EUROPEN MEDIA ART FESTIVAL
7-11 May

For the tenth time this year, Osnabrueck is going to be meeting-place
for the media-arts.

Between 7th and 11th of May, 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. Traditionally well represented here are Germany, the
USA and Great Britain. In addition, and amongst a broad range of
contributions from other countries, productions from New Zealand, Japan,
Rumania, Brazil and the Czech Republic will be seen, all of which
present a broad spectrum of creative ideas and projects.

Film & Video

The international film and video programme will be showing 110 entries
which range 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. Here in Osnabrueck, the Working Circle of Film Journalists
will again be presenting the German Film Critic's Prize for the year's
best German experimental film. In a retrospective programme, the prize
winners of the last ten years will be presented.

Retrospective

A comprehensive presentation is to be dedicated to the work of film and
video avant- gardist, Stan VanDerBeek, who died in 1984. VanDerBeek
started off his carrier in the 1950's with work on abstract film, and
was already working with computer and video techniques in the early
1960's. In his multimedia work he concerned himelf with the development
of new visual effects, for which he designed special systems of
projection. The programme will be introduced by the american film
theorist William Moritz.

Internet

Web films staged in the Internet are to be placed very much at the
forefront of the project division at the festival this year. Amongst
others, "My Boyfriend came Back from War," an outstanding piece of work
from the Moscow artist Olia Lialina will be shown.

Viewing Distance is one festival project which you are invited to take
part in right away. Here a new narrative is going to be constructed from
the screenshots sent in by participants.

One particular highlight of the festival will be the virtual exhibition.
Here objects and projects will be shown and invoked in a 3D environment.
Furthermore the new project "Dialogue Spaces", which will be realised in
cooperation with "artimage", Graz, will be presented.

Workshops

Workshops on VRML, Real Audio and Real Video will offer information on
recent developments in Net-Media, which are increasingly becoming more
important for film and video producers.

Electronic Cafe

At the festival's Electronic Cafe, a wide range of artistic network
projects and new CD-Rom productions will be shown. Amongst others, new
CD-Roms are going to be presented from Peter Gabriel (GB), Simon Biggs
(GB), Die Veteranen (The Veterans) (D), The ZKM Artinintact III,
Collective Memory from Kristy Kang (USA) and On a Clear Day, a co-
operation from young British and Australian artists.

Lectures

In a series of lectures taking Net criticism as their central theme,
coorganized with Heiko Idensen (D), developments within the Net and AV
media will be critically reflected from a variety of stand points.
Amongst others, Network theorists Geert Lovink (NL), Hartmut Winkler (D)
and Herbert A. Meyer (D) and the artists Marina Grzinic (SLO) and Merel
Mirage (D,NL) will take their place on the podium.

Non-Places - Fields of Activity in Urban and Digital Experiential Space
is the title of a presentation to be given by Knowbotic Research,
Cologne.

Under the title, Games and Comics, High End Games, the latest round of
developments from Japan are to be presented by Machiko Kusahara (Tokyo.)

Specials

In a "Hong Kong Special," films, videos, installations and Internet
projects from this metropolis of the Orient will be shown. During
several lectures organised in co-operation with the Arts Center of the
Hong Kong 4University of Science and Technology and the Hong Kong Arts
Center, Hong Kong's art and culture scene will be placed in the
spotlight. Characterised by the tensioned relationship between Asian and
Western influences, and the present and notable course of political
events, a cultural scene exists in Hong Kong which, astoundingly enough,
remains barely known in Europe.

Video Brasil

Solange Farkas, director of the largest Latin American video arts and
multimedia festival in Sao Paulo will present the prize winners from the
last festival.

Performance

Communion - Le Partage des Peaux II, from the Canadian artist, Isabelle
Choiniere documents the encounter between the real and the virtual body.
The performance itself is a multimedia ballet, in which dance movement
is amplified by implementing video and computer images. Sensors
distributed around the body, on arms, legs and the torso, record
movement and steer digitised pictures of the dancer, which surround her
and create a virtual interactive stage set. By replacing the dancer's
body with images and sounds, the artist is capable of confronting the
actual and the virtual body within an electronic ritual of life.

Student Forum

As an intrinsic part of the festival, the International Student Forum is
considered the international meeting place for young artists.

This year we will be showing work in a new and very interesting
exhibition area, the Burgergehorsam, a tower right out of the middle
ages. A number of the entries for computer and video art will be shown
here.

A group of young artists from the Academy of Fine Arts - Saar, who all
came together under the direction of the Performance and Creative
Training programme from Professor Ulrike Rosenbach will be presenting an
evening of performance.

Additional student entries in the form of film and video can be seen in
a special programme block. The variety of working methods at
international media academies will also be documented here.

Exhibition

Between 7th and 25th of May, video installations and interactive objects
can be seen at the exhibition hall Domnikanerkirche.

Under Lock and Key is an impressive installation from Beth B (USA),
taking the central theme of her own artistic work as its subject:
violence acted out on victims and offenders. Staged in four narrow
cells, and barely lit by a single naked light bulb, the monotonous voice
of a prisoner can be heard reflecting upon his life behind bars. Behind
the cells the visitor is confronted with two video projections with
statements from both victims and offenders alike.

The Japanese environmental artist, Keiichi Tanaka, creates a totally
different kind of experiential space. With his laser installation,
LUMINOUS COSMIC RAYS, he leads the visitor through an imaginary world of
light and sound. Using a Geiger counter, both cosmic rays, and those
given off by substances and objects of a more earthly origin, are
measured and transformed into a symphony of laser lights and sound
effects.

In the installation from Clea T. Waite, spatiality and non-spatiality is
one of the subjects of her work. In her spectacular stereoscopic video
installation, Kur, she demonstrates 3D effects which only work with the
aid of a special pair of glasses.

Here the visitor is surrounded by four life-sized stereoscopic
projections depicting dancers. The actors move in and out of the 3D
field of projection and sometimes even enter and cross the inner space
itself, breaking through the edges of the projection screen and melting
into both worlds.

In addition to the installations described here, the most recent work
from Sera Furneaux (GB), Luke Jerram (GB), Pamela Hawkins (USA),Karen
Murphy (GB) and A.P.Konen (NL) and including artists groups from Hong
Kong (curated by Danny Yung and Ellen Pau) will also be shown.

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