibition and live events celebrating the creative potential of art, film and music in digital technology.
17th November 2001. A conference format exploring digital creative practice, supported by Critical Voices. Audio archive of the conference available.
No content found for this year in any archive source.
In association with the Diageo Liberties Learning Initiative at The Digital Hub. Talks and workshops on digital media, 3G technology, and the emerging creative sector in Ireland.
27–28 October, Digital Exchange, The Digital Hub, Crane St, Dublin 8. The Darklight Symposium explored digital distribution, citizen media, podcasting and networked audiences. Also featured the Nokia/Darklight Pocket Movie Challenge.
A full programme of short and feature films across IFI, Filmbase and Havana. Programmes included Activated Abstraction, OneDotZero, Krakow Film Festival selection, and the Wildlight Channel Selection.
Documented through the festival blog: the 2007 launch and DATA event, screenings and workshops (including Toon Boom), the Darklight Symposium, and forum discussions on Television 2.0 and the evolution of the short film. Podcast recordings also survive.
26–29 June. Day-by-day schedules survive for all four days of the festival, along with launch party photography.
Smithfield, Dublin, 8–11 October. Marking the 10th anniversary of the festival — screenings, workshops, seminars, symposiums, performances and visual art.
28–31 October, IFI, Filmbase and the Grand Social. Guest programmers — including David O'Reilly, Synth Eastwood, Skinny Wolves and Caroline Campbell — each invited their personal heroes to programme events.
Celebrating the spirit of grassroots filmmaking at The Factory, Grand Canal Dock. Programme strands included New Indie Voices, Spotlight on Docs, SFX Unplugged, 3-D.I.Y and Artist in Focus: Terence Davies.
The festival explored the tension between grassroots DIY filmmaking and high-end VFX production. Featured Grabbers, Indie Game: The Movie, Terence Davies Retrospective and a GameJam, with a national touring leg reaching Birr, Kilkenny and Sligo.
No festival was held in 2013 — a year of regrouping, running a public survey and planning the reboot. News and announcements survive via the festival blog.
Smithfield, Dublin, 24–27 April. Themes of Digital Storytelling, Anatomy of a Film and What's Up Doc? Irish premiere of The Act of Killing (Director's Cut) and A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness. The most fully documented edition in the archive.
Two decades of photography and artwork, preserved from the festival's Flickr and Facebook accounts.
Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, June 2008 — the festival launch on film. 50 photographs from the Darklight Flickr account.
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The reboot in photographs — the festival party, the Oculus Rift workshop, screen-printing at Flux Studios, and the street-chase game across Dublin. 196 photographs.
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The robot-girl, the ReBoot campaign, posters and page art — the festival's graphic identity across its final decade.
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