Towards the free movement of bodies and desires
Video art is a contemporary art …
of the struggle of those who have not yet renounced their right to bear wings.
1) More and more walls are built between those who have (almost) nothing and those who have (almost) everything.
2) Misogyny and homophobia (even when hiding behind good intentions) are walls built between bodies and desires
How can video artists express what should be a universal right: the right of everyone to circulate and settle where they please, to live freely in their sexuality, to love without impediment … ? We have built this year’s festival upon our firm belief that the same logic drives all States, with the unfortunate agreement of a too-large number of individuals: to control the migratory flux and the flux of desire. The victims of this war against the unfamiliar and the foreign are in their millions today, whether in Gaza, Syria, Mexico, in Lampedusa or on our street. We are living on a planetary scale under a (political and economic) regime of patriarchal domination based on the law of the strongest: the most muscular, the richest, the best-armed, the best-qualified, the best-endowed. Whether it be in the name of a god; of saving an economy; of the preservation of identity; or as a guarantee of our security, the predators of a cosmopolitan, mixed-race, and unanimous humankind are conniving to close borders against undesirable populations, and control sexualities that threaten the heterosexual nuclear family unit where the safe pairs of hands are reproduced to produce the luxuries indispensable to the workings of a liberal economy, or to carry guns to fight in new ‘civilising’ crusades. Last April in Tunisia, I heard a mother declare that fish had become her enemies because her son was eaten by them when shipwrecked off the coasts of Europe. That is enough to justify our fight: reconciling Mediterranean people with fish. Between July and September 2014, 2900 migrants have died in the Mediterranean. The 27th Instants Videos will be an (open) camp for poetic refugees where the counter-attack of images, sounds, bodies and desires will stitch up and iron out those tailors of unworldly worlds which do not twirl; where bodies and minds (intertwined) and toothsome tongues are our arms to alarm without harm women battered by men sick with power, the foreigners wiped out by the well-heeled who erect walls and block horizons, the human kinds whose loins are violated by dream-destroyers … video art is the art of passing from one gender/genre to another, to hybridise styles without bridling: an infinite vision of love and affection combined. The artists that we have programmed have not responded to an order. We do not ask them to be militants, spokespeople for a cause or the illustrators of a theme. Instants Videos has a vocation to capture the flux of creative energies, to display works in a space and for a certain time, and to invite guests to come and experience new ways of thinking and living together. We like works where desire interferes with reality – traces the line of hips, of opportunity, of the waterline – works which make life difficult for preconceived ideas and which divert, disrupt the senses, slap good taste in the face, and caress the infinite pleasure of being a perfect stranger … This Instants Video will be, more than ever, transgendered, transcontinental, trans-(un)disciplined (but certainly not transparent). Here, the works, the artists, and the organisers expose themselves to the welcome critiques of visitors in charge of their own destinies, who have outgrown the conservative conventions which leave our mouths dry. At the Friche la Belle de Mai (Do It Your Way), 14 video installations by artists from Taiwan (Schizophrenia 2.0) will say something of their world which speaks volumes of ours, and fifteen or so others (Morocco, Syria, Palestine, Brazil, Pakistan, USA, Japan, Portugal, Hungary, Finland, Germany, France) are a rallying cry for poetic reappraisal of all that can pierce the wretched barriers which turn our stomachs … Performances where the body waltzes with the po(e)ssibilities and acoustopoetics of technology and of the voice … Cosmopolitan programmes on such scales (with bad scores, crotchets, and sighs) of video (neither void nor livid) – to give body to sense and sense to the body. Debates to waft aside monotonous waffle, the frolicking of ideas and sensitivities springing into action to remove the rigid (and frigid) (governing) bodies which hinder free expression and the free movement of bodies and desires… Instants Videos move as the wind takes them (rage without carnage) to migrate as birds would from thunder. The festival will (emb)raise the camp of the Friche to scale the windows of the Espace Culture and in the room of the Videodrome for young and old (Marseille), in the [.Box] Gallery in Milan and just about everywhere in the world on the digital waves of Visual Container TV. What is at stake when we open borders in our bodies and desires is not only a human and political concern: it is also a poetic one. The unrestrained opening of borders will lead to the blending of bodies and the creolisation of languages. If only for this reason; if only for poetic reasons. We should demand of ourselves and the institutions which manage our destinies in spite of ourselves, the duty of radical hospitality. We do not talk of “our rights”, but of “our doing what is right”. As incest is (universally) forbidden, there should be a (universal) duty of hospitality. This is not negotiable; it is our moral obligation. We wish you a frenzied take off, on wings of mischief … Marc Mercier Translation Kate Pinault
34 video and digital international INSTALLATIONS
PERFORMANCES
11 performances/Actions/Lectures by 9 international artists (Belgium, Canada ,France, Malta, Syria)(Cartonnerie 7th to 11th)
INTERNATIONAL SCREENINGS
159 Video by international artists dealing in a poetical way about the free circulation of bodies and desires, coming for 44 countries (South Africa, Algeria, Germany, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Cyprus,Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, Equator, Finland, France, Ghana, Great Britain, Greece, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Palestine, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia, Ukraine, USA, Venezuela. (Cartonnerie 7th to 11th) with escapades – to Videodrome in December (18 video) and 4 screenings for young spectators in October and November (52 video); – in the Gallery [.BOX] in Milano (Italy) November 7th to 13th (8 video) – on the WEB TV Visual Container November 13th to December 10th (15 video) a total of 252 video art works out of 1386 received for the selection
DEBATES
Monday, November 10th, from 9.30am to 11pm, will be a special day for debates, encounters, screenings, performances, on the theme of the circulation of bodies and desires, co-organised with REF (France Euromed Network) and the group “Thoughts and practices” initiated by the René Seydoux Foundation. A day shared with international artists, academics, professionals and users of associations working on issues as immigration, refugees, homosexualities, transgender, transsexuality…