Do we need any more AV festivals? Being in the throes of the multimedia/digital age, are they just getting started or will we continue to be challenged by AV? Let’s see.
VIDEOKILLS, a Berlin based video art collective, is hosting its first
International Video Arts festival, taking place in Berlin from 26 August - 30 2009. As it’s their first year, and I love Berlin, I thought it might be worth flagging this up to you in the even you might be there later this summer.
VIDEOKILLS hold the following philosophy “accessibility, open exchange of art and ideas, and a dedication to the preservation, invention and evolution of the medium of video art.” I'm open to that. I subscribe to that notion.
The festival will showcase works from international artists in the form of video installations, video art, experimental, narrative and documentary short films. In addition, VIDEOKILLS will host a SKYPE symposium series where scholars and video artists from around the world will lecture and participate in panel discussions on a wide range of topics from art to technology. There are also a series of Workshops scheduled to coincide with symposium topics, focusing on techniques and innovation. This reminds me a bit of Sally Potter’s new film “Rage”, which you can read all about in the next issue of Aesthetica. No swimming pools though...FYI – we’re re-branding and I’m bloody excited.
The festival will take place at STATTBAD-Wedding, which once served as an indoor swimming complex, and now acts as a versatile and dynamic space for concerts, festivals, and myriad other events. We will curate the festival with the unique possibilities of the space in mind. The swimming pools will act as projection spaces and viewing rooms, as will the basement spaces, utility areas, and underbelly of the Stattbad. Artists will create site-specific work, which utilizes the aesthetic layout of the space.
And here’s the plug for Berlin according to VIDEOKILLS “Berlin is a city of re-invention. Part of the importance and gravity of using an old space to display contemporary work allows for a dialogue to take place between past and present. By bringing together artists from around the world to share and view contemporary video art in a re-appropriated space, we hope to transcend and re-define the old, not by abandoning our history, but by fusing it with the new.” I buy that.
VIDEOKILLS International Video Arts Festival 2009 (V:InVAF) is curated by
Curators: JJ Hurvich, Emma Pike, and Tiphaine Shipman
www.thepostraum.com
All images courtesy of VIDEOKILLS © 2009
