Friday, September 3

21:00 Opening of the festival and exhibition “The Best of Waterpieces 2000 – 2010″

21:30 Program of the Baltic video art competition

23:00 Awarding of the best Baltic video work

23:30 Program from the archive of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (DE)

Saturday, September 4

21:00 MUU presentation (FIN)

21:30 MUU on the Catwalk: selection of Finnish video art (FIN)

22:30 Selection of the 13th Japan Media Arts Festival (JP)

00:00 Waterpieces’ 2010 International video art program

Sunday, September 5

21:30 Selection of the 2nd Oslo Screen festival (NO)

23:00 Selection of the Art film and video archive Filmform 2009 (SE)

The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen is one of the major international crossroads for the short form, unique in the range of forms and genres it presents to the public, and particularly well known for its spotlight on experiments.

In short film, anything is possible: formally, content-wise, or aesthetically. Hard to pin down, extremely open – and for that reason endlessly fascinating – short film remains an inexhaustible reservoir from which cinema, television, Internet and even the museum cull new visual languages. Oberhausen’s competitions are equally open to artistic and cinematic trends, they are exhibitions as well as film programmes. The festival is always looking for works that defy tradition, that have the courage to try out something new.

Oberhausen stands for short distances, intensive discussions, sold-out theatres and plenty of opportunities to make contacts. The four competitions, featuring some 140 new films and videos from all around the world, attract television programme editors as well as curators, festival representatives and journalists.

Program from the archive of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen:

Pierce, Crush, Escape: Notes on the Boreal / Susan Turcot (CA)

10:00, 2008

Trees become animals, animals become people and people become trees in this experimental acoustic meditation on the environment. Turcot continues her abstract exploration of deforestation and its effects on animals, humans and the climate.

Prrrride / Sirah Foighel Brutmann, Eitan Efrat (NL/IL)

3:00 / 2008

A story of familiar human complexity. The relation between a mother and a son. Their relation towards compulsory military service.

Murphy / Bjorn Melhus (DE)

3:30, 2008

“Murphy” is a true abstract post-traumatic stress disorder.

Coal Spell / Sun Xun

7:30 / 2008

Inspired by an old five yuan RMB note, the artist gives an account of the rise and fall of Fuxin, an old industrial city located in northeastern China questioning both the notion of history and of power…

Contre-jour / Christoph Girardet, Matthias Muller (DE)

10:00 / 2009

The look with which we comprehend the world and which it casts back at us in response breaks up into disquieting fragments in “Contre-jour”. Blurs, flashes and stroboscope montages disintegrate reality into shadowy images that inflict pain on the eye.

The Sea Is a Stereo, Video Number 2, Paris Without a Sea / Mounira al Solh (LB)

13:00 / 2008

“The Sea is a Stereo” is an ongoing series of reflections on a group of men who swim everyday at the beach in Beirut no matter the circumstances: rain, wind, war… Even in this moment, the men might be swimming or preparing themselves to do so.

Fiction Follows Forms / Julia Oschatz (DE)

3:00 / 2008

In “Fiction Follows Forms” all the elements from the painter, filmmaker and designer are drowned together in a Beckett-like world. Things can get a bit absurd but they will, in one way or another, follow a form.

n.n. / Michel Klofkorn (DE)

11:00 / 2009

I don’t want to live like a dove in your Europe.

Ketamin – Hinter dem Licht / Carsten Aschmann (DE)

21:00, 2009

Driving through the mountains. The sounds of chords, beauty, art and death echo through the places and elements. The trip ends in the city of Venice which appears exhausted and deserted.

The Parable of the Tulip Painter and the Fly / Charlotte Pryce (USA)

4:00, 2008

An intoxicating flower; a metaphorical insect; a longing reach across the centuries. A philosophical search drenched in luminous colours and sparkling light.

