A Quasar project arranged by KelleR – Center for Eksperimental Art and
the dvelopers BIZ-ArT, in collaboration with Vejle Museum of Art. Hanne Nielsen and Birgit Johnsen have curated the biennale, and are responsible for the concept and the exhibition.
Exhibition 8. November - 2. December
Festival days 9. - 11. November
On the 8th of November, the first Biennale for Video Art and Digital Culture opens in
Vejle. Machine-RAUM consists of an exhibition at the Vejle Museum of Art from the 8th of
November to the 2nd of December and includes a 3day festival from the 9th to the 11th of
November that will take place in part of Machine-RAUMs location at the Spinning Mills,
Vejle.
Machine-RAUM will present a broad spectrum of contemporary Danish and international
cutting edge artists working in this area. It offers interactive and performative works in
the urban space, screenings, artist-talks, and presentations by art- and design schools
from Denmark and Northern Germany and much else. The Biennale has been recognised
as a valuable contribution to the city’s art scene and is to be developed further as a
regional and nat ional platform for video art and digital culture.
The title Machine-RAUM signals both a focus on spatial works – thus RAUM – and that,
in principle, the Biennale embraces all art that involves machines and technology.
Machine-RAUM is at the same time tied to the future location of the Biennale – the
historic industrial Spinning Mills in Vejle Vestby – that house numerous raw and exciting
halls containing machines from the former mills. Finally the bilingual construction
emphasises the Biennales international and multicultural status.
Machine-RAUM examines video and digital arts potential in the light of human interaction
and dialogue, and will present works of contemporary significance that transcend social,
ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds. It will concent rate on digital medias
capablilities, and the development potential to be found in these new technologies and
artistic experiments.
During the festival days the exhibiting artists will present their work and artistic
practices. This will enable a sharing of experience and promote discussions between the
artists, art historians and art mediators. Students from the Art Academies and the
Schools of Design in Denmark and Germany will furthermore present and show their
work. Here one will have an opportunity to examine how the new generation views media
as innovative and interesting in relation to contemporary issues and artistic positions. These will all take place in a temporary, open auditorium in the Dyeing Hall at the
Spinning Mills, and the general public can thus meet the artists exclusively and discuss
the work at first hand.
This, the first Biennale, aims to present video art and digital cultures many-armed
potential to a broader art public, both in a historical and forward-looking perspective. A
special initiative in this direction will be a retrospective series of screenings of video art,
and there will be a video library where one can explore other works by the participating
artists and groups.
In an examination of the media and its possibilities for different forms of presentation,
the works will also take place and be presented in civic and non-museum spaces. During
the Festival Days various performative works will incorporate urban spaces and interact
with the city’s citizens. In keeping with Machine-RAUMs innovative spirit the
dissemination will avail itself of new digital possibilities in the field of communication. A
communicative, mediative work will, from a centrally placed computer, transmit
interviews, video, sound and image files from the festival to monitors in shops, business
offices, libraries in the area and further, to specifically chosen art- and cultural
institutions in Denmark. The mediative work will thus expand the Biennales geographical
horizon.
Machine-RAUM can be seen as a laboratory – a place where one allows art to unfold new
possibilities. To reinforce this concept, a number of chosen artists will be invited already
this year to participate in the next Biennale with a site-specific work for the city of Vejle.
In 2009 the Spinning Mills will be fully restored, 10.000 m2 in all, offering an optimal
framework for space-demanding video and media works, and furthermore facilitating the
placement of the Biennales head office here.
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