Project
Lo Schermo dell’Arte Film Festival presents the third Edition of VISIO – European Workshop on Artists’ Moving Images.
VISIO consists of a series of screenings, seminars and meetings dedicated to expanding the vision and themes of artists, who use moving images in their artistic practice.
VISIO intends to favour the development of a European network of young artists and professionals who work with moving images, promoting encounters and international mobility.
The Workshop will be held in Florence, within the context of the 7th Edition of Lo Schermo dell’Arte Film Festival (11-16 November 2014). The participants will be 12 young European artists, who work with moving images; they will be selected with an open call, in collaboration with some of the most important European Art Academies, Schools and Artist Residencies. The Selection Committee is composed of Leonardo Bigazzi, project curator VISIO, Silvia Lucchesi, director Lo Schermo dell’Arte and Angelika Stepken, director of Villa Romana. The deadline to apply is September 30th 2014.
Structure
VISIO – European Workshop on Artists’ Moving Images has a 5-part structure:
1. Festival
The participating artists are invited to attend screenings, meetings and lectures of the Festival’s official program, and are encouraged to actively participate in the discussions. The main topics will then be expanded and developed during the seminars and conversations with the curators and artists hosted by the Festival. This year’s edition will feature works by Hito Steyerl, Marinne Hugonnier and Shahryar Nashat among others.
2. VISIO Screening Program
A single-channel video from each participating artist will be selected for a screening program curated for the exhibition spaces of Villa Romana. The program will be presented during an opening night on November 11th and then will have daily screenings from the 12th to the 16th. Founded in Florence in 1905, Villa Romana is an international institution that runs one of the most important residency program for artists in Italy.
3. Artists Presentation
The participating artists will be asked to introduce their work in a 20 minutes presentation/lecture at Villa Romana. Here, they will have the opportunity to present the fundamental themes of their artistic practice to the other participants and to a selected audience.
4. Seminars
A series of seminars will be conducted by artists and curators who will speak about various aspects of their artistic practice and research methods with the participants. The seminars, which will last 2 hours each, will be structured in such a way as to allow also moments of discussion and sharing of experiences between the professionals and the participants. In the previous editions the seminars have been conducted by Isaac Julien, Deimantas Narkevicius, Mark Nash, Maria Lind, Alain Fleischer and Heinz Peter Schwerfel.
The three seminars will be conducted by:
Marine Hugonnier
In her films, photographs, works on paper, Marine Hugonnier wants to investigate, deconstruct and divert conventional representations for which she invents methods of investigation inspired by anthropology.Her work has been exhibited around the world in many institutions such as the Kunsthalle Bern (2007), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2007), the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2007), the SMAK StedelijkMuseum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent (2007), the Mamco Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Geneva (2009), Konsthall Malmö, Sweden (2009), the Baltic Center for Contemporary Art Newcastle (2014) and the Museum of Modern Art and contemporary Seoul, Korea (2014).
Philippe Alain Michaud
Philosopher and art historian, he’s particularly interested in the links between cinema and art history. He’s curator and director of the Department of experimental cinema at Centre Pompidou. Among the shows he’s curated: Comme le rêve, le dessin (Musée du Louvre/Centre Pompidou, 2004); Le mouvement des images (Centre Pompidou, 2006); Bild für Bild (Museum Ostwall, Dortmund, 2010) and, recently, Tapis volants / Tappeti volanti (Villa Medici, Roma, 2012). Among his books: Aby Warburg et l’image en mouvement (Paris, 1998 / New York, 2002); Le peuple des images (Paris, 2002); Sketches. Histoire de l’art, cinéma (Paris, 2006).
Filipa Ramos
Art writer and curator based in London, where she works as Editor in chief of art-agenda. She is a lecturer at the Experimental Film MA program of Kingston University, and at the MRes Art:Moving Image of Central Saint Martins, both in London.
She is co-curator of Vdrome, a programme of screenings of films by film artists. In the past she was Associate Editor of Manifesta Journal, curator of the Research Section of dOCUMENTA (13), and coordinator of “The Most Beautiful Kunsthalle in the World” research project at the Antonio Ratti Foundation.
5. Conversation room
In this informal environment participants will meet every day, in 45-minute round tables and individual encounters, artists, curators, critics, producers and directors of international institutions hosted by the Festival. A day will be dedicated to the curators and directors of local contemporary art institutions. Ranging from the presentation of their own portfolios to simple conversations, these moments are conceived as an occasion for encounters and exchanges that can foster the participants’ professional growth and extend their networks of international contacts.