The Artists’ Association MUU represents and promotes professional artists working across a wide range of disciplines in the fields of media and experimental arts. MUU was founded in 1987 out of the need for an association for artists’ working with video, performance, installations, environmental art, sound art etc. The Finnish word muu means “something else”. In August 2010, MUU has 550 artists members. MUU organises several important festivals and events: The Amorph! International Performance Art Festival has been arranged since the mid-1990s. The international performance art festival Performance2011 is part of next year’s European Capital of Culture project in Turku. The international sound art project Audio Autographs includes events, publications, seminars and workshops, with an online radio as its main meeting point. www.muu.fi/sounds

MUU on the Catwalk – A Selection of Finnish Video Art:

1.Jarno Harakkamäki: Making Something Out Of Nothing

2.Juan Kasari: Giving People the Run Around Helsinki

3.Juhani Koivumäki: Sin

4.Juha Mäki-Jussila: The Well

5.Hanna Ojamo: Rush

6.Olga Palomäki: Distortions

7.Pauliina Salminen: 8 Crossings

8.Mailis Saralehto Rekola: Le Podium – Deconstructing the Catwalk

9.Outi Sunila: Labyrinth

Total duration of the screening 40 min.

Curators Hannele Romppanen and Timo Soppela

Produced by Artists’ Association MUU, Finland

In co-operation with NOASS, Latvia

MUU on the Catwalk presents a selection of video works by members of the Artists’ Association MUU as part of the Waterpieces festival in Riga. The screenings are held in the floating art gallery Betanovuss on the AB dam. Video is the most prominent aspect of the field of experimental artforms on the new boundaries of visual art that has emerged around the MUU association. The nine very different Finnish artists featured in the festival are united by the medium of the moving image and an interest in humanity. The themes explored in the works cover different aspects of life and change, the relationship of the individual to the self and the environment, social alienation and the irrationality of existence. The approaches range from personal reflections to observations of social phenomena.

In Making Something Out of Nothing by Jarno Harakkamäki, a young man dressed in a black and wearing an eye mask talks about the meaning and meaninglessness of existence. In Giving People the Run Around Helsinki, Juan Kasari uses performative and conceptual video art to investigate the contemporary urban environment and human behaviour. The piece is made in collaboration with the American video and performance artist Lee Walton. Juhani Koivumäki’s Sin presents a situation that serves as a metaphor for our need to transcend our human boundaries. The piece resembles the story of Lot’s wife who turned into pillar of salt when she disobeyed the command not to look back.

The Well by Juha Mäki-Jussila is a bubbling plunge into the deep waters of the subconscious, from where forgotten memories rise to the surface. Hanna Ojamo’s Rush is a short film about industrialisation and its impact on people’s lives in post-war Europe. The film is the third part in a series based on black and white archive material. In Distortions, Olga Palomäki makes visible an experiential world dominated by irrational fear. The video is a journey into a disoriented, isolated and blocked mind.

In 8 crossings by Pauliina Salminen, a river divides the town of Guwahati in north-east India. On one bank is a village, on the other a city. A group of people shuttle between the two realities every day. Le Podium – Deconstructing the Catwalk by Mailis Saralehto Rekola combines decadence and transgression with the visual idiom of the catwalk. The central thematic of the piece is the continuous movement in fashion itself. In the video Labyrinth by Outi Sunila, two rats wander around a grey and dull labyrinth, searching for the impulse – an irritating sound that interrupts the routine and safe silence. Rats are not humans, even though they act very similarly.

The Japan Media Arts Festival is an annual festival held by Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs since 1997.

During the festival, awards are given in four categories: Art (formerly called Non-Interactive Digital Art), Entertainment (formerly called Interactive Art; including video games and websites), Animation, and Manga. Within each category, one Grand Prize, four Excellence Prizes, and (since 2002) one Encouragement Prize are awarded. These are sometimes also called Japan Media Arts Awards.

