Enter Cologne OFF II directly here
.
Edition II of Cologne Online Film Festival
was launched online on 12 October 2006 and offline as a part of PI 5 Videofestival Szczecin/Poland and incorporates 34 videos and digital short films on the theme “image vs music“.
Venues 2007
Mobile Institute Brussels/Belgium – 24 AUg
ENTER Caravansarai Festival Istanbul/Turkey 29/30 June
Dutch Electronic Art Festival – unDEAF – Rotterdam/NL 15 April
2nd CeC & CaC – India International Centre New Dehli/India 11/12 Feb
Venues 2006
PI 5 InterMedia Festival National Museum Szczecin/Poland – 20-22 Oct
2nd Festival International Arte Digital Rosario/Argentina – 16-18 Nov
Chroma – Festival de Arte Audiovisual Guadalajara/Mexico – 11-17 Nov
.
On occasion of the festival launch,
a PDF catalogue is published for free download
.
selected artists
.
Details–>
.
Andreja Andric (Serbia/Italy)
http://homes.dsi.unimi.it/~aandreja
Title of work:
How the Music Surprises an Unprepared Listener
2006, 24 seconds
“How the Music Surprises an Unprepared Listener” is a funny and playful homage to music by Joseph Haydn, in particular to his Symphony nr. 94 (“Surprise”). The work makes part of the One Liner Videos I & II, a collection of very short videos (5-12s, not counting title screens), for showcasing on informal occasions. The videos actually explore the socializing potential of multimedia mobile devices such as Portable Media Centers. These videos are intended to function as jokes in the flow of a natural conversation. I showed them a number of times up to now, most times while meeting new people – they always get a laugh. I made them using simple equipment: a digital fotocamera Fuji F10, a Tablet PC HP1100, Windows Movie Maker, and some home-made software for sound and music. I usually show them on my Samsung YH-999 Portable Media Center. Although based on simple non-verbal humor, they are inspired by one-liners by famous stand-up comedians Rodney Dangerfield and Henny Youngman. The other source of inspiration was a paper by Thomas Veatch “A Theory of Humor”, published in “Humor – an International Journal for Humor Research”, in 1998. The videos usually play on the contrast of a serious/artsy title and completely off-the-wall or childish content. I firmly believe that extremely short humorous works, fun and playful, easy to understand, up to the point and without any sort of self-pity, should be the true artistic form for our time. The possibility that the artist might carry his/her portfolio on a pocket device (like Portable Media Center, iPod Video, Pocket PC, or a Smartphone) and showcase works any time and anywhere, brings the contemporary art out of formal art galleries into everyday social life.
.
MAURO ARRIGHI & Marco Buziol (Italy)
http://www.dreamingwww.com/
http://www.fucktheartist.com/
Title:
Softly engaged
2006, 6:00
Softly Engaged is a journey through a three-dimensional environment based on the earth’s orography and the inner and outer surfaces of the human body. We were researching some of the relationship between the plasticity of both of these living beings.
The shapes of the inner human body and the surface of the earth have some patterns in
common, patterns that we also find in the topography of cities. Those patterns generate
abstract forms which are manipulated in combination with relaxing music. It also represents a military battle where the target is unknown and where you cannot see the
enemy. Soft sound frequencies counterbalance the supposed urgency.
.
Babel (Canada)
babel
http://www.babel.ca/
title:
Eden Machine
2006, 2:06
Eden Machine was created for the Collective Intelligence project ( http://www.mutaforma.com/collective ), a collaborative audio/video remix project with participating artists Angela Huntbach, babel, interno 3, John Parker, Kupidon, Magda Bielesz, Sarawut Chutiwongpeti, C8 and Vera Bighetti. The purpose of Collective Intelligence was to illustrate the possibilities for file-sharing and remixing of audio and video available on the net, and to allow the file-sharing of the newly realized videos according to copyleft logic.
The project’s theme was “Man and Machine”, specifically the influence of machines on daily life. I chose to interpret this as an ‘Eden Machine’, suggesting both the classic dichotomies of man/machine and science/nature and the coincident cycles of human construction and environmental destruction.
.
Bret Battey (UK)
Interview on VIP – VideoChannel Interview Project
Title:
Autarkeia Aggregatum
2005, 9 min 30 sec.