Francesco Bertocco
Visual artist and filmmaker. His field of research is the exploration of the documentary genre, linguistically complex. His recent research has focused on the study of the mind through the scientific research.
Solo exhibitions include: OFF SITE, with Alessandra Messali, MAC, Lissone, in collaboration with ViaFarini /DOCVA; Focus Group, ROOM Gallery, Milan; Role Play, Lucie Fontaine, Milan.
Among the exhibitions and screenings: Visions du Réel 2014 International Documentary Festival, Nyon, CH; Mediterranea 16 Errors Allowed, Ancona; VideoZero 2012 and Okay, I have had enough, what else can you show me? Careof DOCVA, Documentation Center for Visual Arts, Milan; Videominuto since 2010 diary of this permanent al Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato; VIDEO.IT, Fondazione Merz, Torino; DOC15, (production prize) Sect. Passes, Festival International Filmmaker Milan, Milano.
The partecipation of Francesco Bertocco is supported by Lo Schermo dell’Arte.
Laure Cottin Stefanelli
French artist based in Paris, working in film and photography. She studied literature and cinema at Paris III University and graduated from École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris in 2010 with honours. Working with the margins of reality, she uses her direct surroundings as settings and her family and friends as actors of an ongoing and intimate story. She has exhibited in group shows and festivals across France, as well as in Los Angeles, Montréal, Taiwan, London, Brussels and Essen, among others. In 2009, she was recognised as one of the laureates of the Leica Prize for her work in photography. In 2011, her film, No Blood in my body, won the prize for best short film in Écrans Documentaire, Arcueil, France. She was awarded the International Stipend for Young Artists in Fine Art from the Federal State of Lower Saxony and Braunschweig HBK (Germany) (2013). She is currently one of the laureates of the HISK program, Ghent (Belgium) (2014).
Laure Cottin-Stefanelli was awarded with the scholarchip offered by the Institut français Firenze.
www.laurestefanellicottin.fr
Helen Dowling
Born in 1982 in the UK, she lives and works in The Netherlands having attended the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten. She works mainly with recorded mediums of video, sound and photography using the acts of filming and editing to interrogate the experience of what it is to view and be viewed. Her works engage with formal aspects of language, experience and learning, mimesis and anthropomorphism. She received her BA at Goldsmiths College, London, 2004 and MA at Slade School of Fine Art, London, 2008. Recent exhibitions include Euritmie, The Castelvecchio Museum, Disabled by Normality, DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague, L’evento immobile, Casa Masaccio, Tuscany and Niet Normaal, Blue Coat Gallery, Liverpool. Her current research project, investigating the possibilities of rhythmic entrainment in the context of moving images, has been awarded funding by the Mondriaan Foundation.
Helen Dowling was awarded with the ‘CECCHI Scholarship’ offered by Cecchi.
www.helendowling.com
Jacob Dwyer
Born in London. Studied fine art at Newcastle University before receiving the AHRC studentship to complete an MA in Experimental Film at Kingston University, London. He has spent the last two years as an artist-in-residence at De Ateliers, Amsterdam, a city in which he continues to live, make work and contribute as a writer for Metropolis M. He has shown his work in screenings and exhibitions : Herrmann Germann Contemporary, Zurich, De Ateliers, Amsterdam, MAUVE, Wien, GENERATORprojects, Dundee (UK) and Mode, Istanbul.
jacobdwyer.com
Giovanni Giaretta
Italian artist, lives and works in Amsterdam. After graduating in Design and Production of Visual Arts at the University IUAV of Venice, in 2010 took part in the residency program of the Dena Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris and Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation in Venice and in 2011 he participated to the Advanced Course in Visual Arts of the Fondazione Antonio Ratti.
Giaretta showed his work in many shows in Italy and abroad, in institutions and spaces like: Macro (Rome, IT); De Ateliers, (Amsterdam, NL); Foundation Botin (Santander, SP); La Tolerie (Clermont Ferrand, FR); Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart, (Rochechouart, FR); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, (Torino, IT); Motive Gallery (Amsterdam, NL) and Peep-Hole (Milan, IT). In 2013 was selected for the 5×5 Castellò. Premi International d’art contemprani Disputaciò de Castellò (Castellò, SP). Since 2011 is part of IrmavepClub a collective of artists and curators.
