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September 24, 2004

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Live Cinema

This year Sonic Acts presents a special Live Cinema programme, in association with www.live-cinema.org.

"Live Cinema is a form of performance art in which a human performer manipulates sound and image in synergy through movement, for an audience. In the rapidly advancing field of Live Cinema there are a number of distinct movements, e.g. abstract synthetic cinema, graphic cinema and camera-based cinema. We will present a number of renowned performers from these areas in the small hall in Paradiso in a three-evening packed programme. The performances will be interspersed with interviews with the artists, and with a film and video programme specially compiled for Live Cinema organised in association with Martijn van Boven. A Sonic Acts Live Cinema special will be broadcast on television during VPRO’s Nachtpodium on Wednesday 22 September."

From the introduction to unsorted, SonicActsX: "An important traditional paradigm is the familiar distinction between art disciplines such as visual arts, music, dance, theatre and literature. Usually, the different works of information art are forced to fit within this classical categorisation model. This, however, provides us with a misleading image of the nature of the new arts. For instance, imagine two works of computer art, generated using largely similar algorithms. The first work has an aural output, the second results in visual forms. Then the first one will be labelled as music while the second will be called visual art. This might seem to be an arbitrary problem, but it becomes relevant when we realise that the infrastructures of, in this case, the musical world and the visual arts world operate in rather separated areas (art education, exhibition and performance spaces, criticism and analysis). Many of the interesting issues of (and between) artworks like these are being missed because they are positioned outside the current categorisation models." Read more.

So what is Live Cinema?

"So what exactly is Live Cinema? Live Cinema springs from new presentation forms, arising as a direct consequence of the advancing digitalisation of visual and sound technologies. The synthesis between sound and image is something a few artists already are putting to practice. While other artists hold ambitions in that direction, a platform/lab gathering know-how and the creative potential digital technologies are inscribed with, is still lacking. The technological backdrop of Live Cinema is one of daily technological innovation in the audio-visual field. The process of digitalisation is most developed in the realm of electronic (pop)culture, where equipment is compact, user-friendly and affordable. All these factors have led to a new artistic practice, where the usage of hardware, such as samplers and computers, have led to new artistic genres and ways to approach art.

It is for these new art forms that I seek fitting formats of presentation, whether theatrical, cinematic, interactive, or on DVD. Live Cinema is all about the "live" event, where artists collaborate and work towards a performance where different artistic disciplines are more than the sum of their parts. Fixed components are music (not soundtrack) and image projection (not traditional film). The eventual result is a unique art experience for the spectator. Each time, just as in theatre or at a concert, it is different." Hans Beekmans

Posted by jo at September 24, 2004 03:25 PM

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