New Territories 2008 at The Tramway

Attempts to adequately summarise 'New Territories' are always going to fall short. Described as occupying the spaces between installation and performance, Europe's longest running live arts festival waves two hefty fingers in the face of genre specific practice - if any artistic mantra were to be applicable here it would be that of a fiercely defiant multiplicity. From its humble beginnings as 'Performance Platform' in 1979, the festival has steadily grown into a complex network of happenings, straddling generations, nationalities and disciplines. From 6 February, Glasgow's Tramway will bear witness to an explosion of form, as the boundaries of theatre, dance, music, performance art and video dissolve in creative reverie. While the abyss between formal mediums is exploited, so too are the dimensions between individuals – between artist and audience, and, perhaps more fundamentally, within the audience as community. In this sense Glasgow stands at a precipice, about to free-fall into a month-long process of collective social regeneration.

Aesthetically, the works descending on the Tramway next month are far removed from object-based practices. Events such as Yara El-Sherbini's 'A Pub Quiz' focus instead on ongoing, open-ended acts of exchange within an artistic framework. Transplanting the frivolous structure of a Friday night's boozing into a forum of political debate, El-Sherbini implicates her audience in a relational process of exchange, highlighting the intersection between art and activism. Part of 'Performing Rights Glasgow' on 10 February, 'A Pub Quiz' is just one of many performances, presentations, discussions, screenings and interventions committed to emancipating zones of communication for the expression of human rights.

The one constant pumping through the foundations of the Tramway over the coming weeks may very well be this ineradicable drive towards revised notions of collectivity. Bristol-based group Uninvited Guests initiate an event that challenges the anonymity and generalised sentiment pervading our media-saturated culture. 'Love Letters Straight From Your Heart' calls upon its audience to dedicate songs to lovers and friends, mapping out an audible chart of relationships past and present. In this sense, if nothing else, Scotland's International Festival of Live Arts is certain to remind the city of what it means to truly live.