EMAF 1994
Video Compilation
Osnabrück 1994
The 7th EUROPEAN MEDIA ART FESTIVAL took place from the 7th to the 11th of September 1994 in Osnabrück. It presented the whole range of innovative and experimental approaches to work with the moving image.
From more than 1000 entries the festival-commitee choose 160 films and videos for the festivals programme. This international selection was added by a classical retrospective of the Polish Filmavantgarde and a hommage to the film- and performing - artist Jack Smith. Special programmes like "Rock n' Role Playing" from the US and "Klipy Grupy" from Russia gave the audience the chance to make a direct comparison of the recent Underground Rock & Pop Culture of both countries.
Live performances, CD Rom and Internet workshops, lectures with different approaches, and the exhibition with videoinstallations and interactive multimedia objects rounded off the event.
From the international selection of the festival we compiled two representative and interesting film- and videoprogrammes each 90 minutes long. With these programmes we go on tour in communal cinemas, galleries and other venues. The "film programme" unites structural formalistic impacts with personal and political approaches and absurd ironic stories. The "video programme" presents wellknown videoart along with found-footage montages from Hollywood-classics and from TV, accomplished with video-operas and clip-art.
The conception of this compilation is not a presentation of "The Best Of..." but to present the spectrum of recent film- and video production in the field of experimental and avantgardistic media.
There is a lot new to discover as well as known to rediscover.
I wanna be your favorite bee
Philippe Dorain
3:05,France 1993
Narcisses are beautiful, but tulips are nicer even if the way to get
in is not always so easy...
Warum wir Frauen die Männer so lieben
Herlinde Smet
5:13, Scotland 1993
In the past the space used to belong to the Chemistry Department as student chemistry laboratories. I had my first practical lessons in chemistry over there. In the dance piece 4 men are manipulated by one woman. Her movements determine their action.
The video itself is a humorous combination of live action, computer animation and computer manipulation. I asked one of my colleagues to write about the piece because it was very difficult for me to write anything sensible about the video since I considered this video as very intuitive and not so much based on theory as the rest of the
pieces presented:A line-up of semi-naked men beating their concave and hairless chests in an empty gesture of King Kong-like "male chauvinism" ... being choreographed by a woman ... presents a cynical and, some might say castrating, redefinition of the male of the species as a not-so-sexy object of pity. Whilst the piece is sensual and rhytmic, the dance rehearsal in a large empty dance hall resonates with the echo of an empty womb expressing a sense of disturbing disappointment by Smet, a woman, that men are, after all, not what they were made out to be in 20th century mythology.
"The role of "die Frauen" in the piece appears prominently in the sound track invisible, commanding. On stage the woman acrobat exposes her genitalia to the camera as an offering to tantalise or tease? Whatever her intention, there is a strong sense of vindictive non-availability; she is the subjugator, the emasculator. This style of work is unusual for Herlinde Smet; but deeply personal and very honest." (Christine Conlon, Media Journalist, London 1993)
Du warst schon in der Leitung
10:50, Germany 1994
Sabine Gaßner
Male and female roles, private spaces, career and producing stereotypes mix to become a dangerous cocktail. A tragicomical love story, rushing towards a standstill, set in a medial theatre. "(Man`s) inner revolt is to remain where laughter survives, at the bottom of the soul, of the mind." (Dario Fo)
Bloody Well Done
Nathalie Percillier
5:00, Germany 1993/94
She has a laser pistol and a passion. And every-thing is working like clockwork...
Another World of Dance
Luis Valdovino, Dan Boord, Laura Hill, Marilyn Marloff
9:05, USA 1994
This tape is made for the lovers of dance, the Jane Fonda work-out video, and the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonia Harding affair. The tape asks the question: "If it`s large, if it`s orange, and if it`s ugly, is it contemporary art?"
Another World of Dance is not about dance. It is a tape made in the spirit of Rene Clair`s "Entr`acte" & Tati`s "Tour of the Modern World".
Scaffold (Esafets)
Dainis Klava
10:00, Litvania 1993
There could not be anything among them because they were too close together. They were on the scaffold. It was a real love story.
Zwischen blauer Wellenberge
Egbert Mittelstädt
3:35, Germany 1994
The modern street-ballad singer himself becomes a component of his illustrations. The music, the text and the image lean on the simplicity and "flatness" of mediaeval images. Mozarabic book illustrations of the 12th Century have been confronted with modern computer games. Being a flat representation, the singer is a component of a flat world. "The semblance will always be flat."
Fieberrot
Christoph Girardet
3:30, Germany 1993
A short collage not only for fans of classical horrorfilms. A fantasy into deep Technicolor. Chained women, stripped of their narrative filmroll accessories: red lips, tight clutching fingernails, the breast, rising and lowering to the rhythm of the breath: In short: the essential elements from horrorfilms of the fifties and sixties, that are pushed repeatedly in a serial collage. So much directness penetrates, until the scene glides into irony: the voyeur becomes a civilized spectator of the communication process through the tied female objects. Relaxation is not apparent. The communication with its initial visual expression gains intensity. The screams of the heroines are concentrated by an accelerated montage leading to a final shriek-orgy. Finally, there is nothing left but the unpleasant question about the weight of our phantasies.
Die Angst die Macht
die Bilder des Zauberlehrlings
Herbert Distel, Peter Guyer
18:00, Switzerland 1987-93
The Fear the Power the Pictures of the Apprentice Sorcerer. Recycled TV pictures tell the story of the Apprentice Sorcerer by Goethe. Is it fear which provokes the pictures, or is it the power of the pictures which frightens us? That is the question here.
Beta Nassau
Piotr Wyrzykowski
9:35, Poland 1993
"Unplugged" media. Natural animation without a computer, without post-production. Just a switching-on of the camera. It`s only reality with a contemporary Lascaux Cave passing in front of the camera.
Passing Ship
George Barber
6:37, England 1994
"It was as though a ship passed by", says one of the characters in a disaster movie on the left side of the split screen. Shut up in a plane on the bottom of the ocean - turn left at Miami - you can`t do anything else but stay optimistic. On the right side lies George Barber in a bath, trying to overcome his fear of water. As the images of "Airport number so many" pass on the left, poor George thinks back to a plane journey that was so traumatic for him. Yes, it`s getting better and personal hygiene was never a problem because George knew how to use a wash cloth. Christopher Lee, Jack Lemmon and Ernest Borgnine, however, have more on their minds at that moment, like seeping water and hysterical women. But George, what did it sound like under water? Come one, don`t be so childish! Blub, blub, blub.
Durch den Wind
Robert Hutter
4:00, Germany 1993
From motion, matter clashes with matter: dust is stirred. Matter against matter hits my head. The body rolled up in the material, enwrapped, resting, bearing, and preparing for the next touch; the certainty of the collision.
Headcleaner
Kim W. Matthias, Stephan Haase
6:00, Germany 1993
The television consumer is our present-day monster of Frankenstein. It comes to life when the set is switched on and its emotions are fed on the avalanche of images; or rather its memory is erased and re-programmed. By means of Lynchian images in the manner of "Eraserhead" and Brother Quay-like animations of hellish devices to force the monster to watch, Headcleaner criticizes the non-information of the mass media. But the keyhole in the picture suggests that the viewer is a peeping Tom and that makes him a conspirator. The schizophrenia of the monster shaking its head violently is understandable. This oppressing production was made using the pixilation system, as a result of which the video gets a film-like touch.