This year’s Congress comments on a variety of themes. Important anchorage points are current events, such as the crisis in the banking and business world, or the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
- H. Farocki: "Auge Maschine III", D 2003
The author and journalist Stefan Heidenreich explores historical, theoretical and practical issues with regard to the financial crisis: does the economic context make new options and tasks available to artistic production? How do the roles of critics, curators or artists change? Further-more, producer Osnat Trablesi (Tel Aviv) introduces the web and TV production "Gaza-Sderot: Das Leben trotz allem", which was awarded the Prix Europe. Despite the daily threat of air raids and missiles, the people portrayed never stop working, loving and dreaming. Despite it all.
Fittingly, the subject „Media Art and War“ is taken up with the exhibition “Image Battles – 2000 years of news from the war” in mind. The artist Johanna Reich from the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne reports about the project “MinusEins” and her video installation “Front”. Julius von Bismarck from Berlin University of the Arts presents his work “Image Fulgurator”, in which he develops the possibility of a “minimally invasive” manipulation of photographic images. Professor Dr. Ursula Frohne from the Institute for History of Art of the University of Colgone explores the works of Harun Farocki and his analysis of the images of war. Finally, the artist Harry Walter introduces the work “Mutterkompass – Stalingraderinnerungen eines Spätgeborenen”, in which he tries to establish a sensual contact with the past for future generations.
- EMAF 1998: "Everything will be o.k."
A further focal area is dedicated to the chapter of media art archives. Under the title „From Archive to Living Database“, various forms of conveyance of work in and with archives will be presented within the pilot project „mediaartbase.de“. Gabriele Blome (Ludwig Bolzmann Institut), Dr. Renate Buschmann (IMAI Düsseldorf), Monika Fleischmann and Wolfgang Strauss (IAIS Fraunhofer), Glenn R. Phillips (Getty Research Institute Los Angeles), Prof. Ludger Brümmer (ZKM) and Prof. Jean Francois Guiton (HfK Bremen) are involved. In his lecture, Prof. Oliver Grau investigates the area of archiving Media Art. He advocates the documentation, collection and preservation of the evolutionary history of the audiovisual media and their inconsistencies. Dr. Achim Heidenreich, from the Institute of Music and Acoustics at the ZKM talks about music as the memory of the film. Music and moving image have their own dramaturgy and their own criteria of perception. On this basis, the contribution deals with new dramaturgical problems and possibilities in combining music and moving image in the digital age.
// 23 to 25 April, from 1 pm in the Haus der Jugend
Mediaartbase.de is a cooperative project between the ZKM | Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe in Karlsruhe, the documenta archive with the Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival and the European Media Art Festival (EMAF) – funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation and the Cultural Foundation of the Federal States. The aim of the pilot project is to electronically process selected stocks of unique collections from these institutions and to make them accessible to the public.