video feature
Cologne
TENRI
AVE’01
artvideoKOELN – audiovisual experiences
Already in autumn 2014, Wilfried agreed the collaboration with TENRI – German-Japanese Cultural Centre in Cologne, quite an unusual space for audiovisual art. The event was scheduled for one day like a festival – using the entire space at the gallery on different levels. For this occasion Wilfried released an open call for submissions, in order to present most recent videos, complemented by a feature of Cologne based artists and the partner Festivals – ADAF – Athens Digital Arts Festival, VideoBabel – Audiovisual Art Festival Cusco and Now & After Videoart Festival Moscow.
In order to be not solely responsible for programming, Wilfried invited the director of TENRI – Yoshiro Shimizu, one of the collaborating audiovisual artists – Kai Welf Hoyme and himself as the coordinating curator as a jury. This was really an excellent idea, because the director of TENRI had to identify himself not only with the event but also the individual videos, selected for participating. For TENRI realising the event is a challenge because the cultural centre had so far not yet realized such a comprehensive presentation-exhibition of videoart – and differently than the usual program – the topic of AVE’01 is primarily not related to Japanese culture, but Wilfried decided to relate at least the entries of screening programs to Japan, respectively Far East.
The event consists of a combination of different representation formats – screening-projection and installation (on monitors) – and so a complex combination of different hardware and software was needed to be provided. One challenge was following the other, because the technical installation was really an issue and there was only one technician (half professional-half amateur) available. Therefore the installation took much more time while Wilfried was losing his nerves, because at a certain moment, divers present persons did what they wanted and in the end nothing worked and all had to be re-installed. Wilfried had just a supervising position, but as the curatorial brain, he was happy when deep at late night (15 May) the installation was finished and all hardware was working, at least at this very moment.
So today, the event is taking place and the opening is scheduled for 19h local time. Wilfried hopes, that the Cologne people will not punish this event via their absence like they usually do. People in Cologne have a typical kind of cultural arrogance: events and their organisers have to work really hard for several years, before the snobbish audience appears sometimes after many years, and this is the first event of that kind @ Tenri!