His video-works has been screened at Videoart Yearbook 2008, Galleria Civica di Trento and at Villa Medici inside the screening program TEATROЯOTATE curated by the artist Laurent Montaron.
Inside his residency at Macro (Rome, IT) he curated the Film screening about cinema and sport “The impossible hour” mixing movies and videos of artists as Raphael Zarka and director as Jorgen Leth.
Giovanni Giaretta was awarded with a scholarship offered by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Italy.
Louis Henderson
English filmmaker whose films and writings engage with subjects such as post-colonialism, history, politics and anthropology. Graduate of London College of Communication and Le Fresnoy – studio national des arts contemporains, Henderson is currently completing a PhD at the European School of Visual Arts whilst in residence at la Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. He has shown his work at places such as: Rotterdam International Film Festival, CPH:DOX, Transmediale, the Centre Pompidou, Museo Reina Sofia, Tate Modern and Whitechapel Gallery. His work is distributed by Video Data Bank.
Diego Marcon
Artist and filmmaker, lives and works in Paris. His research deals with the relation between reality and representation, questioning the ontology of the moving image and its possibility to be a tool for knowledge and investigation of reality. In 2006 he graduated in film editing at the Scuola Civica di Cinema di Milano. In 2012 he got the BA in Visual Arts at the IUAV University of Venice. In 2009 he participated to the CSAV of Fondazione Antonio Ratti and took part to the residence program by the Dena Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris. For the 2010 he was a studio recipient at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice. In 2013 he was artist in residence at CIAP Vassivière and at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. His works have been screened in film festivals both in Italy and abroad, and have been shown in international institutions like Whitechapel Gallery, Fondation d’entreprise Ricard, De Vleeshal, National Architecture Institute Rotterdam, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and MAGA Museo Arte Gallarate.
The attendance of Diego Marcon is supported by Beyond Entropy.
www.diegomarcon.net
Anna Okrasko
Anna Okrasko was born in 1981 in Warsaw, Poland. She graduated from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, Painting Department in 2004. In 2011 she has also graduated from the Master programme in Fine Art at the Piet Zwart Institute, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She exhibited nationally and abroad and her work was presented in individual and group shows, among others: in the Warsaw’s Center for Contemporary Art, Zachęta The National Gallery of Art (PL), East International 2009 in Norwich (GB), TENT (NL) and 41st edition of International Film Festival Rotterdam (NL). In 2011 she has been awarded with the scholarship of the Vordemberge-Gildewart Foundation (PL / CH) and the Promotieprijs 2011 by Stichting Promotieprijs in Rotterdam (NL). In the 2015 she will become a fellow in Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart. She lives and works in Rotterdam, Warsaw and Berlin.
Anna Okrasko was awarded with the scholarship offered by the Deutsches Institut Florenz.
okrasko.blogspot.com
Giacomo Raffaelli
Italian artist currently based in London, where he has studied Fine Art Photography at Camberwell College of Arts, UAL. Through video, photography and performance, as well as lectures and text, his practice operates an examination of forms of measuring, and the aesthetic character of devices used in scientific research.
Since 2012 his works have been exhibited, screened and performed internationally, in venues including: Mart – Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto (IT), South London Gallery (UK), Camberwell Space (UK), “untitled”BCN (ESP) and L.E.S. – Local Experimental Society, Almaty (KZ).
Art institutions supporting his work through artist-in-residence programs include: Centrale Fies (IT), Little Constellation (IT), Viafarini DOCVA (IT), Hotel Pro Forma (DK). In 2013 and 2014 he was awarded the CCW Artist Moving Image Film Fund.
Erica Scourti
Grew up in Athens, Greece and is now a London-based artist and writer whose work in text, video and performance has been shown. In 2013 she completed an MRes in Moving Image Art at Central St Martins and LUX (with distinction). Working across media with an emphasis on digital video, recent exhibitions include a La Voix Humaine, Munich Kunstverein, Afresh:a New Generation of Greek Artists at Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Different Domain at The Royal Standard and A Small Hiccup at Grand Union; her first book, The Outage, was published earlier this yea by Banner Repeater; upcoming shows include the Hayward Gallery Project Space and the main program of IMPAKT Festival. While participating in numerous international residency programs, she has also attended workshops like Hand on film, with the Goethe Institut in Athens, and has presented papers at conferences and institutions, such as the ICA, Arnolfini and The Photographer’s Gallery.
