Media Forum 2010

Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF) is held since 1959 and gradually it has become one of most respectable and prestigious film-forums in the world. In 1973 MIFF was registered by the International Federation of Film-producers associations (FIAPF) as an «A» class film festival alongside with those in Berlin, Cannes, San-Sebastian, Karlovy Vary and Venice.

This is the 10 year Media Forum is organized as part of the Moscow International Film Festival. The role of new media in audiovisual art and culture received due recognition and Media Forum was immediately introduced into the official program of MIFF.

Media Forum is the first event of such scale in Russia and it reveals a new vision of the world of new media culture and new screen technologies to the professionals, critics and public in general. The objective of Media Forum is to demonstrate the connection between traditional and modern branches of screen culture, the impact of technological innovations on visual arts.

The programme was started in 2000 at an initiative of Aleksei Isaev, a well-known Russian media artist, curator and theorist of the new media, who founded and directed the Moscow MediaArtLab Centre.

"Contemporary screen culture finds opportunities for the most rapid, clear and actual reflexion to changes or alterations in viewer mentality. It defines this experience as avant-garde and progressive. Newest tendencies of contemporary culture connected with new technologies make it possible for us to describe this part of culture as possessing own content and audience. The audience is attracted by communicational art model, which allows for the viewers' interactive participation in the art work dramatic composition" (Aleksei Isaev)

Media Forum as action is an exchange of ideas, infusion of new forces into contemporary culture and vice versa. It is an attempt to demonsrtate the logic of new thought and new communications. At the moment it is inside media culture that new ideas go through trial and approbation, ideas that cannot be realized in contemporary art context.

The most avant-garde program of the Moscow International Film Festival, once again, gathers its fans. This year's program promises to be especially vivid and intense. We have invited artists from Japan, USA, Western, Eastern and Central Europe, the classics of video art and ultramodern sound-artists, the founders of the interactive art for the Internet, and those who particularly appreciate the live exchanges with the public.

This year, the Media Forum is planning to give the Moscow audience a most thorough introduction to the oeuvre of Gary Hill — one of the most renowned American video artists, one of the pillars who shaped the video-art of today as we know it. Classic videos of this artist will be shown at GMG Gallery and his workshop will take place at Garage Center for Contemporary Culture.

Trendy net artists JODI are responsible for Media Forum parties, and if you know something about net.art, explanation of who they are just isn't necessary. This time around, they will arrange a live performance at Solyanka club. Also, the best works selections from PRIX Ars Electronica, Transmediale, PIKSEL and Japan Media Arts Festival will be shown in the club format.

One of the main events of this year — the Transitland retrospective of video art from Central and Eastern Europe spanning from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the present day. There will be events in various formats for this project. For those who like to browse leisurely through artworks returning to see missed parts or favorites again, there will be an exhibition at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art. Those who prefer movie theatres will be able to attend screenings at the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture. The whole program is divided into three thematic video selections, which will be shown separately. Those who appreciate personal conversations with the artists will enjoy the workshops of Anri Sala and Egon Bunne.

The panel discussion will bring together critics and art historians, who won't miss the opportunity to express their opinions about video art after the fall of the Berlin Wall. However, those members of our audience who would like to get a thorough impression of the project, shouldn't miss any of these events: different video works will be shown at each venue.