The 13th Japan Media Arts Festival Selection:

Hibi No Neiro (Tone of everyday) / Nakamura Magico, Nakamura Masayoshi, Kawamura Masashi, Hal Kirkland (JP/AU)

3:51, 2009

“What are the really important things for us in this world that is flooded with various senses of value?” The answer to this song-like question should be the same no matter how much our civilization has evolved. This music video was done by editing video materials shot with webcams by cooperating fans, and conveys to us the feeling of connecting with people.

Ogre You Asshole “Pinhole” / Monno Kazue, Nagata Takeshi (Tochka) (JP)

3:46, 2009

This music video portrays the members of OGRE YOU ASSHOLE having a picnic on a small planet. At the end of the day, they sing all night long and play instruments made of linear lights.

Towa Tei “Mind Wall (feat. Miho Hatori) / Nakamura Takeshi (JP)

4:00, 2009

Let’s get rid of barriers in our mind and set ourselves free; let’s stop thinking; let’s surrender ourselves to the natural flow of life, like being in a child’s dream.

The Last Piece (Chapter of Kyosuke Kijima) / Mizuno Takanobu (JP)

2:35, 2009

People in modern society have different problems of their own. The Last Piece depicts mysterious incidents that occur to people through a series of music videos. In the first episode, a NEET young man named KIJIMA Kyosuke encounters an alien creature that suddenly appears in front of him. The drawing is dynamically animated, yet the pictures exhibit a simple and warm sensation.

Grained time / Goshima Kazuhiro (JP)

13:00, 2009

This work seeks to portray each still picture as an individual photon reaching the retina, and to express the grains of sensation accumulated as “recognition.” It consists of two stages, one being an uncertain camera, which accumulates still pictures from different perspectives, while the other, factor light, gathers the shadows cast by light from a single source to draw the space.

Parallel / Owen Eric Wood (CA)

7:27, 2009

The search for meaning in the act of creation begins at the crossroads of art and philosophy. Photography, drawing and video merge to tell the story of an artist who seeks purpose in the act of creation. Through his struggle to reconstruct his own identity, he finds himself caught in a cycle of selfperpetuating artistic expression, where the line between reality and perception is not clearly defined.

Alone / Gerard Freixes Ribera (ES)

3:06, 2008

In mainstream fiction, the heroic characters have always shown individualistic attitudes. In this work, this individualism is taken to its extreme level, allowing the main hero from an old western movie to act completely alone.

French Lessons / Vanessa Louzon (IL)

7:00, 2009

Inspired by the story of her parents, this is a short story about a young Polish woman who meets a young Frenchman and leaves her grey 70s East European life for Paris. The filmmaker cut and rearranged images from a French lesson book that belonged to her mother and an old road map of Europe that belonged to her father, then constructed a new narrative using language lesson clichés that speak about modern life, displacement, and failed dreams.

The Cable Car / Claudius Gentinetta, Frank Braun (CH)

6:44, 2008

While travelling by cable car to a place somewhere in the mountains, an old man treats himself to some snuff. Et voilà! With every sneeze the cable car cabin falls apart more and more. The man, however, is far from accepting his fate, just like that.

Animal Dance / Okawara Ryo (JP)

5:00, 2009

This hand-drawn animation depicts the dynamism of life. All the motions and actions of living are treated as dancing, and synchronized with music. The work makes full use of the characteristics of flat animation such as visualization and linkage of images, and metamorphosis of form.

Lizard Planet / Joko Tomoyoshi (JP)

5:00, 2009

A lizard wrapped in water represents Earth, which is composed of both land and sea. For human beings, living on this earth feels quite natural. However, the earth is both an enormous living organism and a planet in the infinite universe. It would be gratifying if, after seeing this work, the viewer could feel that we live life on a planet that itself is a living existence in space.

Metropolis / Mizue Mirai (JP)

4:45, 2009

This film was created as the opening film of SICAF2009. The growth and decline of a changing city are portrayed using a technique that employs graph paper, which basically restricts movements in all directions. One aim of this work is to emphasize the characteristics of hand-animation through analogue rendering of a material suitable for CG.

