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The Instants Vidéo defines itself as a festival dedicated to
electronic poetry. It is not a new form of art, in addition to video
and multimedia art. We call electronic poetry all new innovative process
of audiovisual and multimedia writing, what Deleuze used to say about
poetry: a language almost foreigner. It is here that we can find our
definition of multimedia, an art that is tainted, hybrid, in favour of
all kind of crossings and changes.
The Instants Vidéo are interested in new forms of writing and
in sensitive works of art: video art, multimedia installations,
performances, documentaries of creation. Every year in November, we organize
an international festival.
The Instants Vidéo welcome all the forms of audiovisual and multimedia
art, a large field continually in the move, in prey with thematic variations,
formal and technological.
Our screenings reflect this mobility, go beyond the traditional
limits between artistic disciplines and media and pay attention
to intermediate spaces: cinema, television, media arts and plastic arts.
Film, video, audio, installation and performance meet and interfere all
through a large variety of works, French and international
The Instants Vidéo do not organize any competition. We
aim to be a space of encounters, of discoveries, of
confrontations, of experimentations, of production of thought and friendship.
The Instants Vidéo like the works of art they show and the artists they
welcome. We discovered, fostered and promoted young artists.
The Instants Vidéo do not give a theme, but every year we give
a title to our manifestation like one does for a collection of poems: “Burn
your own patience”, “Resistance my sweet concern”, “(Seize)
The image round the waist”, “Under the sign of the Quetzal”…. Each
one of the artists can take it into account or not.
The Instants Vidéo pay attention to the audiences they welcome.
They are regarded as specta(c)tors of their destiny,
sovereign assemblies: the glance creates the works of art.
Thus, since our creation in 1988, we have been developing strategies
in order to allow a diversity of publics to have access to video and
multimedia art, having regard to the quick development of technologies
in the production and diffusion process.
In the beginning of our manifestation, video and multimedia creation
didn’t hold much interest from the institutions and not a close
attention from the audience.
This is why, when we decided to organize each year an international event
in the region PACA (Provence-Alpes-Côtes d’Azur), we also
started to lead activities to initiate the audiences:
artistic workshop in schools and associations, regular screenings in
the Region PACA, development of our partnership with the schools of Arts,
with Contemporary Art museums, with cultural structures.
The Instants Vidéo are Nomads. We travel the
world in quest of encounters that will transform us and we strongly developed
our local, national and international network
of partners (screenings, workshops, conferences…).
The Instants Vidéo are interested in the History of Arts provided
that it lead to think the present and the future, providing that it will
stimulate the contemporary creation. We like wandering memories.
The IV is a manifestation always on the move. We create
our route on our way, according to our desires, our encounters and also
technological mutations. We are in the mean time, resolute in our commitment
in favour of new artistic writings, and open to influences that can transform
us.
Broadcasting
The broadcasting function usually given to festivals
is obsolete if one doesn’t consider in the same time,
all the links in the chain: artist-machines-production-artwork-broadcast-audiences…Otherwise,
the festivals will have to reduce their activities and become only a
shop window of contemporary art (as it is for fashion), a market or a
cultural leisure park.
Our role should be:
- To facilitate the access to historic works of video
art, to unknown works (Middle East, South America, Balkans, Africa…),
and produce a critical reflection on them.
- To support the artists from the emergence of their
desire of creation of a work of art, to make it easier the
access to performing production tools, to contribute in
the research of financial support for production, to generate a critical
reflection on their project and then on the object produced, to
convince distributors to present the works in their catalogues
or to become the intermediary between artists and potential broadcasters.
- To find the maximal conditions of projection or exposition
of the works of art, in France and abroad.
- To set up the conditions of availability of the eyes
and attention of the audiences (we want to insist on the plural of the
word audiences, because our aim is indeed to allow publics that are generally
excluded from the artistic sphere, to discover this field of contemporary
imagination).
By refusing to specialise our manifestation as a shop window of electronic
and numeric arts, we imply that Les Instants Vidéo is a “committed” manifestation,
a commitment that aims to something else than transforming the artists
in vassals of an aesthetic or technologic fashion. On the contrary, we
believe that our duty lies in the listening of sensitive and fragile
experimentations.
The commitment also signifies that our association is not only an accountancy
organisation, a mechanic to select presentable works of art, but also
a strength force of production: production of works of arts, of critical
texts, of diversified experimentations, of workshops of artistic practices…
Education
The Instants Vidéo have always had a care for giving access to
video and multimedia art to the largest number of persons, organizing
workshop of thoughts and of creation. Our actions all together offer
a learning process (the history of video art, its different streams in
France, in Europe and on the other continents…) followed by an
experimental creation workshop that take into account the singularity
of the cultural, economical or political context of the environment where
it takes place.
Regularly, workshop of thoughts and artistic practices where led in Morocco
Universities or French Institutes (Casablanca, Agadir, Oujda, Fes…),
in the schools of arts of Zagreb and Split (Croatia), in the French Alliance
of Mar Del Plata (Argentina), in schools and colleges (Aubagne, Manosque…),
in local associations…. In partnership with Lieux Fictifs (Marseille)
and Les Yeux de l’ouie (Metz and Paris), we also followed our action
in jail.
Writing
Video and multimedia art are in continuous transformation, because of
technological innovations that generate new experimentations of writing,
and because of geo-political contexts in complete upheavals, on the
European as well as global scale. This context requires a careful examination
of the approaches and works of art resulting from this changes, and
a constant and detailed analysis of these works in order to draw some
relevant concepts.
Regularly, our association works with magazines like Bref (short films
agency), Il Paricolare (art and theory)….
In 2006, we published (with Incid 90) a book on the history and thoughts
on international video art based on the singular experience of our association: “Le
temps à l’oeuvre, f(r)iction” from
Marc Mercier.
Involved for 3 years (May 2004 to march 2007) in a European project (Culture
2000) called OASIS (internet saving and dissemination
of a large part of the history of European video art), our association
looked into its history asking two questions: what happened? and what
was thought? during 20 years.
This work on memory was also the subject of an historical, theoretical
and poetical database, Works of time-times at work, living archive
of 19 years of festival and encounters.
Production
Since 2004, our association (also forms with artists) is getting involved
in production or co-production of works of art (video art, documentary
of creation, video installation, net art).
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