THE INTER-SOCIETY FOR THE ELECTRONIC ARTS
ISEA NEWSLETTER #95
ISSN 1488-3635 #95, Part 2, January - February 2004
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Part 1
* CONTENTS *
* Introduction
* FROM UNDERGROUND TO FOREGROUND: THE RISE AND RISE OF VIDEO ART IN RUSSIA by Antonio Geusa
* MOSCOW ELECTRONIC CLUB SCENE: THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THEN... by Katja Efimova
* "DEBATES & CREDITS / MEDIA ART IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN" DUTCH-RUSSIAN PROJECT by Tatiana Goryucheva
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
"Media Forum 2004" International Media Art Festival in the frame of Moscow Film Festival
"Out Video" International Festival of Video Art in Public Spaces, Ekaterinburg
"Machinista 2004" International Media Art Festival, Perm-Glasgow
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Introduction
by Angela Plohman, ISEA Coordinating Director
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Welcome to Part 2 of ISEA Newsletter #95. This is the second part of a special
2-part issue dedicated to media art in Russia, guest edited by Tatiana
Goryucheva. ISEA would again like to thank Tatiana for her great
efforts in gathering all of these texts, and also Katja Sokolova for translating
a number of the articles in this issue.
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FROM UNDERGROUND TO FOREGROUND:
THE RISE AND RISE OF VIDEO ART IN RUSSIA
Antonio Geusa - art historian, he is writing his PhD on Russian Video Art for
Royal Holloway, University of London
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[T]he medium of video [...] is clearly the most relevant visual art form in
contemporary life. (Bill Viola)
Russian Video Art is a peculiar artistic phenomenon with its own genesis and
genealogy. First of all, when compared to the US and most of Western Europe, it
is much younger. The "great common primordial soup of the sixties" (1) , as
Viola calls the febrile activity of the first artists and curators who worked
with the new medium of video in the US, took place about twenty-five years later
in Russia. In this country, the very first experiments with video 8 cameras and
rudimental editing equipment date back no later than the very end of the
eighties, whereas first exhibitions showing video works took place about five
years later.
Historically, the birth of Video Art coincides with the final years of
Gorbachev's perestroika. By the end of the eighties shops started selling video
cameras, although their prices were too high to facilitate a rapid and
widespread diffusion of these cameras among the art community. For this
practical reason, it would be utterly anachronistic to label the first video
documentation of this time as Soviet Video Art, since the recognition of the
video as an art form took place well after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Therefore, it must be acknowledged that the video artist in Russia has a Post-
Soviet identity. In the press release, aptly entitled "Identity: Post-Soviet",
issued for his video "They Are All Lying" (1993), Gia Rigvava, one of the very
first artists to work with videos in Russia, analyses the new role taken by the
artist finally freed by the constrictions of the State Machine, which in the
past had regulated the production of official art: "In today’s ever-growing
state of integration into the world culture a new artist and new cultural
workers have appeared. They are creating right now a new identity: the post-
Soviet one" (2). It is evident that from its very start the artists working with
video were well aware that this was a medium to align Russian contemporary art
with the rest of the world.
This process of integration did not run one way only. As a matter of fact, the
beginning of the nineties was also the time when galleries "imported" videos
from abroad. As far back as 1992 the TV Gallery http://www.tvgallery.ru in
Moscow organized very popular shows of videoart (3) from Japan and the US.
Nevertheless, due to the sporadic nature of these events, coupled with the fact
that no academic institution at this stage had taken an interest in video,
influences and knowledge of what was going on abroad in the realm of video art
were rather limited. On the other hand, as in the US thirty years before,
Russian artists taught themselves how to work with video equipment and to make
videos.
The "marginal" role played by the video artist in the beginning draws a parallel
with the Russian Underground. In a way, video took the place left vacant in the
underground at exactly the same time as artists such as Ilya Kabakov, Erik
Bulatov, Komar & Melamid - only to name a few - were emerging to the surface and
rapidly gaining an international stage. Without taking into consideration any
ideological connotation, the similarities between the "official" underground and
the new generation of video artists are congruous. First of all, both were well
aware of belonging to a category of outcasts, ignored by critics and not wanted
by the official institutions. Artists such as Sergey Shutov, Vladimir
Mogilevsky, Kirill Preobrazhensky, and Aleksey Isaev showed their "experimental
works" mostly inside their own circles of friends. Secondly and most
importantly, in both cases their works were not made to be sold. As a result,
this independence from market rules means that video was the artistic space
where artists were totally free to express their creativity without falling prey
to any sort of compromise that the art market or curatorial schemes might impose
on them.