Chisato stared / Uekusu Wataru (JP)

5:21, 2009

In this work, a line is used to reflect emotion, and the theme is the sublimation of a complex and continuous moment, like following one phrase

of a song.

Organic / Kozutsumi Pon (JP)

4:00, 2009

This work was created with elements such as images of primary things, primordial things, reincarnation, and the food chain. It consists of minimal lines and colors, and eliminates unnecessary additions so that it becomes simple and attractive. The animation created with only pen and paper could itself be part of an organic world. The last scene leaves a lingering resonance that will make it possible for each viewer to receive a different impression.

Oslo Screen Festival is an international festival for experimental film and video art which started in 2008. The festival finds place at Filmens Hus in Oslo every two years with screenings and presentations of international and Norwegian video art. The main focus of this festival is to promote international video works in Norway and Norwegian video works abroad. www.screenfestival.no

Jazkamer, Live at Club Urga, Tokyo / Håvard Gjelseth (NO)

1’39”, 2008

Music video, stop motion, shot live with SLR.

React / Fabien Bourdier (FR)

8′, 2009

React is featuring active chemical reactions of everyday products. Immersion in the natural phenomena of small scale, effervescence, mousses, gels, sprays, fuels are spatialized and amplified. The outside world colorful then invited to hypnosis and the fascination of the organic power of these “micro” reactions. An appeal to the imagination and the poetry of little things.

Motholic mobble part 3 / Kaia Hugin (NO)

6’38”, 2009

By use of cinematic elements, patience, time and labor, a “real film trick” is carried out. The piece balances between Sisyphean desperation and the humorous. It might be seen as an intervention or interference in nature, or maybe as a longing to feel connected to the vast landscape.

Stone on Stone / Rob Carter (USA)

7’44”, 2009

This stop-motion video animation uses the architectural language of High Gothic and Modernism to invent a contradictory history of their evolvement. The theme begins and ends with the vast, but unfinished Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, located on the upper west side of Manhattan, New York.

Exótica / Sérgio Cruz (PT/UK)

5′, 2009

Tracing a path from ancient customs to contemporary social interaction, this film demonstrates the unifying force of music and dance. Somewhere between a dance movie and a documentary. It is the result of a collaboration between Sérgio Cruz and the Portuguese choreographer Miguel Pereira during a three-week artistic residence in Maputo (Mozambique) in March 2008.

The delicate art of the bludgeon / Jean-Gabriel Périot (FR)

4′, 2009

About policemen’s sensibility.

Copy City / Denise Hauser (NO)

4’35”, 2008

Copy City is an experimental short film about marginal worlds, having its roots in the new media development and web 2.0.

Planet A / Momoko Seto (FR/JP)

7’40”, 2008

The world has become a dried out planet, where the growing of cotton, over exploited for economical reasons is the main cause of desertification. A saline desert covers acres of dried out land where strange salt trees appear. This phenomenon echoes an ecological disaster, the desertification of the Aral Sea.

Flights of Sleeping Birds / Gayatri Kodikal (IN)

13′, 2009

This story is inspired by the stories that surround a secret ritual that is performed in Goa. The adventures of two grandchildren with their grandfather in the mystical realms of their ancestors. An explosion of visuals and illusions swim into their lives.

My Father’s Letters / Yana Sakellion (USA)

2’11”, 2008

This piece is based on personal narrative and expresses my early fascination with handwritten letter-forms and textile qualities of handwriting. I am employing digital video and animation to convey my childhood associations between the object and the meaning, while experimenting with kinetic typography.

Stultifera Garden / Johanna Domke (DE)

11’26”, 2008

The traditional garden is a place where the entire world is represented in highly symbolic symmetry and perfection. Stultifera Garden deals with an overlapping structure of the public and the private. The continuos pan shot shifts from a classic park scene into a dystopic, mazy structure of trails.

