Video festival Natures 11 - Narave 11
Bezigrad-Gallery 2 Ljubliana (Slovenja)
April 15. 2014 - April 20. 2014 (19.00)
http://www.mgml.si/e … /bezigrad-gallery-2/
http://www.mgml.si/e … and-exhibitions-499/
The video works presented at the Festival Natures are based on images of nature, or else include images of nature in some of their sequences, or are derived from things found in nature.
Also in the nature of human existence and living, in the relations between past and present events, and the responses to them.The Video Festival Natures is marked by people and their natures.
Miloš Bašin

Artists:
Jana Beltran, Barbara Drev, Kevin Evensen, Leja Hočevar, Katja Hrvatin Jazbec, Andrej Hrvatin, Urša Kastelic, Markus Keim, Beate Hecher, Izabela Ołdak, Ruben van Klaveren, Roberta Orlando, Asa Shimada, Leyla Rodriguez, Cristian Straub, Gruppo SINESTETICO, Simon Šerc, Ellen Wetmore in Valerie Wolf Gang.

Programm:

• Lobby
Katja Hrvatin Jazbec, Andrej Hrvatin,
Nebo poje mi / Sky Sings to Me, 2012, 37.56 min

• Hall 1
Markus Kleim, Beate Hecher,
Terrain Vague / Minljivi prostor, 2011, 13 min

Roberta Orlando, Asa Shimada,
Real Boundary of Self / Prava meja jaza, 2013, 6.31 min

Gruppo Sinestetico,
Flux-Us Sound / Zvok Flux-Us, 2007, 9.48 min

• Hall 2
Jana Beltran,
Ne veš / You Don’t Know, 2012, 1.57 min

Barbara Drev,
Chopped Infinity / Sesekljana neskončnost, 2014, 1.22 min

Kevin Evensen,
Sončnice / Sunflowers, 2014, 1.47 min

Leja Hočevar,
Wintertime / Zima, 2014, 1.59 min

Simon Šerc,
Odkrivanje / Discovering, 2010, 2.49 min

Urša Kastelic,
Unten durch / Spodaj skozi, 2013, 3.53 min

• Hall 3
Valérie Wolf Gang,
Freedom 2.0 / Svoboda 2.0, 2012, 3.27 min

Izabela Ołdak in Ruben van Klaveren,
In the Shadow of the Full Moon / V senci polne lune, 2013, 03.37 min

Ellen Wetmore,
Leaving my Skin / Zapuščam svojo kožo, 2014, 2.44 min

Leyla Rodriguez, Cristian Straub,
Isle of Lox “Origins” / Otok Lox »Izvor«, 2009 – 2011, 4.37 min
_

Jana Beltran, You Don’t Know, 2012, 1.57 min
The video was made for the song You don’t know.
I achieved the effect of a natural landscape intertwining with the inner landscape of the lyric subject by layering different media and poetry, speech, music and video to support both the atmosphere and the content of the song.

Barbara Drev, Chopped Infinity, 2014, 1.22 min
Undulation creates a pattern of infinite movement. Geometrised elements are breaking the continuous movement of water. They seem disturbing and obtrusive, and so does the background sound. Yet these opposing elements share some common threads.

Kevin Evensen, Sunflowers, 2014, 1.47 min
Music: Kevin Evensen
Performing: Troy Callaway

»I started spellbound. The flower heads seemed to absorb the sun’s rays like mirrors and draw them down into the darkness.« Simon Wiesenthal

Kevin has worked with a number of musicians and composers, including Larry Austin, Steve Duke, Patrick Godon, Jacqueline Peatry and Paul Wertico.

Valérie Wolf Gang, Freedom 2.0, 2012, 3.27 min
Sodelujoči: voice – Connor McIntyre, dancer – Alex Hong

FREEDOM 2.0 represents the search for personal freedom in the world. First there was poetry discussing the ambiguity of the world and our artificial freedom. Then came the video based on the poetry. Through shots of nature and the city it displays layered contrasts surrounding us from the outside, yet hiding in us and in the system we live in. Our conviction of freedom can be deceiving. If we carefully observe the details around us, it becomes clear how limited we actually are: boundaries, controls, laws, warnings, signs etc. The only thing that remains is nature where we can escape, hide and find our freedom. The question is where is the end, the boundary at the end of nature that says:
„
Passage through this point is not permitted
“
or
„
Unauthorised access forbidden
“
. The issue of freedom is explored through poetry to seek solutions: We can only be personal in our heads, in art and in free movement of the body.
„
Are we free? Let’s think again.
“
The considerably narrow and tight format of the video is all about restrictions as well. Natural atmospheric sounds of birds and an underground recording of an earthquake form part of the video, contrasting and complementing each other and achieving harmony between the world and the city. At the same time, however, warning signs are telling us that something is terribly wrong.

Leja Hočevar, Wintertime, 2014, 1.59 min
A contemplation of nature. Flowers suspended in ice, frozen growth. Silent experience, the slow rhythm of a sleeping landscape. The work is dedicated to silent details and it opposes the brisk pace of the town. It represents the frozen time.

Katja Hrvatin Jazbec, Andrej Hrvatin, Sky Sings to Me, 2012, 37.56 min
The video “Sky Sings to Me” exposes subtle changes and endless permutations of the forms of the sky. It consists of several clips of the sky thick with clouds. I collected them for a while and merged and layered them together later on to form a whole. Multi-instrumentalist Andrej Hrvatin then created music for the finished video based on my suggestions. All the pieces of music were performed on the ney, a Turkish flute, because its sound reminds me synaesthatically of the sky.

Urša Kastelic, Unten durch, 2013, 3.53 min
The video reveals a man’s subconsciousness through projections.

Markus Kleim, Beate Hecher, Terrain Vague, 2011, 13 min
TERRAIN VAGUE or times of losing landscapes are beautiful

»When I speak about time, it is because it isn´t yet given.
When I speak about a place, it is because it is gone.
When I speak about a human being, it is because he is already dead.
When I speak about time, it is because it is no more.«
(Jean Baudrillard)

Between glance and glance we are blind. The picture we have of our environment is, by shortly closing our eyes, already part of the past and no longer accessible.

Izabela Ołdak in Ruben van Klaveren, In the Shadow of the Full Moon, 2013, 3.37 min
This video shows the symbolical, inner journey to the underworld by the owl-witch, who performs a Full Moon ritual. In her journey, she meets animal guides like the frog and the black dog, who takes her to the Water Goddess the Life bringer.

Roberta Orlando, Asa Shimada, Real Boundary of Self, 2013, 6.31 min You see your portrait sometimes in your image of inner self, sometimes outer self with others. Self grows sometimes more than one body, sometimes far away, sometimes close, and never same. In the work, we show the connection between me as a observer and selfby movement. Real boundary of self is a performative action which reflect energy and force from nature to body and vice versa, searching for balance and armony in a protected environment.

Leyla Rodriguez, Cristian Straub, Isle of Lox »Origins«, 2009–2011, 4.37 min
Isle Of Lox »ORIGINS«
Origins is the film that started the Isle of Lox series. It already contains most of the components and themes which are characteristical for the whole series: water, loneliness and exploration, textile artifacts, sounds and music, despair, transcendence and joy. While threatened by the chaotic sludge, Leylox (a girl wearing a donkeymask) and Krilox (a boy wearing a bunny mask) are exploring the vast area of existence they were thrown into. They’re checking on the artifacts trouvés, while the clock is ticking. It’s a mix between an expedition and being on the run. In the end, they find the right artifact responsible for transcending into the pink situation. This action helps them to relax and finally accept the new environment as their new home. The chaotic sludge is still boiling, though.

