Syndicate: World Wide Video Festival 1998

[Andreas Broeckmann <abroeck@v2.nl>]

World Wide Video Festival 1998
 The 16th World Wide Video Festival              will be organised in
Amsterdam. The main locations are the              illustrious art
institute Stedelijk Museum and multimedia centre the              Melkweg.
Other events of the 16th festival will take place on a              number
of intruiging cultural sites in Amsterdam or will take the
form of public manifestations.
The six day long festival of contemporary electronic media art
will as usual present an extensive overview of experimental
videowork. The other main programme elements are an international
selection of recently developed media-installations, cd-rom and
internet projects, performances and specific environmental media
works in situ. Further in depth information will be offered by
retrospectives, lectures, interview and conferences.

Festival Dates:
17 - 21 September 1998The festival exhibition will continue until 11
October 1998

During the  16th World Wide Video Festival that will take place in
Amsterdam from 17  September through 21 September, new media art takes
central stage in the  Stedelijk Museum, the Melkweg, W139, the Gate
Foundation, MonteVideo/TBA and the  Waag. The programme includes
performances, installations and video productions  >from 25 countries, as
well as presentations of websites and CD-ROMs. An  important element of the
Festival are works from non-western nations as China,  Brazil and India.
New media art will also be the subject of a seminar and a  number of
lectures. The exhibition part (installations, videotapes, CD-ROMs and
websites) will be open to the public through 11 October.
Stedelijk Museum
Austrian artists Hentschläger and Langheinrich will present the video  and
sound project 'NoiseGate-M6' on the first floor of the New Wing at the
Stedelijk Museum. With six video screens of 6 by 4,5 metres, sound
equipment and  computers they will conjure up a digital world, which senses
the visitors but  also overwhelms them. This multimedia artwork is in a
constant state of  development. Its primal form has existed for six years
already, but its content  changes all the time, both automatically and
through interventions by the  artists, as will be evident during the
festival as well. 'Noisegate' is an  international co-production by
Granular Synthesis and is presented in The  Netherlands under auspices of
Muziekcentrum De IJsbreker.On the ground floor  of the New Wing recent
video productions, CD-ROMs and websites will be available  to the visitors.
Amongst these also the DVD-production 'The Last Cowboy' by  Nomad where the
viewer can switch between alternating story lines. In the  Auditorium
videotapes will be projected, often with the artist present.
Melkweg
The second major festival location is de Melkweg. This is where media
artists  will give performances and also present videotapes, websites and
installations.  Among the participating artists are Supreme Particles
(Germany) and From Scratch  (New Zealand). Jointly they will arrange a
media spectacle of custom build  instruments duelling with light, moving
images and computer graphics. Other  performances are by Alexander Hahn and
Niki Good (Switzerland) who will perform  a 'chamber dance play' with video
projections, and by Dutch Boris Gerrets and  Anne Wellmer who will bring to
life the microworld of insects in image and  sound. Brazilians Gisela
Domschke and Fabio Itapura will create an environment  that mixes tv
imagery, street sounds, popular music and media art. Martin  Sercombe will
fill the Melkweg's Oude Zaal with a media event where music,  poetry, live
images and performance will explore the entire space. Dutch media  artist
Fiona Tan is represented by two productions ('Roll I & II' en  'Linnaeus'
Flower Clock'). The Cinema Room will feature a retrospective of the
videotapes by Breda Beban and Hrvoje Horvatic.
Installations at location
At four locations in Amsterdam installations will be exhibited during the
World Wide Video Festival. At Montevideo/TBA Vivan Sundaram and Nalini
Malani  >from India will show their work, as does Dutch artist Martijn
Veldhoen. Work by  English artist Keith Piper can be seen at the Gate
Foundation. At W139 the  results of the confrontations of five pairs of
Dutch/foreign artists will be  shown in the project 'Blind Date'. They will
react on each other's work,  focussing on elements like performance and
body. Participants include Erik  Wesselo, Slater Bradley, Maria Pask, Carol
Murphy and Mascha de Vries.At the  Waag an interactive website/installation
by Shu Lea Cheang will be  exhibited.Video artist Jeroen Kooijmans, who won
the Dutch NPS Cultural  Award 1998, will execute his 'video graffiti' on
several buildings in  Amsterdam.Mediakunst uit India
Seminar and lectures
At the Melkweg A three day seminar will be held on media art as exhibition
object, on narration and video and on the ontology of the electronic image.
One  of the (international) speakers is Sean Cubitt of the University of
Liverpool.  At the Stedelijk Museum a number of lectures will deal with the
consequences of  evolving media art for museums and galleries. Speakers
include John Hanhardt,  curator media art at the Guggenheim Museum in New
York (on media art shows in  museums) and Elba Benitez, gallery owner from
Spain (on media art and  galleries).
Bill Viola Exhibition