Alternative Film/Video Research Forum 2015 (call for submissions)

The 2012 and 2013 research forums at Alternative Film/Video Belgrade resulted in the publication of the volume On Fragmentation (2014), edited by forum curator Greg de Cuir, Jr, which anthologized essays based on the various presentations delivered. This volume included work by Dirk de Bruyn, Miriam De Rosa, Bruce Posner, and others. After the 3^rd Alternative Film/Video Research Forum in 2014, focused on video art and including such participants as Xavier García Bardón and Katrin Mundt, we are now organizing the 4^th Research Forum. This one-day event (on 10 December) running concurrently with the festival (8-12 December 2015) will gather a group of curators, critics, artists, and researchers for an intimate encounter where presentations will be delivered and discussions held concerning alternative works of film, video, and new media art.

It remains relevant to discuss video as an artistic medium in this young 21^st century, though maybe not in terms of ‘video art’ and what this descriptive signified in the previous century. Digital video has been the lingua franca of moving images for many years now. In some cases we can speak of it as a constituent of new media art, but it is also possible that we are already at the dawn of another significant medium shift. Artists have long been using CGI in realizing their visions, and more recently they have been creating net art that exists online. However, critical studies still need to properly account for the use of webcams, mobile media, GIFs, and virtual reality in contemporary artistic practices. What are the museums and festivals of the future that will collect and exhibit the moving image art to come? What new strategies do curators need to employ to situate and present challenging works with discrete methods and tools? How do we negotiate a nonlinear art world shaped by rapidly-changing technologies? Whether new media, digital, postmedia, or other appellations that aspire to embrace current moments and objects, we want to investigate the contemporary practices in art and culture that lead the way to future modes of visual expression.

In 2015 the Alternative Film/Video Research Forum will look to explore and contextualize the emergence and development of new media art. However, we will not limit ourselves to the contemporary. We will also be interested in projecting the possibilities of future art practices through both critical deduction and creative contemplation. As such, we invite contributions on artists, aesthetics, technology, exhibitions, conservation, curation, and other subjects relevant to understanding experiments in 21^st century moving images.

We are accepting abstracts of 300 words along with short biographies of 150 words for consideration. Selected participants will be given support toward their accommodation in Belgrade but are asked to cover travel expenses on their own. Please forward inquiries and submissions to Greg de Cuir, Jr, selector/curator for Alternative Film/Video Belgrade, no later than 1 September 2015 at gdecuir@yahoo.com.

Alternative Film/Video Belgrade (Serbia) is a legendary international festival in the Balkans for new film and video expression and one of the oldest manifestations of its kind in Europe. It was founded in 1982 by festival director Miodrag Milošević as an antidote to commercial film and video-making and to support unconventional practices while celebrating moving image cultures. Alternative Film/Video Belgrade is organized by and hosted at Academic Film Center in Belgrade, which was established in 1958 as a ciné-club and where many iconic filmmakers worked, including Tomislav Gotovac, Živojin Pavlović, Radoslav Vladić, and others. Visit the website at www.alternativefilmvideo.org/.