WATERPIECES 2023

Continuing more than 20-year-long tradition, the art center NOASS will turn the AB dambis into the epicenter of the moving image this summer as part of the International Contemporary and Video Art Festival WATERPIECES.

The 23rd Contemporary Video Art Festival Waterpieces took place from 19th of July to 2nd of August in Riga, Latvia. Organised by the Arts centre NOASS, the festival programme included video and experimental film screenings from international artists, unfolding in three events with a focus on animation, experiment, and solidarity practices.

In collaboration with Ars Electronica (Austria), Oberhausen on Tour (Germany), EXiS Experimental Film & Video Festival (Korea), MADATAC (Spain). 

JULY 19TH | Video Art and Animation | WATERPIECES ’23

Image: Josef Ibrahim, Nico Hartl, Philipp Hackl, Alexander Wilhelm, Patrick Proier (c) Ars Electronica

19.00

Ars Electronica Animation Festival on Tour, Electronic Theatre featuring:

  • Anxious Body, Yoriko Mizushiri, Japan, Prix Ars Electronica 2022 / Award of Distinction / 05:49
  • Tartarus, Mariano Ferández Russo, Argentina / Prix Ars Electronica 2022 / Honorary Mention / 02:38
  • Radicalization Pipeline, Theoklitos Triantafyllidis, Greece / Prix Ars Electronica 2022 / Honorary Mention / 03:09
  • The Crow, Glenn Marshall, UK / Prix Ars Electronica 2022 / Honorary Mention / 03:00
  • Very, Very, Tremendously, Guangli Liu, China / Prix Ars Electronica 2022 / Honorary Mention / 12:12
  • When fox and rabbit say goodnight, Finn Stevenhagen, the Netherlands / Prix Ars Electronica 2022 / Honorary Mention / 20:29 

Based on the computer animation category of the Prix Ars Electronica international competition, animated pictorial worlds have been a cornerstone of the Ars Electronica Festival and have been discussed and presented in various forms ever since. Since 2005, the Ars Electronica Animation Festival has been bringing together a multifaceted program at the intersections of animation, art and technology. 

The Electronic Theatre is the annual best-of program, a compilation of outstanding animated films, chosen by the jury from the submitted works in the category Computer Animation. The selection showcases current productions in terms of artistic content, as well as cultural and technological innovation.

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20:30

Oberhausen on Tour, Award Winner 2022 Programme featuring:

  • 73, Meshy Koplevitch, Israel / 2021 / Colour, Hebrew with English subs, 13:30
  • YON (Call Me Jonathan), Bárbara Lago, Argentina / 2021 / Colour, Spanish with English subs, 08:00
  • Weathering Heights, Hannah Wiker Wikström, Sweden / 2021 / Colour, Swedish/Finnish with English subs, 30:00
  • Feriado (Holiday), Azucena Losana, Argentina / 2021 / B&W, Portuguese with English subs, 02:00
  • ŃEALE AZBUIRĂTOARE (FLYING SHEEP), Alexandra Gulea, Romania, Germany / 2022 / Colour, B&W, Romanian with English subs, 24:00

This programme includes many important award winners from the two International and German Competitions of the 2022 Festival. The selection is opened by Meshy Koplevitch’s 73, which, in a mixture of memory, history and personal reflection, shows a young woman recounting her father’s experiences during the Yom Kippur War. The filmmaker uses watercolours to reconstruct memories of her father. In YON, an unembellished version of one’s own family and childhood is told, taking a completely unsentimental look at home movies.Weathering Heights overcomes the notion that there is a difference between science fiction and our lived reality by condensing the difficulty of communication in a world still suffering from the effects of a global pandemic. The film was awarded the Grand Prize of the City of Oberhausen. Feriado by Azucena Losana creates a hypnotic world that artistically challenges common narratives. Alexandra Gulea’s ŃEALE AZBUIRĂTOARE (FLYING SHEEP), awarded the Prize of the German Competition, interweaves visual and acoustic material to create a multi-layered narrative about a nomadic minority that becomes the plaything of surrounding powers

JULY 26TH | Video Art and Experiment | WATERPIECES ’23

Image: Terrain Behind The Eyes, Sohee Kim, 2021, EXiS Experimental Film & Video Festival

19:00

Images’ Terrain, Mark, Contrasts, and Scope:

Recent Experimental Film and Moving Images from South Korea. 

