P E R SP E R S B E R I C H T  



WORLD WIDE VIDEO FESTIVAL
PERSBERICHT (Engelstalig)

1 november 2004

Video Village is the first edition of a media art festival which will be hosted at the prestigious Triennale of Milan, in November 2004. The first edition of VV will be entirely dedicated to the World Wide Video Festival, the annual international media art festival in Amsterdam/The Netherlands, established in 1982.

Video Village is organized by Art-U and curated by Isabella Galli and Marina Turco, in collaboration with Tom van Vliet, director of the WWVF.

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Concept
The festival is organised by Art-U in collaboration with Futurshow 3004, the Information and Communication Technology Exhibition (Milan, 19-22 November). VV will be presented within the 'frame' of Futurshow, which this year is dedicated to the "Theory of the Three T’s", technology, talent and tolerance, of the American economist Richard Florida. According to Florida, these three concepts are the most important elements that can breed innovation and development in modern societies.

The link between economy, social structures, technology and culture is the subject of many video works presented at Video Village as well.

E-dentitŕ, 'electronic identity' is the theme of the festival: social, economic, political, personal, aesthetic identities, influenced by the new media revolution… world wide.

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The festival as an ideal stage for media art
Because of their institutional character, museums often lend an ‘aura’ and ‘artistic status’ to everything they show. By contrast, festivals show artworks in 'neutral' spaces, allowing the public to enjoy the interaction of an artistic happening, thus eliminating the usual distance between visitors and artworks which is typical of the museum environment. The public is in fact constantly in the middle of an event: the exhibition halls are transformed by the video installations which, together with the meetings with artists and critics, the screenings and the performances, create a total experience. The content of the festival and its format will be attractive and captivating for art lovers as well as for those interested in communication, IT, cinema, design, music, theatre and in the culture and creativity of new media in general.

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Why the World Wide Video Festival?
The curators of VV believe that no innovation is possible without history, and the 'WWVF edition' is a unique chance to bring twenty-one years of international media art to a mainstream audience, through the most innovative exhibition design and communication strategies. Art-U, the organisation promoting VV, chose to pay homage to the history of media art, showing a retrospective of the WWVF, one of the oldest video art festivals in Europe.

Over the past two decades, the WWVF had a leading role in the development of set and exhibition design for media art: single channel videos shown on monitors became projections on large screens with architectural characteristics, screenings and video sculptures became events and media environments. The festival is now a form of sophisticated and 'committed' entertainment.
Another important feature of a good video festival is the production of special and site specific works. World Wide produced and commissioned new works and programs, especially by non-western artists (Minnette Vári, Tracey Rose and Rodney Place from South Africa, Nalini Malani from India, Wang Jian Wei from China, Éder Santos from Brazil, the projects In/tangible cartographies, New Arab Video and In focus: Latin America). The curators were among the firsts to research media art in developing countries, where art and media have an even stronger social and political connotation than in western countries. The WWVF also had a pioneering role in the presentation of interdisciplinary works and performances (the cross-over between artistic languages is an important consequence of the advent of digital media). Works on the edge of contemporary art and music (in VJ sets like those by 00KAAP and The Light Surgeons, and multimedia concerts), dance (Quirijnen-Missotten-Lambrechts' installation based on Forsythe's choreographies), cinema and documentary (Angela Melitopoulos).
These three most innovative features of the Dutch institute will inspire the selection of works at the Italian edition.

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Exhibition Space
The Triennale, a prestigious institution for modern art, architecture and design, will be the main location of Video Village. Various video installations, a media lounge, a 'meet-the-artist' section and some video performances will be presented here. The Futurshow 3004 (Fiera di Milano) will host the media lounge section.

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Programme

· Video Installations
Section I:
Three installations from the exhibition Double Vision (WWVF 2004)

  • Wang GongXin, My Sun, China (2000)
  • Martijn Veldhoen, (why do I keep going) FORWARD, Netherlands (2004)
  • Sebastián Díaz Morales, The Man with the Bag, Argentina (2004)

Section II:
Three works discovered, commissioned and/or produced by the WWVF

  • Minnette Vári, Chimera, South Africa, 2001 (WWVF 2001)
  • Anne Quirijnen, Peter Missotten & Annemarie Lambrechts, Everything will be allright, Belgium, 1997 (WWVF 1997)
  • Éder Santos, The Encyclopedia of Ignorance, Brazil / The Netherlands, 2003 (WWVF 2003)

Section III:

  • Luigi Rizzo, Noir, Italy, 2004 (premičre Video Village, created especially for the Italian edition).
· Media Lounge
The 'media lounge' is a room equipped with LCD monitors where visitors can make their own choice from a menu of videotapes. At their own pace they may browse and zap their way through the selection, or follow the thematic routing mapped out by the festival organisers. A compilation of programmes of international media art promoted in the past years by the WWVF will be shown in the lounge. Two monitors on Italian video art, selected by the Italian curators (Isabella Galli and Marina Turco), complete the ML programme.

- IN/TANGIBLE CARTOGRAPHIES - NEW ARAB VIDEO
- EAST MEETS WEST: JAYCE SALLOUM
- WORLD WIDE ASIA: WANG GONGXIN
- WORLD WIDE AFRICA: MINNETTE VÁRI
- WORLD WIDE SOUTH AMERICA I: ÉDER SANTOS
- WORLD WIDE SOUTH AMERICA II: SEBASTIÁN DIÁZ MORALES
- WORLD WIDE EUROPE I: EDGAR PĘRA
- WORLD WIDE EUROPE II: DUTCH PERSPECTIVE
- VIDEO VILLAGE ITALIA I: OTTONELLA MOCELLIN E NICOLA PELLEGRINI
- VIDEO VILLAGE ITALIA II: PAESAGGI DELLA MENTE

· Performances
Edgar Pęra (Portugal)
Cine-concert for video and guitar: “Südwestern. Wild Fado style freewestern style music in a live cinema show”.

· Meet The Artist
In the auditorium of the Triennale, the audience will come into closer contact with artists and critics in a series of lectures, interviews and introductions that discuss in more detail the works themselves, their context and the artists' motivations. Moderators: Isabella Galli, Marina Turco, Tom van Vliet.

Tuesday 16 November
16.30 Meet Jayce Salloum
18.30 Meet Éder Santos

Wednesday 17 November
16.30 Meet Martijn Veldhoen
18.30 Meet Sebastián Diáz Morales

Thursday 18 November
16.30 Meet the Italians. Progetto Casina. PARATA, 2001 (Antonella Ortelli, in collaboration with Luca Quartana, Igor Francia, Giorgio Zanchetti)
18.00 Meet the Italians. Luigi Rizzo

Friday 19 November
16.30 Meet Edgar Pęra
18.00 Edgar Pęra: cine-concerto | cine-concert “Sudwestern”

Saturday 20 November
16.30 Meet Wang GongXin
18.30 Meet Minnette Vári

Sunday 21 November
15.30 Meet the Italians. Antonio Rovaldi
16.30 Meet the Italians. Ottonella Mocellin | Nicola Pellegrini
18.00 Meet the Italians. Marco Vaglieri

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URLs
www.art-u.it
www.futurshow.it
www.triennale.it
www.wwvf.nl

Note to the editor (not for publication)

Press information

T: + 31 (0)20 420 77 29
F: + 31 (0)20 421 38 28
E: pers@wwvf.nl
W: www.wwvf.nl/press


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