That’s entertainment! Ny, norsk performancevideo

Norwegian Short Film Festival in Grimstad
Thursday 16. june, 7pm

For the second year running, Atelier Nord presents Norwegian film- and video art at the Norwegian Short Film Festival in Grimstad. This year’s program is a presentation of younger artists who work with performance-based video. Several of the artists are already established nationally and internationally, while others are emerging. All have studied at art academies in Norway. While some work across both the film and art scene, for most of them the gallery space is a more natural exhibition arena than the cinema. Within the institutions of visual art, film and video are frequently part of extensive installations including sculptural elements and also often several image channels, the spatial presentation of which is fundamental. However, an increasing number of film- and video artists desire optimal screening conditions, with full control of light and sound. The traditional design of a neutral, white space or “white cube” increasingly resembles the “black box” of the movie theatre. It might seem therefore, that the institutionally imposed division between film and art is, in some areas, beginning to break down.

Atelier Nord wishes to contribute to exploring and challenging the established division between art and film. The program at The Norwegian Short Film Festival in Grimstad is one manifestation of this ambition.

The program will be introduced by the programme curator,and shows works that explore the close exchange between recent performance video and contemporary entertainment and media culture. It includes for instance freestyle disco-dance, references to horror and porn film, a reinterpretation of a famous scene from a Wagner-opera and fan produced content based on forms of Internet marketing. Common for all works is that the performances they show are staged and carried out with regard to being recorded, and are often represented in a visual language we recognise from various media and genres. Whereas there are great aesthetic variations between the works with respect to image quality, framing and the extent to which the performers addressthe camera directly, they show, with few exceptions, a lone actor who carries out a bodily or verbal act in front of the camera. In these works the video medium is thus not primarily a means for documentation of a performance presented for a live audience or in a studio, but an integrated part of the performative project itself.

Introduction by Ivar Smedstad, Artistic director of Atelier Nord, and Susanne Ø. Sæther, programme curator.

The project is supported by ArtsCouncil Norway and the Norwegian Film Institute.

Video still | Jannicke Låker, Running Woman