Looking Through Film: Traces of Cinema and Self- Constructs in Contemporary Art

从电影看：当代艺术的电影痕迹与自我建构
Looking Through Film: Traces of Cinema and Self- Constructs in Contemporary Art

主办：何香凝美术馆OCT当代艺术中心
Organizer：OCT Contemporary Art Terminal of He Xiangning Art Museum
策划人：董冰峰、杜庆春、黄建宏、朱朱
Curators: Dong Bingfeng, Du Qingchun, Chienhung Huang, Zhu Zhu
开幕式：2010年4月10日18：00
Opening: 10th April , 2010, 6:00pm
展期：2010年4月10日—6月10日
Dates: 10th April to 10th June, 2010
主题论坛/Themed Forum
2010年4月11日 10:00—12：00，14：30—17：00
Dates：11th April, 2010，10:00am-12:00am, 2:30pm-5:00pm
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Swiss Video Artist Pipilotti Rist Prepares Exhibition for Joan Miró Foundation

Beside Bill Viola, I think Rist is probably one of the most active video artists in the world.


via

Barcelona, Spain - The Fundació Joan Miró will be presenting an exhibition by the Swiss videoartist Pipilotti Rist, winner of the 2009 Joan Miró Prize. Pipilotti Rist is currently preparing, for summer 2010, an exhibition at the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona and another at the Centre Cultural Caixa Girona–Fontana d’Or in Girona. Both exhibitions are sponsored by the Fundació Caixa Girona. The artist has shown her work in galleries and museums around the world, including the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and MoMA in New York. She has recently completed her first full-length feature film, Pepperminta, which will be premiered in Switzerland in September this year, and is at present showing “Elixir”, an exhibition at the Kiasma Museum in Helsinki that had previously been at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam.

More about the Pepperminta that will be launched in cinemas on 10 September.

Exhibition, screening and performance at iMAL, Center for Digital Cultures and Technology, Brussels

V.O.S.T. OV/OT explores the connections between cinema, video art and digital art. The starting points are subtle, intermediate and functional elements of the cinema industry, such as subtitles and dubbing used by artists for appropriation and diversion. This program gives a central place to language, transcription and translation.

With: Martin Arnold, Armel Barraud, Pierre Bismuth, Frederico Camara, Jordi Colomer, DEMOLECULARISATION, Christoph Draeger, Reynald Drouhin, Yan Duyvendak, Mario Garc’a Torres, Omer Fast, Xavier Gautier, Pierre Huyghe, Kuda.org, Florence Lazar, Danilo Mandic, Julie Morel & Jocelyn Cottencin, ProjectSinge, Nicolas Provost, RYbN, Anri Sala, Keith Sanborn, Antoine Schmitt, Peter Tscherkassky, Virgil Widric.

Curators: Alexis Chazard & Marika Dermineur.
Exhibition at iMAL with video, sound, digital and interactive installations:

A Tank translated, Omer Fast (is), 2002, Video installation
Black box (Sounds of a society), Danilo Mandic (mk), 2007, Sound installation and publication.
Cinéma muet, Armel Barraud (fr), 2006, Video installation
Je sais, Antoine Schmitt, 1996-1998, Computer, generative algorithms.
L.O.S.T, RYbN, 2009, Computer programmed video installation, LCD screens.
Monkey Party, projectsinge (fr-be), 2006, Video installation
NINGEN, Frederico Camara (br), 2006, Multi-screen video installation
Psychic, Antoine Schmitt (fr), 2004, Interactive installation

Installation at Cinema Nova during de screenings and performances evening:
La philtreraie, Boris Nordmann, Installation

Screening sessions at iMAL every evenings of the exhibition at 20:00:

Al-Haj Mitwalli's Family: Proposal for an Improbable American TV program, Pierre Bismuth (fr), 2006
Babelkamer, Jordi Colomer (es), installation, 2007
Black out, Reynald Drouhin (fr), 2006, 6'
Helenès (Apparition of Freedom), Christoph Draeger (nl), 2005, 18'30''
Intervista, Anri Sala (Al), 1998, 26'
Le lieu de la langue, Florence Lazar (md/fr), 2007, 10'
Safe distance, Production: US AIR Force, Postproduction: kuda.org, New Media Center, Novi Sad, Video black & white & blue, 21'
-----
Blanche Neige Lucie, Pierre Huyghe (fr), 1997, 4'
E.T. and me, Xavier Gautier, France, 2000, video, color, sound, 1’
Fast Film, Virgil Widric (at/lux), 2003, 35 mm, silent, 14'
I scream, Julie Morel & Jocelyn Cottencin (fr), 2009, generative computer program transferred on video, various length
Michiko, Xavier Gautier (fr), 2000, video, color, silent, 0´48”
Œil pour œil, Yan Duyvendak (nl), 2002, 6'
Outer Space, Peter Tscherkassky (at), 1999, 35 mm Scope, silent, 10'
Papillon d'amour, Nicolas Provost (be), 2003, DVD, b/w, 4’
Passage à l'acte, Martin Arnold (usa), 1993, 16 mm, silent, 12'
The Artwork in the Age of its Mechanical Reproductibility by Walter Benjamin as told to Keith Sanborn, Keith Sanborn (usa), 1996, video, 4'
tv sweet, Marie Daubert (fr), 1997, 6'

'Digital Heritage: 40 Years of Video Art in Germany and Chinese Video Art Archive

Following the workshop and open archive on 'Digital Heritage: 40 Years of Video Art in Germany and Hong Kong' in December 2006, the Goethe-Institut Hongkong continues to explore the Video Art topic, this time in mainland China, by jointly-presenting the 'Open Archive: 40 Years of Video Art in Germany + Chinese Video Art Archive' with Vitamin Creative Space from May 23 to June 21, 2008 at the Vitamin Creative Space in Guangzhou.