Relegated to the catacombs of Russian contemporary art at the beginning of the
nineties, it was only on account of the courageous enterprises of a limited
number of galleries, which organized the very first video shows (Shkola, TV
Gallery, Club Ptuch in Moscow), that these early works of Russian video art came
to the surface.
Just a few years later, in line with the rapid diffusion of video cameras, the
situation had changed in favor of full acceptance of the video as an art form.
By the mid-nineties video was a widespread and prolific artistic practice in
Russia. In 1995 the Russian Pavilion at the 46th Venice Biennale for the first
time included two videos (4). Significantly, starting from the mid-nineties,
video competitions and video shows were organized all over the Russian
Federation, growing in number year after year. Consequently, video became the
easiest and most convenient way to shorten the geographic distances in such a
large country, as well as the medium that together with photography helped those
artists living far from Russia's two main cities get themselves known in Moscow
and Petersburg (5).
Without any doubt, video is a well-established and recognized artistic practice
in Russia today. Most contemporary art galleries hold their own collections of
videos. In the frenetic turnover of shows in the most popular of these galleries
- XL Gallery in Moscow, for example, boasts a staggering average of 15
exhibitions per year - the number of shows including videos is very high.
Although the Russian Academy has yet to accept video art as a university
subject, both in Moscow and Saint Petersburg there are non-governmental
institutions that teach how to make videos (6).
Significantly, today’s Russian video art even has its own market, although it is
still rather weak. The Moscow Museum of Modern Art has bought videos in the
past, and galleries regularly commission videos by their artists. In addition,
foreign art institutions and private collectors - once again, mostly foreign -
buy them, although, once again, not in large quantities. Undeniably, Russian
Video Art has today found its place in the sun. The metaphor of the sun is not
accidental, since it allows mentioning a singular event that helps to underline
once more the legitimization of the video as an art form in Russia.
At a recent exhibition, "Access Platform," held at the Central House of Artists
in Moscow in November 2003, the internationally acclaimed artists Vyacheslav
Mizin and Aleksander Shaburov presented their new video work "In the Wake of the
Sun," signed with the name of Blue Noses. The video in question is a parody of a
work by the same title by the minimalist duo Blue Soup (Daniil Lebedev and
Aleksey Dobrov), made five years earlier. Mizin and Shaburov chose to make a
video that is not - as is usual in most of their videos - a "parody collage" of
other artists' works (from movies to animations, from paintings to photographs).
It is instead the "digitally retouched" full version of the Blue Soup video.
This is a choice that clearly transcends the mere act of making a joke. On the
other hand, it grants a certain authority to the work under attack, as all
parodies do. In other words, it grants it the status of a work of art (7).
Another remarkable recent event was Viktor Alimpiev's exhibition "To Oleg," held
at the Guelman Gallery in Moscow in October 2003. In this exhibition the artist
displayed in the two rooms of the gallery "solid objects" taken from his
animated video "Several Gifts for Oleg" made in 1997: scattered all over the
place there were gigantic plaits, whilst paintings were hanging from the walls,
and tiled cubicles had been built just opposite the screen showing the video
where all these object had been taken from. In "To Oleg" Alimpiev operates an
inverted process - the old (sculptures and paintings) made out of the new (the
video) (8) - which indisputably conferred to his video the aura of an
inspirational work of art, showing once more that video art in Russia has
definitely moved from the underground of its origins to the foreground of
today's Russian contemporary art.
Notes:
1 Bill Viola, Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House. Writings 1973 - 1994.
Thames and Hudson: London, 1995, p. 128.
2 Gia Rigvava, "Identity: Post-Soviet", press release for the work "Don't
Believe Them. They Are All Lying", showed at the Guelman Gallery's exhibition
"Dedicated to the VII Congress of the Parliament of Russia", Central House of
the Artist, Moscow, April 1993. Translation mine.
3 It is interesting to point out that the Russian vocabulary offers no
translation for the formula "video art". On the other hand, the transliteration
from the English into one single word "videoart" was adopted about ten years ago
to label this new type of art form.
4 Evgeny Asse, Vadim Fishkin, Dmitry Gutov, and Viktor Misiano. "... Reason Is
Something the World Must Obtain Whether It Wants It or Not...". Russian Pavilion
at 46th Venice Biennale, 1995. The videos in question are "I. S. Fadeev,
Volokolamsky Region, Songs of Naples by P. I. Tchaikovsky", and "The Story of
One Place". Interestingly, both works are made of archive material.
5 On this matter, the group of Blue Noses from Novosibirsk is a pertinent example.
6 Amongst these there are the Pro Arte Institute in Saint Petersburg, and the
Moscow Museum of Modern Art and the ICA in Moscow.
7 At the same time, it must be pointed out that the original video by Blue Soup
is not mentioned in the credits, as well as it was not on show at the same exhibition.
