Cinema Arts Festival Houston

November 11-15, 2009

The only U.S. festival devoted to films by and about artists of all stripes, the 2009 Cinema Arts Festival Houston runs at various cultural locales throughout Houston. It is more than just a film festival; it is a vibrant multimedia arts event breaking out of the confines of the movie theater through live music and film performances, outdoor projections, interactive video installations and more.

Special Series: Photographer Susan Meiselas and filmmaker Richard P. Rogers

‘Creative Partners: The Films of Richard P. Rogers and Susan Meiselas’ includes several screenings and events exploring the fruitful partnership of filmmaker Richard P. Rogers and photographer Susan Meiselas, including the Houston premiere of one of the year’s most original and important documentaries, The Windmill Movie. Directed by Alexander Olch and produced by Pulitzer Prize–winning photographer Susan Meiselas, The Windmill Movie is imaginatively composed from footage collected over many years for an unfinished autobiography by legendary art documentarian, experimental filmmaker and film professor Richard P. Rogers.

Meiselas, who was Rogers’ wife, collaborated with him on two classic documentary films made in the 1980s in support of the Nicaraguan people and revolution, Living at Risk and Pictures from a Revolution. Meiselas will be joined by Alfred Guzzetti, who co-directed Pictures from a Revolution and Living at Risk with Rogers and Meiselas, for discussions after the screenings.

Multimedia Arts Festival

One such attraction is H BOX, the portable screening room designed by Portuguese artist/architect Dider Fiuza Faustino and sponsored by the Hermès Foundation. H BOX is stationed at the historic Alabama Theatre through the close of the Festival and features a rotating, diverse program of videos by ten internationally renowned artists including Yael Bartana (Israel), Matthew Buckingham (USA) and Cao Fei (China). H BOX Curator Benjamin Weil will visit Houston and speak in a ‘Meet the Makers’ series.

Another multimedia attraction is the special preview of What if, Why not? Underground Adventures with Ant Farm, a documentary by Texas filmmakers Laura Harrison and Beth Federici about the 1970s renegade architectural and media collective Ant Farm. Inflatable structures inspired by Ant Farm and created by University of Houston students will supplement the screening. What if, Why not? is the first film to delve into the work of Ant Farm, best known for its iconic land-art piece Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, TX. Guest filmmakers Laura Harrison and Beth Federici and legendary artists and Ant Farm original members Chip Lord and Curtis Schreier will attend the screening.

www.cinemartsociety.org

iMAL center for digital cultures and technology

1999: the beginning

iMAL is a non-profit association created in Brussels in 1999. It was founded by individual artists, media producers, interactive designers, software engineers, and by NICC (a Belgian association of visual artists) with the objective to support artistic forms and creative practices using computer and network technologies as their medium.

2007: the opening

In October 2007 iMAL opened its new venue in Brussels, a Center for Digital Cultures and Technology, a new place of about 600m2 for the meeting of artistic, scientific and industrial innovations, a place entirely dedicated to the contemporary artistic and cultural practices emerging from the fusion of computer, telecommunication, network and media.

Art Laboratory: Experimentation, Residence, Production

IMAL is a laboratory and a workplace for artists in residence, iMAL supports artists during their experimentation and research process as well as for the production and diffusion of their works (e.g. the installations “Salt Lake” by Tom Heene and Yacine Sebti, “Synapse” by Pascale Barret, “Jump!” by Yacine Sebti). IMAL is involved in interdisciplinary projects where digital expressions augment in a meaningful way danse, theater and visual arts.

Research for the Art, Art&Science, Industrial innovation

Regular meetings are organised between creative professionals, innovative technological companies and research institutions (see our website www.imal.org/rendez-vous). In 2008, iMAL will start a research activity as a partner in a French project gathering university labs, innovative companies and art institutions.

Workshops

Since 2001, IMAL produces professional workshops targeted to creative people (artists, designers, developers,…) under the direction of recognised artists (e.g. Casey Reas, David Rokeby, Jasch, Julian Oliver).

Public Events

iMAL public events are designed to raise the awareness of a large audience to the creative usage and critical reviews of information technologies. They range from lectures, performances and concerts to exhibitions and festivals usually inviting both internationally recognised artists and local emerging ones.

Networking

iMAL is a network institution collaborating with Brussels Flemish colleagues (e.g.. www.x-med-a.be , network of artistic laboratories www.kunstenwerkplaats.be ) and other european centers (e.g.. V2, Mediamatic / NL, m-cult / FI, GMEA, Cie Incidents Mémorables, Incident, Art Sensitif / FR, Hangar / SP)

now @ iMAL

Chapter I – The Discovery by Félix Luque invites us to to discover an unidentified artificial entity emitting a code of light and sound. Its shape is a pure platonic solid, a dodecahedron, a geometry often associated with philosophical theories, esoterism and sci-fi culture.

more information: http://www.imal.org

Klaus Biesenbach has been appointed Director of P.S.1

[...] Biesenbach, currently Chief Curator of Media and Performance Art at MoMA and Chief Curatorial Advisor at P.S.1, succeeds Founding Director Alanna Heiss, who retired in 2008 to establish Art International Radio. Biesenbach will take over as Director in January 2010. P.S.1, which was founded in Long Island City, Queens, in 1976, became affiliated with MoMA in 2000.

