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The seemingly extraterrestrial camera eye floats upside down through a palm grove planted in a strictly rectilinear manner. Nature is literally upside down and existing in an artificial order as a business game. Only at the crescendo of the strange, vibrantly smoldering soundtrack by Jung an Tagen does the gaze slowly turn clockwise. Then, cut: quietness, open space. At some point the logo “Valley Pride” can be read in the middle of the California desert, on oversized corrugated iron sheets, designating one of the most important commercial areas of US industrial agriculture. It’s an inhospitable place, whose increasingly bizarre unnaturalness is conveyed through Lukas Marxt’s unmistakable approach. Visually stunning, the monocultural agrarian symmetry and its ballet of irrigation testify to man’s self-extinction in the service of constant profit orientation – even if the necessarily anonymous workers return to the picture in this, Marxt’s fourth visual examination of the Imperial Valley. Under the sword of Damocles of unclear residence status and a US immigration policy that ranges from rigid to ignorant, the personal destinies and stories behind them must remain untold. The people are the smallest cog in the wheel of work in the gigantic agricultural machine trimmed for optimization, as it buries ecological and ethical standards under the relentless shoveling and plowing equipment. In front of endless rock formations and dancing mirages caused by the heat, they fertilize, harvest, and pack lettuce in a quasi-automated routine. In near-astonishment, the camera eye observes this hustle and bustle as it occurs in a leafy place where no greenery was intended. This is a place where fertility and death collide mercilessly and the threatening catastrophe – social, economic, ecological – is inscribed in every image, no matter how innocent. Here, beauty meets decay and exploitation as a man-made dystopia. That, too, is Valley Pride – a pride with an expiration date. (Sebastian Höglinger)

Lukas Marxt (*1983, Austria) is an artist and a filmmaker living and working between Cologne and Graz. Marxt´s interest in the dialogue between human and geological existence, and the impact of man upon nature was first explored in his studies of Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Graz, and was further developed through his audio visual studies at the Art University in Linz. He received his MFA from the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, and attended the postgraduate programme at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig. Marxt has been sharing his research in the visual art environment as well as in the cinema context. His works have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, most recently at the Torrance Art Museum (Los Angeles, 2018), at The Biennial of Painting, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens (Belgium, 2018), and at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka (Croatia, 2018). His films have been presented in numerous International Film Festivals including Berlinale (Germany, 2017 and 2018), Curtas Vila do Conde (Portugal, 2018), and the Gijón International Film Festival where he receiced the Principado de Asturias prize for the best short film (Spain, 2018). Since 2017, Marxt has spent a considerable amount of time in Southern California, where he has researched the ecological and socio-political structures surrounding the Salton Sea.

Nella Fantasia was created in December 2011 on the offshore oil rig Snorre A situated in the middle of the North Sea off the coast of Norway. After successfully passing a number of health tests and safety trainings, Lukas Marxt travelled to the platform and spent around 10 days collecting visual and acoustic impressions amid the loneliness of wind storms and huge waves. The result is a visual description of the oil rig microcosm which does not focus on technical processes and ongoing work on the platform but, instead, attempts to create a location which excludes obvious associations of the surroundings such as corridors, curtains, the horizon, the lapping of waves and a melancholic sigh at the end of a shift. The quiet and long shots of the film form a sort of inner monologue which the viewer can feel and experience - disconnecting people and machine. "Nella Fantasia" lasts roughly 55 minutes and is part documentary and part experimental art film.

Between 9 May and 11 June 1943, the island of Pantelleria was violently bombarded by the Allied troops in the first operation to reconquer Italian soil. Residents recall that, after the surrender, some of the buildings were blown up for the cameras of a propaganda combat film. Pantelleria traces the memories of this event in the local collective consciousness and looks at the contemporary implications of an episode that took place in the shadow of official history. Through a two-years long participatory process with the residents, the film explores the tension between the truth and its ideological distortion, and between the reality of the bombs and their telling through images. The Nervi hangar, a symbol of Mussolini’s militarisation of the island, is now shown empty and inhabited by a magical animal presence. Extracts from the combat film are projected onto the buildings of today’s Pantelleria, while the camera travels through the bunkers dug by the Italian army. The voiceover, written and read by writer Giorgio Vasta, gives expressive form to the island’s stories, while the sound by GUP Alcaro and Davide Tomat distorts the recordings of the local orchestra Spata, finding in dance music a space for the reactivation of the past, and liberation in the present.