8 Amongst the videos whose subject is other art works, it is worth mentioning
Olga Chernisheva's "Tretyakovka" (from paintings at the Tretyakovsky Gallery in
Moscow) and "The Observer" (from paintings at the State Russian Museum in Saint
Petersburg).
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MOSCOW ELECTRONIC CLUB SCENE:
THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THEN...
Katja Efimova - journalist, music critic, VJ, organiser of experimental music
events, co-founder and co-producer of "Art-Tech" label till 2003.
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Moscow club scene is especially interesting to look at now, on the eve of the
presidential election and at the time of the democracy's spectacular death we
all witness today. The clubs as a scene involved in drug-use may become the next
target of official policy, next to mass-media and opposition politicians. Being
subject to prohibition and censorship, the club culture can easily get out of
sight and become illegal or underground. This will probably be a good sign,
because, as we know, everything new and interesting in Russia has always first
appeared in underground.
Apart from drug-use, clubs are being closed down due to the fact that "dancing
in big crowds" as a recreational activity is becoming less and less popular
among the masses. Besides, producers have made a fatal error by deciding to make
big profits out of mass events: they increased entry fees and prices of drinks
and invited a bunch of sponsors with beer-bellies who put on teenage outfits
trying hard to show their solidarity with the young generation. The "rave-
culture", which had always been a phenomenon of underground, soon kicked the
bucket.
This culture came into being in the beginning of 90's. This period was quite a
remarkable time for Moscow; "perestroika's children" (people at the age of 25-
35, who actively participated in the electronic club-culture) can now clearly
remember the feeling of freedom and anarchy allowing them to not only think but
also do what they want. In 1994- 1999 under president Elzin and democratic
government the club-culture blossomed. Before the economic crisis of 1997, clubs
had been rapidly developing; in 1997-1999 they were fighting the consequences of
the crisis. From 1999, when Putin came to power, to 2003 they were discussing
trends and priorities and by the year 2004 finally settled down turning from
clubs for the young into discos for the rich. They gave way to new places,
tendencies and people. Thus, everything we have now is based on the club-culture
of the 90's.
The first remarkable place is the "Hermitage" club. The club was opened by a
Moscow-based artist Sveta Vikkers and frequented by artists of the "old wave"
painting with oils and brush, university professors of Russian literature and
history, students, musicians, journalists, DJ's and young artists, who had just
got to know something about electronic music and electronic culture. It was
imported to Moscow from London, Detroit and St. Petersburg (Westbam and Bryan
Ino were on the tour there) by wealthy parents' children and those who could
afford to go abroad at the time. The music played in the club was techno. There
were no sexual differences on the dance-floor, so as compared to earlier
discotheques people in the club were enjoying the music instead of trying to get
to know each other.
The second key-word is "Ptutch", both a club and a magazine. There the new
generation of musicians, light men, DJ's and VJ's started to make synthetic
performances together. First video musical performances were done by Sergey
Shutov, one of the pioneers of Russian video-art and the founder of Art
technology Institute. He was also the first on the Russian art scene who started
making video films on the computer and composing the music for these films.
Shutov was an actor and an artist for the famous Solovyov's film "ASSA",
producer of the first "new wave" art exhibitions and live-shows by Boris
Grebenshikov, groups "Kino" and "Tupiye", one of the leading figures in the
squat culture located in the Furmanov street and the Chistye Prudy district. Now
he says: "I don't really see myself as a leader of some cultural movement. When
I think about what was going on at those times and how interesting it all was, I
get very pleasantly surprised. And I am happy that it has become what it is now."
This club was also a place for Moscow's first radical artists, such as Sandy
Revizorov, Alex Zubarzhuk, and Ruslan Rubansky; later they started to perform
together with the famous Alexander Brener (the artist who painted a big green
dollar sign on the "White Cross" by Malevich). They were all students of the New
Media Laboratory founded with support of the Soros Contemporary Art Centre and
the Centre of Contemporary Art in Yakimanka street. Zubarzhuk was also studying
at the studio of Vladimir Kobrin, a well- known experimental film director, the
creator of science documentaries. For a certain period of time, "Ptutch" was the
stage for new electronic culture and the first art laboratory, where young
generation of artists, designers, photographers, musicians, video artists and
fashion designers grew up. Roman Belavkin (Solar X.) also appeared there. Roman,
the founder of the first Russian electronic music label "Art-Tech"
http://www.art-tek.mu.ru, is now in Great Britain doing a research on artificial
intelligence. It is difficult to define the music style of Art-Tech: idm,
braindance, techno, jungle, ambient, experimental work with sound and sound-
technologies. In 2002 Art-Tech starts its own series of parties, where various
forms of sound and video interactions were presented in real time and space.
By 1999 Moscow from a free ship of anarchists was turned into a trade boat. Most
of the clubs were closed down, and the rest concentrated on earning back the
funds lost during the default. Only the "Krai" club was a remarkable place of
that time; there readings of poetry were held and new works of young video- and
net- artists were shown. Those events were organised by Vadim Epschtein; the
founder of the famous www.here.ru portal, he was very well-informed about
everything new going on in the sphere of video, audio and Internet. Works by
Netochka Nezvanova, Olya Lyalina, the Blue Soup, Vladimir Epifantsev and Art-
Tech representing the subculture of experiment, mysticism and radicalism were
displayed on www.here.ru. VJ'ing, having ones disappeared together with the
"Ptutch" parties, made its come-back. The first video works by Epschtein himself
were also showed in "Krai".
In the middle of 90's the biggest annual festival of music culture "Kazantip"
http://www.kazantipa.net/ was started; it attracted young people from all the
former CIS countries. Before 1999 the festival was held on the ruins of the
abandoned Crimea nuclear power plant; after that the local authorities, not
happy with the event, started prohibiting it. Since that time, the festival is
moving from one place to another, every August suddenly appearing somewhere on
the vast territory of the strange Crimea peninsula. The nuclear power plant has
become the symbol of something abandoned but progressive and a cradle of a new
independent generation of people, for whom electronic music was part of their
natural habitat. In 2002 VJ's took part in the Kazantip festival for the first
time. Nikita Marshunok, the director of the festival is planning to invite to
Kazantip not only Russian but also western VJ's. The festival lasts for a whole
month, so there is plenty of time and space for everything: video-sets with
computer animation, black and white sets with elements of live video, dance sets
meant for entertainment and Kazantip archives processed on the computer.
Oleg Kaloshin is also one of Kazantip's main guests: this artist could for the
first time in the history of Russian television organise night screenings of
video art on MUZ-TV music channel. From 2001 to 2002 it broadcasted live-edited
video-mixes with the music by progressive DJ's. Unfortunately, those broadcasts
were stopped due to the changes in the music policy of the channel; the short
presence of electronic culture on Russian television ended. However, MUZ-TV
broadcasts started the tradition of VJ'ing in clubs. The main feature of the
Moscow club scene is that VJ's, DJ's, musicians and performance artists had to
organize their mixed parties themselves; that is why Moscow clubbers can and do
everything.
In St.Petersburg VJ's are also to be found; mainly they are graduates of media
art programme of Pro Arte Institute. One of the leading figures there was once
Alexei Shulgin, the founder of net-art and the author of famous musical project
"Cyber-punk-rock-band 386DX" www.easylife.org/386dx/. The first gigs of the
band- an old computer playing hits of the last 20-30 years- were held in Moscow
clubs accompanied by video works created with the same 386 DX computer.
Nowadays experimental musical and art events, as well as workshops and lectures,
are held in the "Dom" club and the club "On Brestskaya". The first club is a
favourite place of music lovers; the second is frequented by artists, curators,
art-critics and contemporary art fans. Big rave-parties and open-airs are going
on at Kazantip. The O.G.I. club is very popular among literary and art bohemia;
the place houses contemporary literature programs as well as live rock concerts.
Experimental parties organised by Art-Tech label are going on in "16 tons" and
"On Brestskaya" clubs. Not long ago, "Gaudi" a new place for techno parties was
opened. It is located in a huge former elevator building, which still preserves
the spirit of the abandoned nuclear power plant on Kazantip. There you can feel
the atmosphere of coming apocalypse, penetrating the electronic and club-culture
now.
The residents of the club are techno musicians such as Lazyfish, a new star of
Moscow club scene and the German label "Kanzleramt records" releasing his music.
He played an important role in the creation of the Reactor software program.
Reactor is multiprofessional flexible software, which allows you to build your
own studio (where you can compose anything you want- from the Morse code to a
symphony). It is used by Depeche Mode, Bjork, Nine Inch Nailes, and Mouse on
mars, ORB, Coil, and LFO. There are so many examples of this kind in Russia now
that they can not all be named in one article. In short words, the Russian
software designers are capable of offering new products, and probably soon
Russia will become of the leaders in new software production.
Finally, the newest tendency in Moscow club-scene is searching for the lost
connections to reality and to the apocalyptic feelings, typical for Moscow at
the moment. Nobody is interested any more in the art for the sake of art, such
as decorative VJ'ing. Art that touches the feelings and reflects what is going
on shall survive. No positive future is to be seen. No joy, just being actual
and a little nervous is sufficient. We are fighting together against the coming
chaos. We are on the front line, attacked by insanity from all sides. Insanity
is inside of us, and that is why any possible future, especially the future of
the club-scene looks unexpected and exciting.
