- ARTISTS
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FILMPROGRAM
Andrea Schüll | Jörn Peters | Markus Bertuch | Daniel Urria | Silvia Götz | Franziska Cordes | Flaut Rauch | Esther Achaerandio | Andrey Ustinov | Oliver Scharfbier | HUEXL | Sandro Alberti | Nils Klinger | Yuki Jungesblut | Manuel Saiz | Müller & Girardet | Shelly Silver | Andres Denegri | Thorsten Fleisch | Victor Alimpiev | Heilborn & Nillsson | Manon Bovenkerk | Hermann Helle | Dave Griffiths | Dom & Nic | Found Footage Festival | Portilla & Gabriela | Victor Orozco | Gonzalo Vargas Maldonada | Dario Aguirre | Basulto & Medina | Savio Leite | Rigo Mora | Antonio Blasco | Vilalobos & Rodriguez | Lorena Ortiz | Chen Wan-Jen | De-Chuen & Peng Cheng | Li Chieh-Hua | Chuang Kai-Yu | Wu Szu-I | Citynoland | Wang Ting-Ting | Shu Li-Ting | Liao Chung – Cheng | Hsu Chai-Roun | Jingbo Wen | Xiaohua Li | Mu Li | Xiangyu meng | Weimin Zu | Yun Peng | Anxiong Qiu | Feng Chen | Song Zhang | Jingjie Zhang | Blank Chen
Video art is now an important form of expression in contemporary art. Next
to video installations that are mostly dedicated to loops, experimental short
films have become more common among artists. Motives and production defy
the conventions of the medium and visual consuetudes of the audience. Short
films open a wide field of thematical tendencies visually on the borderline
between the real and virtual. Audiovisual media seems to be the perfect medium
for exploring new boundaries. Just like a compass needle artistic statements
point in polarizing directions: icy feelings hit aesthetics streams, political
winds strike poetic backwaters. Everything flows together on a big silver
screen. You are welcome to take part in a visual voyage to discover the media
art landscape around the world!
To offer a great discussion platform, we then return to the festival in Varna:
a cultural port with clear blue waters next to the Bulgaria Black Sea. Thanks
a million to KERA and all the guest curators who enabled this international
film program!
Silvia Götz (Curator)
Film Program: Germany
The good thing about limits is that you can exceed them. Depending
on how limits are defined, it may motivate you to go beyond. To try that,
there are different disciplines, just as in skiing. Is it the ski run or
rather cross country skiing? Do you know your personal and physical limits?
In art, however, limits are rarely evident, but a subtle hue.
For example in Andrea Schüll´s video “Versus” the
barrier to conquer appears in the shape of a silver screen. In competing
against the Terminator she triumphs over her own limits in realtime and fiction.
To raise physical limits, Jörn Peters found in “Imagine a movement” another
unfortunately disqualifying possibility, abandoning all codes of sports ethics.
Another man´s strength is necessary to override zero gravity in “All
is full of love” by Franzisca Cordes. What´s coming down to earth
will be absorbed by a mattress in Flaut Rauch´ s “Barbara”.
Finally, there’s “Walperoh” by Markus Bertuch, who is sailing
near individual and intimate borderlines which occur in personal relationships.
There will be plenty more borders to explore in the film program. Enjoy!
Silvia Götz, Hamburg, Germany
Film Program: Taiwan
One famous story in The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch Hui Neng is
depicting two Bhikkhus. While a pennant is blowing in the wind, they dispute
about what is actually in motion: the wind or the pennant? A Patriarch is
passing by and tells them that it was neither but that their own minds are
bluring. From Zen´s point of view, only the essence of mind matters.
In my opinion, however, the main thing is to poeticise imagination – especially
when speaking about art works.
All ten films within this program are good examples for poeticizing your
imagination when contemplating upon the issue of 'borderline'. For example
in Platform by Chen Wan-Jen: what precisely is in motion: the train
or the platform? Are they friends or enemies in City Massage by
Wu De-Chuen and Chang Peng-Chen? In The fish by Chuang Kai-Yu: which
world is it? The world of human beings or the world of goldfish?
What is most interesting to me, is that all familiar ordinary things suddenly
start to glitter within the light of poetic via the artist´s keen-eyed
gaze and wild imagination. Therefore, the so-called 'borderline' transforms
into the catalyst of the innermost poetic statement.
Sandy Hsiu-chih Lo, Independent Curator, Taipei, Taiwan
Film Program: The Netherlands
Impakt is the annual festival for ideosyncratic and innovative media art in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Most of the works in the selection of Highlights were derived from the so-called Panorama program. Each year, this programme offers an overview of the most remarkable new production by young artists from all over the world. Furthermore, various titles were selected that formed part of the ‘specials’ of Impakt 2005, such as a film from the retrospective of German filmmaker Matthias Müller, the screening version of one of the pieces in the ‘Chasing the sublime’ exhibition and a hilarious corporate instruction film that was part of the presentation that the Found Footage Festival gave at Impakt. Also two of the winners of the Impakt Awards 2005 are included in the program. The Impakt Highlights are a state of the art selection of nowadays-alternative visual culture.
Arjon Dunnewind, Artistic Director, Impakt Festival, www.impakt.nl
Film Program: Latin-America
ambulart Festival of Visual Art.
Ecuador - Mexiko – Germany.
ambulart is a non-commercial trilateral film show on voyage. It
was started in 2004 as a festival for visual art, initiated by some Latin-American
and German students of the Academy of Fine Art (HfbK) in Hamburg, Germany.
The aim of ambulart is to create an interest in and establish understanding
for the culture and people of the countries of Latin-America and Europe and
to develop cultural awareness. Communication through media and personal encounter
are central in this respect. Since 2004 ambulart has taken place
annually in Ecuador, and since 2005 also in Mexico and Germany every other
year.
With its collection ambulart wants
to represent the whole amplitude and diversity of the genre: from classic
documentary to feature film, from animation to unconventional experimental
film, and everything new that the independent cinema has to offer. The
movies have been chosen by filmmakers, artists and authors who are politically
and socially committed.
Enjoy our film program!
Dario Aguirre & Victor Orozco, www.ambulart.com
Film Program: China
China's rapid economic growth contributes a lot to the development of video
art, and many video artists emerge. With their cameras they try to record
and express what they feel by living in this special period of history.
When I chose works for this China Collection, I considered not only traditional
artists of academicism but also some artists of practicalism. So works of
artists both living in China and abroad are included. Finally I want to give
my thanks to all my friends who have supported me all through.
Jingbo Wen, Beijing
Film Program: Bulgaria
The Bulgarian Short Film program is selected by Aleksandar Nikolov, a member of PERDE association, Varna. The movies were made by young film makers who recently graduated. For Bulgarian film makers, now is the time for creating films with new subjects, ideas and creative energy, which reflect a developing society. At the present, a new generation is rising, who have their own stories to tell in a unique cinematic language of their own. Now is the time for Bulgarian cinema to reinvent itself and be confident as a new dawn unfolds for Bulgarian society.