MASBEDO is an artistic duo formed by Nicolò Massazza and Iacopo Bedogni. They have been working together since 1999 and they currently live in Milan and Piacenza (Italy). Different artistic languages such as video, installation, cinema, performance, theater, and sound design coexist in their work. They are interested in emotional and intense narratives that delve into the depths of human relationships and the complex subjectivity of the contemporary individual. They have identified the relationship between cinema and art as a preferred area of investigation, which they approach with an attentive gaze to both socio-anthropological elements and the most intimate and poetic ones. MASBEDO’s works have been exhibited in international institutions such as: Manifesta 15 Barcelona; Centre Pompidou-Metz; CCCB Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona; Fondazione ICA Milan; MAMM Multimedia Art Museum Moscow; Manifesta12 Palermo; Hong Kong Arts Centre; Fondazione Merz; Leopold Museum Wien; MAXXI Rome; Centre Pompidou/Forum des Images Paris. Among others, their short and feature films have been shown at: Venice International Film Festival; Locarno Film Festival; CPH:DOX; FIFA – Festival International du Film sur l’Art Montréal; Villa Medici Film Festival Rome; Sharjah Film Platform; Walter Reade Theater, Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York; Lo schermo dell’arte, Florence, IFFR-International Film Festival Rotterdam.

The major video screening set up echoes the documentary Condivisione di un ricordo: this work presents the operation which concerned Bergamo and the municipalities of the Val Seriana over the summer, in which numerous posters portraying Pellizza’s painting were displayed, thanks to the involvement of people encountered by the artists.

The two artists have worked together since 1999, focusing on video art and installations. They express themselves through the language of video, and in different forms such as performance, theater, installation, photography and recently cinema. In Italy they are recognized among the most important video artists and innovators in the field of contemporary art. Their artistic research has focused on the theme of incommunicability, highlighting the paradox of our communication society. This has led them to produce very intimate pieces alongside work with a greater anthropological, social, and political feel. They strive to engage their audience by using the moving image as an immersive installation. MASBEDO have also worked with video-performances to engage their audience within the creative space and gestures created by the video itself

The video, Fragile (2016) produced by the Museo Reale Galleria Sabauda in Turin, staged a young man`s visit to the gallery halls in the presence of a peacock. Walking among the masterpieces of antiquity, symbolic objects of archetypal beauty, the presence of the peacock underlines the essential precariousness of the living animal and its impairment that renders it inapt to represent its nature. The image is highly suggestive because it’s made even more dramatic due to the emptiness of the halls, facing the perpetual immobility of the painted characters. The main theme of these works is the concept of "cure": the old animal, object of the care of its master, is a metaphor of the combination of a faded vanity and the eternal journey into beauty, a trip defined by Rainer Maria Rilke as "the tremendous at its beginning." The fragility of art, to which the title of the work refers to, engages the observer`s gaze and warns of the necessity to provide protection of art and cultural heritage. A metaphor that reminds us of the need to preserve and care for our artistic and cultural heritage as a form of resistance to time and carelessness of man. In 2018, when Europe dedicates itself to Cultural Heritage, encouraging public institutions to celebrate their relevance and value for the cultural development of society, the artistic discourse by Masbedo is consistently aligned with this theme, showing how contemporary artists relate themselves with the art of the past and how history of art can be a source of inspiration for new generations.

MASBEDO (Nicolò Massazza, 1973, Milan - Iacopo Bedogni, 1970, Sarzana) started their journey in 1999, focusing on the potential of video art and video installation. Developed around the theme of incommunicability in contemporary society, their research has produced both, intimate works and more socio-political and anthropological-cultural productions. Their aesthetic approach presents pictorial aspects and the realization of their videos pursues the goal of involving the viewer in the space created by the moving images through immersive installations. Their work, in fact, is a synthesis of theatre, performance, space, architecture and video / cinema. They have been included in solo shows in important museums and foundations both in Italy and abroad, as well as in various film festivals, and their works are included in relevant private and public collections: MART, Rovereto, Italy; Fondazione Merz in Turin, Italy; GAM - Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Turin, Italy; MACRO - Museo di Arte Contemporanea in Rome, Italy; DA2 - Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Salamanca, Spain; CAAM Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderna, Las Palmas, Spain; CAIRN Centre d’Art, Digne-les-bains, France; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel.

A small dramatic gesture cancels any possible remains of hope in 2.59 (2014). A dental drill scrapes the grooves of a vinyl record playing John Lennon’s Imagine– whose playing time is actually two minutes and 59 seconds – as the needle ultimately and stridently squeaks, while snowflakes start to fall. Dreams are no longer possible, as our society has completely denied them.

MASBEDO are Nicolò Massazza (1973) and Iacopo Bedogni (1970). They live and work in Milan. The two artists have worked together since 1999. They express themselves through the language of video, in different forms such as performance, theater, installation, photography and recently cinema. In Italy they are recognized among the most important video artists and innovators in the field of contemporary art: thanks to their unique feature of re-union of different arts: the multiplicity of languages becomes a single chorus. In fall 2014 a major solo exhibition will be showed at the Fondazione Merz, anticipated by the presentation of their first film The Lack at the Venice Film Festival. In 2013 the Leopold Museum Wien presented the video-installation “Ash” and they exhibited in Pinacoteca Nazionale Bologna a solo show with videos and a video performance. In 2012 they held video performances in several museums of contemporary art and in particular locations such as the Italian Embassy in Berlin during 7th Art Biennial. With the very special participation of Fanny Ardant they present at Teatro Strehler in Milan and Teatro Palladium in Rome an audio video performance from Le Remède de Fortune of Guillaume de Machaut. They participate with the doc-film Tralalà at the 69th Venice Film Festival and at the Reykjavik International Film Festival. Other very important shows in their career are Art Basel Unlimited, MAXXI and MACRO Museum in Rome and the 53. Venice Biennial Of Art. Other museums such the Center for Contemporary Art Uajzdowsky Castle in Warsaw, the CCCB Centro de Cultura Contemporanea in Barcelona, the DA2 Museum in Salamanca, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’arte contemporanea in Turin, the OK Offenes Kulturhaus in Linz, the Tel Aviv Art Museum and the Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria hosted in the past years their artworks. Other Film Festivals in their career: Bellaria, Tremblay en France, Novi Sad, United Nation World Forum in Rio De Janeiro, Locarno, Rome, Istanbul, Lisbon, Athens, Miami and Trieste. They have always participated with video-art projects. They worked with French writer Michelle Houellebecq with which they write The world Is Not A Panorama, a video art movie with the precious collaboration with Oscar Winning actress Juliette Binoche and exhibit the premiere at the Gran Palais, Paris.

The CONTROL NEGATIVE experience is an exercise in a loss. Using VR technology, author Monika Mas?o? situates the viewer in an emotional state where frustration, helplessness, anger, and sadness are used to reveal basic human assumptions, including the illusory conviction of being fully in control of one's own life. The unreal world of the experience — a negative version of the real world — is a training space where you can better understand yourself and your emotions. The user is guided through seven chapters, which gradually move from physical activity to contemplation.

Dr. Monika Maslon (born 1982) - visual artist and art educator. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in ?ód? and Ph.D. studies at the Film School in ?ód?, where she completed her Ph.D. thesis entitled “Do zobaczenia” (See you), under the supervision of Prof. Józef Robakowski. She is a lecturer at the University of Leipzig and the Maria Grzegorzewska University in Warsaw where she conducts classes with the students of the department of Arts education in fine arts. In 2014 she stayed at an artistic residence in Singapore, where she made an artistic project called “Comfort of Long-Distance Perceiving”. In 2016 she implemented the project “Template - a tool to learn how to use an image”, as a part of a scholarship awarded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The scope of her art activities is manifested mainly through realizations based on audiovisual material. She participated in numerous exhibitions and shows. She is the author of the VR experience - CONTROL NEGATIVE.

Nana is 4 years old and lives in a stone house beyond the forest. Back from school, a late afternoon, all she finds is silence in the house. A journey into the night of her childhood.

It's through photography, and notably her collaboration with Nan Goldin, that Valerie Massadian came to image-making,Creating slide- show screenings (The Link, Mary Go Round, Journal de Bord), exhibited in Tokyo, London and Porto. What she has retained from photography is its freedom and the rigor of frontal contact. She has taken this same approach, committing to a project from concept to completion, in her collaborations with several film directors. From there came the need of her own film, NANA, which won the Price for Best First Feature Film at the Locarno Film Festival 2011, as well as the Price for Best International Feature Film at the Festival Internacional de Ciné de Valdivia.

One Place One Boy One Day One Shot One Wheel of Film

La Selva oscura (La forêt obscure) film/vidéo, texte de Dante Alighieri, La Comédie, L’Enfer, Chant treizième (XIII) Préambule: Dans la forêt des suicidés, Dante et Virgile croisent deux formes humaines qui fuient devant eux, arrachant tout sur leur passage et brutalisant ainsi elles-mêmes leur chair jusqu’à ce que des chiennes faméliques (Harpyes) les rejoignent et les dépècent. Tel est le châtiment de ceux qui ont péché contre eux-mêmes par dissipation. Synopsis: Par une nuit obscure, A. et D. progressent, séparément, dans une forêt où nul sentier n’indique le chemin à suivre, où aucune issue ne se présente à eux. Ils se sont égarés, la forêt les retient. Ils surgissent de l’obscurité, débusqués par les éclairages qui les aveuglent. Un face-à-face s’installe entre eux et la forêt, à la présence des arbres répondent leurs propres regards et voix. A. s’est levé, D. de même, résonnent en eux les aboiements d’une meute de chiens qui progressivement se rapproche. Une course-poursuite est engagée où toute issue leur sera fatale.

Guy Massaux est artiste visuel, curateur d’exposition, professeur d’art à l’Académie des beaux-arts de Bruxelles. Après avoir consacré son travail d’artiste principalement à la peinture, il oriente, depuis plusieurs années, ses préoccupations de création autour de l’image en mouvement par l’écriture cinématographique, notamment à travers des dispositifs de vidéo-installations. Il a réalisé plusieurs courts métrages en langue italienne, La Selva Oscura (2018), Il Rifugio (2014) et "B.", film en cours de post-production (2020). Il partage ses principales activités et son emploi du temps entre l’Italie et la Belgique. Il collabore régulièrement avec Mirco Mencacci ingénieur du son. Créateur des univers sonores de films italiens tels que « Le Regard de Michel Ange (Lo Sguardo di Michelangelo) » de Michelangelo Antonioni, « Nos meilleures années (La Meglio gioventu)» de Marco Tullio Giordana ou encore «La Fenêtre d’en face» (Facing Windows) de Ferzan Ozpetec. Pour ses créations, il travaille sur une nouvelle manière de diffuser le son et développe le système du « son sphérique », utilisé pour la première fois dans le film « Le Regard de Michel Ange ».

Nodes is a project analyzing spells as an example of control over another being. I focused on the violence of persuading somebody to fall in love. I have been considering casting a spell as an influential but not direct act for which specific tools or gestures might be needed. I chose orchids whose roots were used to influence another person, both when it comes to feelings and sexual activity. In the areas of today’s Poland and Italy, dried wild orchid roots were hidden under somebody’s clothes, or an orchid-based powder was added to goat milk which was supposed to help sexual arousal. On the contrary, nowadays, in a huge industrial space, hundreds of almost identical orchids run through a commercial line. Although the production is highly mechanized and managed by technology, the final sculptural touch on every flower goes through the working hands of females — they manually shape this organic material by adding artificial backbones and cutting off the rotten parts. The women use this intimate act to fit the normalized aesthetics. With Nodes, I am bringing attention to the powerful operations both in private and industrial environments by looking at the human element in them.

Female visual artist based in Warsaw. Graduate of the Studio of Spatial Activities by Miroslaw Balka at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (BA, MA, 2018), former student of Candice Breitz and Eli Cortiñas at the HBK in Braunschweig (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) Scholarship for 2019/2020), and a guest by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin at the HFBK in Hamburg (2017/2018). She also obtained her BA in Cultural Studies at the University of Warsaw (2013). Currently participant of the Autumn Intensive at the Malmö Art Academy. She exhibited with Catinca Tabacaru Gallery at the Goethe Institut in Bucharest (2024), NS-Dokumentazionszentrum in Munich (2023), MOCAK – Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow, Manifesta 14 Prishtina, eastcontemporary gallery in Milan (2022), Fabbri Schenker Projects in London, MAXXI – National Museum of 21st Century Art in Rome, Center for Contemporary Art Luigi Pecci in Prato (2021), Wschód gallery in Warsaw (2020), Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Starak Family Foundation in Warsaw (2019), Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, Fondation Hippocrène in Paris (2018), Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2017 – laureate of the Hestia Artistic Journey Competition), and TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art in Szczecin (2016). Art fairs include NADA Villa Warsaw (2024), Artissima, and Arco Madrid (2021). Agnieszka Mastalerz was a resident of Hospitalfield in Scotland (2022), Muzeum Susch in Switzerland, the Artist Development Program at the EIB Institute in Luxembourg (2021), and Futura gallery in Prague (2020, Visegrad Fund). She participated in the Lucy Art Residency public program in Kavala (2022) and in the School of Expressions in PLATO Ostrava (2019). She is a laureate of M?oda Polska scholarship for 2024. Works of her are in Fondazione in Between Art Film by Beatrice Bulgari, Ergo Hestia Group, European Investment Bank, and Warsaw Ghetto Museum collections, as well as in private ones. Since 2021, Mastalerz is represented by eastcontemporary gallery in Milan.

In the course of one day, the flm follows various characters in their local environment, which is infuenced by the presence of an industrial plant. Their individual sights tell about the relation between human being and industry.

Jonas Matauschek 1987 born in Dresden, Germany 2007 – 2014 studies of photography at the Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig since 2015 Meisterschüler in the class of Prof.Peter Piller, Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig Emerson Culurgioni 1986 born in Munich, Germany 2007-2009 studies of visual communication at the Free University of Bolzano 2010 - 2014 studies of media art at the Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig currently Meisterschüler in the class of Prof. Clemens von Wedemeyer, Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig

We live in a globalized world where national and supranational identity has been subsumed by the value and brand image; A world in which politics is written in capital letters on the desks of major companies and ends endorsed in the areas of representation of popular will: the parliaments, with the essential and necessary support of the media, which, in turn, are part of the fabric of these same corporations. However, it is a historical reality, the search for differentiation with respect to the other, from a political and socio-cultural. Today we can hardly distinguish the discourse of national identity distinct of riots, revolts and terrorism, for the sake of a flawed and corrupt information that is confusing the part with the whole in a universal metonymy, and that is where this project address. NATIONAL BUILDING TOOLS is formalized in video format that work as a manual that relates ideological instruments and tools, used to reaffirm a hypothetical national identity, using the techniques and applications specific to the media.

Ramón Mateos. (Madrid1968) Works and lives in Madrid. Graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts ofthe Complutense University, Madrid. He has participated in numerous solo and group, nationals and internationals exhibitions, and his work is in major public and private collections. Founder and component, until its dissolution in 2006, of the ?EL PERRO? art collective. He has participated in: PROYECTO JUAREZ. Ciudad Juarez, Mexico (2007-2009); INTERFERENCIAS, PhotoEspaña 2008, Casa de America, Madrid, 10 th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul (2007); FRECUENCIAS in 2008 and 2009 for the Cervantes Institute in Morocco

The concept of camouflage has seeped into virtually all the human social activities. Over the past century, the companies have developed acquiring a power that is even greater than that of the countries and they have invented the science of marketing that camouflages objects in dreams. All humans use the different brands, like a second skin to integrate ourselves into the social group of the sheet to which we want to belong; the products that we use do not project what we are; they project what we want to be or just want to appear. The economic power has kidnapped the sense of sight that was until recently a ?notarial act of the truth?. Polyespan, Photoshop and plastic surgery have turned our surroundings into a theme park in which the objects, messages and bodies are false. The eternal sentence ?if I hadn?t seen it with my own two eyes, I would not believe it? no longer has any meaning. However we continue believing it because we are all actors on the same stage; with leading or supporting roles, but accomplices in different degrees. Currently, the military look has spread throughout the social strata. The large clothing chains offer us every day garments for going to school or work that are camouflaged; the houses on the new estates acquire the presence of unassailable bunkers in the same style as the kibbutz?s in the ?occupied territories?; even the vehicles have been contaminated by the armour plating appearance of the Empire?s war ships. With the total militarization of all our borders, implanted with the excuse of security, we are all ready for a general mobilisation. We do not know when or where the conflict will arise, but we must be ready for it. In "Thanksgiving Turkey" a general harangues to his troops. Following his precise instructions, the soldiers will conquer his guests, during a memorable dinner, with a delicious and magisterial recipe of the "Thanksgiving Turkey". Mateo Maté, 2007

MATEO MATÉ Born in Madrid (Spain), 1964. Lives and works in Madrid (Spain) www.mateomate.com m.mate@mateo mate.com SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2007-?Paisajes uniformados?. Centro de Arte de Burgos, CAB. Spain. -?Nacionalismo Doméstico?. Galería Llucià Homs. Barcelona. Spain. -"Thanksgiving Turkey". Galería Trinta, Santiago de Compostela. España. 2006-?Cartografías personales?. Sala CAI Luzán. Zaragoza. Spain. -?Nacionalismo Ibérico?. Fundación Encosta, Lisboa. Portugal. -?Fronteras interiores?. Casa de España, Lima. Perú. 2005 -?Delirios de Grandeza?. Galería Grita Insam. Viena. -?Nacionalismo Doméstico?. Galería Oliva Arauna, Madrid. Spain. 2003 -?Desubicado?. Galería Oliva Arauna. Madrid, Spain. -?Desubicado?. Galerie Six Friedrich & Lisa Ungar, Munich. Germany.

A fast and dirty analogue movie to accompany my audio piece "Radiance"

I was born october 1967 in Saarbrücken, Germany and spent a good part of the 90s as a professional drummer in Berlin. In 1998 I moved back to Saarbrücken where I?m working today in the field of digital arts. Since 1999 sixteen albums of my music have been released on labels worldwide. In 2002 british magazine The Wire voted ²frequencyLib³ among the 10 best electronic music releases of the year . I am creating sound installations, graphic design and have worked as a lecturer on digital arts and conception at the Royal Academy of Arts, Göteborg, the Bauhaus University, Weimar, the University of Arts and Design HBKSaar, Saarbrücken and the Merz-Akademie in Stuttgart among others.

In this film, Yuiko Matsuyama concentrates on light and microscopic movements, attempting to metaphorically create a flower. Using the same film several times, Matsuyama produced this film with a double exposure technique, as well as with Indian ink. This work is the fourth in a series begun with Field in 2000. In this film Yuiko Matsuyama is interested in the light and movements that exist on a microscopic level. She tries in particular to evoke metaphorically a flower. To produce this film, she carried out a double exposure technique while using the same reel several times. This work realised with Indian ink is the foruth of a serie begun with Field in 2000.

Yuiko Matsuyama was born in Ehime Japan in 1972. She studied at Tsuda College, where her major was social psychology. She began making films in 1997. Yuiko is now living in Tokyo. She belongs to the ISLANDS collective.

This newly assembled work is a rare document of a 1976 Matta-Clark performance in Berlin. The piece begins with the following statement: "In 1976, as part of the Akademie der Kunst and Berliner Festwochen exhibition `Soho in Berlin,` Gordon Matta-Clark went to Germany with the intention of blowing up a section of the Berlin Wall. Dissuaded by friends from such a suicidal action, the result was the following performance." The film records Matta-Clark as he stencils `Made in America` on the Wall, affixes commercial advertisements over graffiti, and has a run-in with the police. A remarkable record of a little-known Matta-Clark performance, this work is also a historical time capsule of a political and physical landscape that no longer exists.

Gordon Matta-Clark was born in New York in 1943 and died in 1978. He studied French literature at the Sorbonne and Architecture at Cornell University. From the early 1970s, as a founding member of the artist-run Food Restaurant in New York`s Soho neighborhood, Matta-Clark participated in numerous group exhibitions and projects. His work was presented in Documenta V, Kassel, Germany; and at exhibitions in Sao Paolo, Berlin, Zurich, and in the 9th Biennale de Paris. Major projects by Matta-Clark were staged in Aachen, Paris and Antwerp. Following his death, retrospective exhibitions have been organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, Germany; and IVAM Centro Julio Gonzalez, Valencia, Spain.

"Conical Intersect", Matta-Clark's contribution to the Paris Biennial of 1975, manifested his critique of urban gentrification in the form of a radical incision through two adjacent 17th-century buildings designated for demolition near the much-contested Centre Georges Pompidou, which was then under construction. For this anti-monument, or "nonument", which contemplated the poetics of the civic ruin, Matta-Clark bore a tornado-shaped hole that spiralled back at a 45-degree angle to exit through the roof. Periscope like, the void offered passers-by a view of the buildings' internal skeletons.

Gordon Matta-Clark studied architecture at Cornell University, but never practiced as a conventional architect. He also spent a year studying French literature at the Sorbonne in Paris where he also was during the student strikes of May 1968. It was in Paris that he became aware of the French deconstructionist philosophers and Guy Debord and the Situationists. These cultural and political radicals developed the concept of détournement, or "the reuse of pre-existing artistic elements in a new ensemble". Such concepts would later inspire his work. He is most famous for works that radically altered existing structures. His "building cuts" (in which, for example, a house is cut vertically in half) alter the perception of the building and its surrounding environment. Matta-Clark used a number of media to document his work, including film, video, and photography. His work includes performance and recycled pieces, space and texture works, and his "building cuts". Matta-Clark also used puns and other wordplays as a way to re-conceptualize preconditioned roles and relationships (of everything from people to architecture). He demonstrated that the theory of entropy applies to language as well as to the physical world, and that language is not a neutral tool but a carrier for society's values and a vehicle for ideology. Matta-Clark died from pancreatic cancer on August 27, 1978.

A moving image. And a story about portrait-paintings being tired of exhausted museum visitors. (production note) Over the entrance of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence hangs a digital display indicating the amount of time visitors still have to wait in line. In the high season this can be up to four hours. Still, the majority, after entering the museum, immediately begin to hurry, checking off the highlights as fast as they can. The average museum visitor, according to the hypothesis Reinhold Bidner proceeds from, spends all of six seconds looking at individual paintings. In his video In Transit Bidner takes up this phenomenon. At first, there?s a painting on the wall and a man sitting in front of it, apparently resting his legs. The camera slowly zooms into the painting until the surrounding space disappears?and it begins to move: The image of a girl by French Classicist William-Adolphe Bouguereau transforms into Rubens? portrait of his daughter, Caravaggio?s sickly Bacchus, the latter?s head of Medusa, and numerous other works from the history of art. Finally, Bouguereau?s girl reappears, smiling as she peers from the painting, the camera moves away and films the?now different?surroundings. The final shot is of a yawning woman. During this virtual museum tour the painting is covered by a veil of drops that reflect the movements of Louvre visitors, who are both tired and hectic. Through this formal choice Bidner keeps the viewer at a distance, while at the same time adding a second level: that of the museum visitors who, due to their exhaustion, see nothing. Together with Richard Eigner, who made the swelling and diminishing soundtrack, Reinhold Bidner successfully created a sensitive study on human behavior in the museum of the 21st century. The audience is invited to take a more intensive and concentrated look at art. (Nina Schedlmayer)

