Media Forum Program I. Competition program II. Presentation program
The Rape of the Sabine Women Eve Sussman’s film, USA, 2006, 80’00’’ Shot in Berlin, in Athens and on the Greek island of Hydra, the movie is an avant-garde costume drama in five acts. Its story is a variation on the ancient myth of the Sabine women, who after being abducted, raped and forced into marriage by Roman warriors, wade into a pitched battle between their husbands and their Sabine relatives to secure peace and the future of Western civilization. The movie’s heroics and pageantry are inspired by the Sabine paintings of Poussin, Rubens and David — especially David’s “Intervention of the Sabine Women” of 1799. But Ms. Sussman’s “Sabine Women” is set in the endlessly stylish, initially optimistic 1960s. Despite their utopian veneer, the 1960s were arguably the beginning of the situation in which the world now finds itself. So it is not surprising that in Ms. Sussman’s version of the Sabine myth, everyone simply fights to the death, albeit in a stagey, slow-motion, painterly way. Ms. Sussman has recast the birth of a society as destruction. Artistically, the film is an intriguing summation of the worldliness that began to enrich art in the late 1970s. While using Classical, Neo-Classical and International Style elements, it also draws expertly on 30 years of avant-garde appropriation and formalist self-reference. Its scenes may recall the cosmopolitan performances of Robert Wilson and Ms. Bausch; the photo-based art of Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, Laurie Simmons, Robert Longo and Philip-Lorca Dicorcia; and the historicizing lushness of Neo-Expressionist painters like Julian Schnabel and David Salle, as well as the filmmakersculptor Matthew Barney. While “89 Seconds at Alcazar” grew from a projected 89-second time frame to fill 10minutes with fly-on-the-wall tension, the 80-minute “Sabine Women” stretches its beauty before us with overindulged, seductive, feline opulence. Ms. Sussman has come a long way from her solo debut at the Bronwyn Keenan Gallery in SoHo in 1997, where she showed funky, live-feed video broadcasts of pigeons roosting in the building’s airshaft. By 2004, she had replaced Discovery Channel Post- Minimalism with Masterpiece Theater grandeur in “89 Seconds at Alcazar,” a mesmerizing 10-minute video projection that wended its way through what appeared to be a modeling session for Velázquez’s elaborate painting “Las Meninas.” Fraught with whispered exchanges, rustling silks and discreet gestures, this piece became the breakout hit of the 2004 Whitney Biennial.

Performing myself Vito Acconci Retrospective program Curated by Nina Zaretskaya Acconci’s early performances—including Claim (1971) and Seedbed (1972)—were extremely controversial, transgressing assumed boundaries between public and private space, and between audience and performer. Positioning his own body as the simultaneous subject and object of the work, Acconci’s early video tapes took advantage of the medium’s self-reflexive potential in mediating his own and the viewer’s attention. Consistently exploring the dynamics of intimacy, trust, and power, the focus of Acconci’s projects gradually moved from his physical body (Conversions, 1971) toward the psychology of interpersonal transactions (Pryings, 1971), and later, to the cultural and political implications of the performative space he set up for the camera (The Red Tapes, 1976). Since the late ‘70s, Acconci has designed architectural and installation works for public spaces. Vito Acconci Retrospective program: Three Frame Studies, 1969, 10’58’’ Two Cover Studies, 1970, 7’46’’ Three Adaptation Studies, 1970, 8’05’’ Openings, 1970, 14’00’’ Pryings, 1971, 17’10’’ Conversions, 1971, 65’30’’ Born 1940 Bronx, New York, USA. The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Vito Acconci is a key late twentieth-century pioneer of performance, video, installation and the exploration of architectural space. Initially a poet, Acconci began making Conceptual art in the late 1960s. A poet of the New York school in the early- and mid-1960s, Vito Acconci moved toward performance, sound, and video work by the end of the decade. Acconci changed direction in order to “define [his] body in space, find a ground for [him]self, an alternate ground for the page ground [he] had as a poet.”

