Netherlands Media Art Institute
Monday saw the roadtrip gang head down to the Netherlands Media Art Institute, an organization that comprises the Montevideo institute and TBA (Time Based Art). While we were there we got an informative lecture on Dutch video art from author and curator Jennifer Steetskamp, saw a handful of new media pieces, and received a tour of their facilities.
We got a special treat when Institute director, Heiner Holtappels, gave us us a rundown of what the Institute does, and then guided us around the place. Since 1978, the Institute has collected about 1800 titles which can all be viewed on their online database, and every year they add around 30 new titles, half of which are by Dutch artists. In addition to collecting pieces, they also preserve, exhibit and distribute these works all over the globe.
Before the presentation though, the visit began with a talk by Jennifer Steetskamp, a collections manager that's been with the institute for a year now. She showed us ten or so of the best works by (mostly) Dutch video artists in the past 25 years. To spare you the reader, and my poor fingers the work of all that typing, I'll just highlight a few of my personal favorites.
"Papillon d'Amour" by Nicolas Provost 2003 This work took shots from the Akira Kurosawa classic, "Rashomon," and mirrored the images across a vertical axis. The pamphelt the institute provided us with described the piece as "the maker's vision on the narrative possibilites of film and the role and position of the experiencing, observer viewer." This either makes for a new interpretation of a movie some have already seen, or a completely new and visually-stimulating story for others.
"Building" by Anouk de Clercq 2003 What begins as a piece featuring clearly defined, geometric, animated white shapes slowly taking form over a black background, ends as an atmospheric, 3-D blueprint "being documented as in an architect's dream." What I found most interesting was the role reversal that the white forms made with the dark spaces through the course of the video, as the white shapes that were the centerpiece in the beginning became vital in highlighting the shadows, non-spaces and background in this virtual structure by the end.
"Diamond Lane" by Barbara Bloom 1981 Even though this trailer-for-a-movie-that-was-never-intended-to-be-made was filmed in 35mm, this piece still made its way into the institute's video art collection. The work offers a satirical and rather comical look into the art of audience manipulation by Hollywood execs. The dialogue is filled with suspense but no real content, the camera shots are edgy and fast, like the editing, and the work is possibly best described by Steetskamp herself as "totally nonsense."
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