Born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1973, Lida Abdul resides there now. She lived in Germany and India as a refugee when she was forced to leave Afghanistan after the former-Soviet invasion. Her work fuses the tropes of Western formalism with the numerous aesthetic traditions ?Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, pagan and nomadic? that collectively influenced Afghan art and culture. She has produced work in many media including video, film, photography, installation and live performance. Her most recent work has been featured at the Venice Biennale 2005, São Paulo Biennial 2006, Gwanju Biennial 2006, Moscow Biennial 2007, Sharjah Biennial 2007, Istanbul Modern, Kunsthalle Vienna, Ok Centrum, Museum of Modern Art Arnhem, Tate Modern, Moma NY, National Museum of Kabul, Netherlands and Miami Central, ICA London, ZKM, Capc Bordeaux, CAC Centre d?Art Contemporain de Bretigny, and Frac Lorraine Metz, France. This coming year she has solo exhibition at Indianapolis Museum (IMA) and Smithsonian at Sackler galleries.

L’esprit de l’escalier, is the third in a trilogy of films surrounding Pálás, a cinema in Galway, Ireland, designed by Tom dePaor. Opening in 2018, the cinema closed to the public in February 2025, and I attended one of the last screenings at Pálás – Tsai Ming-Liang’s Goodbye Dragon Inn, itself a film about the closing of a cinema. I returned the following morning with thoughts of this in my head as I filmed the staircases throughout the building. These spaces are untempered, part indoor, part outdoor, while the cinemas with their plush red interiors are optimised for sound, temperature, and light. The title of my film refers to the expression (to think of the perfect reply too late) but moreover to the spirit of the staircase. Just like Goodbye Dragon Inn, so much life goes on in these spaces, where people, weather, light, and sound, intersect with, and even possess the movement or the stillness of the camera, the place itself becoming a film.

Peter Maybury is an Irish multidisciplinary artist. His practice-based research encompasses works as an artist, graphic designer, filmmaker, publisher, writer, editor, curator, musician, and educator. He is a graduate of Central Saint Martins, London, and a Doctoral Candidate at the Centre for Socially Engaged Practice-Based Research, TU Dublin. He has collaborated extensively with artists and institutions, editors and curators, on more than 200 art and architecture publications. Peter is a longstanding collaborator with Tom dePaor, making books, films, and works for exhibition. His film work includes On being there (2022/23, screened at Rencontre Internationale Paris/Berlin 2023/24), Landfall (2020), an hour-long dual-screen film installation, and with dePaor the Gall films Drape (2018), and A Study (2015) which was made for exhibition at ETH Zurich. Peter is author of Make Ready (2015), and co-author with dePaor of Reservoir (2010) and Of (2012).

On being there is a filmic encounter with the material and outputs of the office of Tom dePaor, drawing on 30 years of practice. There is the place itself. There are notebooks, drawings, prints, scale models, 35mm slides, photographs, films, files, books, writing. A diversity of materials and media, evidencing significant technological changes in production and reproduction. This is the raw material. The film is a rerecording, or sampling of this material, where scale, media, and modes of presentation and realisation merge. The linear transition from drawing to model to built landscape and documentation is disrupted. The film explores the permeability of the image. Animated or activated through movement and operation, everything can be superimposed, overlaid, or cut into. An audio-visual encounter with place, within the space of the screen and the loudspeaker.

Peter Maybury is an Irish multidisciplinary artist. His practice-based research encompasses works as an artist, graphic designer, filmmaker, publisher, writer, editor, curator, musician, and educator. He is a graduate of Central Saint Martins, London, and is a Doctoral Candidate at the Centre for Socially Engaged Practice-Based Research, TU Dublin. He has collaborated extensively with artists and institutions, editors and curators, on more than 200 art and architecture publications. Peter is a longstanding collaborator with Tom dePaor, making books, films, and works for exhibition. His film work includes Landfall (2020), an hour-long dual-screen film installation, and with dePaor the Gall films Drape (2018), and A Study (2015) made for exhibition at ETH Zurich. Peter is author of Make Ready (2015), and co-author with dePaor of Reservoir (2010) and Of (2012).