The attendance of Erica Scourti is supported by Central Saint Martins.
www.ericascourti.com
Rizki Resa Utama
Born in Indonesia, lives and works in Germany. In 2006 he initiated the 12th space initiative Button (now Buton Kultur 21) in Bandung, Indonesia. In 2008 he was invited to show his work in Singapore Biennale 2008. He moves to Germany where he graduates in Fine Art at the University of Art Braunschweig (HBK). His vision focuses on the investigation of the habitual and routine aspects of daily life in order to describe and understand the social condition. As an artist in a foreign country he investigates the issue of “belonging” in the context of social relationships. He received an Honorary Mention Award at the European Media Art Festival (EMAF) 2011, Osnabrück, Germany and recently was invited to an Artist Residency in Istanbul, Turkey.
www.oqutama.info
Emma Van der Put
Dutch artist, study at De Ateliers, Amsterdam and at AKV St. Joost Bachelor of Fine Arts, ’s of Hertogenbosch.
Dominic van den Boogerd says about her work: “However mundane the observed events may be (a gathering at a festival, a crowd of tourists in a square), her keen use of framing, panning and editing lifts the scenes beyond the trivial anecdote. Maintaining a balance between empathy and detachment, Van der Put manages to show common gestures as seen for the very first time. Mesmerizing and slightly alienating, her recordings of a particular space during a limited time span reveal the uncomfortable side of social life.” Emma van der Put is currently a resident at WIELS, Brussels. Her work has been shown at tegenboschvanvreden, Amsterdam, Manifesta Art Office, Amsterdam, Galerie Mikael Andersen, Berlin. Recent screenings include OFFoff Cinema, Ghent, EYE- film museum, Amsterdam, S.M.A.K., Ghent and at Tuschinski, International Documentary Film festival Amsterdam.
Emma van der Put was awarded with a scholarship offered by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Italy.
www.emmavanderput.com
screening program
TWELVE SINGLE-CHANNEL VIDEO WORKS, ONE FOR EACH PARTICIPATING ARTISTS, WILL BE SCREENED IN THE EXHIBITION SPACES OF VILLA ROMANA, FLORENCE.
Opening Tuesday November 11 at 6.30 pm • Wednesday November 12 – Sunday November 16, 11 am – 5 pm
Setting
by Francesco Bertocco, 2012, Full HD, 06'06''
In psychotherapy, role-play is mainly used to showcase a model of ethical codes that takes place between the psychotherapist and the patient, usually at their first contact. During psychotherapy part of the therapists’ training goes through case studies and related case history. The clinical studies, the type of patients, are chosen for their capacity to represent a model. Setting consists of a potential mise-en-scènes of a psychotherapy role-play.
The shots have been made inside a photographic studio of the Università Statale di Milano, where role-play are realized for the faculty of Clinical Psychology. This place, without any active and recognizable element (even also the actors/doctors), becomes a space to explore, an open system to rebuild in any time, at every passage.
How it feels to be changed into a beast?
by Laure Cottin Stefanelli, 2011, DV, 6'13
The story is written as a monologue. On the screen, short sentences describe a man’s chaotic getaway from the city. The earth’s surface is burning, war is raging. A man flees the street and seeks refuge underground, where he waits for the break of dawn.
« PEOPLE RIPPED APART,
LIKE TATTERED OLD SHIRT,
LIKE TATTERED RAGS,
I WAS TRYING TO FIND MY OWN WAY,
THROUGH THE STREETS OF THE DESTRUCTION ZONE,
I AM ALIVE. »
(Text extract from the film)
These are my friendly hands
by Helen Dowling, 2013, HD, 6' 00"
Tropical foliage, rocky landscapes, wave formations, anthropomorphic hands, sign language, clapping, pointing, fingers obscuring the camera lens and bursts of light – all of these moments are edited together to bring the viewer into the rhythm of the video. Movement through the camera, being hit or buffeted about, emphasises the camera equipments’ physicality and animates the filming process within the finished product of the video. The sound is composed of clicks, whistles, whistling languages, claps and interference. Without verbal communication, written words or the human face, it is a work about language, otherness, anthropomorphism and the experience of moving image.