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"DEBATES & CREDITS / MEDIA ART IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN"
DUTCH-RUSSIAN PROJECT
Curators: Tatiana Goryucheva & Eric Kluitenberg
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Amsterdam-Moscow-Ekaterinburg
September-October 2002
www.debates.nl
"Debates&Credits" explored ways for a direct intervention into public urban
spaces, by integrating critical artistic ideas about the purpose and sense of
public visual communication, directly into the city's outdoors channels that
distribute these messages, such as billboards, walls, monuments, and any surface
where signs and images might appear. Four artists and collectives from The
Netherlands and Russia were invited to develop their projects, either as
reactions and reflections on the problems standing behind the lack of real
public communication, i.e. the visibility of public interests and their
incorporation in urban environments, or to raise their own publicly relevant
issues, omitted in the course of wrapping up modern cities and their habitants
with different sorts of propaganda.
Both term and phenomena "public domain" hardly exist in Russia. It has no
meaningful counterpart in the Russian non-democratic tradition and proto-
democratic reality. If we follow the "design" of this urban public area approved
by the authorities, we shall immediately see that priority is given to
consumerism, profit making, and the treatment of society and its domain. There
is a really deep confusion in Russia about the dramatic transformation of the
cities' visual environments over the last fifteen years: from boring dim hardly
noticeable symbols and slogans of soviet propaganda against the background of
Stalin-style neo-classicist monumental buildings, or Khruschev-style ascetic low
living boxes, now the city is adorned with insanely huge, bright, aggressive
commercial advertising massively presented on the streets, ground flours of
which now are covered with colour plastic panels of shop windows, while between
old grey houses you find typically new-Russian-postmodernist-style granite or
marble (real or fake), pinky-blue-yellow-green, mirror-glass architecture,
implanted as by a sudden intervention of somebody's giant powerful hand. Mixed
altogether advertising on tops of historical buildings, monuments suppressed by
commercial logos and slogans, nouveau-riche architectural and design fantasies,
along dirty streets with beggars, modern hypermarkets surrounded by spontaneous
babushki-trading-rows and small wooden churches nearby, which occupy the central
squares of Moscow 'bedroom-regions', - provide quite a frustrating grotesque
postmodernist kitsch image of a transformative society in a deep social crisis.
To intervene with artistically subversive ideas in such an aggressive context -
add to this the inhuman scale of city planning, and the flow-like rhythm of
street life - means to find an appropriate way to disturb the "normality" of
this daily visual reality with something that would halt the pedestrian's mind,
just enough for him to start to question what all this around is about.
What's the agenda of public urban art today? Amazingly, the Moscow city
government still thinks that it's about a big national idea and the
representation of power. Even despite protests of public, on behalf and with the
use of money of which monstrous projects are executed, they continue to
fetishise cultural memory in a Frankenstein style reanimating dead heroes'
bodies, and subsidising undrownable successors of the former soviet art mafia,
sorry, art unions, whose power is due to solely "good connections". Taking as a
counter-point situation with art for public spaces in the Netherlands, where
already in Schiphol airport one can find contemporary art objects and images, I
still find the understanding of the meaning and function of public art in
general today quite narrow. Quite often "strange objects" which we find on
streets, squares, in parks, are just gallery art pieces alien to the people who
pass them every day, as well as to the city spaces they are placed in. I like
the idea of integrative role of art and start to think about how artists can
contribute to the development or appearance of public urban spaces, when they
are considered to belong to public domain in terms of providing adequate
messages and forms for dialogue strategies of open public visual communication.
To find the ways to integrate diverse ideas, opinions, cultural and art forms,
into public space and public discourse means to open channels for unrestricted
self expression.
The artists involved in our project encountered the rather challenging necessity
to compete both with the aggressive environment and their own image of the
"other" (whether Eastern or Western) culture, influenced by mass media
representations of either side. So it was double interesting to see how they
would build up communication bridges with spaces and audiences through their art
projects. All participants are representatives of a young generation of artists
pursuing hybrid methods and expansionist tactics dealing with different cultural
phenomena, and different means of content production.
The group Machine and Leo van Munster (together formerly known as Dept) /NL as
professional designers are used to work at the edge of art objectives and design
forms, exploiting both for the benefit of the idea. They are interested in the
soviet tradition of appealing slogans as well as Russian avant-garde font design
in a historical perspective, and their replacement with slogans of advertising
campaigns. They developed their projects based on reversing the meaning and
functions of narrative messages in the city. Quite spectacularly appearing on
different surfaces in the form of mirror-mosaic letters (Leo van Munster),
specially designed fonts of huge scale in red colour (Machine), light projected
moving remarks ("BeamMobile"TM a joint project), they intimately addressed
everybody passing by, or commented on the state of things in a personalised way.