With its specific orientation and long-standing continuity it has displayed since 1979, Ars Electronica is an internationally unique platform for digital art and media culture consisting of the following four divisions: Ars Electronica ? Festival for Art, Technology and Society; Prix Ars Electronica ? International Competition for CyberArts; Ars Electronica Center ? Museum of the Future; and Ars Electronica Futurelab ? Laboratory for Future Innovations. The essence of the internationally renowned Ars Electronica Festival is interdisciplinarity and an open encounter of international experts from the arts and sciences with a broad audience of highly diverse backgrounds and interests. Annually since 1979, the Festival has featured a line-up of symposia, exhibitions, performances, and events designed to further an artistic and scientific confrontation with the social and cultural phenomena that are the consequences of technological change. As the world's premier cyberarts competition, the Prix Ars Electronica has been a forum for artistic creativity and innovation since 1987. It is the trend barometer in an ever-expanding and increasingly diversified world of media art. Thanks to its annually recurring nature, its international scope and the incredible variety of the works submitted for prize consideration, the enormous Prix Ars Electronica Archive provides a detailed look at the development of media art and a feel for its openness and diversity. The Ars Electronica Center opened in 1996 as a prototype of a "Museum of the Future". Its mission is to utilize interactive forms of mediation to facilitate the general public's encounter with virtual reality, digital networks, and modern media. A focus on issues at the interface of media art, new technologies and social developments characterize the Center's innovative exhibitions. The Futurelab is a model of a new kind of media art laboratory in which artistic and technological innovations engender reciprocal inspiration. The lab's teams bring together a wide variety of specialized skills; their approach is characterized by interdisciplinarity and international networking. The Futurelab's wide-ranging activities include designing and engineering exhibitions, creating artistic installations, as well as pursuing collaborative research with universities and joint ventures with private sector associates.

Iris Mayr was born in 1971 in Austria. She studied communication science and business administration in Linz, Salzburg, and Sevilla. In 2003/04 she was a research assistant and conducted tutorials at the University of Salzburg in the department of Audiovision/Digital Communication and the ICT&S Center. Since 1996 she has been a member of the Ars Electronica Center Linz (Festival Ars Electronica, Production and Curatorial Team). In 2006 she was co-curator with Lev Manovich, Yuko Hasegawa and Pili at the Media City_Seoul 2006 in Seoul, Korea. From 2004-2007 she was the producer of the Prix Ars Electronica ? International Competition for CyberArts, and a freelance cultural curator.

She is a sourse of my inspiration. She gives my life a meaning. I am part of her and she is part of me. We can`t live without each other because she gives ideas for my artistic creation.. She is my muse.

Born in 1965 in Viljandi, Estonia. Studied in Estonian Academy of Arts, MA 1995 Lives and works in Tallinn, Estonia. Works with a wide range of media including photography, sculpture, animations, painting and text. Mäetamm tells us the stories which happen behind the closed doors and pulled curtains of the intimate territory we called home. Mäetamm portrays the family as a little society -relaying through a dark humor the petty moments of daily life - and exploring the way our society manipulates the family dynamics through the macrocosms of economy, consumerism, and ?quality-of-life? standards. Inspired by his own private life and the recurrent feeling he could fail to preserve the balance in his existence, Mäetamm?s work explores the grey area where ambiguous feelings of being in control and being controlled merge. Marko Mäetamm has exhibited internationally and represented Estonia at the 52nd Venice Biennial in 2007. Contact: maetamm@yahoo.com HOMEPAGE: www.maetamm.net

This work is about how something looks very often different from how it actually is and how something is so absolutely different from the way it looks. One beautiful Friday evening in early March I put my lovely wife and two wonderful kids in our little Honda Civic and we took a trip to visit my parents in South-Estonia...

I was born in a small town Nuia in South-Estonia. The idea to become an artist hit me suddenly and absolutely out of the blue when I was 18. I studied printmaking in Estonian Academy of Arts, graduated my BA in 1993 and MA in1995. I started exhibit when I was still a student. My first works were very printmaking-based. Then I moved to painting because I found it more direct. Then at one point text became very essential in my projects. And then following my ideas I took up moving image. At the moment I work very mixed-media-wise. I do photos and objects and animations, I paint and I produce texts and I mix it all together in my installations. In 2007 I had a great opportunity to represent Estonia in Venice Biennale with the project ?Loser?s Paradise? and it had a strong influence to my artistic career.

About FAMILY There is an axe-man, running around the flat after quite presumably his wife and two children. The wife and children are trying to hide behind the sofa or a bed or a cupboard, or under the blanket, but the axe-man always finds them and then something happens. And every time after that the axe-man is more and more covered with blood. And the wife and two children are more and more well. And it never ends.