VIDEO:Video Art Miden-Screenings January 2021
Video Art Miden is an independent organization for the exploration and promotion of video art. Founded by an independent group of Greek artists in 2005, it has been one of the earliest specialized video-art festivals in Greece, setting as basic aims to stimulate the creation of original video art, to help spread it and develop relevant research.
Photo: Video Art Miden Archive
Through collaborations and exchanges with major international festivals and organizations, Video Art Miden has been recognized as one of the most successful and interesting video art platforms internationally and as an important cultural exchange point for Greek and international video art. Video Art Miden in recent months has turned its 13th Festival edition, initially scheduled to be held in Kalamata, into a monthly online meeting, presenting different selections of video art each month, starting in April. Video Art Miden welcomes the new year with 3 new online programs. The programs will remain open 1-31 of January 2021 at Video Art Miden youtube channel.
The selection Occupants presents 7 works by contemporary Greek artists, focusing on human presence and action, through various manifestations: Yiannis Pappas, who presents 2 of his works here, focuses on performance, using symbolic sociological elements and creating tensions between space and the body as an entity and as existence. Alexia Psaradeli, on whose work the title of the selection is based, “lives” and coexists with imaginary biological forms -parasites of the subconscious during sleep- and converses with them silently through a choreographed movement. George Boudalis leads us to a landscape of fragmented writing, where we wander among scattered, unrelated words until a memento mori symbol is revealed. Bill Psarras explores the concept of futility through a video performance where common stones are patiently turned into gold – but only on the surface. Anastasia Lamprou in a double action explores and symbolically draws the limits of the physical and mental space through sound, rhythm and a movement neurotic and hypnotic at the same time. Kostas Daflos roams the streets of Piraeus with a peculiar technological lantern that reproduces pre-recorded noises randomly and irregularly in a neglected urban landscape, with the audience being minimal, random, and mostly indifferent. All together, the works of the selection compose an “ode” to vanity and to the agony of human existence to find a meaning, through actions, writings-rewritings and almost Sisyphean repetitions that strive to leave a mark, a semantically and conceptually charged trace of human activity, of life and art.
The video program Carry on presents 7 contemporary Greek artists who use different morphological and conceptual elements in their work, having as a common axis the concept of wandering (and sometimes stopping), physically and spiritually. Alexandros Kaklamanos, who opens the program, guides us in the process and the concept of an outdoor installation that took place in 2018 in Naxos, exploring the phenomenon of the vortex. Giorgos Efthimiou, visualizing a surrealistic idea for an abstract film, introduces us to the microbiota of a house, starting with the lemons that rot in the sun. Vasilios Papaioannu takes us on a journey of inner search in a film that tries to guess the future while capturing a timeless present through poetic images that seem eerie and dreamy. Maria Tsiroukidou attempts a personal “critical historiography” through a series of numbered frames, exploring the concept of capturing reality, altering it and turning it into an idea. Antigone Michalakopoulou, playing with speech and its flow, follows a personal path of thoughts by connecting pre-written “statements”, personal confessions that, although seemingly insignificant, one would not easily make. Magda Lambropoulou invites us to a small inner journey for just two minutes, leaving our gaze wandering in a sea of floating stars. Finally, Babis Venetopoulos makes us stand and watch him as he stares at us in the middle of an urban street, carrying on his back the oversized figure of his father. Will he continue his course carrying the heavy load on his back? Is this burden the past of us all?
The selection “Time quarantined” is presented in collaboration with The New Museum of Networked Art & ALPHABET Art Centre. In these times of the pandemic many people become aware of the restrictions of the “usual”. Those things which were taken for granted before receive suddenly an unusual status. Time seems to be paralyzed, set in quarantine – or is it just a paradigm shift? The program of the selected videos is a composition of different aspects of time in all their contradictions according to an artistic view manifested in 13 art videos. Participating Artists: Karin & Didi Fromherz, Ronnie Sluik, Jason Jenn, Alexandra Anikina, Brit Bunkley, Johannes C. Gerard, Louise Coetzer, Arie Sigal & Ben-David Sigal, Lisi Prada, Shahar Marcus & Hagit Grossman, Farid Hamedi // Rohina, Vojislav Radovanović and Katya Yakubov
Photo: Bill Psarras
Info: Curators: Gioula & Olga Papadopoulou (Occupants & Carry on), Wilfried Agricola de Cologne (Time quarantined), Video Art Miden’s youtube channel link: www.youtube.com
More info: www.festivalmiden.gr
