feature
20 years NewMediaFest
Prokuplje
Today 13 March 2001, Wilfried is launching NewMediaFest in order to expand the project of “A Virtual Memorial Foundation” through a festival context. Already in 2000, Wilfried Agricola de Cologne recognized that he needed an activity orientated platform complementing the content orientated one of “A Virtual Memorial”. At that time “new media” were dominating the news, also the art news, Wilfried was wondering if anybody had already reserved the domain of “newmediafest”, but not any extension of it was occupied. So, he knew, his Future was lying in the Future of unexpected developments to come and he registered “newmediafest.org” for a future platform of festival and other time based activities.
Via his own life, Wilfried had a particular “relation” to violence. Hardly established in 2000, Wilfried started collecting material of different kind related to the topic of “violence” – the world was riddled with violence – violence was forming the basis of human behaviour, private and global conflicts are the conditions for wars. He had plans already to start on “A Virtual Memorial Foundation” another collaborative project, he had prepared already an open call when he will get in contact with a festival in Czech Republic, named “Violens Festival” dealing with the topic of violence in “conventional” physical art media – besides performance orientated art also visual art in its different forms. 
The festival located in Tabor/Czech Republic will be enthusiastic about Wilfried’s idea to extend its existing physical festival with a virtual component based in Internet, so soon Wilfried will be working on the concept of “Violence Online Festival”. The preparations take a while, because Wilfried has to launch an open call und receive the submissions first before the concept can take shape as it can still be experienced online. It will be not completely by coincidence, when Wilfried will launch a new version of Violence Online Festival devoted to the aspect of “war” on 20 March 2003, the day when the Iraq War will start. Violence Online Festival is as current as ever!
The evolution of NewMediaFest will demand already in 2003 the launch of a new context related to “memory” – The [R][R][F] Project – Remembering-Repressing-Forgetting.
Also in this case, a physical event structure – “Interactiva – New Media Art Biennale in Merida/Mexico” will be the occasion to start this project in July 2003. Based on the concept to include external curators in order to display a variety of artistic and curatorial concepts in one project, Wilfried will be invited to prepare an new version of The RRF project for the Biennale of Electronic Art in Perth/Australia (BEAP) to take place in autumn 2004.
These new perspectives will be pushing Wilfried’s creativity forward, and he will present the divers project versions – leading to the final concept as it will be displayed later in Perth, starting in March 2004 @ MNAC – National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest/Romania to be followed by numerous festivals. The RRF Project will be finalized at the end of 2006 after its installation on 65 venues.
When Wilfried started on 1 January 2000 with his 1st project in Internet, for him nothing else existed. After the coma and the loss of his memory, he had no experience in art and the Internet offered to him to make his experiences. Although the acpects of collaborating, networking and curating were already fundamental by using the Internet, it will be actually NewMediaFest and the collaborative networking concept that is generating the conviction, that the Internet as a virtual, artistic platform is making sense only when it is juxtaposed with physical space, the exchange between physical and virtual space – that’s it!
The focus on the project development for BEAP will have far reaching consequences, because the next evolutionary step forward will change the priority from exclusively net based media, to media forms to be displayed in physical and virtual space alike. Wilfried will extract from The RRF Project – 
VideoChannel as an experimental curatorial platform for “art & moving images”, and as the next consequent step he will establish in 2005- CologneOFF – Cologne Online Film Festival, which will be shortly afterwards renamed to – CologneOFF – Cologne International Videoart Festival – a most successful enterprise during the next 10 following years.
The characteristics of these new activities are lying in the exchange bewteen virtual and physical space, while the festival program can be reviewed and experienced completely online, selections will be presented in physical space via the collaboration with networking partners worldwide. This way, the festival is getting a new meaning by offering the chances for a user/visitor to deepen and intensify the understanding for art.
Similiar to VideoChannel, Wilfried will extract from The RRF Project after 2004 also “SoundLAB – sonic art projects” releasing once a year a major sonic art project online to be presented in the physical context of festivals and media art exhibitions, as well.
In 2007, NewMediaFest 2007 will be an event context during the entire year including for the 1st time all media art platforms and projects in one, and on occasion of the 10th anniversary NewMediaFest2020 will follow in 2010 a similiar concept, as well as in 2011 CologneOFF 2011 which however will be solly focussed on “art & moving images” and a global collaboration.
As an event structure bearing the name “NewMediaFest”, “NewMediaFest” will always take a global view & review according to its basic concept, so it does NewMediaFest2020 as a retrospective.
Prokuplje/Serbia
CologneOFF 2012 Serbia –
1#minute Cologne — Cologne International Videoart Festival
@ International Short Film Festival ACTION II Prokuplje (Serbia)
13 March 2012
14 one minute films
Jack Brandman (Australia) – Nightlife, 2009, 1:00
Ron Diorio (USA) – Night Light, 2008, 1:00
Agricola de Cologne (Germany) – Burning Phantom, 2010, 1:00
Hervé Constant (UK)- 59 Steps (2006, 1:00)
Kika Nicolela (Brazil) – Windmaker, 2009, 1:00
Sahra Bhimji (USA) – “La Ghost”, 2008, 1:00
Sreedeep (India) – 1 minute crash-course on SEDUCTION, 2009, 1:00
Antti Savela (Sweden) – Mother, 2007, 1:00
Nitin Das (India) – Benefits of War, 2008, 1:00
István Rusvai (Hungary) – Pass, 2009, 1:00
Johanna Reich (Germany) – Blast, 2008, 1`00,
Alison Beda (USA) – Just a Minute (2008, 1:00)
Sonja Vuk (Croatia) – My way, 2005, 1:00
Kriss Salmanis (Latvia) – The Shower, 2007, 1:00
