ecopolis

MMIX* is a timeless work in four interactive tableaus, where each visitor is invited to follow with his eyes and ears what his mouse gestures reveal. At each caress, sound and visual elements get randomly muddled up on the screen creating always new combinations. A work travelling between real and surreal, dream and mind, rage and fright, where humour and drama are cruelly mixed to suggest the sad patterns of our contemporary reality.

These works are part of Nicolas Clauss‘ virtual gallery, flyingpuppet, a collection of digital tableaus started in 2001.

MMIX is currently exhibited at Japan Media Art Festival, National Art Center, Tokyo.

Visual Foreign Correspondents is a platform for international video artists to reflect on recent events and to take the role of correspondent through their work. Die ZEIT online will provide additional background information and interviews to the invited artists and projects, and invites for critical discourse about the work.

Coinciding with the 20th commemoration of the fall of the Berlin wall, WL Project Berlin | Hong Kong together with Visual Foreign Correspondents Foundation, invited seven international artists to develop work relating to borders and boundaries and to take different positions relating to the nature of virtual or physical boundaries, walls or barriers as well as reflecting on the current state of the world. In times of a global economic crisis and international acts of terrorism, there is a clear tendency to re-erect or strengthen existing barriers; just as the European Union is strengthening its exterior borders.

A project of Visual Foreign Correspondents, Amsterdam, and WL Project Berlin | Hong Kong in collaboration with ZEIT Online.

SCREENINGS IN BERLIN:
- U Bahnhof Kochstraße/Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin-Mitte
(21 September – 9 November 2009, 7 – 21 hrs, Sat & Sun 11:30 – 20 hrs)

- Media facade of Collegium Hungaricum,
Dorotheenstraße 12, 10117 Berlin (9 November 2009)

SCREENINGS IN AMSTERDAM:
- Melkweg, Die Wende Festival, 1-30 November 2009 http://www.die-wende.nl/

- CASz in Amsterdam (December 2009)
(more information to follow)

ARTISTS:
Giselle Beiguelman (Brazil), Simon Faithfull (Great Britain), Mariam Ghani (US, Afghanistan), Han Hoogerbrugge (Netherlands), Little Warsaw (András Gálik & Bálint Havas, Hungary), Lena Merhej (Lebanon), Berit Zemke (Germany)

http://www.visualcorrespondents.com
http://www.wl-project.org
http://www.zeit.de/kultur

The world’s first feature-length mobile phone art film.
A story about a future world where the dream of living in utopia can only be sustained by a nomadic tribe of artists and intellectuals, Mark Amerika’s Immobilité mashes up the language of “foreign films” with landscape painting and literary metafiction. The work was composed using an unscripted, improvisational method of acting and the mobile phone images are intentionally shot in an amateurish or DIY [do-it-yourself] style similar to the evolving forms of video distributed in social media environments such as YouTube. By interfacing this low-tech version of video making with more sophisticated forms of European art-house movies, Amerika both asks and answers the question “What is the future of cinema?”

Exhibitions and Screenings
Tate Modern, Intermedia Fall 2008 Program (interview at the Tate Britain)
Chelsea Art Museum, April 8 – May 9, 2009

Cast and Credits
Created by Mark Amerika
Original soundtrack by Chad Mossholder
Featuring Camille Lacadee and Magda Tyzlik-Carver

EMAF ‘09
22-26 april 2009
Osnabrueck, Germany

Productions by internationally renowned media artists and the innovative works of new masters from the academies will be presented at the 22nd European Media Art Festival. The EMAF is one of the most influential forums of international Media Art. As a meeting point for artists, curators, distributors, gallery owners and an audience of specialists, the festival has a great impact on the topic and aesthetics of Media Art. Each year the festival offers its visitors a current overview of new experimental films, performances, lectures, an exhibition and the Media Campus. Around 250 current contributions will be selected this year for the festival from a total of 2400 submitted works, offering a comprehensive insight into the latest tendencies in Media Art.

An international jury will present the “EMAF Award” for a trend-setting work in Media Art and the “Dialogpreis” of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the promotion of intercultural exchange. Furthermore, the jury of the German Federal Association of Film Journalists will award the prize for the best German experimental film of the year.