A total of six media art works have been selected to the international competitions of VIDEOMEDEJA through AV-arkki’s distribution. The International Video Festival VIDEOMEDEJA is held in Novi Sad, Serbia, from September 22–24.
Jukka Silokunnas’s and Mika Taanila’s short films in the screening competition
Jukka Silokunnas’s Vanishing Point (2017) and two short films by Mika Taanila, The World (2017) and Sad Song of the Hard-Edged Transition Wipe Markers (2017) are included in the screening competition. The screenings take place on Saturday, September 23, at 20:00 and 22:00
“When I was a kid we used to traveler a lot with my family. I used to look the changing landscape through the caravan window. Only older I realized: I changed, not the landscape”, states Silokunnas about his one-minute stop motion animation Vanishing Point.
Jukka Silokunnas has participated in solo and group exhibitions, festivals and events including Centre for Contemporary Art Laznia in Gdansk, Poland (2013), Moscow International Biennale for Young Art (2012) and Kunsthalle Helsinki (2011).
Mika Taanila’s works have been shown at major international group shows, such as Venice Biennale (Nordic Pavilion 2017), Aichi Triennale (2013), dOCUMENTA (2012), Shanghai Biennale (2006), Berlin Biennale (2004), Manifesta (2002) and Istanbul Biennial (2001). Taanila’s short films have been screened altogether at more than 300 international film festivals and special events. In 2015, Taanila was awarded with the prestigious Ars Fennica Award, the biggest Finnish art award.
The images of The World originate from The Man Who Fell to Earth (dir. Nicolas Roeg 1976), evacuated and flipped. In abandoned landscapes, animals, furniture and empty vehicles are left awaiting for disaster. ”We must have died alone, a long long time ago.” (D.B.)
Sad Song of the Hard-Edged Transition Wipe Markers features early 1950s newsreel laboratory marker films used for indicating effects like wipes, dissolves and fade-outs in the work print, now freed from their utilitarian practice.
Taanila: Sad Song of the Hard-Edged Transition Wipe Markers (2017)
Media art by Carolin Koss, Pink Twins, and Timo Wright in the installation competition
Selected in the installation competition, Carolin Koss’s Emerald Green (2016), Pink Twins’s Overlook (2017) and Timo Wright’s Embrace (2016) are installed in the first floor meander and gallery of the festival venue, the local museum of contemporary art.
Carolin Koss’s Emerald Green is a three-channel video installation about a dystopian world, where obscure forces steer the global fate, nature has been rendered extinct, breathable air has become scarce, and the sun has vanished due to the human error and the exploitation of natural resources. The work focuses on three people who try to survive and escape into their sub-consciousness in order to re-imagine and re-build the contaminated world they live in.
Carolin Koss was recently nominated for the “Young Achiever’s Award” at the Golden Women Awards in Helsinki, she won the 1st price at the Screen & Sound Fest in Kraków and she was granted with the “Hope Award for arising new talents” at the Unprecedented film festival in Tallin.
Pink Twins is a duo of visual artists and electronic musicians, brothers Juha (b. 1978) and Vesa Vehviläinen (b. 1974), based in Helsinki, Finland. Active as Pink Twins since 1997, their videos work on the crossing of visual art and music.
Pink Twins: Overlook (2017)
Impossible architecture, an ancient burial ground and a lure for psychotic janitors were the building blocks of Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. In this story vignette, chaos animators Pink Twins add zero gravity and a rupture in space-time continuum to the mix and serve a taster of subtle cosmic horror.
Timo Wright has participated in domestic and international exhibitions since the early 2000s including Gallery Forum Box in Helsinki (2014), Helsinki Art Museum’s Kluuvi Gallery (2013), Photographic Gallery Hippolyte (2008) as well as festivals such as Japan Media Arts Festival in Tokyo and Stuttgarter Filmwinter in Germany (2014).
In Embrace, we see an abandoned house, furniture strewn around, discarded. Slowly, a red smoke starts to pour in through the doors. Eventually the whole house is engulfed with the smoke that hides everything from our sight.
International Video Festival VIDEOMEDEJA, 22.–24.9.207, Novi Sad, Serbia
More information: VIDEOMEDEJA