Tate Modern Film

Video on Screen The Early Years in Europe Day Two

29 November 2024 at 18.30–20.15

Rúrí, Rainbow 1983, video still. Courtesy the Artist.

What does it mean to screen a work, made to be shown on a TV monitor, on a cinema screen?

Focusing on pioneering works produced in Europe (1960-1980), this two-day programme questions the possibilities that emerge from this distortion. These works were either made using synthesizers, largely designed for projection, or intended for television and shot on 16mm film.

Day two presents a series of works made for television, first filmed on 16mm and subsequently transferred to video.

Part of Tate Modern Lates on 29 November 2024. Tickets bookable from 14.00 on the day via the Tate Modern Lates page

Programme

On the CRT monitor at the entrance: Sanja Iveković Instructions No.1 1976. Video, black and white, sound, 6min
Looping on the cinema screen: Charlotte Johannesson Untitled 1981-1985. Digital computer graphics (slide show of 15 images)
Introduction by François Bovier
Martial Raysse Portrait Electro Machin Chose 1967. Video transferred to 16 mm, black and white, 9 min
Dieter Meier, One minute (Autoportrait) 1969. 16 mm
Helena Almeida, Ouve-me 1979. Super 8 transferred to video, black and white, silent, 4 min
Pawel Kwiek, Studio situation or Video A 1973. Video, black and white, sound, 3 min
VALIE EXPORT, Facing a Family 1972. Video, black and white, sound, 4 min
Rúrí, Rainbow 1983. 16mm transferred to video, colour, sound, 1 min
Aldo Tambellini and Otto Piene, Black Gate Cologne: A Light Play 1968. Video, black and white, sound, 29 min
E. M. de Melo e Castro Roda Lume 1968. Video, black and white, sound, 2 min
Lecture by Laura Leuzzi, followed by a conversation with Rúrí

This two day programme focuses on early European video art. The works included were either made using synthesizers or intended for television and shot on film. In Europe, video technology first became accessible in the 1960s. Artists experimented freely with this, bridging the gap between the visual arts and other practices. Coming from backgrounds as diverse as performance, dance, music, painting, sculpture and film, they worked beyond and across media.

This second chapter presents a series of works made for television, first filmed on 16mm and later transferred to video.

In the first work, painter and sculptor Martial Raysse manipulates images, including the portrait of singer Zouzou. In his short 1 Minute produced for Swiss television, Dieter Meier presents a self-portrait against the backdrop of a talking clock while, in Portugal, Helena Almeida speaks about the constraints of women in a performance for the camera. Pawel Kwiek gives instructions to operators in a live performance for the Polish Television and VALIE EXPORT, working with the Austrian broadcasting company, deconstructs the role of television in family settings. Rúrí’s Rainbow documents a performance where a rainbow made of fabric is burnt. Two rare works close this programme. Otto Piene and Aldo Tambellini’s is considered the first large-scale television broadcast made by artists. It unfolds as a live event exploring light, participation and real-time transmission. Roda Lume is a lost video poem remade by E.M. de Melo e Castro.

Before and after each screening, Charlotte Johannesson's computer generated slides infiltrate the cinema. A monitor at the entrance shows Sanja Iveković’s Instructions I, which deviates the make-up act through a feminist self-portrait.

This two day programme has been curated with Stéphanie Serra and François Bovier
For more information visit: www.videoarteurope.com

François Bovier

François Bovier is a senior lecturer in the Film Studies department at the University of Lausanne and a research fellow at Lausanne University of Art and Design (Ecal). Cofounding editor of the film magazine Décadrages (Lausanne, 2003), he has written numerous articles on experimental cinema, militant and artists’ films in scholarly journals and books, recently publishing Lettrisme et cinéma: de la lettre au photogramme (Paris Expérimental, 2023). He co-directs the research programme Emergence of Video Art in Europe together with Grégoire Quenault.

Stéphanie Serra

Stéphanie Serra is a researcher and lecturer at the Ecole cantonale d'art de Lausanne. She studies artistic practices at the crossroad between literature, the moving image and contemporary art. After over ten years as curator for works on paper, she is currently preparing a Ph.D. on Jean-Luc Godard's commissioned projects (films, exhibitions, etc.) and taking part in the transnational program on the Multiple Emergences of Video Art in Europe.

Laura Leuzzi

Laura Leuzzi is a contemporary art historian and curator. She is the author of articles and essays in books and exhibition catalogues, with her research focused on early video art, European video art histories, art and feminism, and new media. She is also co-editor of several publications, including REWINDItalia. Early Video Art in Italy (2015) and EWVA European Women’s Video Art in the 70s and 80s (2019), Richard Demarco: The Italian connection (2022) and most recently Incite. Digital Art and Activism (2023). She has curated exhibitions, screenings and events in several venues in the UK, Switzerland and Italy. Currently, she is a Chancellor’s Fellow at Gray’s School of Art (Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen).

This event will be BSL interpreted.

You can enter via the Cinema entrance, left of the Turbine Hall main entrance, and into the Natalie Bell Building on Holland Street, or into the Blavatnik Building on Sumner street. The Starr Cinema is on Level 1 of the Natalie Bell Building. There are lifts to every floor of the Blavatnik and Natalie Bell buildings. Alternatively, you can take the stairs. There is space for wheelchairs and a hearing loop is available. All works screened in the Starr Cinema have English captions.

Fully accessible toilets are located on every floor on the concourses.
A quiet room is available to use in the Natalie Bell Building on Level 4.
Ear defenders can be borrowed from the Ticket desks.

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