The Camaguey Hustle
by Jacob Dwyer, 2012, Full HD, 12’ 47’’
he Camaguey Hustle tells a tale of tourism in contemporary Cuba. The narrative describes an attempted hustle by the young locals of Camaguey against a group of visiting tourists. Understood as a reactivation of the cities original layout purpose (to trap pirates that would enter the maze-like “scribble” of winding streets), the position of the modern backpacker as an outsider, gleaning stories, images and experiences, is confused. This device exists amongst a combination of additional filters available to the filmmaker/tourist only on returning home.
Untitled (Portrait Study)
by Giovanni Giaretta, 2012, Full HD, 13’21’’
The video documents the relationship between an entomologist and a variety of butterflies. The gestures and the experience of the entomologist create a narrative that alternates between scientific description, sign language and a choreography.
All That is Solid
by Louis Henderson, 2014, HD, 15'26"
“All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels – The Communist Manifesto 1848
A technographic study of e-recycling and neo-colonial mining filmed in the Agbogbloshie electronic waste ground in Accra and illegal gold mines of Ghana. The video constructs a mise-en-abyme as critique in order to dispel the capitalist myth of the immateriality of new technology – thus revealing the mineral weight with which the Cloud is grounded to its earthly origins.
Storie di fantasmi per adulti
by Diego Marcon, 2010, MiniDV, 16’22’’
A mountain house, between rooms of images and imaginaries. The gaze is staring at a taxidermy on a wall – in the corner of the eye another one seems to move a bit. And then paintings, prints, little statues, photographs. Some ghosts tremble into this immobilism’s apparence. The eye turns itself into the ear: coughing, some whispered sentences and sights in the house. A country love song.
Questionnaire
by Anna Okrasko, 2011, PAL, 04'57''
In Questionnaire the subjects of the film are asked questions such as: “What is our frame of mind as citizens? What are your ideals? What are your dreams? What are your plans for the future?” This footage is appropriated from two documentaries by Polish film director Kazimierz Karabasz: “Na progu” / “On the Threshold” (1965) and “Próba materii” / “Material Test” (1981).
Questionnaire is re-edited so that the viewer is not allowed to hear the subjects’ answers; rather the viewer watches peopleʼs faces, expressing doubt, confusion or hesitation, thus escaping surveillance. Still the video works as a real questionnaire, making the viewer think about the questions posed by the documentary.
With a Relative Uncertainty
by Giacomo Raffaelli, 2014, Full HD, 7’45’’
With a Relative Uncertainty investigates the research currently developed by a team of scientists at the National Physical Laboratory (UK) attempting to redefine the kilogram prototype. The work explores the yearning for exactitude and universal measurement through the abstract quality of objects that are nevertheless handcrafted.
Body Scan II
by Erica Scourti, 2014, HD (portrait), 5’05’’
A scan of photos of my body, taken both by me and my lover, identified using a search-by-image iphone app that reads visual data and connects it to other bodies of mostly commercial information.
Kembali ke Sekolah (Back to school)
by Rizki Resa Utama, 2014, Full HD, 9'51"
This work is made in response to the experience of staying in Indonesia after living in another country for several years. Having lost the ability to follow the rhythm of the language and cultural development, I need to‚ re-learn‘ the subtleties of language in order to feel like part of the society / Indonesian again. This work tries to explore the question of how behavior in a society is being formed and how language is being interpreted.
Montmartre
by Emma van der Put, 2011, DV PAL, 3’14’’
Portrait (caricature) of Montmartre in Paris.
VISIO. European Workshop on Artists’ Moving Images 3rd edition
curated by Leonardo Bigazzi
promoted and organized by
Lo schermo dell’arte Film Festival
in collaboration with
Villa Romana
FST – Mediateca Toscana
with the support
- Regione Toscana
- Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze/Osservatorio per le Arti Contemporanee
- Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Italy
- Institut français Firenze
- Deutsches Institut Florenz
- Cecchi
The selection of the participants is conducted in partnership with
- Akademie der Bildenden Künste München
- Central Saint Martins (London)
- De Ateliers (Amsterdam)
- École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon
- Kingston University (London)
- Pavillon Neuflize OBC research lab of the Palais de Tokyo (Paris)
- Piet Zwart Institute (Rotterdam)
- Royal College of Art (London)
- Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (Copenhagen)
- Vilnius Academy of Arts
- Zurich University of The Arts
- Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera (Milan)
- Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze