19th EUROPEAN MEDIA ART FESTIVAL

EUROPEAN MEDIA ART FESTIVAL
OSNABRUECK / GERMANY
10. - 14. May 2006
www.emaf.de

The European Media Art Festival (EMAF) is one of the most important
current media art forums world-wide: from 10 to 14 May 2006 the
Osnabruck Festival will offer a comprehensive overview spanning the
whole range of this young genre of art.

Under the motto "Smart Art" the EMAF will present current works that
question social conventions, take familiar things out of their context
and subtly track down the absurdities of individual and social everyday life. The approaches range from popular subjects to provocative statements that go down new paths of artistic debate in
film, installation and expanded media, making playful and intelligent
use of various media.

Spanning five days, the Osnabruck Media Art Festival will show over
200 new experimental films and videos and around 50 installations,
also offering numerous performances, lectures and discussions.

// Exhibition
In the exhibition at the Kunsthalle Dominikanerkirche the EMAF will be
showing around 20 current installations and cinematic objects.
Alongside international artists, some of today's most popular German
video artists will develop new positions of contemporary media art
here.
Michael Snow (CDN) shows his video "Sshtoorrty", Melanie Manchot (GB)
her work "Security", and the Swiss artist duo Com & Com is represented
with its project "Mocmoc". For his "Captain" Bjorn Melhus makes use of
American TV series, in "Album" Matthias Muller combines found footage
sequences, and in his installation "Points of Presence" Caspar Stracke
connects the urban images of Shanghai, New York, Mexico City and
Berlin.
Also on show at the exhibition are:
- Stefan Panhans: "Sieben bis zehn Millionen"
- Martin Brand: "Match"
- Julia Willms: "Passageway"
- Corinna Schnitt: "Once upon a time"
- Artists Anonymous: "Nervous Breakdown"
- Erik Olofsen: "Divine Methods/Hidden Motives"
- Jim Campbell: "Portrait Of A Portrait Of Claude Shannon",
- Roland Fuhrmann: "Grosser Hampelmann", "Prayer Wheel"
- Paul Harrison & John Wood: "66.86"
- Ilka Lauchstadt: "Das Entzucken der Botanikerin"
- Jana Linke: "Das Pelzchen"
- Alexandra Ranner: "Ich habe genug" as well as the interdisciplinary
video project "Loud & Clear" with works by Pipilotti Rist, Pierre
Huyghe, among others.


// Film and Video Programme
In 31 programmes containing around 210 works from around the world,
the EMAF once again presents a current selection of international
short films and videos. While the programmes "Ost-West Diwan" and
"Weltwunder" invite us on a cinematic journey, the contributions in
"Home of the Brave" tell of the power of media images in times of war.
In "Mocumentaries and Doppelgangers" extra-terrestrials abduct Marilyn
Monroe and JFK and liberate a sex-obsessed Britney Spears from her
desires.
Current affairs are the focus of "The Surreal or The Day the Bird Flu
Arrived". With "ClipKlappBumm" the EMAF presents the latest music
videos off the beaten track of MTV and Viva.
The retrospective is dedicated to an American avant-garde film-maker
and co-founder of Canyon Cinema Institute, Bruce Baillie, containing
16 films spanning the period from 1961 to 1998.
The EMAF also presents the latest tendencies of narrative film, e.g.
with Steven Sanguedolce's "Dead Time", Michael Busch's "Sieben Himmel"
and the European premiere of the new Kei Chichiri film "Hottentot
Apron Sketch". The programme also includes "Drawing Restraint 9", the
first joint work of Matthew Barney and Bjork, as well as "John und
Jane", the new film by the Indian director Ashim Ahluwalia about six
call centre agents in Bombay.