  • # 3_2, Jae-kyu Byun, Korea / 2018 / Color, sound, 04:05
  • Cell Scope (Šūnu mērogs), Heesue Kwon, Korea / 2020 / Color, sound, 06:30
  • Land Mark (Apskates objekts), Hyeju Sohn, Korea / 2022 / Color, B&W, sound, 18:00
  • Now and There, Here and Then (Tagad un tur, šeit un tagad), Sun Park, Korea & UK / 2018 / Color, sound, 11:51
  • Terrain Behind the Eyes (Apvidus aiz acīm), Sohee Kim, Korea / 2021 / Color, 5.1 ch, 15:36
  • Contrast of Yours (Tavs kontrasts), Eun-hee Lee, Korea / 2017 / Color, B&W, sound, 15:43

The core aspect and fundamental methodology shared by the films in this program is observation and thinking about the state of images. These works, which closely explore how images reflect and construct reality and the invisible conditions for it, raise questions about our way of looking at images, while conversely making us think how images see us. Images that operate as information, as senses, and sometimes as images of the inner world repeat production-reproduction and vary as a fluid state in which a single explanation is impossible. In that sense, it is clear that the selected works are contemporary, but at the same time, it is necessary to consider how long the questions raised by these works will remain valid.

All films in this program are selected from the previous editions of Experimental Film and Video Festival in Seoul (EXiS).

Experimental Film and Video Festival in Seoul, a.k.a EXiS, was founded in 2004 by Moving Image Forum in order to screen experimental films and artists’ moving images that explore the unknown forms and territories of cinema. We value artists’ films made with an original vision that take challenges and aesthetic adventures. We are one of the few places in Asia that still screen works of many important artists who work with celluloid film.

EXiS celebrates the 20th anniversary of the festival in 2023.

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20:30

Spanish Video Art Programme

  • Memoria del desprendimiento (Detachment Memory), Albert Merino, Spain / 2021 / 18:00
  • Engranaje (Gear), Isabel Perez del Pulgar, Spain / 2022 / 07:05 
  • Los árboles de la creación (The trees of creation), Fernando Malmierca, Spain / 2020 / 06:18 
  • Tejer un cuerpo_estudio (Weaving a body_étude), Úrsula San Cristóbal, Spain / 2022 / 06:07 
  • Gabinete De Los Bodegones Imposibles (Cabinet of Impossible Still Lifes), Juan Carlos Sánchez Duque, Spain / 2021 / 09:34
  • Nadie en las abuelas (No One In The Grandmothers), Teresa Tomás, Spain / 2022 / 02:45 
  • Bio-Digital-Media-Philia, Iury Lech, Spain / 2021 / 05:00 
  • entrEEspecies (Between Species), Laura & Sira Cabrera, Spain / 2021 / 09:16 

Curated by Iury Lech

MADATAC (International Exhibition of Audiovisual Digital New Media Art & Contemporary Technologies) bridges artistic relations and collaborations dedicated to give visibility, divulge, stimulate the creativity and productive capacity, to strengthen the sustainability of experimental audio-visual and new media art in all its modalities, with the aim to offer a platform for all those emerging video artists, as well as to the consecrated artists, who contribute with renewing proposals, avoid conventional creative languages and does not find their place in other mass media spaces. 

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21:30 

Oberhausen on Tour: Art and Experiment

  • Perforated Realities, Gustaf Broms, Sweden / 2021 / colour, no dialogue, 16:30
  • you cannot trust the colours, Katrin Winkler, Germany / 2021 / colour, English, 16:00
  • It grew fur again, lost it, developed scales, lost them, Gitte Villesen, Denmark / 2021/ colour, English, 23:30
  • Grandma’s Scissors, Erica Sheu, USA/Taiwan / 2021 / colour+bw, German/English, 05:30
  • Dancen (To Dance), Corina Andrian, Romania / 2021 / colour, no dialogue, 16:00

This year’s Artist and Experiment programme assembles some of the most intriguing filmmakers who are currently working in the field of tension between film and art. At the beginning, Gustaf Broms asks in Perforated Realities how the Covid-19 virus could shake the foundation of an idea of civilisation. Katrin Winkler uses private footage of missionaries who accompanied colonisations in Africa to address the question of how the colouring came about and how it is shaped by power structures through different colonising actors.It grew fur again, lost it, developed scales, lost them by Gitte Villesen is an essay film that explores two ideas that emerged from two works of feminist science fiction. In Grandma’s Scissors, filmmaker Erica Sheu connects with her grandmother and her grandmother’s craft through her own. Finally, the dance film Dancen, shot in Wuppertal (Germany), looks at the fleeting impulses that live between individual moments of the day. The films in this programme provide an illuminating insight into the current state of media art.

