[spectre] Media Forum Moscow 2007

[czegledy at interlog.com]

Dear All,

my next report as promised yesterday:
(apologies for cross-postings)

Between June 25-28,  Media Forum, Moscow  in
collaboration with the Moscow International Film Festival,
presented Nudity/Game Console - a series of events
including a Vito Accoinci  retrospective, round table
discussions  and a video art competition. The theme of this
year  was : Nudity/ Game console.  The ERA Foundation hosted
the Media Forum events in their centrally located,
elegantly renovated gallery space.

In this report I would like to focus on the round table
discussions  - especially as the majority of the presenters happened
to be women working with research & practice in digital fields/communities.
Instead of lengthy descriptions,  links are provided below for further
information.

"Cultural cooperation online",  the  first discussion on  June 26th
was presented by Angela Plohman, content developer of  Labforculture.
The organization provides extremely useful  tools for those in the arts
who wish to collaborate across borders. The constructive, practical value
of this information and knowledge platform was very much appreciated by
the audience as attested by the numerous questions and comments.

On June 27, Anne Nigten of V2  lectured on "Research and development
in the interdisciplinary field from an art perspective" followed by
Dmitry Bulatov on "The third modern - denuding the media.The
technobiological art work."  Last but not least Margarete Jahrman
showed us "Pong Dress" and Ludic Society. All of these presentations
were very well received  with lively Q&A periods.

Next day,  June 28,  "Super-Embodiment of  Woman Artists  in
Media Arts" was presented by Irina Aristarkhova, Nina Czegledy and Elena
Kovylina. Irina noted in her introduction  that "Nudity and the Nude - have
become  key issues in contemporary art, theory and politics. Women artists
face what Foucault called 'hysteriarization of female body', while men artists
face an issue of 'absent male body' (Kelly Oliver) and  respond to it with
various strategies. One might argue that both Western  and Eastern
European  women artists have exhibited 'too much body', and to a certain
extent find it difficult to leave ?body? behind. However, we rarely discuss
what impact socialist gender policies and practices have had on this process
within aesthetics. If performance art leaves us with legacy of 'too much body'
  - 'super-embodiment', - one wonders of it morphs into (new) media art as
question of 'machine' / 'cyborg' embodiment and its identity."

In the course of our presentations both  Irina  and myself emphasized that
feminism and gender issues can not be separated from the particular
history of the region. Lack of clarification of this issue leads to numerous
misconceptions and miscommunication.  Case histories of media art were
presented  including "I am a robot" by Boryana Dragoeva Rossa  (Bulgaria)
and  "Reality Resonance" by Erika Katalina  Pasztor (Hungary), followed by
the outstanding Russian performance artist Elena Kovylina, showing
her "Pick a  Girl"  video performance featured at the Sydney Biennale 2006.
The questions and comments at the end of our panel revealed that
controversy& and strife are still embedded in this discourse.

The schedule left room for us to visit some artists studios, participate in
the mega-retrospective by Oleg Kulik and Vinzavod and old factory
converted into a mixed use art center and luxury boutiques - where
hopefully  the Media Art Lab will have its future home.  There is so much
more including Art4 the private contemporary art museum, Moscow
Rolls Royce, the electroboutique, traffic jams, night life etc. etc
-worth a visit!
nina


Media Forum
http://mediaforum.mediaartlab.ru

Moscow International Film Festival
http://www.moscowfilmfestival.ru/eng/empty_txt.html

Labforculture
http://www.labforculture.org

V2
http://www.v2.nl/

Dmitry Bulatov
http://www.europe.culturebase.net/contribution.php?media=193

Margarete Jahrman
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/008883.php
http://crunchgear.com/2006/08/25/pong-dress/

Boryana Dragoeva Rossa
http://www.roboriada.org/boryana

Erika Katalina Pasztor
http://www.epiteszforum.hu/~perika/reality_resonance.html

Elena Kovylina.
http://www.kovylina.com/?cid=155&pg=0

Vinzavod
http://www.winzavod.com