// Congress
At the Haus der Jugend international experts will discuss the history
and future of media art under the title "From Paik to the iPod".
Guests include Prof. Dr. Wulf Herzogenrath, initiator of the
exhibition "40 Years of Video Art", who will highlight the historical
aspects of video art, and Prof. Zhang Ga from the New York Institute
for Technology, who in his presentation "On media art in China" will
describe the development of media art in the Far East.
Other speakers and their subjects are:
Frank Hartmann (Vienna): "Global Media Culture - Guided tours of the
media modern age",
Armin Medosch (London): "Creative resistance, artistic strategies in
the age of long-term political crisis"
Karin Wehn (Leipzig): "Best of web animations"
Philine von Guretzky (London) and Marjan van Mourik (Rotterdam):
"Tank.tv and CultureTV"
Ingo Linde (Leipzig): "Machinima: Puppet theatre in a killing game "
Christian Hieber (Stuttgart): " Media Revolution through the iPod and
podcasting?"
Melanie Manchot and Johannes M. Hedinger, whose works entitled
"Security" and "Mocmoc" will be on display at the festival's
exhibition, will talk about their artistic oeuvres.

Directly after the festival, the media art conference entitled
"Downdate #1" will take place in collaboration with the University of
Osnabruck from 15-17 May. Among others, Peter Weibel and Marie-Luise
Angerer will be speakers at the conference.

// International Student Forum
Every year students from international institutions of higher
education have the opportunity to present their works within a
professional framework. The International Student Forum is organised
independently by students, and has its own exhibition and film
programme. This year's "StuFos" co-operation partner is the
Merz-Akademie Stuttgart. They also kick off the University Day
(Thursday, 11 May 2006), when international institutions of higher
education from the fields of film and media present their current
degree programmes and projects. The following will also be presented:
the FH Bielefeld, the Estonian Academy of Arts from Tallin, the
Universitat der Kunste Berlin, the Ravensbourne College of Design and
Communication, London as well as the Hochschule fur Film und Fernsehen
Potsdam-Babelsberg.

// Performances
"J'adore" is the title of Pascal Lievre and Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay's
latest performance, in which they combine pop and politics in their
inimitable provocative manner. This time it's the turn of the infamous
US-American Patriot Act, which they sing to Celine Dion's "Titanic"
song.
Dziga Vertov's "Der Mann mit der Kamera" is one of the most exciting
documentary experimental films in the history of cinema. Filmed using
a revolutionary montage technique, he describes the story of a Russian
day in Moscow, Kiev and Odessa in the year of 1928. Following the
rhythm of Vertov's images, the composer Werner Cee has added a new
soundtrack to the film, comprising street noises, Russian folk songs
and recordings of the saxophonist Peter Brotzmann and the virtuoso
voice of Phil Minton, which he accompanies live on a seven-stringed
Chinese e-ch'in.
In the exhibition the German-British artist's group ARTISTS ANONYMOUS
will present their performance "Nervous Breakdown", an astute
commentary on their life and on Berlin, the metropolis in which they
work. In so doing, they combine painting, video art, photography and
performance by using their own bodies and surroundings as their
environment.

// Awards
"…and the winner is", is the closing statement at the EMAF on Sunday
at around 8 p.m., when the German Film Critique Award for the best
German film and video, the E 2,500 EMAF Award for pioneering work in
media art and the E 2,000 Foreign Ministry Award for a work promoting
"Intercultural Dialogue" will be presented. Those who want to make
sure that they've not missed anything important can let the five days
of media art come to an end with the festival selection, the
traditional final film programme, "Best of EMAF".

For further information and the schedule visit www.emaf.de

Please take note of our reservation deadline:
28. April 2006!!!!

// SPONSORS
nordmedia - Die Mediengesellschaft Niedersachsen/Bremen mbH
Stadt Osnabrueck
Auswaertiges Amt, Berlin
Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung, Berlin
EU Commission - MEDIA Programme
NDS. Lotto Foundation
as well as donations from further sponsors.
The EMAF is a member of the European Coordination of Film Festivals
E.C.F.F.