<videovortex> Rhizome News: Beyond Video Art (Modified by Geert Lovink)

[Rhizome News]

Rhizome News
January 7, 2008

Beyond Video Art

For the last ten years New York City's Art in General has been host to 
an annual Video Marathon – a weekend-long intensive look at the state 
of video art. The next in a line of guest curators to produce the 
event, Norwegian independent curator Hanne Mugaas has been chosen to 
organize this year's 10th Year Anniversary edition. Mugaas' inclusive 
approach to video, which extends beyond the confines of tape and dvd, 
is indicative of a new generation of curators identified by artist Olia 
Lialina in her essay "Flat Against the Wall" (2007) as those who 
"studied JODI at University". (JODI being the seminal computer art 
collective who emerged in the mid-90s.) As such, the Marathon frames 
video as an ideology and process that cover a selection of practices, 
including work on the web. Over the weekend, Art In General's galleries 
will host ongoing exhibitions, as well as screenings and lectures. The 
first exhibition, Artist Looking at the Camera, curated by Mugaas and 
Fabienne Stephan, is an examination of video as a conceptual forum for 
the production and distribution of facts and history.

The second exhibition, Transitional Objects, curated by Thomas Beard, 
considers the fluidity of electronic art within political, aesthetic, 
and technological realms over the last decade. Critic Ed Halter's 
lecture Regarding Jeff's People takes Jeff Krulik's cult documentary 
Heavy Metal Parking Lot (1986) as an entry point into a discussion of 
public access television, underground VHS bootlegging, and the 
formation of subjectivity within fan culture. Mugaas and artist Cory 
Arcangel will present their performance/lecture Art Since 1960 
(According to the Internet), which pieces together the past 48 years of 
art history through its fragmented representation on the web. And in a 
performance entitled Flipped Chips, artist collective Lovid, whose live 
shows involve manipulating audio and video, will frame their own work 
withi!  n that of video art pioneers, such as Dan Sandin, Nam June Pai! 
  k, Stein  a and Woody Vasulka, who created image processors long 
before Apple made solarizing easy for the rest of us to do. The 
Marathon begins January 10th--see the website for details. – Caitlin 
Jones

Ida Ekblad, National Treasure, 2007

http://www.artingeneral.org/