"Activator" of Leo van Munster was reminiscent of a hi-tech kind of reappearance
of the old-fashioned mechanical music-box used by beggars on the streets. From
the very beginning the artist had an idea to build a sound responsive
environment, thus he made an interactive music box whose means of playing were
human bodies. People passing by trigger an infra-red ray and generate short
fragments of a music piece. So the flow of people can play the whole song. The
story about adventures of Leo-sharmanschik and his Activator in Russia you
better find on the web site and in the catalogue:)
The artist group "Archaeopteryx" from Izhevsk /RU was suggested to further
develop their project in progress "Packing". The idea of putting protective
symbols: "Handle with care", on standard living houses-boxes in bedroom-regions
of Russian cities appeared after series of explosions of such houses in Moscow
and other Russian cities. But of course the meanings of the project, based on
association of people with goods, goes much further in their connotations. For
that reason, preceding any realised project, the artists conduct campaigns to
investigate peoples' opinion, whether they like or not to live in the house
protected by such a symbol. These campaigns that were conducted in the Amsterdam
Bijlmer region populated by mostly immigrants and the Moscow bedroom-region
Bibirevo were successful: the majority of respondents voted "yes".
Arno Coenen /NL whose artistic activities are quite often connected to extreme
and subcultural practices, came up with an idea to reinvent ('update') of
heroism as an art theme and form. Impressed with the monumental propaganda of
soviet times and the aggressiveness of the local Russian context, he used an
opportunity to do an exploratory tour to a championship of cage fighting between
Russian and Dutch teams, held at St.Petersburg. On the basis of photo and video
documentation made by him and his assistant Klaartje Pander, he developed
digitally designed images, representing heroes of this rough show, both,
sportsmen and audience - real-life characters of popular anecdotes about "new
Russians". Content and aesthetics of this series of posters for a metro station,
called "Demolition Man", altogether in a quite remarkable way symbolise the
essence of conflict-driven relationships within contemporary society.
Galina Myznikova & Serguey Provorov from Nizhniy Novgorod /RU made a multiple-
screen video installation "Falls and Rises" which represented a metaphorical
reflection on the 9/11 events. A 5-windows video composition was shown on the
facade of the Amsterdam Centre for Culture and Politics "De Balie", every night
during one week, starting from September 11, 2002.
Oleg Kireev from Moscow /RU was preoccupied with the subject of "legality-
illegality". For the Moscow part of D&C he organised a 4-days open internet
forum "Legal-Illegal" with participation of invited experts, dedicated to 4
discussions on the following topics: marijuana, prostitution, abortion, and
immigration. All opinions pro and contra could be expressed, discussed and
defended freely beyond the limits of the confusing scenarios which producers of
popular talk-shows in mass-media involve participants in, for their entertaining
simulations of public forums. In Amsterdam during his 2-days street performance,
Kyreev, in the uniform of Moscow militsioner (i.e. policeman), was checking IDs
of people passing by. Remarkably, and at the same time predictably, in Bijlmer
bedroom-region inhabited by immigrants, both legal and illegal, nobody of the
people he approached showed his ID, while in the city centre of Amsterdam,
overcrowded with tourists, almost nobody refused to do it.
The P.A.R.K. group /NL prepared programs of television-art, which they broadcast
quite regularly on cable tv channels. In Moscow and Ekaterinburg they were shown
at local tv stations during several nights. In Ekaterinburg, thanks to efforts
of Yekaterinburg branch of the National Center for Contemporary Art, they were
shown also on a big city screen at a crossroad in the city centre.
The Ekaterinburg artists Arseniy Sergueev /RU did a fake promotion campaign of
the "Black Hand" corporation, which was based on an ironical use of a Russian
black folklore theme. It became a parody on the exploitation of fear as a basic
instinct in mass-media, pop-culture, and politics.
More information about the "Debates&Credits" project, including reports, photos
and videos, can be found at: www.debates.nl
"DEBATES & CREDITS" BOOK & DVD RELEASED!
The book provides a full documentation of the art projects executed in the frame
of Debates & Credits in the fall of 2002 in Amsterdam, Moscow & Ekaterinburg,
including a full colour print-section and video documentations on the
accompanying DVD.
After the execution of the actions of Debates & Credits, documented on the
www.debates.nl web journal, we asked a number of distinguished colleagues to
reflect critically on the outcomes and the issues raised by the project. This
has resulted in a number of challenging essays, as well as an artist
contribution by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, who has been working in the same period on
highly similar projects engaging the interface of media and urban space. His
work is introduced in the book by art and media theorist Timothy Druckrey.
Overview of Content:
Essay No.1: Eric Kluitenberg, "Virtualite, adieu mon amour. What happens when
'our' media encounter the 'real' world?"