«The man who traveled around the world to make a sculpture» Erwin Wurm video retrospective Curated by Konstantin Bokhorov Erwin Wurm’s video works belong to an unusual variety of the genre. They are derived from sculpture, though not the classical, monumental and heroic as it is seen in the mass consciousness, but the contemporary, deconstructing its own false bathos. Wurm invented one-minute sculptures that are actually performances into which his characters are snatched for art from the stream of life at the most strange and absurd moments. Video is one of such media that allow their capture and monumentalization. Wurm’s characters act bizarre – one puts on the entire stock of a second hand clothes shop in Fabio getting dressed, 1992. Another is aroused by the radiator-generated heat (Heating, 2000), yet another gets married to a house he likes (True Love, 2005). A special, psychoanalytical sense of humor is inherent to Wurm’s vision. By practicing it in a society where Freudian slips are sometimes more meaningful than official news reports he gradually reveals its own psychological condition. Content: «Und» (A-B-C, B-C-A oder C-A-B), 1990, 16’36’’ «Still 1», 1990, 3’54’’ «13 Pullover», 1991, 9’26’’ «59 Positions», 1992, 20’00’’ «Shopping», 1995/96, 26’12’’ «Memory», 1994/00, 10’07’’ «Flight Simulator», 1998, 8’24’’ «Heating», 2000, 3’09’’ «I Love My Time, I Dont Like My Time», 2003, 8’40’’ «Blow Job I», 2007, 5’43’’ Erwin Wurm, 1954. An Austrian sculptor, widely acknowledged both in his homeland and abroad for his innovative approach to traditional media. Exhibited at the Lyons Biennale, Venice Biennale, Seville Biennale and Taipei Biennale. His one-man exhibitions were organized by the Drawing Center, NY, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Kiasma, Helsinki, Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati, MUMOK Museum, Vienna, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg and others. Teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. Lives and works in Vienna and New York.

Program «Open video» Curated by Konstantin Bokhorov Modern-shamanism Contemporary artist is armed with the optic of new media that allows him to look deep in the subconsciosness of cultures and traditions. Symbols and energies reflected on the mirroring surface of his monitor are in his unlimited will. The tendency to manipulate them is common for modernism and shamanism. Alexander Podoprigov, Russia Sight of witch, 2002-2005, 10'00'' Teimur Daimi, Azerbaijan Geo-art, 2005, 6'00'' Myriam Thyes, Luxemburg Virtual Therapy, 2006, 9'54'' Elena Kambina, Russia Untouchable Territory, 2006, 8'20'' Eliza Fernbach, UK Amaze Labyrinth, 2005-2006, 4'30'' Alexandr Nicolaev, Russia Prayer, 2007, 5'05'' Pavel Batalov, Russia Dancers, 2007, 4'07'' Mary Lagerquist, Sweden When it Blows, 2006, 2'00'' Vladimir Logutov, Russia, Cubik Rubika, 2007, 1'00'' Yury Vasiliev, Russia Cover, 2007, 4'30'' Ane Lan, Norway Vesta, 2006, 6'13'' Elvira Todaro-Haakon, Faste-Massimo Bergamasco, Italy The hand dance, 2007, 7'15'' Tassos Langis, Greece Spineline, 2007, 4'49'' Stuart Pound, UK Reverberation in time, 2006, 2'18'' Dovg Fishbone, USA/UK Everybody loves a winner, 2004, 8'30'' Anky van der Heyden, The Netherlands Reverse eleven, 2007 Group «Zasada Tsetkin» Mirrow shivas, 2002, 3'21'' Jim Finn, USA The Small Little Teeth of America / The Tiny Dentures of Imperialism, 5'00'' Psyho-domesticity The trend psyho-domesticity is set through the search of the new realism. That is great cultural tradition of modernism in cinema and visual arts. Media and the sphere of subconsciousness find in it common points and through them cerebral system receives technological expansion in the outside, in pure matter and physical processes which explains the potentiality of this trend. Dionysius Artifex (Denis), Russia Scalae, 2007, 8'13'' Alexandr Trotsak, Russia Sitting behind the window, 2007, 6'13'' Anton Litvin, Russia From Moscow with a night, 2007, 4'50'' Natalia Poloka, Russia «1» (one), 2007, 1'00'' Vladimir Gorohov, Elena Hairulina, Russia Moon night, 2007, 4'07'' Nastia Tarasova, Russia Old country house, 2005, 10'00'' Halina Kliem, Germany Real World (still toddling), 2006, 3'04'' Marina Chernikova, Holland Love puzzle - 3, 2006 , 3'00'' Sofia Goscinski, Austria Hot Dog, 2000, 2'43'' Sergey Jelestsov, Russia Fandomat, 2007, 22'14'' Techno-alarm This fact could seem strange but technologies possessing enormous potentiality to affect consciousness rarely are able to cause enjoyment. Agitation, euphoria, hallucination, everything that is a consequence of a pure mechanical action, this is a positive sphere of psychological contact with technologies. Unconsciously the art of media expresses this in a particular sensibility. The given screening proposes for it its own definition — alarm sensibility (reaction to technologies). Pierre-Yues Cruaud, France Traces, 2005, 6'00'' Arianna Olthaar TNO-Rijswijk, 2006, 5'11'' Marina Fomenko, Russia Palimpsest, 2007, 2'10'' Michael Brynntrup, Germany Face it, 2007, 15'00'' Alexey Kuripko, Russia Virus hospitality, 2007, 4'04'' Dmitriy Bulatov, Danila Akimov, Russia 8-th day, 2007, 6'10'' Patrik K.-H., Russia Animations, 2007 Nick Deamer, USA Compound Memory, 5'28'' Oksana Cheplik, Ukrain Chernobyl Fary tale, 2006, 9'10'' Alexandra Dementieva, Russia, Belgia Limited spaces 1 and 2, 2006, 10'00''

