Video Digest
An Online Video Art Magazine by Videonale and IMAI – Inter Media Art Institute
Online from 24.11.2023
Exhibition: 25.11.-10.12.2023 / Opening: 24.11.2023 | Moltkerei Werkstatt Cologne
With Video Digest, the Videonale Bonn and the IMAI – Inter Media Art Institute Düsseldorf presented an online video art magazine and an associated research and exhibition project at the Moltkerei Werkstatt, Cologne, complemented by the concurrent program series VIDEONALE.scope.
The Video Digest project began with an interest in Video Congress’ video magazine Schauinsland which is located in the archives of the IMAI – Inter Media Art Institute. Video Congress was founded in Kassel in 1982 as a loose association of video artists in the wake of documenta 7. Wishing to work on related themes in a collaborative manner, to establish infrastructures for the young medium of video, and to simultaneously initiate a self-determined system of distribution for their works, the artists in this group worked with VHS tapes, each comprising several video contributions, which could be independently circulated, presented, and shared. The initiators were inspired by the first video art magazine entitled Infermental, which developed just a few years earlier by Gábor and Vera Bódy. Between 1980 and 1991, ten issues of Infermental, featuring international, contemporary video art, were published by changing editors and with different thematic focuses. While Schauinsland was more linked to youth culture and punk and new wave aesthetics and the contributions of the various collectives were at times intertwined, Infermental strengthened the idea of an encyclopedia[1] seeking to portray current video experiments in all their diversity. The third video magazine included in the project is the Amsterdam-based Zapp Magazine with “branches” in New York, Paris, London, and Copenhagen. It operated a decade later than the other two and succeeded in once again redefining the format of the video magazine as an independent space of art, critique, and documentation.
The issues published from 1993 to 1999 did not only present video art, but also featured recordings of openings, lectures, and performances, which in their relaxed DIY aesthetics conveyed a polyphonic picture of the international art scene.
Despite structural and formal differences, these three video magazines share a particular political awareness showing itself both in the themes and the way they self-organized and distributed their work. Video Congress, for example, captioned their first issue with the motto: “Für eine aktive Art Video” (“For an active art video” and the editors of Infermental also adopted a decidedly political tone by addressing the simmering East-West conflict.
Video Digest, initiated by the Videonale and the IMAI – Inter Media Art Institute, took up these impulses and from a present perspective examined the resistive potential of moving images through a series of dialogically presented contemporary works. The newly commissioned videos, performances, and zines by Ji Su Kang-Gatto, Ayesha Hameed, Becket MWN, Rangwane, and Leyla Yenirce (in collaboration with Mazlum Nergiz) make use of diverse languages and strategies of protest and mobilization—but also of resignation—and reflect on a current video landscape shaped by video on demand, smart TVs, YouTube/Youku, TikTok, and Instagram.
Alongside new productions, the Video Digest exhibition presented the fourth issue of Infermental edited by FRIGO (Gérard Couty, Mike Hentz, Christian Vanderborght) with 102 contributions; issue one of Schauinsland entitled Erotik with contributions by Gruppe A & A, Fun & Art and Norbert Meissner; and issue six of Zapp Magazine, produced and curated by Corinne Groot, Jack Jaeger, Arnold Mosselman, and Rob van de Ven. They were set in an exhibition architecture by Lennart Wolff and were joined by a program of screenings and performances.
Curators: Miriam Hausner, Nele Kaczmarek, Tasja Langenbach
Konzept:Tasja Langenbach, Linnea Semmerling
Location:
Moltkerei Werkstatt Cologne
Moltkestraße 8
50674 Cologne
Programm
Video Digest: Exhibition Opening + Performance Becket MWN
The opening takes place from 6 - 10pm.
Video Digest: Reading and Talk with/by Leyla Yenirce and Mazlum Nergiz
Video Digest: Binge Watching Infermental #4
We cordially invite you to our joint bingewatching of the video art magazine Infermental 4
7 hours, 7 chapters, 102 videos that create an endless flood of images. Together we will watch Gábor and Vera Bódy's project, which was published in 1980 as the first international video cassette magazine, on a large screen. The aim was to capture the latest developments in video art and make them accessible. The range of topics included early experiments in the field of performance, video and action art.
From 4 pm (until approx. 11 pm) -> Join any time you like
We look forward to interesting conversations over tea and Glühwein and to meeting Mike Hentz from FRIGO.
Video Digest: Finissage
The closing event takes place. from 3-7pm.
Fri, 24.11.2023
The opening takes place from 6 - 10pm.
Sat, 25.11.2023
Sat, 09.12.2023
We cordially invite you to our joint bingewatching of the video art magazine Infermental 4
7 hours, 7 chapters, 102 videos that create an endless flood of images. Together we will watch Gábor and Vera Bódy's project, which was published in 1980 as the first international video cassette magazine, on a large screen. The aim was to capture the latest developments in video art and make them accessible. The range of topics included early experiments in the field of performance, video and action art.
From 4 pm (until approx. 11 pm) -> Join any time you like
We look forward to interesting conversations over tea and Glühwein and to meeting Mike Hentz from FRIGO.
Sun, 10.12.2023
The closing event takes place. from 3-7pm.