The open archive focuses on saving, maintaining and mediating the cultural heritage of Video Art, which has become one of the most influential art forms of the 20th century. Important video works from the past 40 years in Germany and China will be shown at the open archive at Vitamin Creative Space. The works from Germany curated by Wulf Herzogenrath were previously shown at the ZKM Center for Art, Media Karlsruhe and the K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen Düsseldorf and the Goethe-Institut Hongkong (2.12.2006 - 15.1.2007), among them videos by Marina Abramovic, Joseph Beuys, Rebecca Horn, Christian Jankowski, Nam June Paik... etc. Works from China, curated by Hu Fang from Vitamin Creative Space, include those by Cao Fei, Feng Mengbo, Kan Xuan, Li Yongbin, Lu Chunsheng, Tseng Yu-Chin,Tsui Kuang-Yu, Jun Yang, Xu Zhen.

The installation at Vitamin Creative Space is designed by Map Office (Laurent Gutierrez and Valerie Portefaix).

Vitamin Creative Space Address:
Room 301, 29 Hao,
Hengyijie, Chigangxilu
Guangzhou, 510300, China
Tel: +86 20 8429 6760
www.vitamincreativespace.com

Robert Cahen video art exhibition影片和錄像展覽

Cahen對世界、幻想和事實有其獨特的觀點，並善於以抽象的隱喻和不可思議的幻想曲表達時間、地方、記憶和意識的流徙。

他的實驗作品的理念在於轉移：固定影像轉移到移動影像、地方和時間不斷轉移、攝錄現實的變換以至聲音與影像的探索。他的手法是透過時間和空間的變化，表現出有形和無形、敍事和詩趣、遠和近這些互相對立，又各有不同，同時造就美好和混亂的世界之間時刻在變的對話。

《時間觀》展覽將Cahen一些主要的作品配合展示裝置展出，誠邀觀眾深入幻想的領域。 1971年，Cahen獲法國國家高等音樂學院頒發學士文憑後，跟隨Pierre Shaeffer學習作曲，並加入法國國家廣播電視局的音樂研究部。其後負責法國國家視聽藝術學院的視聽研究工作至1976年為止。

自1997年起，Cahen的影片和錄像已在多個國家的當代藝術展覽的展出；他亦是現今獲獎最多的錄像藝術家之一。

Exhibition :
日期: 22.5.08 (Thur) – 3.6.08 (Tue)
時間: 1100-2000
地點: 香港大會堂展覽廳 City Hall



Screening and talk 影片放映及座談會

日期: 5月23日 (五)
時間: 晚上8時
地點: 香港藝術中心 Agnès B. 影院
免費入場

Karine (8mins - 1976) / Juste le temps (Just Enough Time - 13mins -1983) / Le deuxieme jour (The Second Day - 8mins - 1988) / Hong Kong Song (21mins - 1989) / Voyage d hiver (Winter Voyage -18mins -1993) / L étreinte (Embraces - 9mins - 2003)

日期: 5月29日 （四）
時間: 晚上8時
地點: 香港藝術中心 Agnès B. 影院
免費入場

7 visions fugitives (7 Fleeting Visions - 32mins - 1995) / Canton la Chinoise (Canton, the Chinese - 52mins - 2001)

NEW/OLD ROUTES -A Selection of Video Art From Central Asia

Participating Artists: Abilsait Atabekov, Erbolsin Meldibekov and Alexandr Ugay from Kazakhstan, Veaceslav Ahunov, Serghei Ticina from Uzbekistan, Ulan Djaparov, Gulnara Kasmalieva & Muratbek Djumaliev from Kyrgyzstan

Curated by Stefan Rusu

Opening: January 11th, 2008, Friday 18:30
Exhibition dates: January 12th - 20th, 2008 (11:00 - 18:00)
Lecture: January 14, 11 am
Venue: BizArt Art Center

4/f, Bldg 7, 50 Moganshan Road, 200060 Shanghai

Tel: 86 21 62775358

www.biz-art.com, www.arthub.org.cn

Li Xuehui: xuehui@biz-art.com

Alexia Dehaene: guanchaoqun@yahoo.com.cn

New/Old Routes is an exhibition and publication that explores the nomad specificity of the Islamic states after the collapse of Soviet Union. An overview of the present situation of the Central Asian context by an external viewer becomes imperative; this visual material compiled by a guest curator creates a retrospective look at the internal and evolving processes of the socio-political and cultural background.

Overlapping networks and the relationship between the archaic-nomadic and the present-day post-industrial traditions provide a synthetic equation and an extraordinary cultural load. The re-use of tradition in these artists' practices become the necessary tool for articulation of contemporary art discourse to establish the nods of resistance against inertia, apathy and historical amnesia.

The project's first edition that took place in Croatia, Poland, and Germany promoted the positions of Asian artists and enabled cultural exchange between the contemporary art practitioners from Europe and Central Asia. The project's current version as presented in Shanghai, China at BizArt Center intends to open up the process of cultural exchange between China and Central Asia and show a number of diverse positions on the Asian identity, with a special focus on video production from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

About the Curator:

Stefan Rusu is artist and freelance curator based in Chisinau, Moldova currently he is the projects coordinator at the Center for Contemporary Art/Chisinau. In 2005/2006 he attended the Curatorial Training Program at Shtichting De Appel from Amsterdam where he co-curated Mercury in Retrograde ( www.mercuryinretrograde.com)

About ArtHub
ArtHub Foundation not-for-profit organization that supports contemporary art creation
in China and the rest of Asia
New/Old Routes is organized as part of the Bizart/Arthub's Prince Claus Fund-the Netherlands Network Partners 2008-2010.

