Picture of the poster by Shingyu Kang (Korea) @hk_studio_ar
… in front of a useless sentence
The 35 Festival Les Instants Vidéo will take place between October, 21 to December 04, 2022 in Marseille and elsewhere (the exhibition will end January, 29, 2023). The international encounters will be in la Friche la Belle de Mai, November 9 to 12.
To hit the spot,
2022 marks a turning point in the history of the festival: for the first time, our association is putting into practice new forms of working together and it is an artistic collective that selected with much care (among 3300 proposals) the works that will be highlighted in the festival:
183 artworks from 42 countries, 31 video installations, 147 films, 17 screening programmes, 5 performances, all this with a lot of human.
Connecting (to each other),
The festival tries to intensify the possibilities of encounters, to de-compartmentalize worlds and make video art more accessible. Thus, 3 popular art galleries (in social organisations) will be opened in Marseille, the *(citizens of Marseille) will open the festival with the video art screening program they built in 2022, the flame of Festival Images Contre Nature* (Marseille) will come to life again, /si:n/ video art and performance biennale* will make a stop in Marseille with a screening program by young artists from Palestine, and the WebTVVisualcontainer (Milan) will show one of our program on line during a whole month.
And our transnational escapes will take us to Gaza inPalestine, to Isfahan in Iran, to Milan in Italy and in the South of France Region (Aix en Provence* and Nice).
A video art festival,
Video art is the child of television. It is an art deeply linked to a technique. In the 1960s, the TV set was a complex piece of equipment that paved the way for electronic creation and experimental research. Visual artists and video artists have not remained insensitive to the potential of the medium, seeking to question the modes of viewing offered to (tele)spectators, using the screen for a new language with television material (interference, electronic incrustation, etc.), or even playing with the object itself, like a sculpture. They have thus created a living, creative, experimental and open electronic image, just like Jean-Christophe Averty, who as early as the 1960s, defended on French television this vision of a future to be invented.
The bluff of legitimacy,
However, even today, video art is still described as an elitist art form, thus confirming the distinction that is still firmly established in our stratified societies between forms of art that would be specific to the working classes and others that would be specific to the elites. One of the first responsibilities when having the task to disseminate, share and promote works of contemporary art is to challenge this state of affairs.
In order to do this, the exhibition spaces and the screenings, where the works we have chosen to share with you rub shoulders, we wanted them to be places of encounters away from the binarities imposed within our societies. Following Fluxus, we consider that there is an umbilical cord that links art to life, and that we must pay attention not to freeze the works, nor the places but on the contrary to take the art forms as they are and circulate them in the city and listen to their echoes. It is in this same spirit that we invite pop song to take its part in the festival.
Talk the talk,
This year’s festival chooses doubt and nuance because, to quote Albert Camus “We suffocate among people who think they are absolutely right”. Today the speech on art too often takes precedence over the work, so that what is said about it tends to be more important than the work itself. Just as the caption becomes more important than the image. We offer, by refocusing on the work itself, to let it resonate (reason) inside us. Let’s lend an ear and open our eyes to the languages of artists!
Time for outrage!
We like artists, they tell us something about the transformation of the world. Their works help us turn our anger into indignation.
At the time of writing this editorial, Mahsa Amini died in Iran for an “unruly” lock of hair, Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by Israeli military fire for defending freedom of expression, 79 feminicides have been committed in France since the beginning of the year, the right to self-determination of the body (abortion) is being reduced in the United States and elsewhere…
Against the models of domination that continue to consolidate their power, let us be indignant!
“Be citizens without borders, of those peoples who rise up
Contaminate the whole earth with your revolts and dreams
Indignant is your right, and in memory of all those
Who are still dying not to have it, this right is in fact a duty” (HK)
Let’s take a look at some of the proposals that connect us,
*The Programm’acteur·rice.s (inhabitants from Marseille) will open the festival with a screening programme their created this year, While the fields are burning (47′).
In 2022, les Instants Vidéo invited four groups of persons, users and social workers (from ADPEI, SARA Logisol, ANEF and ARI) to leave their position as spectators to become actors of the cultural life of their city. Together they selected 8 video works, wondering what the act of programming might be: What do we want to show to an audience? Should we put ourselves in the audience’s shoes to make a choice? How can we play between subjectivity (sensitive intelligence) and objectivity (aesthetics, form, sound, etc.)?
They will be present to present their programme, eager to hear your comments and feelings about their proposal.
👉🏽 November, 9 (6PM) in La Friche
*For our first artistic gesture as a collective, we felt it was important to pay tribute to the Festival Images Contre Nature (Marseille) and to rekindle its flame in order to let ourselves be dis-orientated by experimental films that make us work on the language of images. We will have plenty of time to discuss this evening with Hélène Bez and Claude Ciccolella, two of the founders of the festival.
👉🏽 November, 11 (9 to 11pm), in La Friche
*In July 2022, the IV went to Palestine for the realisation of the 7 biennial of video and performance art /si:n/ that we co-founded with our partners from the A.M. Qattan Foundation (in 2009). It is a story that weaves itself in time to better anchor itself in the daily life of the two territories. For us, cooperation also means bringing back knowledge, experience, understanding and imagination of the other, of the elsewhere, which will stimulate the “inner journeys” of those who engage with us. This is why we want the festival to welcome a return from Palestine to Marseille but also make a stopover in Gaza.
👉🏽 In La Friche, we will welcome the two french artists who performed for /si:n/, The non-aligned bubble by Denis Cartet (on the 9) and Influencesa performance by Sarah Violaine (on the 12), as well as a screening programme by young artists from Palestine (on the 12).
👉🏽 Then on November, 28 the inhabitants of Gaza are invited to the French Institute for an international screening programme followed by a video-conversation with the IV artistic team and some of the artists presented.
*The festival invited Alessandra Arno (VisualcontainerTV, Milan) in Aix en Provence School of art for an encounter with images around her research Mediterranea, where she will talk about the need to highlight the formal, aesthetic and methodological aspects of video art made by women and queer artists from the MENA region. Her research is currently of undeniable cultural interest, both for the need to deepen our cultural knowledge of the MENA region and for the urgency of decolonising our gaze and opening the discussion on gender.
👉🏽 November, 2 (6 to 8pm)
*Our stops will take us to Isfahan (Iran): the result of a fruitful encounter between the artist-curator Rojiin Shafiei, the IV artistic collective and the director of the two galleries (Safavi house and Aknoon art gallery), Elnaz Rajabian.
A conversation between the collective and Rojin inspired the selection of the artworks, in echo to the statement Girls, they breathe under water.
👉🏽 November, 25 to 30