Autarkeia Aggregatum is an integrated sound and image composition emphasizing continuous flow and transformation. There are no cuts or splices in the visual aspect of the work; it unfolds instead as a constantly evolving, massed animation of a set of over 11,000 individual points.
When seeking a title for the piece, I turned to the Monadology ‹ the philosopher Leibniz’s theory of fundamental particles of reality (monads). I appropriated the two words from that work: autarkeia (Greek) for self-sufficiency, and aggregatum (Latin) meaning joined, aggregated. The terms together appropriately suggest an aggregation of the activities of autonomous entities. More subtly, a resonance with Classicism draws me to the words. The resonance is one of an inner fullness of being expressed outwardly in elegant, self-sufficient restraint.
.
Daniel Blinkhorn (Australia)
Interview on VIP – VideoChannel Interview Project
Title:
Resource 14
2005 – 06 , 5:40
Resource 14 seeks to bring to our attention some of the more hidden attributes of sand in a multitude of different environments. Through a combination of field recordings/ images and extensive software manipulations of the field recordings and images, Resource 14 portrays in both a macroscopic and microscopic sense, the intimacy as well as dramatic intensity that can be generated by sand in a variety of settings…
To create the audio component for the work I recorded a handful of sandstone rocks crashing together, sand trodden underfoot, sand trickling and being scraped on a variety of surfaces and small sandstone pebbles rolling along wooden and marble floors. Through manipulating the recordings via software I have also achieved a sense of sand being immersed underwater at various points in the work, even though no water was used in the composition…
To create the visual component for the work I used images/ photography taken from trips I have made in Australia, the Mid East and the USA between 1993 and 2005 and I then extensively edited the images in a variety of computer based production platforms…
Basically, I wanted to create a work that brings to our attention the kinds of intimate yet dramatic and colourful gestures produced by sand as a material that lives alongside side us, accompanying our lives…
The sounds created and images used throughout the work are part of sand, from the sounds made when particles of sand rub and jostle together in dunes, to images of sand underwater, or as it tumbles and scrapes…
When we were able to both see and hear sand up close, especially when we use a little imagination, I suspect it can be a fulfilling experience…
.
Carol Ann Braun (France)
title :
« Irreversibility »
2000. 2:30
This work is the result of many years of collaboration between three artists : Blake Leland, poet ; Woody Braun, musician ; and Carol-Ann Braun, visual artist.
It is the synthesis of about 20 drafts of an interactive interpretation of a poem, « Irreversibility », read, re-read, brought to music, illustrated, printed out, scanned and animated. Each iteration contributed to the abstraction of the piece, whose individual components became increasingly inter-woven.
Although audible, the poem is no longer « legible ». Its full content is accessible through its spoken and musical version, in counterpoint to a fast forward / rewind of the visuals.
.
Bundaberg Media Research Group (BMRG)
artist’s biography
.
Title:
Sweet Sounds of a Sugar Town: Raw to Refined
2005, 05:58
“Sweet Sounds of a Sugar Town” is a hybrid CD/DVD
produced by the BMRG. The project contains a collection of musical and audio-visual compositions inspired by the soundscapes and rhythms of the Bundaberg Sugar Industry. The “Raw to Refined” movie which is submitted here, is one of eight separate audio-visual compositions, each concentrating on a different aspect of the sugar industry. The DVD as a whole features audio and video recordings of the sugar industry — recorded in the sugar mills, during cane harvesting, during irrigation, and at cane burns — set to music, and accompanied on drums and percussion by local musician Dane Costigan. The project spans the agricultural, industrial, socio-cultural and environmental contexts of the sugar industry. It focuses on the various stages of the sugar product-cycle, but also gives equal weight to the environmental context: to the birds, insects, amphibians and animals that live in the canefields and surrounding areas.
“Raw to Refined” was shot and recorded in local sugar mills. It is an experimental audio-visual exploration of the industrial context of sugar production, its light, heat, noise and fury. Sound was a primary factor in the development of this project; the soundscapes of the sugar mills are dense, vibrant and complex, a concatenation of hundreds of different processes that combine to create a vast shuddering drone. Interestingly, as sound recordings in the mills continued, it became evident that the drone of the sugar mills maintained a constant pitch, and would lend itself well to musical accompaniment. At the same time as sounds were recorded, work began on composing music to fit with the sounds, and recording imagery to reflect the sonic environment. In this way, “Raw to Refined” emerged as a synthesis of audio and visual material that privileges neither form but rather lets each form influence and commingle with the other.
