across the film-vis arts divide
adelaide film festival: art & the moving image
EXHAUSTINGLY LONG FILM AND VIDEO WORKS EXHIBITED IN GALLERIES, ART FILMS STRUGGLING TO FIND HOMES IN CINEMAS, VISUAL RECEPTION BLURRED BY SOUND BLEEDS, EQUIPMENT OUT-OF-DATE OR BROKEN DOWN, CURATORS CURATING AND CINEMATHEQUES AND FILM FESTIVALS PROGRAMMING, AS IF NE’ER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET, AND MEANWHILE MEDIA ARE CONVERGING AND ARTISTS AND FILMMAKERS AND THE PUBLIC ARE MULTI-PLATFORMING. IT’S A MESS. THE FUTURE IS HERE. IT’S TIME TO TALK IT THROUGH, WHICH IS JUST WHAT THE 2008 ADELAIDE FILM FESTIVAL AND THE SAMSTAG MUSEUM OF ART WILL DO IN A TWO-DAY SYMPOSIUM WITH SOME MIGHTY PROPONENTS FROM BOTH SIDES OF THE DIVIDE AND SOME VERY SPECIAL IN-BETWEEN CREATORS OF NEW TERRAINS.
Curated by Julianne Pierce, the Art & the Moving Image Symposium features one of the world’s leading electronic artists, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (famous for his large scale public works, and his talks, see image p29), Larry Kardish, Senior Curator, Film and Video Department, MoMA, New York, Vasif Kortun, founder Platform Garanti, Instanbul, and Australian artist, Lynette Wallworth whose newly commissioned Duality of Light, and a survey of her work, will be exhibited at Samstag Museum of Art.
An event which offers a very different perspective on projection and the moving image is The Dome Project presented by the Australian Network for Art & Technology (ANAT) and the Royal Institution over four nights for small audiences at the Mawson Lakes Planetarium. Works specifically created for domes will be shown, curated by DomeFest founder and director David Bening from Albuquerque. There’s also a seminar.
A survey of 1940s-1970s experimental film curated by Toby Bramwell and Michael Connor (US) will be screened at the Media Resource Centre while in galleries the AFF’s umbrella program includes moving image exhibitions at the Art Gallery of SA, Experimental Art Foundation and the Contemporary Art Centre of SA including work by Dennis Oppenheim (US) Ai Wei Wei (China) and Vasif Kortun (Turkey).
A fascinating program which introduces another dimension—live music and its relationship with the moving image—is Rhythmus 09, silent, avant garde films by Dali, Bunuel, Duchamp, Man Ray and Leger curated by Adele Hann, with live accompaniment performed on grand piano by Stephen Whittington.
The symposium might not bridge the cinema-gallery chasm in the short-term, but the talking and the associated events will doubtless bring together many of the innovations of the last century and the speculative forms of the moment bubbling up from the bottom of the rift in a fecund swirl that knows no divide. RT
Adelaide Film Festival and Samstag Museum of Art, Art & Moving Image Symposium, Friday 27 Feb 27, 6pm, keynote address Rafael Lozano-Hemmer; Saturday Feb 28 10-5pm speakers, panels; Sunday March 1, 11am-12.30pm, University of South Australia, Hawke Bldg, 55 North Terrace, Adelaide, Recitals Australia Rhythmus 09, Radford Auditorium Art Gallery of SA, Sunday March 1, 3pm, Domefest Project, Feb 24-27, www.domefest.org
www.adelaidefilmfestival.org
RealTime issue #88 Dec-Jan 2008 pg. 30
