Tate Modern Film

Video on Screen The Early Years in Europe Day One

27 November 2024 at 18.30–20.15

Black and white static tv screen displaying the words 'ARTISTS VIDEO'

Front cover of Artists Video Exhibition Catalogue, 1976. Courtesy Brian Hoey and Wendy Brown

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 between 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.

Programme

On the CRT monitor at the entrance: Ketty La Rocca Appendice per una Supplica 1972. Open Reel transferred to video, black and white, silent, 9 min 30 secs
Looping on the cinema screen: Charlotte Johannesson Untitled 1981-1985. Digital computer graphics (slide show of 13 images).
Introduction by François Bovier
Livinus and Jeep van de Bundt Moiré 1970-75. Video, colour, sound, 6 min
Robert Cahen, L’invitation au voyage 1973. 16 mm transferred to video
Miha Vipotnik Video Grafike 1976-77. Video, colour, sound, 17 min
Nicolas Schöffer and Jean Kerchbron Variations luminodynamiques 1 1961. 16 mm transferred to video, black and white, sound, 9 min
Geneviève Calame Labyrinthes fluides 1976. Video, colour, sound, 9 min
Brian Hoey and Wendy Brown Flow 1977. Video, colour, sound, 16 min
Conversation between Brian Hoey, Stéphanie Serra and Valentina Ravaglia

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 first chapter offers an overview of works made using synthesizers. They open up a dialogue between art and music, and include kaleidoscopic visuals and sound experiments.

In Moiré, Livinus and Jeep van de Bundt merge abstract paintings with an electronic soundtrack. In L'invitation au voyage, artist Robert Cahen multiplies and transforms images. In his TV broadcast, Nicolas Schoffer distorts black-and-white images on the cathode-ray tube (CRT). Meanwhile, in Slovenia, Miha Vipotnik explores the potential of computer animation, creating a shifting visual tapestry. The programme concludes with two works that explore the notion of fluidity. Geneviève Calame’s Labyrinthes fluides uses the EMS Spectron synthesizer to create shapes and colours, while Brian Hoey and Wendy Brown’s work links the flow of water with an electronic flux of images through the use of Videokalos Image Processor.

Before and after each screening, Charlotte Johannesson's computer generated slides infiltrate the cinema. A monitor at the entrance of the cinema shows Ketty La Rocca’s hand choreography, Appendice di una supplica.

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.

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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