III. Round tables, panel discussions, seminars, workshops
Super-Embodiment of Woman-Artist in Media Art Round table Question of Embodiment and in particular – Nudity and the Nude – have become key issues in contemporary art, theory and politics. Women artists face what Foucault called ‘hysteriarization of female body’, while men artists face an issue of ‘absent male body’ (Kelly Oliver) and respond to it with various strategies. One might argue that both Western and Eastern European women artists have exhibited ‘too much body’, and to a certain extent find it difficult to leave “body” behind. However, we rarely discuss what impact socialist gender policies and practices have had on this process within aesthetics. If performance art leaves us with legacy of ‘too much body’ — ‘super-embodiment’, — one wonders of it morphs into (new) media art as question of ‘machine’ / ‘cyborg’ embodiment and its identity. Media art by Boryana Dragoeva Rossa (Bulgaria), Erika Katalina Pasztor (Hungary), and Elena Kovylina (Germany / Russia) will serve as case studies, alternative to and through ‘super-embodiment’ in contemporary art. Participants: Nina Czegledy (Canada, Hungary), Margaret Jahrmann (Austria, Switzerland), Irina Aristarkhova (Russia), and Elena Kovylina (Germany, Russia).

Cultural cooperation online in Europe: using online technologies to enchance artistic and cultural cooperation. Workshop by Angela Plohman (Netherlands) Online spaces (community groups, open forums, wikis, blogs, etc.) offer possibilities for artists and cultural practitioners to find freedom to share and exchange, outside of institutional settings, to engage in dialogue, and to develop and test ideas. Contemporary artists are certainly experienced in exploring the potential of new technologies and new media, however there are few visible links and collaborations between new media (art) communities and the rest of the artistic and cultural networks active more offline. It seems clear that the more traditional cultural infrastructure and the way we manage cultural content online often remain far from each other. Why is this the case and what could be done to better understand and use more efficiently the power of new technologies to improve cross-border and cross-disciplinary collaboration in Europe? Angela Plohman has worked for the last 8 years in the field of art and technology. From 1998-2001, she held the position of Program Officer at the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology in Montreal. Over the last 5 years she has coordinated a two-year Culture 2000-funded project called exStream, which focused on the artistic use and development of open source streaming tools; worked as a project manager for the Blender Foundation; was the Coordinating Director of the Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts; produced and researched for the V2_Lab in Rotterdam; and has written and published numerous texts both online and in print publications. Angela is currently Content Developer at LabforCulture, a partner initiative of the European Cultural Foundation, where she has worked since October 2005.