Nam June Paik in Beijing @ doArt China

展览 / 白南准个人作品展
策展人 /
艺术家 / 白南准
城市 / 北京
开幕 / 2007年10月27日
展览时间 / 2007-10-27 至 2007-12-02
地址 / 北京市朝阳区机场辅路草场地261
机构 / 都亚特画廊
白南准个人作品展前言
来源/东方视觉 作者/都亚特中国
　　白南准先生的名字包含了许多开启无限可能性的先锋时刻。1975年在接受Irmeline Lebeer的采访时，白南准先生指出，对向马塞尔·杜象塑造的庞大艺术房间入口处走来的现代美术学者来说，脱离马塞尔·杜象影响的唯一出口就是“视频艺术”（video art）。今天，让我们通过这个出口，进入白南准先生塑造的艺术花园看一看。这个小个子的亚洲音乐家在不停地寻找一种崭新的音乐形式，他在多种媒介中发掘新奇艺术表达形式的同时，也赢得了世界这个大舞台。今天，他被形容成一位独创音乐家，一位激进的行为艺术家和一位先驱视频艺术家。
　　白南准先生的艺术创作一贯坚持“艺术和生活的交流”这一主题。作为Fluxus（激浪派）运动的一员，白南准先生的行为艺术是音乐与话剧，或者音乐行为和非音乐行为的结合。他的艺术作品将观众从被动聆听艺术声音的位置中解脱出来，使观众成为作品的一部分，从而给观众更加强烈和直接的冲击。
　　白南准先生的第一件视频艺术作品利用磁石靠近显示器的阴极射线管以及运用图象信号转换器的扭曲效果，向我们展示了一系列从电视节目中挑选出来的形象。这件作品解构了电视的大众传媒性以及单向交流性。这一风格在白先生之后的作品中得到了延续。白南准先生运用闭路电视系统，引导观众观察他们自己的实时影像。他使用便携录影器材，在移动记录的同时将录制的影像播放给观众。这一创作方法，将观赏者的反应也溶入了艺术作品本身。
　　本次都亚特中国（doART CHINA）画廊的白南准个人作品展所展出的大部分是他的视频雕塑作品。这些作品体现了白先生“参与”和“交流”的艺术创作宗旨。无法触摸的影像和具有物质性的雕塑；人和与人类类似的机器人；锁在旧物体里的时间以及实时状态下显示器里的视频流，所有这些看似对立的内容在他的作品中相互衬托、彼此提升。他的作品并非单件的影像显示器，而是由对立要素组成的有机生命体。他的视频雕塑展示了一种新的“吸收视频”的方法。从第0秒开始，视频影像流不断地溶入雕塑本身，这种独创的艺术形式使时间这一抽象概念得以具体化。
　　都亚特中国画廊主办的本次个展，主要展出白南准先生20世纪八十和九十年代的视频雕塑作品。其于20世纪六十年代制作的将电视画面通过视频信号转换器转换成新的影像的《电视试验》系列、20世纪七十年代与Charlotte Moorman (1963-1975) 共同制作的表演照片以及运用闭路电视系统的《Swiss Clock (1988）》也在本次展出作品之列。另外，视频雕塑作品《Newton (1991)》以及《Darwin (1991)》也将展出。这也是这两件作品在亚洲的首次亮相。
　　活跃在中国现代艺术的舞台上的年轻艺术家们正在积极拓展想象力，进行不同的尝试。白南准先生的个展作为都亚特中国画廊的第二次展览具有重大的意义。白南准先生告诉我们顺应游戏规则可以获胜，改变游戏规则也可以获胜（Chosun 日记，8月15日，1992，韩国）， 让我们在他构建的视频艺术的花园里，沿着这位才华横溢、永不言弃的艺术家的足迹去领略他与众不同的人生。

