III Media Forum 2002 at the XXIV Moscow International Film Festival 

Organizers: «MediaArtLab», «Interfest» The Cinema Museum, 24.06-27.06.02 For the third year a part of MIFF official programme, Media Forum 2002 presents both genre classics and new tendencies in contemporary video art and introduces actual tendencies in the sphere of screen technologies.

During this period major Western video art collections were shown and presented at the MIFF grounds: Georges Pompidou National Centre for Art and Culture - Paris, Vasulka Archives - Santa Fe, Electronic Arts Intermix- New York, Anthology Archives – New York, Lux – London, 235 Media – Berlin, Montevideo/TBA – Amsterdam.  Various programmes from European and local festivals for video art, experimental film and media art were presented, such as «Transmediale» (Germany), «KIMAF» (Ukraine), «EMAF» (Germany), «WRO» (Poland), «ROOT» (UK).

«Russian Video Art Anthology»

During our first two years the objective of Media Forum organizers was to popularize media art in Russia through showing western masterpieces and classics of the genre. This time Media Forum 2002 presents the «Anthology of Russian Video Art». This poetic title stands for time-consuming and painstaking efforts of the organizers in choosing films, authors, artists and film-directors to represent our Russian culture and contemporary Russian video art in its whole stylistic range and historical perspective. 
This show is a political action of a sort, a manifestation of contemporary video art as a complete phenomenon, representing the interests of the culture and professional community. The Anthology tells the history of Russian avant-garde’s search for identity during the last 30 years in the form of video experiment, the outlines of which are left to be guessed.
The videos in the Anthology represent stylistic tendencies synthesizing various practices of contemporary art, ranging from radical actionism to aesthetic experiment with technologies of cinematographic or video production. This sum total of practices, their ideological synopsis allows us to comprehend fully the scale, the social and cultural significance and the level of ambitions of Russian contemporary video art. It’s also important to notice that in presenting Russian video art on such a scale we present first of all the Russian media culture. The close selection was passed by 64 videos comprising the Anthology, many of them arousing hot professional debates, but finally our choice is made. The Anthology presents major activists of Russian video art along with various cities, regions and schools.
The unique character of Media Forum 2002 programme is in its ambitions, quite well-grounded, as the Anthology presents the classics of one of contemporary art’s youngest forms. This is Russian art perfectly capable of competing in forming contemporary art history. This programme doesn’t lay claims on PR coverage by mass media, but does claim a status of an informal event for its participants – which is quite a lot in our creative life.
A few words about the intriguing in Media Forum 2002 programme. The programme is a contemporary culture phenomenon, capable of self-identification and self-presentation in any traditional cultural milieu, including the Moscow International Film Festival. 

Special international programs: 

1) A program of the British videos and cinema avantguards «Urban Visionaries» (Curated by Helen de Witt, Support: British Council, Moscow)

2) Netherlands Media Art Institute, Montevideo/Time Based, Netherland
A selection of retrospective works (Support: Netherlands Royal Embassy in Moscow)

3) International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany

Alexei Isaev
Media Forum Commissoinery 
 

Contacts
Tel.: 007 095 959 17 05
Tel./Fax: 007 095 950 09 92
E-mail: mediaforum@mediaartlab.ru
URL: http://www.mediaartlab.ru/