LOOP Talks 2017: VIDEOTAPED—conversations on early video art

Talks’ registration form

As an in-depth contribution to the “contemporary archaeology of video” prompted by the Festival, the LOOP Talks will provide a current reading of early video art. Eminent pioneering artists will be in dialogue with curators of peer and younger generations, so to establish formal and conceptual connections between the past and present and explore the influence of avant-garde artistic proposals on contemporary production.

Just like today’s artist films and videos often prompt reflection on modern technologies and modes of communication, in the sixties and seventies they reflected the desire on the part of their makers to radically redefine the experience imposed by television, and carry out a cultural and technological research through the potentiality of an accessible and communitarian medium. 

Besides triggering the creation of brand-new technical equipment (such as artist-crafted synthesizers and processors), these early proposals took on various forms that ranged between conceptual and feminist performances recorded on analogue tape, experiments with video signals, the color and effects permitted by editing and post-production, and sharp documentaries on the counterculture deriving from the complex historical events taking place at the time. 

The practitioners invited to personally revive the debate, and those evoked by expert curators in their presentations, will all be featured in the Festival’s selection, so to provide a well-rounded overview of the historical and artistic panorama taken into consideration. Five of them will showcase video installations or single channel projections in VIDEO REWIND, one of the program’s key proposals throughout the city, whilst Andy Warhol and Nam June Paik will be dedicated a monographic selection at Can Trinxet and the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, respectively. 

Sessions and speakers

Thursday, May 25
9:30am: Registration at the Fair’s welcome desk 

10–11:15am: artists Steina & Woody Vasulka in conversation with curator Kristin Scheving (Head of Vasulka Chamber, National Gallery of Iceland) and researcher and theoretician Don Foresta (MARCEL) 

11:15am–12:30pm: artist Mary Lucier in conversation with independent curator Berta Sichel

Friday, May 26
10–11:15am: artist Beryl Korot in conversation with curator Neus Miró (Wolverhampton Art Gallery, UK)

11:15am–12:30pm: artist Muntadas in conversation with Niels Van Tomme (Director, De Appel, Amsterdam) 

12:30–1:45pm: artist Chip Lord in conversation with curator Steve Seid (Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley) 

2–3:30pm: Closing session and aperitivo with Vincent Fremont (President of Vincent Fremont Enterprises, Inc)

5–6:30pm: “Nam June Paik–Radical Videos”—Jin-suk Suh (Director, Nam June Paik Art Centre, Seoul) in conversation with curator Menene Gras (Head of Culture and Exhibitions, Casa Asia, Barcelona).This session will be hosted by Casa Asia. 

Please note, the program might be subject to changes. Check our website for updates.

Tickets for the LOOP Fair & Talks can be purchased at the venue or online. Early birds for online purchases will be available up until April 30. Fill in this registration form, and information on the payment will follow.