A Breif History of Video & Media Art in China from 邱志杰Qiu Zhijie

中国录像艺术大事记
1989 张培力在中国现代艺术展上展出《30x30cm》
1990 ，汉堡美院的MIJKA教授带着8小时长的录像带国，在浙江美院分两次讲座
1991年，上海车库展，展出张培力《《卫字三号》》（洗鸡）作品
1995年，王功新在北京报房胡同家中展出录像装置《布鲁克林的天空》
1996年9月，现象与影像：中国录像艺术展，杭州，中国美术学院画廊，吴美纯策划
1997年9月，《1997中国录像艺术观摩》，中央美术学院画廊，吴美纯策划
1997年8月，《神粉1号:王功新个展》中央美术学院画廊
1997年9月，《邱志杰个展：5个录像装置》，中央美术学院画廊
1997年，《看》宋冬个展，北京中央美院附中当代美术馆
1997年9月，艺术家汪建伟和冯梦波的新媒体作品参加了第十届卡塞尔文献展
1998年3月，邱志杰携赵亮、乌尔善等人作品参加柏林录像节TVANSMEDIDE98
1998年，北京艺术家陈少平和邱志杰参加了科隆路德维希博物馆举办的《国际艺术家录像》
1998年，宋冬、汪建伟的作品参加了光州双年展白南准策划的《信息》特展
1998年底，长春技术学院由黄岩策划的《0431-中国录像艺术展》
1999年3月，在澳门当代艺术中心，由张颂仁策划的《快镜：中港台录像艺术展》首次凝聚两岸三地录像艺术资源
1999，朱加、李永斌的作品参加了在阿姆斯特丹举办的《世界录像节》
2000年9月，杨福东、徐震、杨振中在上海《有效期》展览
2001年初，北京藏酷新媒体艺术中心成立，主持人王功新、林天苗
2001年4月，李振华、邱志杰、吴美纯策划藏酷数码艺术节，北京藏酷新媒体艺术中心，
2001年9月，吴美纯在中国美术学院策划策划“非线性叙事”新媒体艺术节
2001年11月，王波的多媒体个展在北京藏酷新媒体艺术中心举办
2001年，中国美院开设新媒体研究中心，中央美院设计系开设数码艺术工作室
2001年，民间电影组织实践社举办了“首届中国独立映像节
2002年9月，杨福东电影《陌生天堂》参加了第十一届卡塞尔文献展
2002年，广东美术馆第一届广州三年展设中国录像艺术回顾专题，由邱志杰、吴美纯策划
2002年开始，凤凰卫视开设《DV新世代》栏目
2003年，中国美术学院成立新媒体系， 张培力任系主任
2003年9月， 张亚璇、曹恺等在南京策划“第一届中国独立影像年度展”。
2004年9月，第四届上海双年展“影像生存”
2004年11月，吴美纯在中国美术学院策划策划“迷宫”新媒体艺术节
2007年，姚斌在798艺术区开设专门的新媒体艺术空间--映艺术中心
2007年5月，李振华在北京阿拉里奥画廊策划《可持续幻想：中国新媒体艺术回顾》展览，同时在北京画廊博览会组织新媒体艺术论坛。
2007，中国美术学院新媒体系首届本科毕业生作品展

维他命空间要做德国录像艺术的回顾展，顺便也就要“趁这个契机，出版一个关于中国录像艺术的基本文献资料和展出一些中国录像艺术中的代表性的作品”，因此发来了调查的要求。晚上回想了一下，初步拉出一个单子。其实录像艺术的概念早就不合适了。给胡坊回信说：

胡昉 ：
作品和大事记见附件。我记忆所及以及占有的资料多属早期，后期的因为自己兴趣的转移，不太关心了，资料就不全面了。
而且，我认为今天的局面很难用录像艺术这个名词来涵盖。
像我自己的工作，或者张慧、乌尔善这样的艺术家，已经由典型的录像艺术转移到多媒体现场表演，严格来说很难列入录像艺术，所以这一类的作品我都没有提到。
一些流式播放的动画，像老蒋和吴俊勇的Falsh，邱黯雄、孙逊等人的手绘动画，做得都很好，但是算成录像艺术也有点勉强。
98年以后的Dv运动中出现的很多纪录片和剧情片，是在盗版碟文化影响之下，手淫DV，意淫电影的结果，也和录像艺术有很大差别。但是独立影像节之类活动中，这类作品却经常是主要的内容。这也很让人为难。……

那个时候，大家都渴望有这么多电视机可用，但都弄不到，做方案的时候，手工剪贴照片意淫一下就很过瘾了。我还用黑卡纸、放大镜自己做过投影机呢！

作品
张培力《30x30cm》1989
张培力《洗鸡》1990
张培力《水－辞海标准版》1991`
张培力《儿童乐园》1993
颜 磊《1500厘米》1994
邱志杰《卫生间》1994
佟飚《触及》1994
朱加《永远》1995
李永斌《脸1》1996
王功新《玩蛋》 1997
陈文波《水份》1996
钱喂康《呼吸/呼吸》1996
陈劭雄《风景》1997
狗子，汤光明《鲁迅在北京》1997
赵亮《表情》1997
胡介鸣《心电图》1997
汪建伟《生产》1997
乌尔善《联接》1997
王劲松《我的一堂历史课》1997
王劲松，丰江舟《北京》2003
高世明,陆磊,高世强《被祖咒的个人主义者》1997
杨振中《梦游疗法》
陈劭雄《风景2》1998
宋冬《克隆》
邱志杰《乒乓》1997
乌尔善《环顾》1997
翁奋《身份，现在，过去，六个》1997
阚萱《哎， 阚萱！》(地铁)1998
赵亮《一次社会调查》1998
王功新《神粉一号》1998
张培力《审视》1998
翁奋《蝶》1999
刘韡《难于抑制》1999
王功新《我的太阳》2000
陈晓云《向夜晚延伸的若干个瞬间》12min 2003
蒋志《飞吧,飞吧》1997
高世明,陆磊,高世强《梦幻作为寓言》1997
邱志杰《物》-1997
崔岫闻《洗手间》1999？
王功新《膜拜》
杨福东《我并非强迫你》 1999
杨福东《后房，嘿，天亮了！》12min 2000
蒋志《食指》1998
宋冬《父子》1999
周少波《我的一天的几种状态》2000
杨振中《534颗米》2000
周啸虎《心欲之旅》2000
杨福东《城市之光》2000
佟飚《天使在那里》2001
石青《黄角坪》30min 2002
曹斐《戏》2001？
周弘湘《红旗飘》20min 2002
蒋志《片刻》2002
杨福东《竹林七贤》系列2003—
邱志杰《亚洲时间》系列2004-2006
张培力《冲锋》2004
张培力《遗言》2005
曹恺《南京长江大桥》2005
蒋志《香平丽》2005
高世强《室内剧》2005
陈晓云《丽丽皇后的花园》2005
陆春生《化学史》2006
高世强《革命》2007
The bold section is Qiu Zhijie explaining his personal and many others shift of practice/ interest of video art to multimedia or new media and therefore not included on the list.
I am wondering how can we interpret this history, and our history in Hong Kong, Taiwan.