Requien Granular / Tomaz Klotzel (BR)

6’50”, 2008

An audiovisual composition inspired by the musical theory of the granular synthesis, which is based on the organization of music in small sound pieces, called grains. The footage used to create the Requien Granular grains are old sport film from the last century, mainly football from the 50′s to the 80′s. Requien Granular talks about life and it’s passing, time long ago, actors – heroes? – already dead or incapable of the shown performances, empty of that virility. It’s a reflexion about every present moment of the life, and of being present at every moment.

Thank you to everyone who sent in their video works.  Submitted works are collected and will be presented to festivals’ jury for evaluation.

Results will be announced during Waterpieces festival at 3rd – 5th September.

For additional information about festival and competition follow at www.noass.lv

In September will start “Water. Sinking Cities.” exchange projects step 03:

From 13th to 19th September – exchange in Amstelveen (NL)
18th September:

At 15:00 live audio visual performance of CREW 2 in P60 venue
At 15:30 final live audio visual performance of CREW 3 in P60 venue
At 23:00 WATER DJ&VJ show

Step 01 – exchange in Riga was successfully completed from 21st to 27th of June.

Check for more information: www.watersinkingsities.org and feedback from first step at Changing Room Youth exchange blog.

ORGANIZED BY:

SUPPORTED BY:

An art project as part of the “Qui Vive?” Moscow International Biennale for Young Art” – Final Performance 31 July at the Kolomenskoye Museum-Reserve, Moscow.

Wide Boy* will visit Latvia, Riga: 16th July 18:00 at Naive Art Museum of Latvia (Andrejsala, Andrejostas street 4, LV-1045, Riga).

Over the course of July, visual artists Anne Schiffer and Lauren von Gogh will be realising the project Wide Boy* as part of the “Qui Vive?” Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, making their way overland from Brussels to Moscow. On course, seven political borders will be crossed, passing through Germany, Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia before entering Russia and arriving in Moscow.

‘Wide Boy’ is a British term coined by the media in the 1940s referring to a wheeler-dealer or sort of black-market trader. On this expedition Schiffer and von Gogh have organized gatherings either in outdoor public settings or local art spaces at each destination, inviting artists, writers, critics and curators, and extending an open invitation to the general public. The project is intended to gather a collection of objects made and collected, which reference relevant daily interactions and intricacies of each place in relation to recent history of the countries in this region. The accumulated artworks (using this term in the broadest sense) will become a mobile collection, transported in their luggage, with the artists then becoming a product of the expedition, creating a new relationship with contemporary history. This range of art works will be displayed at a market-style exhibition stand, forming part of the Moscow International Biennale for Young Art.

The aim within this framework is to point out the challenges faced by an artist working internationally due to financial and commercial constraints within the art market, exemplifying how freedom of movement is often restrained, whether politically, geographically or financially. By offering artists a ‘free ride’ for their work to reach Moscow, undeclared in the luggage on an overland bus, Schiffer and von Gogh try to highlight and defy some of the customary obstacles of physically transcending borders.

About the artists:

Anne Schiffer
Born in Dueren, Germany, in 1980, Anne Schiffer earned her bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts with honours at the Utrecht School of the Arts and did a postgraduate in Fine Art at the Dutch Art Institute. For the last two years she has been a candidate-laureate at the HISK. Anne Schiffer lives in Rotterdam (The Netherlands).

Lauren von Gogh
Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1984, Lauren von Gogh earned her bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts with distinction at the Univerity of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and is currently a candidate-laureate at the HISK. Lauren von Gogh lives in Ghent (Belgium).

“Qui Vive?” Moscow International Biennale for Young Art (1 – 31 July 2010)
“Qui Vive?” Moscow Biennale for Young Art is one of the largest and most ambitious projects, realized on the Moscow art scene in the field of contemporary art at present. The Biennale unites artistic initiatives of the whole Russia, the countries of near and far abroad. Leading art centers of Moscow in collaboration with regional and international partners take part in its preparation and realization.

