For the tenth time this year, Osnabrück is once again
the gathering place for the media-arts.
Between 7th and 11th ofMay, the European Media Art Festival (EMAF) will
present innovative works from the world of film and video, installation,
performance, CD-Rom and the Internet.
From a total of 29 nations, we have received 970 entries for each of the
festival divisions, from which the commission has selected the final entries
for the festival. Next to Germany, the USA and Great Britain are traditionally
well represented in the international programme. In addition, and amongst a
broad range of contributions from other countries, productions from New
Zealand, Japan, Rumania, Brazil and the Czech Republic can also be seen, all
presenting a broad spectrum of creative ideas and projects.
The international film and video programme will show 110 entries ranging
contextually from pure narrative forms to visual experimentation. Noteworthy
are the very large number of longer films, where many of them leave little room
for conclusions to be drawn about the initial material used or the subsequent
method of processing. In this respect, artists today are starting to implement
and combine the aesthetic potential of film, video and computer in ever
increasing measures, so that aesthetic and formal definitions for film and
video art accepted until now need to be discussed in a new light.
The Working Circle of Film Journalists, represented by Cornelia Fleer, Reinhard
Kleber and Professor Ingo Petzke will again award the German Film Critic's
Prize in Osnabrück for the year's best German experimental film or video
production. A retrospective will also take a fresh look at the prize winning
films of the last decade.
This years author retrospective is dedicated to the American film and video
avantgardist, Stan VanDerBeek, who died in 1984, and whose extraordinary
montage techniques have influenced many artists and still remain fascinating
today.
In a Hong Kong Special, we will inform you in detail about the art and culture
scene in this East-Asian metropolis, characterised by the tensioned
relationship between Asian and Western influences, and the present and notable
course of political events.
In Communion - Le Partage des Peaux II, the Canadian artist, Isabelle
Choinière introduces the most advanced video and computer technologies
in order to visually and auditively support and strengthen the choreography of
her dance on the presentation screen. She is networked with the technical
apparatus via sensors which allow her to control her artistic setting
interactively.
The exhibition at the EMAF, to be held in the Art Gallery at the
Dominikanerkirche, will present the visitor with the widest variety of possible
space for encounter and perception: from the spectacular light space from
Keiichi Tanaka, through Beth B's work which thematises the violence against
victim and offender alike, to the 3D projection from Clea T. Waite with her
installation KUR. Our new Virtual Exhibition project has been conceived as a
virtual, three-dimensional gallery where the projects mentioned above, as well
as other projects at the festival can be called up and viewed.
In addition to numerous Internet projects and CD-Rom works that the festival is
presenting, network criticism will be placed center stage in this subject area.
Here the interface to other media such as film and video, as well as themes of
societal and philosophical nature will be discussed.
The Student Forum presents works from students from the widest variety of
subject areas in media art: the Forum will be represented in the Lagerhalle
with two film and video programmes. The installation's exhibition is divided up
into two exhibition areas: the Bürgergehorsam tower, opposite the Art
Gallery at the Dominikanerkirche and the foyer at the Haus der Jugend.
Performances from Saarbrücken, Berlin and Cardiff create a further focal
point here.
We would expressly like to thank all the artists who have sent in their works
and projects to Osnabrück, and those who have given us practical and moral
support, with ideas and information during the very short run up to the
festival this year. In particular we would like to thank the staff and teams at
the Lagerhalle, the Haus der Jugend, and the Office for Cultural Administration
and Museums.
Hermann Nöring, Alfred Rotert, Ralf Sausmikat