Play: research and development in the interdisciplinary field from an art perspective. Lecture by Anne Nigten (Netherlands) Anne Nigten (manager V2_Lab, Rotterdam, the Netherlands) gives a practice-based presentation about electronic art projects and experiments grouped around the PLAY theme. In this presentation Nigten draws from music and performing arts from there she moves towards early interactive electronic art and ends her talk with electronic art works dealing with today’s interpretation of play. Her presentation is illustrated with interactive electronic art works, which brings along a gamut of PLAY elements, such as co-creation or DIY aspects and improvisation. Nigten concludes her presentation with several striking parallels between playful interactive art, serious gaming and mixed reality games. After the presentation you will be invited to participate in a discussion around the PLAY theme with other members of the audience and Anne Nigten. Anne Nigten (PhD) is the manager of V2_Lab, the aRt&D department of V2_, Institute for the Unstable Media in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Anne is lecturing on research and development in the interdisciplinary field from an art perspective. She is advisor for several media art and science initiatives in Europe, board member of ISEA and member of the board of directors of The Public-gallery (UK). She completed her PhD at the University of the Arts London (UK), and frequently publishes papers on art, engineering and (computer) science collaboration and software development. Before her current position at V2_ she has been working as an independent media artist, and simultaneously fulfilled several management jobs for the media art sector in the Netherlands.

The third modern — denuding the media. The technobiological art work. Lecture by Dmitry Bulatov (Russia) The revolution in biology that gives birth by means of biomedical technologies such as genetical engineering, implantology, stem cells engineering and cloning is the flexibility of the homo sapiens species itself. The evolutionary potential inherent to this trend provides a gap between contemporary human condition and some of man’s primary biological characteristics as well as acquisition of non—human characteristics and results in changes to the very anthropomorphic image of the civilization. In contemporary art works produced by biomedical and information technologies appear as models. An exemplary project of this kind is Extra Far by an Australian artist Stelark — implanting a third ear grown from artist’s own stem cells. Dmitry Bulatov (Kaliningrad, Russia) — artist, researcher, art theorist. Organized a series of exhibitions and publishing projects on various aspects of art and high-tech interrelations (sci-art, robotech, genetic engineering, nanotech). Published more than 30 papers on contemporary art both in Russia and abroad as well as monographs and anthologies. Exhibitions: Ars Electronica («Radiotopia», Linz, 2002), 50 Venice Biennial («Brain Academy Apartment», 2003) and many others. Awards: Priznanie, 1998, Minor Booker Prize short list, 2000. Since 1998 — curator at the Kaliningrad State centre for Contemporary art.

IV. Multimedia shows
Pong Dress: READY PLAYED? Interactive performance by Margarete Jahrmann The little black dress as erotic real playground for pong? When marguerite Charmante wears her new neck top and offers the game controllers, attached at her lap height. We cannot resist being seduced to play! a charming seduction for playing, since it is possible to play the stylish plastic LED-grid, which covers chest and stomach area of the dress. Pong is the name of the game: hit the dot back and forth with two sticks — this time all new on a 3D playing field, that is moving, chatting and laughing. Apparently, Valie Export’s «Tap and Touch Cinema» is sur-facing as the obvious analogue pop-art-cultural-reference to Marguerite Charmantes «Ludic Pong Dress». Whilst the games at display vary to some extend, the symbiotic dedication and obsession for the playground’s finesse remain the same. Both, the privileged active players and the countless inter passive observers, will be sucked into the game. Margarete Jahrmann — born in Vienna, Austria, lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland. As artist Jahrmann is the conceiver of ludistics and Ludic Sociey founding member. With her arts work she introduces new genres beyond game art, as conceptual setups for optional publication formats, on printed circuit boards and the Ludic Society magazines. Her actual main interest lies in Game Fashion and Real Play. She focuses on the investigation on game systems as constraints and toy objects as deliberating ostensible uselessness. As performer in RFID-tagging, city plays and neopataphysist writings she plays with gamefigures and new bachelor machines. Jahrmann received 2003 a distinction in interactive arts at Prix Ars Electronica with the anti-war shooter nybble-engine toolz and was awarded a distinction at the software art award of in 2004 together with Max Moswitzer. In 2007 she perfromed at the DEAF Festival Rotterdam with a mobile RFID tagging play and at the Socieal Hacking Event Plymouth, UK. She is professor for ludology and game conceptions at the game design department of university of arts and design Zurich.