Oliver Laric, with versions of Under the Bridge by Red Hot Chili Peppers

Berlin–based media artist Oliver Laric creates a new instrumental cover version and video of the Red Hot Chili Peppers song, composed entirely from video clips of amateur renditions found on video–sharing websites. The film reconstructs the song note by note, as an ever–multiplying audiovisual collage.



“The great thing is how many amateur versions of Under the Bridge exist. I found more than 50 just by doing a quick search on YouTube. Maybe that's a new measure of cultural significance, as opposed to sales and downloads.”

Stan Douglas on show in Stuttgart

My favorite artist : Stan Douglas show in Stuttgart, Germany. From the 15th September, 2007 until the 6th January, 2008, the Württembergische Kunstverein and the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart will be presenting within a space covering 4,000 sq. metres the first comprehensive exhibition of the works of Canadian artist Stan Douglas. The exhibition will encompass fourteen video and film installations, as well as numerous photographs.

Born in Vancouver, in 1960, Stan Douglas ranks among the most important of contemporary artists. He has participated in the Documenta three times (1992, 1997, 2002) as well as in the Venice Biennale (1990, 2001, 2005) and his works have been shown at numerous additional biennales. It is in Stuttgart that his principal works of the last twenty years will be shown and experienced for the first time in a large-scale show. Iris Dressler and Hans D. Christ (Directors of the Württembergischer Kunstverein) developed the large-scale show in close collaboration with Stan Douglas.

As no other artist, Douglas has been able to enlarge in both a sensual and intellectual way the experience of the cinematic and museum space. With recourse to the intellectual, cultural and ideological traditions of modernity, his works exemplify a critical revision of Western history, past and present. It is the failure of modern utopias and the “ghosts” they spawned which form some of the artist’s central themes. Behind almost all the works is an examination of a particular place – Potsdam, Vancouver, Cuba or Detroit –, the respective histories of which are reflected along the various literary, filmic or musical references the artist uses: as, for example, E.T.A. Hoffman’s “Der Sandmann” (Sandmann), Melville’s “The Confidence-Man” (Journey into Fear), the Grimm fairy tales or Marx’s “Capital” (both in Suspiria).

Both his most recent video installations, Klatsassin and Video, revolve around two fields of analysis which Douglas has reflected since the 1980s and that substantially shape his oeuvre: the emergence of Western empires in the “New World”, on the one hand and the work of Samuel Beckett on the other. For instance, Douglas already curated an exhibition on Beckett’s “Teleplays” in 1988. His recently produced video installation, Video, refers to Beckett’s film “Film” starring Buster Keaton, and to Franz Kafka’s novel “The Trial”.

Taking place at two locations, the exhibition is conceived as one project and is to be accompanied by a catalogue. A joint project of the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart and the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. Curators: Hans D. Christ, Iris Dressler, in cooperation with Sean Rainbird, Gudrun Inboden

The World is My Imagination

Runs: 07.09.2007 to 03.11.2007
Curator: Andrea Zapp

The World is My Imagination.

Media-Model-Miniature

International Media Art Exhibition at CUBE(Manchester)

Nine artists and collectives are exploring the miniscule as an artistic interface in video, networked and interactive installations, digital sound sculptures and photography, found objects and custom built environments.

Striking and picturesque model worlds replicate real and imaginary spaces while reflecting existences and habitats, personal memories and longing – the shift in scale ultimately commenting on our surroundings within social and cultural and technological changes.

Participating Artists:

Nick Hardy, UK

h.o Media Group, Japan

Hilary Jack, UK

Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, USA

Marcus Kison, Germany

Amanda Oliphant, UK

Mark Pilkington, UK

Joel Porter, UK

Andrea Zapp, Germany/UK

7th September – 3rd November 2007

Opening Times: 12.00pm – 5.30pm Monday – Saturday

Preview: Thursday 6th September 6.00pm-9.00pm

Contour 2007 - third biennial for video art

Participating artists: Aline Bouvy/John Gillis, Gerard Byrne, Neil Cummings/Marysia Lewandowska, Omer Fast, Cao Guimarães, Carsten Höller, Saskia Holmkvist, Hassan Khan, Tsui Kuang-Yu, Gabriel Lester, Deimantas Narkevicius, Rosalind Nashashibi, Cédric Noël, Gert Robijns, Lucy Skaer/Rosalind Nashashibi, Supersober (Bohdan Stehlik/Una Szeemann), Sarah Vanagt

Curator: Nav Haq

This summer the city of Mechelen will become the epicentre of the third edition of the Contour Biennial for Video Art. The exhibition presents a selection of video works by international artists, both well-known and emerging. The most important exhibition of its type in Belgium, Contour 2007 will be presented in 12 exceptional architectural locations, all walking distance around the centre of the city.

Contour 2007 - third biennial for video art has been given the subtitle Decoder. The exhibition presents a number of video and film works in a double-edged line of enquiry. It investigates the perceptual and rhetorical mechanisms that exist which affect and shape how people assimilate their comprehension of the world. Within this investigation it also analyses the contemporary tendencies within lens-based media art practices for looking at the particular issue above, whether self-reflexive or not. The exhibition looks at the contemporary conditions and desires for consuming through the visual, and questions the capacity for effectively debating socio- and geo-political issues through this consumption. It is not intended to be a political biennial as such. Rather it looks at the means that exist through which we consume political concerns, and then interrogates itself to ask the reason why this act is relevant within contemporary art in the first place.