Essay No.2: Tatiana Goryucheva, "Minima Sententia. Instrumentalisation of the
Image and Simulation of Public Communication"
Photo Essay: "Moscow Brands: Who speaks to the Public?"
Reports about the art projects of Debates & Credits (word and image)
Commentary: Timothy Druckrey, "Relational Architecture: the work of Rafael
Lozano-Hemmer"
"Legal / Illegal" - Declaration and Report from the Moscow Open Net Parliament
Essay No.3: Oliver Marchart, "Media Darkness. Reflections on Public Space, Light
and Conflict"
Essay No.4: Viktor Voronkov, "Life and Death of the Public Sphere in the Soviet
Union"
Essay No.5: Max Bruinsma, "Just Use It!"
Frequently Asked Questions about the Public Domain
Biographies
Book details:
Tatiana Goryucheva & Eric Kluitenberg (ed.),
"Debates & Credits - Media / Art / Public Domain"
Publisher: Uitgeverij De Balie, Amsterdam
Year of publication: 2003
pp. 144
Includes DVD
ISBN: 90-6617-298-3
Uitgeverij De Balie
Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10
1017 RR Amsterdam
The Netherlands
http://www.balie.nl
TO ORDER ONLINE: http://www.nijhoflee.nl/article/9789066172982
**************************************************
ANNOUNCEMENTS
**************************************************
p l e a s e f e e l f r e e t o d i s s e m i n a t e
MEDIA FORUM
in the frame of XXIII Moscow International Film Festival Moscow, June 23-27, 2004
Organiser: Information and Research Center for Media Art and Culture "MediaArtLab"
http://mediaforum.mediaartlab.ru/
This is the 5th year when Media Forum is organised in the frame of the Moscow
International Film Festival, and, as the result of the acceptance of the role of
new media in audiovisual art and culture, it was immediately introduced in the
official program of MIFF and offers special accreditation to the guests,
participants and journalists who are over 300.
This forum is the first event of such a scale in Russia, and it reveals a new
sight at the world of new media culture and new screen technologies to the
professionals, viewers and critics. The task of Media Forum is to show the
connection between traditional and modern branches of screen culture, the impact
of technological innovations on visual arts.
The theme of this year: PARALLEL ACTION
Detailed information in English about concept and program
will be available from 10.03.2004 at: http://mediaforum.mediaartlab.ru/
Nominations of the festival competition.
- Short film
- Video art
- Web art
Program will also include:
- Presentational programs
- The International Conference
Entry forms can be found from 10.03.2004 at:
http://mediaforum.mediaartlab.ru/
MediaArtLab
8a, Nikitsky bulvar, 3rd Fl.,
Moscow, 119019, Russia
E-mail: mediaforum@danet.ru
Alexei Isaev, Artistic Director
Olga Shishko, Curator of program
**************************************************
OUT VIDEO International Video Art Festival in Public Spaces
Ekaterinburg, Russia, May 5 - June 5, 2004
http://uralncca.ru/outvideo
The idea of the festival is to integrate contemporary video art into the public
spaces of Ekaterinburg city. The festival public screenings will happen on
outdoor video screens network of "IgRek Cinema" company, 10 city screens located
in the most busy spots.
Selected video art works will be shown during one month each day in the pauses
between commercial blocks, altogether around 240 screenings per day.
There are only two formal requirements to video works:
LENGTH - 30 SECONDS, NO SOUND.
The festival will end with the two nights video screenings of the entire
festival program on all 10 city screens. The closing ceremony will include
presentation of the best works in a cinema theater and winners awarding.
Awards: Jury prize, Viewers prize, Festival's general sponsor prize.
Authors, whose works will be chosen for screening on the out-video net, will
receive 50$ emolument. After the end of the festival all participants will
receive the festival CD catalogue by mail.
Conditions:
The amount of the applications from one participant is not circumscribed.
Only one work from each author will be selected for public outdoor screening.
All necessary INFORMATION and ENTRY FORMS you can receive on the web-site of the
project www.uralncca.ru/outvideo or by e-mail outvideo@uralncca.ru or by
telephone/fax: +7 (3432) 72 79 64.
National Centre for Contemporary Art, Yekaterinburg branch Contact: Arseny Sergeev
Technical details
Attention! Length of videos should be 30 seconds maximum (without titles, titles
will be having standard design for all works).
Please send your works to 620062 Yekaterinburg, Lenina av., 60 A, office 540 or
e-mail: outvideo@uralncca.ru
We accept works on digital carriers CD-R, DVD, ZIP, HDD; & magnetic carriers:
VHS, miniDV (only in PAL);
Technical guidelines for works on digital carriers:
Format - *.avi (video for WINDOWS) or *.qtm (QuickTime Interchangable), *.swf,
*.svg (Macromedia Flash)
Image resolution in pixels (by horizontal & by vertical) - 320x240
Frames rate - 25 fps
No sound
Colour palette PAL (preferable) or NTSC
If you send work by e-mail please use codec DivX 4.12* (In tunings of CODEC
please chose mark /1-pass quality-based/, quality slider fix on 98%. All
other
codecs should be attached to main file of your video work.