.
David Burns (USA)
Interview on VIP – VideoChannel Interview Project
Title:
Visual Orchestra
2006, 2 minutes
Experimental animation and sound work, using color and form, an original music score comes to life. The Visual Orchestra explores relationships between audio rhythms and visual rhythms through the abstract representation of an experimental sonic track.
.
Matthieu Capel (France)
Mathieu Capel
Title:
rupture
(((sirène))) – « mermaid » in French – is a project that aspires to propel you into a universe where visual effects and sound are unquestionably linked.
This concept isn’t just about a musical composition nor just a video. It is about the simultaneity between the two, a union where hearing and sight are continuously exchanging. It is important to note that from the start, this piece has always associated sound with visual effects.
The two elements were created at the same time in order to feel this idea of union. However, it isn’t only designed to spectators, but it is also a useful process of creation for the artist. A line can inspire a melody just like a rhythm can suggest a movement. Hence the thought of this perpetual exchange initiated by the project.
Regarding the two videos, the body has been, as you may observe, my main material.
These movements allowed me to hear sounds that I tried to pass on to the computer. In the first piece, each character on the screen corresponds to an instrument. Everything is built upon this movement of beam that we hear in the beginning which matches the bass. The rest of the piece has then grafted itself as to evolve upon this element. As for the second video, we can say it is less systematic; sequences are not perfectly fixed all along the musical piece. Visible fragments of the body product new forms almost abstract in reactivity with sound.
Finally, I wanted to add that it is a project that I would like to expand during live representations in the future.
.
Sean Capone (USA)
Sean Capone (USA)
title:
The Plain Silvery Side of This Disc
2006, 1:10 mins. Audio by Caural.
This A/V collaboration is a small sketch of emotional click-and-cut abstraction. Audio provided by NY-based musician Caural (Zach Mastoon), on Mush Recordings. This piece continues my investigation into the materiality and form of virtual objects and the fluctuating space between visual abstraction and representation.
.
Jason Cardot (USA)
Title:
“Speye”
2006, 2 mins 54 secs
“Speye” is actually a work primarily concerned with the idea of synesthetics, or the ability to use one sense to evoke another. This piece is supposed to simulate an experience of getting progressively more dizzy, based on visuals and audio. I really enjoy this piece, as I hope you will as well.
Title:
Mutations
2005, 5:02
“Mutations”, is about mental mutation. The work surrounds itself in vivid color and confidence. Color and shape guide the character through internal and external change. As the inside begins to turn back time, the outside still churns on, seemingly splitting time and memory. The work displays a will to remember.
.
Melissa Day
http://www.stanford.edu/~fham/mmd/Melissa%20Day.html
www.mmd.ca
Title:
Whistle (Great is Thy Faithfulness)
2006, 1 minute
A woman whistles a hymn, ‘Great is Thy Faithfulness.’ The image of the woman and the sound of herself whistling are out of sync, literally dislocated from each other. The layered whistling of her own voice is also slightly out of sync in the refrain, further emphasizing the sense of disconnect. This piece develops ideas explored in an another recent sound-video work with layered humming, entitled, Doxology.
Whistler: Catriona Day.
.
Eva Drangsholt
http://evdr.net
Title:
I Should Have Been Somewhere Else
2004, 8:30
is a video performance exploring emotions associated with anxiety, stress, and uncertainty.
.
Unnur Andrea Einarsdottir (Iceland)
Interview on VIP – VideoChannel Interview Project
Title:
Music in Cake
2005, 03.23 min.
A young girl is sitting by a table. On the table is a pink and white cake and after
a few seconds, little white mice come peaking out of the cake. A closeup shows
that the girl is slowly pushing a small hook out of her mouth until it´s hanging
from her mouth on a string covered in blood. With the hook hanging out from her
mouth, she watches the mice run around on the table until she suddenly pulls one
of them up by the tail and brings it to her mouth.
.