Aside from 8 existing works, Contour 2007 also presents no less than 9 new ones that have been created especially for this exhibition. As in previous editions, the format of a city tour combined with video art in different locations will be emphasised. The project is citywide, and a range of sites are being used. Historical sites play a role, as well as unused sites that formerly had some kind of public function. There are also sites that presently have active public relationships of various forms.

In order to give each edition of the biennial a new 'artistic injection', and therefore possessing it its own specific character, a new guest curator is appointed each time. This third edition is curated by Nav Haq, a young London-based curator, soon to be the curator at the Arnolfini, Bristol. The artistic team also includes London-based designer Sara de Bondt and Ghent-based architect house BARAK.

A catalogue with essays by Nav Haq and Nina Möntmann, plus interviews with all the participating artists, has been published to accompany the exhibition.

Video Art by Grant Stevens Explores Emptiness

I probably should know Grant Stevens from MAAP in Singapore 2004. Here is a pic from their site, presenting "Dazed and Praised (2004),Digital Video".

Grant Stevens, Turtle Twilight, 2006, two channel digital video, duration variable, 2 channels, 4mins & 10mins 57secs, infinite loop, edition of 5
The meaningless clichés that abound in popular forms of mass entertainment are the source of inspiration for Australian video artist Grant Stevens. However, the subject of Stevens’ works seems to be the viewer — his works calling into question the viewers’ acceptance of popular catch phrases as meaningful forms of communication.

“Cliché and Collusion: Video Works by Grant Stevens” is a new exhibition at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art of 12 video installations by Stevens that explores the language and communication of popular culture. In his works, which mainly consist of successive flashes of white text on black screens, Stevens recombines text from advertisements, music, film and common conversation to engage the viewer and solicit questions and critique. Several works incorporate visual film clips or rely heavily on audio monologues.

Museum of Art Director Campbell Gray says Stevens’ work draws attention to the meaningless nature of popular communication and the viewers’ acceptance of it by intentionally subverting the viewers’ expectation of these commonplace expressions. “Often, the textual, visual or audible message of a Grant Stevens work seems to follow a pattern of Hollywood construction or a trend in everyday speech,” he says. “But just as viewers expect the pattern to mount toward a climax or conclusion, Stevens subverts the anticipated course.”

For example, in a text-based work titled “Some Want It All” the snippets of text that flash onto the screen are accompanied by the high-energy music typical of a movie preview. The text, which Stevens has appropriated from actual cinematic trailers, seems to tell a story that is building toward a climax. But the work never reaches a resolution, it keeps stringing one typical movie trailer line after another until the video loops, and it starts all over again.

“We hope this exhibition causes our visitors to ask critical questions about their relationship with the mass media and popular forms of communication,” says Herman DuToit, Museum of Art educator. “To what extent do we automatically accept the general level of discourse in popular culture as our own? What impact does mass media have on our personal worldview and hence on our individual construction of reality?”

Stevens recently received a doctorate from the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane , Australia and has exhibited his video installations in Australia , England , Indonesia , Italy , Serbia and Singapore . This exhibition at the BYU Museum of Art marks the first museum exhibition of Stevens’ artwork in the United States and presents a varied selection of his new media art.

“Cliché and Collusion: Video Works by Grant Stevens” will open Friday, Sept. 14, 2007 and will be on view through Saturday, Feb. 9, 2008 in the Conway A. Ashton & Carl E. Jackman Gallery on the museum’s lower level. This exhibition is made possible in part by The Eccles Foundation, Curtis and Mary Ann Atkisson, and the Museum of Art Store . Admission to the exhibition is free of charge.

Video Art DVD : Perpetual Art Machine 2006-2007 : Year One - Volume One

Perpetual Art Machine is a living archive of 21st century international video art, featuring over 1000 videos from more than 700 artists from over 70 countries culminating in an immersive interactive video experience. Created in December 2005 as a collabora- tion between the artists Lee Wells, Raphaele Shirley, Chris Borkowski and Aaron Miller as a means to democratize the curatorial process by inviting both the artist and the viewer/user to participate through live interactive installations and online through [PAM]’s free community video portal.

In just over one year, [PAM] has been presented in 9 countries through installations, screenings and lectures including Scope New York, the 2nd Moscow Biennale and Art Basel Miami Beach. The website has attracted over 4 million hits by 150,000 artists, curators, writers, collectors and admirers engaged in the artform. The artists repre- sented in this program are just but a small cross section of the great artists.

One of them is Hong Kong's own Lam Wai Kit (see Blogsome Link).Congrats.


Track Listings

Hackworth Ashley (US) Scared at Birth, 2006 0’53
George Barber (UK) Shouting Match, 2004 4’59
Josephin Böttger (Germany) Hibernation, 2006 10’50
Chris Coleman (US) Modern Times, 2004 2’45
Cecilie Dahl (Norway) Cloths for a Summer Hotel, 2004 6’36
G.H. Hovagimyan (US) False Hope & Invented God, 2006 2:00
Stephanie Lempert (US) Read My Lips, 2005 1’12
Iris Piers (Holland) Soon & Sleep, 2006 7’46
Nicholas and Sheila Pye (Canada) A Life of Errors, 2006 14’24
Alexander Reyna (US) Star, 2007 3’21
Jaye Rhee (Korea) Pampering, 2006 2’25
Cinzia Sarto (Italy) Una Sporca Vacanza, 2004 9’53
Melissa Schubeck (US) Would you rather it was love, 2006 1’35
Endre Tveitan (Norway) Building, 2006 1’18
Lam Mai Kit (China) The Other, 2004 2’05
Amelia Winger-Bearskin (US) The State of Things, 2007 9’00

Bill Viola Creates Work For Venice Biennale

Bill Viola has created a major new work to be presented at the 52nd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia. Entitled Ocean Without a Shore, 2007, the three-screen High Definition video and sound installation was inspired by its setting – the 15th century intimate Venetian church of San Gallo.

