Press Release 01-2012
25th European Media Art Festival, 18 – 22 April 2012
Exhibition: 18 April – 27 May 2012
Current Media Art – also to mark 25 years of EMAF in Osnabrück
This year, Osnabrück’s European Media Art Festival will celebrate its 25th anniversary. But instead of getting melancholic and retrospective, it will instead focus once again on the latest trends in experimental Media Art from 18 to 22 April.
Over 2,300 entries from artists around the world are piled up high, waiting to be viewed. The film/video jury this year consists of Erwin van ’t Hart, Film Festival Rotterdam, Alex Gerbaulet, Braunschweig University of Art, Philipp Czogalla, University of Paderborn and Helene Webers, SMART Project Space Amsterdam. Under the direction of Ralf Sausmikat, an extremely diverse festival programme will be created over the next few weeks, a programme with a wide range of shorts and feature-length films to really entertain visitors to the festival and to stimulate controversial discussions. It took only a few days of viewing for the jury to realise that this year’s programme would contain numerous longer films; they were impressed by many 30- to 40-minute works.
In the exhibition area of the festival, visitors will be able to experience monitor installations, kinetic objects and light art projects in addition to sound walks and interactive feature films: equipped with a smartphone, visitors can explore sound spaces in the city or design a film together with others.
It goes without saying that the upcoming festival will also take a look back at the 25-year history of EMAF. Internationally renowned artists whose earliest works screened at EMAF years ago will present their current productions, addressing the subject of the every-changing methods used in Media Art.
EMAF designated a “Selected Landmark 2012”
As a fitting tribute to its anniversary, EMAF has received a commendation:
the festival has been nominated a “Selected Landmark 2012”. As a forum of the international media art world, therefore, it is one of the prize-winners of the “365 Landmarks in the Land of Ideas” competition, run by the nation-branding initiative “Germany – Land of Ideas” in cooperation with Deutsche Bank.
Each year the initiative, under the patronage of the German President, rewards outstanding projects and ideas each year that make a lasting contribution to Germany’s future viability. As one of the prize-winners, EMAF is therefore an “Ambassador for the Land of Ideas” in 2012, and represents Germany’s innovative potential.
The award ceremony will be held in the Kunsthalle Dominikanerkirche on 20 May 2012, on the occasion of International Museum Day.
For the latest information on the festival, visit www.emaf.de or check out facebook, twitter, vimeo and flickr.
European Media Art Festival
The EMAF in Osnabrück is one of the most important forums of international Media Art, and is an open laboratory for creative and artistic experiments that help shape media and the aesthetics of their content. As a lively meeting place for artists, curators, lenders, gallery owners and a specialist audience, it has been instrumental in forming the themes and aesthetics of Media Art.
Press Release 06-2011
24th European Media Art Festival, 27 April – 1 May 2011
Exhibition 27 April – 29 May 2011
Media Art and Melancholy
A change of thinking has long taken place: natural disasters, wars and the disappointed belief in technology are increasingly making us contemplative, changing our perception. This was revealed at the 24th European Media Art Festival (EMAF), which took place in Osnabrück between 27 April and 1 May. The festival was more political this year. Festival directors Hermann Nöring, Alfred Rotert and Ralf Sausmikat took stock of the event.
“A new manner of considering nature is emerging,” explains Hermann Nöring. “This time, many projects focused on critically exploring technological promises.” Stories are increasingly being told that are often marked by a melancholy undertone. The narrative level is very distinct at this year’s Media Art exhibition. Which is why “Moving Stories” is the title of part of the exhibition “Planet M”, which can be visited at the Kunsthalle Dominikanerkirche until the end of May.
The video and film programme also reveals a very clear tendency: “Narrative, documentary and socially relevant approaches prevail,” finds Ralf Sausmikat. Utopian, social-political concepts of social justice and the belief in the good of technical progress are increasingly giving way to a distanced/sceptic view of the future. This special method of transporting subject matter and exploring a loss of utopia emerges as the lowest common denominator this year.
The media are obliterating distances, enabling us to experience events directly, even if they take place on the other side of the globe. “Contemporary art has always been a kind of seismograph for societal, political and social developments,” explains Alfred Rotert. Due to the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, following the natural disasters in Indonesia and on Haiti, with the issue of the climate and the latest events in Japan, the system of coordinates of belief in an ever improving civilisation has gone haywire in the western world.
The exhibition reflects this dominating feeling of loss and doubt: “Images from nature no longer serve as romantic backdrop, but are presented as uninhabited, self-sufficing landscapes with dynamics of their own,” states Nöring. Violence and the destruction of culture, as well as a lack of environments suitable for children are also addressed. The view of poverty and of ethnic marginalisation or of general political impotence is by all means dominant.
“We are already eager to see what 2012 holds,” the organisers agree. “One thing for sure is that Media Art will respond to the events occurring on earth and will retain its function as a mouthpiece of society and as a mirror of political events!” the festival management concludes.
European Media Art Festival
The EMAF in Osnabrück is one of the most important forums of international Media Art, and is an open laboratory for creative and artistic experiments that help shape media and the aesthetics of their content.
As a lively meeting place for artists, curators, lenders, gallery owners and a specialist audience, it has been instrumental in forming the themes and aesthetics of Media Art.
// CONCEPT AND FESTIVAL MANAGEMENT
Hermann Nöring, Alfred Rotert, Ralf Sausmikat.
// SPONSORS
nordmedia - Die Mediengesellschaft Niedersachsen/Bremen mbH
Stadt Osnabrück
Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
Auswärtiges Amt
Kulturstiftung des Bundes
Kulturstiftung der Länder
Stiftung Niedersachsen
Europa fördert Niedersachsen
Europäischer Fonds für regionale Entwicklung
EU/Kulturprogramm
Japan Foundation
ANA
Universität Osnabrück
Mondriaan Foundation
Botschaft von Kanada
GrensWerte, gefördert durch Euregio
cybob communications
// MEDIA PARTNERS
arte
le monde diplomatique
// CULTURAL PARTNERS
NDR Kultur
// MORE INFORMATION
Kerstin Kollmeyer
Presse(at)emaf.de
European Media Art Festival
Lohstr. 45a
49074 Osnabrück
Tel. 0541/216 58
Fax. 0541/ 28327