For more information:
Visit our facebook page: Wide Boy* or visit the website of the Moscow International Biennale for Young Art: http://www.youngart.ru/en

Remark for the redaction:
For further information, images or interviews please contact Wide Boy*
Anne Schiffer +31 642330347 or contact@anneschiffer.com

Premises

Location: Andrejsala, Andrejostas street 4, Riga, LV-1045

Additional information about renting the space: +371 28331999

More about museum

4 artists from the Netherlands (Ashkan Honarvar, Emile van de Coevering, Robin Koek, Sander Houtman) and 4 artists from Latvia (Gatis Stauga, Kaspars Grosevs, Kriss Zilgalvis, Roberts Galvins) met for the first time in Riga. The whole week went by exchanging ideas, thoughts and experiences, inspired from the environment, water, people, Riga and Latvia. Artists together created two installations which was presented on Saturday at floating art galleries Betanovuss and Noass as a live performances where all visitors were invited to participate.

The project is not over and both the artists and organizers are looking forward for Step 02, which will take place in September in Amstelveen (NL).

Don’t miss anything and stay informed about “Water. Sinking Cities.” – artists, new ideas, latest information, everything about WSC at www.watersinkingcities.org

Start of the week – introduction, meetings, brainstorming, exchanging ideas

Midsummer festival – nothing can stop Latvians from celebrating Midsummer – everyone participated, learned Latvian traditions and get inspired

Work and result

ORGANIZED BY:

SUPPORTED BY:

During kim? Programme No. 13, from 3 July until 1 August, exhibition “Cuckoo” by Dutch artist Bas De Boer (1978) will be open to the public at the kim? / VKN Gallery. The exhibition will showcase large-scale installation “Cuckoo” that the artist has been working on during his residence in Riga. Heden, a contemporary art centre in The Hague, The Netherlands chose De Boer for the first kim? / Heden residence for his vigorous approach to art, as well as for his indubitable creative potential.

Confronted with the idea of a residence, De Boer used the situation as the inspiration for a new work. The three months spent in Riga were used to build a giant cuckoo’s clock: a symbol of domesticity and regularity. Like a home away from home De Boer meticulously constructed the house-shaped clock that is just big enough for one person to sit in. Since the popularization of the clocks around 1850 they have become a common souvenir for people travelling through the mountains of the Black Forest and surrounding areas; thus “Cuckoo” serves as De Boer’s self-made souvenir for his stay in Latvia.

In addition to the references to the cuckoo clock, the work also refers to the cuckoo bird. Cuckoos are brood parasites, meaning they lay their eggs in other bird’s nests. And, much like the cuckoo’s breeding habits, an artist in residence ‘lays his egg’ in another country’s nest. With “Cuckoo” De Boer comments on the parasitic behaviour of an artist during a residency, as well as the way different parties profit from the exchange of artists and their cultural and intellectual resources. Before laying her eggs, the cuckoo pushes out the other bird’s eggs. The cuckoo therefore also symbolically relates to the contrast between the country the artist originates from and the location of the residency: while The Netherlands is a country with a rich cultural climate and almost endless possibilities for artists, Latvia has not yet had the time to build up a similar climate and therefore the possibilities for contemporary artists are few. As an artist who is well aware of this discrepancy, De Boer rather feels like a cuckoo that pushes out the eggs from another bird’s nest in order to lay his own.

After the exhibition at kim?, “Cuckoo” will face the same destiny as all De Boer’s works: it will be disassembled and its components will be re-used in subsequent works. But not before he has filmed the work and compiled it in an endless video collage “Compilation Video”, that kim? visitors had an opportunity to watch at the Museum Night.

Bas de Boer has graduated from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten). He has been participating in exhibitions since 2002 and his paintings, installations, and videos have been exhibited in the Netherlands, Germany, Serbia and Spain.

Admission free

Opening hours:
M, T: closed
W: 14:00 – 19:00
T: 14:00 – 20:00
F: 14:00 – 19:00
S, S: 12:00 – 19:00

More information kim?