Ocean Without a Shore presents a cyclical progression of images that describes a series of encounters at the intersection between life and death. Located near the Piazza San Marco the church of San Gallo was formerly a private chapel, and Viola directly incorporates its internal architecture into his piece, using the three existing stone altars as video screens.

Of the work Bill Viola states, “Ocean Without a Shore is about the presence of the dead in our lives. The three stone altars in San Gallo become transparent surfaces for the manifestation of images of the dead attempting to re-enter our world.”

“The video sequence describes the human form as it gradually coalesces from within a dark field and slowly comes into view, moving from obscurity into the light. As the figure approaches, it becomes more solid and tangible until it breaks through an invisible threshold and passes into the physical world. The crossing of the threshold is an intense moment of infinite feeling and acute physical awareness. Poised at that juncture, for a brief instant all beings can touch their true nature, equal parts material and essence. However, once incarnate, these beings must eventually turn away from mortal existence and return to the emptiness from where they came.”........

Will this be the reason to Venice? May be not. I think Bill Viola probably represents what Venice Biennale meant for us today.
Long Live Art (market ) and the 20 people that are controlling it. The same will apply here sooner or later.

Video Link Brazil

An Anthology of Brazilian Video Art, 1981–2005
Friday 23 March – Sunday 25 March 2007
Tate Modern

Heróis 2, TVDO (1987-2003)




Video Brazil is a survey of the experimental single-channel video scene in Brazil. Starting with work from the 1980s, this three-part programme brings together an emblematic selection of tapes by some of the country's key video artists and includes both early and emerging work. The programme offers a diachronic perspective on the trajectory of the artistic, critical and factual use of video technology in Brazil.

Influenced by conceptualism, Tropicália, the revolutionary project of Cinema Novo, televisual syntax and forms of popular culture, Brazilian artists have incorporated video into their practice since the 1970s, when a handful of multi-disciplinary figures assimilated the nascent media. But it was in the 1980s, with wider availability of video cameras and within the context of a new democratic socio-political conjuncture created by the end of the military government, that video technology took root in the cultural and artistic arenas.

As in other countries, video was embraced in Brazil for its immediacy, availability, potential as a community tool for social change and affordability for artistic exploration. As a hybrid medium, it has been appropriated for performance-based works, media critique, social portraiture, poetic, plastic and narrative experiments. With these facts in mind, this series has been designed as a point of intersection where these electronic texts can converge, reflect on each other and instigate fresh readings.

Curated by Antonio Pasolini.
* Video Links Brazil: Early Work Friday 23 March 2007
* Video Links Brazil: Pause and Reflect Saturday 24 March 2007
* Video Links Brazil: Documentary Sunday 25 March 2007

More retrospectives and histories of video art

Martha Rosler, Semiotics of the Kitchen, 1975, video still

unitednationsplaza is pleased to present a seminar and a video festival organized by Martha Rosler: Art & Social Life; The Case of Video Art. The program will begin with a public lecture by Marta Rosler on Sunday, December 10th at 6 pm.

The video festival will present a selection of early video works, dating from 1968 to present, from the personal archive of Martha Rosler, including numerous works rarely seen and largely excluded from the canonical history of video art, and others that form the backbone of early video histories as now written.

The video program will be free and open to the public daily from 2 - 6 pm at the screening room of the unitednationsplaza, starting Monday, December 11th through Friday, December 15. The schedule of screenings will be posted shortly at http://www.unitednationsplaza.org

Martha Rosler: Art & Social Life; The Case of Video Art
December 10 - 15, 2006

The early history of autonomous video art is a pivot point in the internal culture wars of the art world. Starting in the late 1960s through the early 1970s, artists with quite diverse practices experimented with the new (but not yet widely available) portable video apparatuses.

Film had by mid-century superseded both architecture and music as the queen of the arts. But by the 1950s the broadcast television industry and its structures of celebrity were challenging the social status of high art. Television was a problem… and then the Portapak was invented. Video suggested varieties of freedom to artists restive about or dismissive of traditional studio practices. Video promised a sort of gesamtkunstwerk on the ruins of a high modernism that had demanded a strict separation between forms. Video offered not just the experience of time married to the illusion of space accompanied by sound; because of poor image quality, video also offered relative freedom even from the concerns of cinema/ art film/movies. It provided the opportunity to sketch or to perform, to record a gesture or a narrative, to sing in the shower or dance in the studio, abetted by simple in-camera edits. Artists could, without commitment, break free of the studio if they chose, and, in the political ferment and upheavals of the era, while look around, report, raise a voice, show a face, register anger, offer an opinion, analyze social structures and events, tell a joke, join with friends, and yell back at the mind-melting products of broadcast television while nevertheless making use of its capacity for instantaneous, unrecorded transmission and endless flow or using a recorded format that was easily reproducible and could be widely disseminated. The international potentials of this form were immediately obvious to artists and even museum administrators, to judge by the range of international 'video opens' of the mid-1970s-

The wide-open field of early video may arguably be the typical condition of a medium at birth (compare the internet, on its way from being a utopian arena of activity to a gated compound locked down by corporate toll takers, if the latter get their way). Despite the competition of sites like Youtube, video as an art form has become, by definition, an expensive captive of the gallery and museum, the black box inside the white box. But the transformative impulses that drove utopian hopes in the earliest days have not completely evaporated. It is absolutely vital to revisit early video works and their context (including the texts of the era), to provide a deep slice into the moment of origin and see what may be refurbished and adapted for the present —beyond the stylish appropriations of the 70s “look.”