Angie Eng (USA)
Angie Eng
Angie Eng interview on VIP – VideoChannel Interview Project
artist’s biography
.
title:
Souvenirs 2
2006, 00:02:08
Souvenirs is a collection of short video vignettes written for music by different composers. Odd objects and memorabillia is given to the artist in a box. The artist uses a small mini-camera to manipulate the objects into a false narrative to the music. In this example, the music is written by David Weinstein. The video recording process is completed only one time
without a script, but the sound is driving the movement and interaction between the objects. A dialogue is created between sound and visual which completes a story that the artist interprets improvisationally as the objects are discovered.
.
Erika Frenkel (Brazil)
www.laisle.com
Title:
Attention, Attention
4:40 – 2004
Questioning of the veracity of the work as the subject of the action. As the feminine pose that suggests civility and kindness, the woman as the image of credibility, the family and the word. The questioning in an erudite or in an ordinary manner.
.
Doron Golan (USA)
title:
Try Jah Love
2006, 4:46 min.
Starring Theodore Bouloukos. Edit by David Soll.
.
Sinasi Günes (Turkey)
Interview on VIP – VideoChannel Interview Project
Title:
GICIR
2006, 03:03
The artist is turning a basic action of cleaning his guitar into a hearable performance.
He is showing the invisible visions in an ironic way.
.
Anatol Kraczyna (Italy)
Title:
IN THE NAME OF GOD
2006, 2’40”
God: Supreme Justice…
In His name, men will make justice prevail against Evil…In His name any action is justified… – At least for some men. Those men know for shure where God stands. Where God lies. Where God is buried… – Under the sand……….Anything goes…In the name of GOD
.
Lane Last (USA)
Title:
Ancient Rhythm
2006, 00:02:34
This work is a synthesis of my interest in the exploration of our human desire to create
experience and an interest in the processes of perception. We “see” before knowing or
consciousness. The utilization of computing technologies and software to totally create
media art both as visualization and experience independent of recorded photographic images is an important artifact of our culture and technological instincts. The work is developed around both video and audio material simultaneously. I feel this hybrid work, video and remediated animation sources, is somewhat experimental as plays with the spectre of a human form and the fluid space of cognition.
.
Daniel Lo Iacono (Germany)
Daniel Lo Iacono
artist’s biography
Title
Digital Snapshots
(2:30), 2003
is a kind of docu-animation dealing with the correlation of digital manipulations
and candid documentary shots. It was produced as part of a Media Design diploma thesis from the University of Applied Sciences Mainz , Germany in 2003.
What does a moment look like? Can snapshots freeze a moment in time?
In DIGITALSNAPSHOT, motion fragments were captured and rearranged in a new visual context via unconventional digital manipulations. A long take camera movement cycle generates a unique “digital painting”.
In this case DIGITALSNAPSHOT enables the viewer to experience a virtual walk through a beautiful park during summertime.
.
Girolamo Marri (Italy)
Interview on VIP – VideoChannel Interview Project
.
Title:
against all odds – an interview with phil Collins
2006, 07.30 min
I was triggered to use Phil Collins as subject for a video when I heard some story about him divorcing his wife over the phone. I’ve wanted for a while to tackle the subject of divorce and using a pop star as main character eases the simplification of Good and Bad into two well distincted categories, for it is very much the way stars and their actions are presented to us by the media; either Good either Bad, with no nuances. There’s resentment and bitterness in Phil Collins words and also melancholy, very different from what you would expect from a standard “making of” of a video Obviously though, this guy is not Phil Collins, but me. Very undoubtedly me. Phil Collins is just a mask through which I try and let my own views and idiosyncrasies shine. I used to love some of Phil Collins’ songs when I was a kid and this still confuses me. But certain cheesiness has a diabolical appeal and the bits of video I’ve put as intervals in the interview make you laugh but also make you want to sing along. Maybe just to out loud me though. The random act of sadism against the flowers and the goldfish is put there both to enhance this badly hidden violence and to lighten the narrative, creating an enjoyable surreal diversion.
.
Alistair McClymont (UK)
http://www.alistairmcclymont.com
Interview on VIP – VideoChannel Interview Project
Title:
Dark Side of the Rainbow
2006, 4 minutes 47 seconds
Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd has been dubbed over The Wizard of Oz. The relationship between Dark Side of the Moon and The Wizard of Oz has been the subject of a long standing urban myth / conspiracy. A search on google reveals the interest in this subject.