AUGUST 2ND | Video Art and Solidarity | WATERPIECES ’23

Image: Strength and Freedom, Lydia Vladimirovna Starodubtseva, Elena Grigorivna Grigorieva, Ukraina, 2021

19.00

Oberhausen on Tour: Latin American Perspectives

  • Solidariedade (Solidarity), Fernanda Pessoa, Brazil / 2022 / Colour, Portuguese with English subs, 07:30
  • Cadê Heleny? (Searching Heleny), Esther Vital, Spain/Brazil / 2022 / Colour, B&W, Portuguese with English subs, 29:00
  • MONOLOGO DE UN SICARIO (Monologue of a Hitman), Nadia Granados, Colombia / 2021 / Colour, Spanish with English subs, 06:00
  • ( ( ( ( ( /*\ ) ) ) ) ) Echoes of the volcano, Charles Fairbanks/Saúl Kak, Mexico / 2019 / Colour, Spanish with English subs, 18:00
  • Strange Creatures, Cristina Sitja/Cristóbal León, Chile / 2019 / Colour, B&W, Spanish with English subs, 15:30

New productions from Latin America have recently been strongly represented at Oberhausen Festival. This selection takes a new look at the current political and social conditions on the continent. It starts with Solidariedade, in which images of a protest rally against the Bolsonaro government make visible gestures of resistance and oppression, but also of joy. Cadê Heleny? rewinds the story of the philosopher and theatre director Heleny Guariba, who disappeared under the dictatorship in Brazil in 1971, through embroidered and animated memories of her relatives. MONOLOGO DE UN SICARIO shows the contract killer in the world of Colombianisation as the lowest level on which an entire criminal structure is based.

In 1982 the indigenous Zoque community was forced to relocate due to a volcanic eruption. ( ( ( ( ( /*\ ) ) ) ) ) ) is the portrait of a village in Chiapas, Mexico, its culture, sounds and architecture. The film documents the modern challenges and world view of a community that is also under political pressure to preserve its land and rights.

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20:30 

Ukrainian Video Art Programme

  • Russiaisaterroriststate, Anastasia Dzyuba, Ukraine / 2022 / 02:00
  • Ukrainian Angel, Kai Colt, Ukraine / 2023 / 01:00 
  • Can You See Me?, Hanna Trofimova, Ukraine / 2022 / 01:25 
  • Flights Over The Fields, Oleg Shuplyak, Ukraine / 2020 / 06:35
  • Ter.Rain #792940945893489, Iury Potopalsky, Ukraine / 2021 / 03:57
  • Ritual Without A Name, Maria Proshkowska & Sergey Morgunov, Ukraine / 2021 / 03:28 
  • Strength & Freedom, Lydia Vladimirovna Starodubtseva & Elena Grigorivna Grigorieva, Ukraine / 2021 / 02:20
  • Mova Oborony, Oleksandr Isaenko, Ukraine / 2022 / 12:13
  • Amalgamation (Diptych), Oleksiy Yalovega, Ukraine / 2021 / 00:21 + 00:21 
  • The Sacrifice, Oksana Chepelyk, Ukraine, Italy / 2014 / 09:08. Soundtrack: Dakha Brakha, Andrea Fusaro

Curated by Iury Lech

All evening long

FemLink: Agression

Video composition unites 24 video artworks from 24 female artists in 24 countries. 

Artists: Evgenija Demnievska, Vouvoula Skoura, Luzia Simons, Viviana Berco, Hiroko Okada, Malinarich Sara, Evelin Stermitz, Ingrida Pičukāne, Sabine Mooibroek, Véronique Sapin, Maria Rosa Jijon, Tayeba Begum Lipi, Amaranta Sanchez, Eva Koch, C. M. Judge, Alessandra Arno, Tanja Koistila, Maria Dominguez Alba, Ana Grobler, Élaine Frigon, Alena Kupcikova, Mesrure Melis Bilgin, Seema Nusrat, Anna Titovets.