Gruppo Sinestetico, Flux-Us Sound, 2007, 9.48 min
Albertin Matteo, Sassu Antonio, Scordo Gianluca Synaesthetic: as philosophical thought, art operates in a state of synesthesia, in touch with nature involving the five senses, as in Beuys’ philosophy, which is based on protecting the environment and the man who lives in it, solidarity and free cooperation and communication between people of different cultures, origins, religions, social, economic and political statuses.
On this philosophical and utopian thought, the Gruppo Sinestetico (Albertin, Sassu, Scordo) projects the Video: Flux-Us Sound

Simon Šerc, Discovering, 2010, 2.49 min
Videos for the DVD Fabriksampler V2 a continuous elaboration of an audio theme with textures gliding with subtle logic towards a specific goal and appearing intangible and infinite.

Ellen Wetmore, Leaving my Skin, 2014, 2.44 min
Leaving my skin poses the question what if I could walk out of all this: the stress the labor the responsibility the horror of inhabiting this gruesome self. Being uneasy in the skin and if so if one were going to walk away what would that be like? & is there any real freedom in melting into landscape; shedding cultural forms?
_

Video festival Natures 11

The international video festival Natures has been hosted by Bežigrad Gallery 2 for eleven years in a row. This year’s festival is, at its core, similar to the first one. As the name already suggests, the videos are based on images of nature in both broader and narrower sense. What I have in mind are either concrete images from our surroundings or ideas originating within ourselves that the authors share with the public through videos.

Video as an artistic medium emerged for the first time in the 1960s, but it arrived on the gallery scene in the early 1970s. At its initial stages, video production was limited to individuals because the necessary equipment was not readily accessible. Nowadays the situation is quite different. Anyone can film a video, which is why this area has blossomed in terms of quantity, but not necessarily quality. The main selection criteria for the video festival Natures are the following: a good idea behind the video, an innovative concept, originality and, naturally, technical excellence. This year’s festival selection is also based on those criteria. This time, the participating authors come from nine countries.

Their works suggest that the interest in experimental video is growing. The videos are exploring the boundaries of creativity, focusing on their visual rather than narrative aspect. Barbara Drev’s video Chopped Infinity is proof of that. It displays moving and undulating water, but she is gradually changing it until it becomes unrecognisable. Kevin Evensen also explores distortion in his video Sunflowers. He processes and changes it completely. Real images from the environment, sunflowers in his case, are transformed into abstract images, while the video gives the impression of a canvas bringing colours to life.

Art video remains common among the submitted videos. In contrast to experimental videos pushing the limits of the medium, in this case more attention is devoted to narrating a scenario-based story. Leyla Rodrigues and Christian Straub jointly created the video Origins, the first in the series Isle of Lox, in which we observe “a boy and a girl” exploring the environment they found themselves in. Ellen Wetmore’s video Leaving My Skin also belongs to the art video category. In her own special way she questions the possibility to escape from everyday life and the burdens taken on by the modern man.

Video features not only moving images, but also music or sound background. In this way, the author has another dimension to work with to achieve a certain effect. Both image and audio materials offer endless manipulation possibilities and open new avenues for exploration. Audio background has proven to be a strong tool in the video Unten durch by Urša Kastelic in which dark reflections of human subconsciousness are brilliantly emphasised with sound. Jana Beltran also worked around the same idea. The video You Don’t Know was created on the basis of a song with the same title. Beltran aimed at evoking a mood to support both the atmosphere and content of the song by combining a visual image with a background sound. This is where the complexity of video as a medium stands out.

Over and over again, the advantages of video have demonstrated that it can convey ideas on several levels simultaneously. Many things have changed since the emergence of video, also owing to technological development that expanded the availability of technology. It also seems that video has a bright future ahead as enthusiasm is not fading. It is flourishing. For this reason, festivals like the video festival Natures are so incredibly important.

Dejan Jevšnik

Bežigrad Gallery 2
T: +386 1 4364 057 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +386 1 4364 057 GRATIS end_of_the_skype_highlighting
F: +386 1 4366 958
E-mail: milos.basin@guest.arnes.si

festival, video, Lubiana, Slovenia