.
Dennis H. Miller (USA)
http://www.dennismiller.neu.edu/
Title
Circles and Rounds
2006, 9′ 22″
Circles and Rounds explores a variety of circular paths, processes and forms within a virtual environment. The work is in four sections and is unified by recurring visual and musical elements. All images were created with Maxon Cinema 4D, and the music was composed using a variety of tools, including Native Instruments Reaktor and Applied-Acoustics Tassman.
.
Mylicon/EN (Italy)
Mylicon/en
http://www.myliconen.it/
Ttle
Stylaria
2004, 4’07”
Stylaria: “an extraordinary worm from the limnic benthos and phytal… gently swimming between water plants. It is extraordinary due to its very long flexible thigmic proboscis. Eventually, chains of asexually produced animals can be seen”.
Water, liquids, fluidity are the common elements of the Mylicon/En live set. Starting from images taken from one of last Mylicon/En live set, (created using only a straw and a videocamera), we played the game of being in a biological lab looking for Stylaria and other “freaks of nature” as biologists call the invisible but incredibly wonderful animals living in water.
The soundtrack has been created reducing at the minimum the samples and the elements for the composition: only two different short drum samples have been filtered and combined (hit-hat and bass drum); we followed the evolution of images like in a western movie, in the climax of which there is a sort of “duel”.
.
Pygar (Portugal)
http://pygar.pt.vu/
Hugo Olim Interview on VIP – VideoChannel Interview Project
Title:
On_Off
2004, 3:18
The reproduction of a monitor turned on and off, conceived by Hugo Olim and accompanied by the music of João Ricardo, represents the switching between reality and virtuality.
.
Leticia El Halli Obeid (Argentina)
Title:
headphones/auriculares
2001, 2:33 min
This piece was made with fragments of songs sung by a series of persons who were invited to pick a favourite song and sing it while they heard it through headphones. The point was that the volume had to be high enough so that they wouldn´t hear their own voices. Thus, by loosing control of the result they are doing a sort of translation but, as it happens usually, the singer keeps a sort of illusion about his/her own voice: the sound that they are hearing replaces the real one and works as a sort of mask, giving them the feeling that they are singing like their loved solist or band.
.
Jimmy Owenns (France)
Ttle :
Tease
2004, 7’00
Video work, from Japanese TV-Shows, about repetition of body’s gesture and movement. This repetition gives an erotic signification but also a hysteric meaning.
.
Simone Paterson (USA)
http://www.simonepaterson.com/
title:
Waiting at the Gates of Heaven
2006, 4mins
Is a 4 min. digital video piece that places freshly displaced souls at the entrance to heaven.
The stream of souls appear to be never ending as each person morphs into the next.
The audio enhances the circular narrative and yet provides a climax to the piece.
A slow building rumbling sound seems to overcome the hypnotic visuals as
if the gates of heaven are finally opening.
Waiting at the Gates of Heaven was filmed entirely on location, Paris, May 2006.
.
Samuel Pellman (USA)
Title:
Vaporis Congeries Magnae
2004, 1′ 38″
When Voyager 2 passed by Uranus in January of 1986 it returned photographs of a big, blue-green ball of gas with few readily discernible features. More recent observations from Earth-orbit have confirmed evidence of great winds and related meteorological phenomena in the atmosphere that is Uranus. More detailed conceptions of the Uranian environment, however, must remain in our imaginations, at least for now.
Vaporis Congeries Magnae (“Great Gobs of Gas”) was realized in Csound on a Macintosh G4 laptop computer. The digital instruments used to create the sounds include both formant wave synthesis (FOF) and frequency modulation synthesis (FM) components. The pitches of the piece are tuned in a 7-limit just intonation, with a few microtonal alternations in some places where the arithmetic provides two or more possible tunings for a given note.
.
Laurent Pernot (France)
Title:
Still Alives
2005, 2.34mn
This project of musical video, by linking the languages of animation and the video compositing, puts in dynamic report a series of old and more recent photographic images, and from various sources (Hungary, Germany, France, Russia, etc). The camera (here virtual) plunges in a luminous child’s face and lets us cross over a sequence of portraits in morphing, and hence, which seem to be animated the ones with the others, like an unique alive flesh… until the rise and the obliteration of each face into the nothingness. Still Alives calls a broad concept about the transmission of life, memory and disappearance. Thus, it tries to propose, by the construction of a poetic universe, an arborescent and universal vision of the human being.