For participating in project.
* Send confirmation of your participation to e-mail outvideo@uralncca.ru or by
fax +7 (3432) 72 79 64, in confirmation please print your name, e-mail,
telephone or fax (we can send application form by fax, if necessary) and
supposed quantity of video works.
* Fill "application form of participant" for each video work. Each file should
be named by your surname and number of work, e.g. smitson1.RTF, smitson2.RTF
smitson3.RTF etc.
DEADLINE for works sent via e-mail: April 20, 2004
DEADLINE for works sent via post: April 5, 2004 (postmarked)
**************************************************
MACHINISTA 2004 international media art festival
http://www.machinista.org
Machinista is a yearly unmediated and free open submission online exhibition of
artistic and technological innovations relating to the ideas of "artificial
intelligence in the arts" and "new human-machine interactions". Creative and
technological practices including visual and software art, science and design
projects, moving image, experimental music and performance are featured in
various scales and stages of development ranging from documentation of
prototypes and exploratory installations to fully systems. In 2003 there were
128 featured submissions to Machinista and offline events in Moscow and Perm in
the Urals.
Machinista Glasgow May 7-9 May 2004
Submissions for the following three themes are welcomed in all media.
1. "Art from the Machine: gleams of the inhuman"
Works created completely or mostly by a machine or an artificial intelligence
system.
2. "Artists Against Machinic Standards"
Breaking, destroying, hacking, unexpected (non-utilitarian?) usage of customary
programs as an art experiment.
3. "Full-Screen Robovision"
Moving image works (experimental/scientific imaging, audiovisual code, short
films, animation and VJ mixes) illustrating "the world as seen by machines"
see http://www.machinista.org for more details and to participate.
An offline festival each year in a different host city showcases key entries to
the online exhibition. Participants in machinista.org are commissioned to travel
and present/ exhibit/ install/ perform to wide audiences. This year, Machinista
takes place in Glasgow, Scotland on the weekend of May 7-9 2004 with some
additional events later in the year in Perm, Urals.
A new collaboration that expands yearly the themes of "artificial intelligence
in the arts" and "new human/machine interaction". The original Russian team
(Sergey Teterin, Daniil Lebedev and web designers Danja+ Sonia) will collaborate
with hosts in a new country to keep strenthening the network of multi-
disciplinary machinista artists across national and stylistic borders. Whilst
keeping the original format (unmediated open submission to the online gallery)
new category supervisors will be chosen in Russia and the new host country to
update the briefs in response to
previous events and assess the progress of the new submissions. In 2003, Glasgow
based artist group Pointless Creations were the only non-Russian performers to
make it to the event and the plan to further the next festival with an extended
offline event was then formulated.
Machinista 2004 is currently being developed as a collaboration between the
original Russian team and a newly formed Machinista Glasgow group. Our
experience lies in art event organising using alternative curatorial strategies
(taking part in projects such as: The Chateau ,Free gallery, Switchspace and
free party sound systems). With this project, we are trying to join forces with
theoreticians, open source programmers, Low to No budget filmmakers, Hacktivists
and other artist collectives interested in contributing to an ambitious cross
discipline international programme.
http://www.pointlesscreations.co.uk
http://www.chateaugateau.co.uk
The Machinista 2004 offline event is currently being developed by David Bernard
(Pointless Creations), Robb Mitchell (Free Gallery, The Chateau) and a 10 strong
UK-based team of curators, consultants and event organisers within the newly
formed Machinista Glasgow 2004 not for profit organisation.
Part 1 **************************************************
ISEA Newsletter Contributors: Tatiana Goryucheva (Guest Editor), Antonio Geusa,
Katja Efimova.
Russian - English translation by Katja Sokolova.
ISEA Board Members:
Peter Anders, Chris Csikszentmihalyi, Nina Czegledy, Gunalan Nadarajan, Anne
Nigten, Julianne Pierce, Wim van der Plas, Cynthia Beth Rubin, Mark Tribe.
ISEA HQ:
Angela Plohman, Coordinating Director
ISEA LISTSERV:
To subscribe, send a message to:
Majordomo@pd.org - no subject heading, with this message in the body:
subscribe isea-forum
ISEA, Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts
Pieter de Hoochstraat 38-2
1071 EG Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Phone: +31 20 6120297 Fax: +31 20 6182359
info@isea-web.org
http://www.isea-web.org
============================================end of newsletter