In the face of the Society of the Spectacle, taking back/talking back to the media was a watchword of the era, offering the hope of social transformation through art, activism, and community interventions. This hope animates many today, in whatever form and medium it may be furthered.

***

Martha Rosler was born in Brooklyn, New York, where she now lives, after spending the 1970s in California. She works in video, photo-text, installation, sculpture, and performance, and writes on aspects of culture. She is a renowned teacher and has lectured widely, nationally and internationally. Rosler's work is centered on everyday life and the public sphere, often with an eye to women's experience. Recurrent concerns are the media and war as well as architecture and the built environment, from housing and homelessness to systems of transport. Her work has been seen in the Venice Biennale of 2003; the Liverpool Biennial and the Taipei Biennial (both 2004); as well as many major international survey shows, including Open Systems at the Tate Modern (2005). Her work has been included in the Documenta exhibition in Kassel, Germany, and several Whitney biennials, and she has had numerous solo exhibitions. She has been invited to participate in Skulptur Projekte 07 in Münster as well as in documenta xii. A retrospective of her work, ‚Positions in the Life World,’ toured Western Europe and was shown at two New York museums from 1998 to 2000. Rosler has published fourteen books of photography, art, and writing. Among them are Decoys and Disruptions: Selected Essays 1975–2001 (MIT Press, 2004, An October Book, in conjunction with the International Center of Photography), the photo books Passionate Signals (Cantz, 2005), In the Place of the Public: Airport Series (Cantz, 1997), and Rights of Passage (NYFA, 1995). Sur/Sous le Pave (Rennes, 2006), like the much earlier If You Lived Here (Free Press, 1991) addresses the urban landscape and focuses on housing, homelessness, and urban life. Rosler has been awarded the Spectrum International Prize in Photography for 2005, the Oskar-Kokoschka Prize (Austria’s highest fine arts award) in 2006, and an Anonymous Was a Woman Award for 2007. Her solo exhibition, L ondon Garage Sale, was held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 2005. Her installation Kriegeschaüplatze (Theaters of War) was shown in Berlin (Christian Nagel) in 2006, and a selected retrospective of her work was shown at the University of Rennes.

unitednationsplaza is exhibition as school. Structured as a seminar/residency program in the city of Berlin, it involves collaboration with approximately 60 artists, writers, theorists and a wide range of audiences for a period of one year. In the tradition of Free Universities, most of its events are open to all those interested to take part. unitednationsplaza is organized by Anton Vidokle in collaboration with Liam Gillick, Boris Groys, Martha Rosler, Walid Raad, Jalal Toufic, Nikolaus Hirsch, Natascha Sadr Haghighian and Tirdad Zolghadr.

All about Video art

Workshop 2.12.2006 (Sat)
Goethe-Gallery, Goethe-Institut Hongkong
14/F Hong Kong Arts Centre, Wanchai


Pictures : Bjørn Melhus, No Sunshine, Germany, 1997 |Rosemarie Trockel, Buffalo Billy + Milly, Germany, 2000 | Joseph Beuys, Filz-TV, Germany, 1970



10:00am - 12:30pm
Welcome note by Michael Müller-Verweyen, Director, Goethe-Institut Hongkong

Session 1 - Flash back to the last 40 years of Video Art
- The discovery of video art and the establishment of a video art archive

Speakers
- Wulf Herzogenrath, Director, Kunsthalle Bremen; Curator of 40 Years of Video Art
- Ellen Pao, Founder, Videotage

12:30pm - 2:00pm
Lunch break

2:00pm - 3:15pm
Session 2 - The impact of video art on the traditional art and vice versa
- How did the new technical options change our concept of art?
- What do people find challenging with new technology?
- Does technology bring video art to an end?
- Video Art vs Amateur Video

Speakers
- Isaac Leung, Programme Director, Videotage
- Yip Yuk-yiu, Assistant Professor, School of Creative Media, City University Hong Kong

3:15pm - 4:00pm
- Coffee break
Intermission - screening of video art works at Goethe-Studio

4:00pm - 5:30pm
Session 3 - Is video art the antiquity of new media art?
- How did video art change the definition of art, from its original documentary form to its new focus on visual impact?
- Internet distribution: how does the new trend of internet distribution influence video art (e.g. You Tube)?
- Is video art becoming a traditional art form (such as painting and sculpture)?

Speakers
- Tobias Berger, Executive Director, Para/Site Art Space
- May Fung, Video artist
- Wulf Herzogenrath, Director, Kunsthalle Bremen; Curator of 40 Years of Video Art

Programme subject to change.
Conducted in English. Admission free.

The '40 Years of Video Art - Digital Heritage' installation which takes place at the Goethe-Gallery from 2.12.2006 - 15.1.2007 focuses on saving, maintaining and mediating the cultural heritage of Video Art, which has become one of the most influential art forms of the 20th century. The works were shown in Germany earlier at the ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe and the K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen Düsseldorf before coming to Hong Kong, among them videos by Marina Abramovic, Joseph Beuys, Rebecca Horn, Christian Jankowski, Nam June Paik... etc. Apart from the package curated by Wulf Herzogenrath, Director of Kunsthalle Bremen in Germany, an overview of Hongkong-based video and new media art collective Videotage's own archive from the past 20 years will also be showcased in the installation.

Installation at Goethe-Gallery designed by: Laurent Gutierrez and Valerie Portefaix