.
Henrique Roscoe aka VJ 1MPAR (Brazil)
HENRIQUE ROSCOE (VJ 1MPAR) / PROJECT:ADDD
http://vj.1mpar.com/ / http://www.addd.com.br/
Interview on VIP – VideoChannel Interview Project
.
Title :
For the masses
2005 /6:03
The mass industry needs cultural products for its sustenance. Standardization, amplification, and the unity in the transmission of information. The nonstop repetition of signals that everyone listens, and follows without questioning. Inspired by the Russian Construtivism, where the art was on the service of the state for the spreading of its propaganda, “for the masses” brings graphical elements from this movement. The use of abstract and geometric shapes transforms into images the minimal music of overlap elements, constructing a narrative of colors, shapes and movement.
.
Rob Seward (USA)
Interview on VIP – VideoChannel Interview Project
Title:
Music Study IV
2006, 2min 6sec
Music Study IV is several takes of someone flipping edited according to music theory
paradigms. The audio is what was on the stereo while the flip was shot. The original
audio and physical action become almost unrecognizable through the editing process; what would otherwise be simple footage of someone flipping becomes transcendent.
.
Gabriel Shalom (USA)
Interview on VIP – VideoChannel Interview Project
Title
Small Room Tango
2004, 3:40
A young man enters a small piano practice room and approaches the piano hesitantly. He finally sits at the piano bench and commences to play a passionate and difficult piece of music. At the song’s completion, he sighs cathartically, stows his sheet music within the piano bench and exits the practice room.
.
Shawn Towne (USA)
Interview on VIP – VideoChannel Interview Project
Title:
linear succession
2006, 45 seconds
Linear succession is an enhanced version of straight video feedback, as it incorporates editing, pixel manipulation, and the addition of sound. The compositions depict my interest in light, pattern making, and transformation. The addition of sound heightens the videos by punctuating the transitions, creating a sense of evolution, life and elemental change. Sound relates directly to the movements and structural patterns contained in the videos. The work is ultimately about relationships, concerning technology and light working symbiotically, objective and subjective responses and placing influence over chaotic systems.
.
Sonja VUK (Croatia)
Title:
«MY WAY»
2006, 1:00
The title and initial idea comes from furious Sid Vicious’ performance of the song «My
Way».Specific spitful way of singing evokes track of rebellion but yet lack of stranght to
change anything. It, usually, happens in everyday life. Everything depends on how and where we are raised, conscious and unconscious consequences of our education, political climate, tradition, religion, social and historical context, familly relations… What we were, what we wanted to be and what we became… Further, how we deal with our inhibitions, with more or less success and failures in life, the way we choose, way which was imposed by context of life… My generation in Croatia grown up as good Tito’s pioneers. The word and the meaning of the word we have learned during iniciation at the first day of elementary school.
Evey letter meant affirmative word: P – being honest, I – sincere, O – daring, N – imperturbable, I – truthloving, R – diligent.
That was optimistic time of our childhood when was expected to fallow these ideals. Also,we had dreams about future, about what we want to be, what we want to do… But, personal stories destroy common ideals from the childhood. We, often, turn into opposites not even knowing how and when it happened. Although, we struggle sometimes but often can’t struggle enough against our determinate way.
.
Selections of Cologne OFF II
were presented on
.
selection “image vs music Iâ€
ENTER Caravansarai Istanbul/Turkey
27 – 30 June 2007 – http://www.caravansarai.info
CeC & CaC India International Centre New Dehli/India
9-11 February 2007 – http://www.theaea.org/cec_cac/
Festival International de Arte Digital Rosario/ Argentina
Centro de Expresiones Contemporáneas de Rosario
16-18 November 2006
8th CHROMA – Festival de Arte Audiovisual Guadalajarra/ Mexico
12-17 November 2006 – http://www.frantica.com/chroma/14videochannel.html
PI 5 Video Festival Szczecin/Poland
National Museum Szczecin & Officyna Art Space Szczecin
20-22 October 2006
.