“Klaus is uniquely qualified to lead P.S.1, and to continue the persistent artistic conversation that began nine years ago between the two organizations,” said Mr. Lowry. “His innovative approach and depth of knowledge will allow P.S.1 to flourish with artistically distinct programs in dialogue with those at MoMA.”

[...] Biesenbach joined P.S.1 as Curator in 1996; in 2004 he was appointed Curator in MoMA’s Department of Film and Media and became Chief Curatorial Advisor at P.S.1. He was named Chief Curator of MoMA’s newly formed Department of Media in 2006, which was subsequently broadened to the Department of Media and Performance Art in 2009 to reflect the Museum’s increased focus on collecting, preserving, and exhibiting performance art. As Chief Curator of the department, Biesenbach has led a range of pioneering initiatives, including the launch of a new performance art exhibition series; an ongoing series of workshops for artists and curators; important acquisitions of media and performance art; and the Museum’s presentation in 2010 of a major retrospective of the work of performance artist Marina Abramović.

In his new role, Mr. Biesenbach will also serve as a Chief Curator at Large at MoMA. In addition to the Marina Abramović exhibition, he is currently co-organizing the New York installation of the touring exhibition William Kentridge: Five Themes, opening at MoMA in February 2010, and an exhibition of the work of Francis Alÿs in 2011.

Among the recent exhibitions Biesenbach has organized at MoMA are: Performance 1: Tehching Hsieh (2009); Performance 4: Roman Ondák (2009); Pipilotti Rist: Pour Your Body Out

http://press.moma.org/

Pedro Cabrita Reis. One after another, a few silent steps

31 October 2009 – 28 February 2010

Hamburger Kunsthalle – Galerie der Gegenwart

Born in Lisbon in 1956, Pedro Cabrita Reis is one of the leading Portuguese artists of his generation. This exhibition will be his first presentation in a German museum since 1996. [...] In the most comprehensive show by the artist to date, the Hamburger Kunsthalle is presenting around sixty sculptures, including several large-scale pieces, paintings, drawings and photographs from 1985 to 2009, in a display that fills the entire basement floor of the Galerie der Gegenwart.

Since the early 1990s, Cabrita Reis’s work has revolved around the themes of housing, habitation, construction and territory. Along with artworks based on elements of everyday life, such as tables and chairs or doors and windows, he often creates expansive installations that fill entire exhibition spaces with both complex and imposing structures. He counters the classic white cube with his use of massive brick walls, found objects and industrial materials such as neon tubes, steel girders or rough wooden planks.

Pedro Cabrita Reis is a keen collector, both of the flotsam of civilization and of sensory impressions. For him, discarded everyday objects are just as welcome finds as the panorama of an abandoned building site or an old olive tree. Like retinal afterimages, such visual stimuli plant the seed of an idea for one of his melancholic-archaic sculptures or for a new painting. In his work, Cabrita Reis repeatedly addresses fundamental issues of art; he explores the concepts of painting and sculpture and develops sculptural methods of drawing in space. While Cabrita Reis’s rugged walls and the cardboard sheds held together with adhesive tape might at first glance seem to refer to social realities outside the realm of art, they are not bound up with these realities, nor do they attempt to duplicate them; instead, they transform them into intriguing and sometimes quite literally opaque artworks. Wherever windows appear in Cabrita Reis’s installations, they are invariably blind, boarded up or painted over, the doors to his dwellings are inaccessible. Cidades Cegas (Blind Cities) is the title of a group of works whose stoically melancholic appearance alludes to the „homelessness” of man as a basic constant of the human condition – one of the leitmotifs in Cabrita Reis’s oeuvre. [...]

Curated by Sabrina van der Ley

http://www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de/

CREAM – International Festival for Arts and Media

October 31 – November 29, 2009 in Yokohama, Japan

The festival embraces a variety of different fields, including contemporary art, media art, animation, film, photography and etc. It aims to encourage people to think about and discuss new forms of expression and new directions for our future by providing not only opportunities for people to view artworks, but also space for people to participate in image production, relax and talk to others while enjoying views of the port and the ocean around the city.

Exhibited Works

There are 2 main exhibition spaces. At Bankart Studio NYK, you will see 21 artists participating with installation works. The works in the exhibition questions what we found out in the images with embodied experience and our memory. In the other venue, Shinko Pier, you will find many recorded images which give us different perspectives on our world and new practices of artists and groups of amateurs who tries to investigate the interesting way of using new technologies.

Cream competition

Along with the jury members who are leading figures of diverse domains, this festival’s CREAM competition program aims to propose a brand new visual expression and experience.

CREAM competition craves a new visual expression, or works that cross the borderlines between different genres of art such as contemporary art, film, performing art, music and etc., and therefore inspire and influence the future generations.

http://www.ifamy.jp/en

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc82djXqwso