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16 Mar, 2010
For Russian Newsweek by Anna Nemtsova
Russia's unprecedented exhibition of multimedia documentary storytelling projects was launched in Moscow. This is what journalism of the future will be like.
It all started as long as 10 years ago. The Washington Post/Moscow bureau journalists were told to buy cameras and to accompany their contributions with self-made photographs. Photographer Paul Miller was told: Sorry, mate, the newspaper has no money to pay you for your work.
This is roughly when at the Visa pour l'Image, the premier International Festival of Photojournalism held in Perpignan, France, photographs got vocal: in a nightly photo slideshow the viewers were treated to the voices of the protagonists and to the interviews recorded by the photographers. About four years ago our New York Times correspondents were already busy video recording their interviews. At last, Newsweek duly equipped the studios in its new New York office for video recording and acquired cameras for its reporters.
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Encounters with the [Un]familiarRussia's unprecedented exhibition of multimedia documentary storytelling projects was launched in Moscow. This is what journalism of the future will be like.
It all started as long as 10 years ago. The Washington Post/Moscow bureau journalists were told to buy cameras and to accompany their contributions with self-made photographs. Photographer Paul Miller was told: Sorry, mate, the newspaper has no money to pay you for your work.
This is roughly when at the Visa pour l'Image, the premier International Festival of Photojournalism held in Perpignan, France, photographs got vocal: in a nightly photo slideshow the viewers were treated to the voices of the protagonists and to the interviews recorded by the photographers. About four years ago our New York Times correspondents were already busy video recording their interviews. At last, Newsweek duly equipped the studios in its new New York office for video recording and acquired cameras for its reporters.
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15 Mar, 2010
For Vostok Inform by Karina Abdousalamova
A multimedia breakthrough in the field of arts, so widely spoken over by contemporary scientific minds, to me it appeared as something similar to a casual scholastic doctrine, that is, completely irrefutable in theory and totally obscure on practice. Naturally, video installations have become an inherent part of most contemporary exhibitions, but from my point of view they were some kind of appendixes rather than independently standing objects of art. There was this never-ending art-tinted mockery, providing the audience with some impalpable puns, video collages of Ter-Oganyan-ish characters running wild and naked across the snow howling at the moon lines from Mandelshtam, or abstractions from cartoons, or some eye-torturing late von-Trier-style pieces all that rich insanity, supported by rustling, gnashing, whistling sounds from the speakers, all that, repeated on and on from one show to another, so that finally our general public was convinced that this is what the multimedia era is supposed to look like.
And thats where under the flags of Projections of Reality this dogma cracked and came all apart at the seams. The real breakthrough happened at Red October ex-chocolate factory, where the smelly stairways lead towards the beautiful distanced and promised lands of the multimedia revolution.
Projections of Reality show is infinitely far from both kitschy bombast and therapeutic satire of modern art ideology. And it is surprisingly close to the real life, a rare case where the wealth of art is contained in its action, not in grandiloquent manifests.
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Chocolate Coated NegativeA multimedia breakthrough in the field of arts, so widely spoken over by contemporary scientific minds, to me it appeared as something similar to a casual scholastic doctrine, that is, completely irrefutable in theory and totally obscure on practice. Naturally, video installations have become an inherent part of most contemporary exhibitions, but from my point of view they were some kind of appendixes rather than independently standing objects of art. There was this never-ending art-tinted mockery, providing the audience with some impalpable puns, video collages of Ter-Oganyan-ish characters running wild and naked across the snow howling at the moon lines from Mandelshtam, or abstractions from cartoons, or some eye-torturing late von-Trier-style pieces all that rich insanity, supported by rustling, gnashing, whistling sounds from the speakers, all that, repeated on and on from one show to another, so that finally our general public was convinced that this is what the multimedia era is supposed to look like.
And thats where under the flags of Projections of Reality this dogma cracked and came all apart at the seams. The real breakthrough happened at Red October ex-chocolate factory, where the smelly stairways lead towards the beautiful distanced and promised lands of the multimedia revolution.
Projections of Reality show is infinitely far from both kitschy bombast and therapeutic satire of modern art ideology. And it is surprisingly close to the real life, a rare case where the wealth of art is contained in its action, not in grandiloquent manifests.
read more
11 Mar, 2010
For Kommersant Daily by Valentin Diakonov
The Projections of Reality exhibition has opened at the Chocolate Hall, Red October Factory. Objective Reality Foundation prepared this exhibition with the support of the US Embassy and the Ford Foundation. Eight US photographers and fourteen photographers from Europe and Asia showcase their video installations focusing on the world's hot spots and on its most challenging regions. Valentin Diakonov has visited this exhibition.
This project was fully prepared by a Russian team with the help of James Wellford, a guest curator, senior photo editor of the US Newsweek. It should break through the rigid format of reportage and turn photography into something bigger by using additional bonuses like video, text and interviews. At best, it will turn photographs into works of art, in the worst case scenario into theme-specific slideshows whereby one can sense a human being behind the camera and get a clearer idea of the questions she/he poses to the reality filmed and why. Photojournalism has long become an essentially anonymous genre and we are exceedingly less interested in the photographer's personal genius. There has to be some good reason for the photographer's choice. This reason is usually labeled as project or concept.
The theme of this exhibition is Encounters with the [Un]Familiar. In a huge and a pretty uncomfortable space architect Fedor Dubinnikov, a recent winner of the Avant-Garde Award as the best young architect in Russia, has built an exhibition village of cubicles and partitions of different sizes. The mood and spirit in this nearly urban space are very diverse.
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A Glimpse of Simple Reality through New MediaThe Projections of Reality exhibition has opened at the Chocolate Hall, Red October Factory. Objective Reality Foundation prepared this exhibition with the support of the US Embassy and the Ford Foundation. Eight US photographers and fourteen photographers from Europe and Asia showcase their video installations focusing on the world's hot spots and on its most challenging regions. Valentin Diakonov has visited this exhibition.
This project was fully prepared by a Russian team with the help of James Wellford, a guest curator, senior photo editor of the US Newsweek. It should break through the rigid format of reportage and turn photography into something bigger by using additional bonuses like video, text and interviews. At best, it will turn photographs into works of art, in the worst case scenario into theme-specific slideshows whereby one can sense a human being behind the camera and get a clearer idea of the questions she/he poses to the reality filmed and why. Photojournalism has long become an essentially anonymous genre and we are exceedingly less interested in the photographer's personal genius. There has to be some good reason for the photographer's choice. This reason is usually labeled as project or concept.
The theme of this exhibition is Encounters with the [Un]Familiar. In a huge and a pretty uncomfortable space architect Fedor Dubinnikov, a recent winner of the Avant-Garde Award as the best young architect in Russia, has built an exhibition village of cubicles and partitions of different sizes. The mood and spirit in this nearly urban space are very diverse.
read more
05 Mar, 2010
By combining latest media technologies with art for the sake of telling human stories, a multimedia exhibition kicks off at Krasny Oktyabr factorys "Chocolate workshop on Friday.
The curator of the project, Liza Faktor, says that displaying classical art in a new media format is "a risky experiment not only in domestic, but also in the international exhibition context".
- Russia Today TV report
Our Reality: Catch an Objective Glimpse of Global AffairsThe curator of the project, Liza Faktor, says that displaying classical art in a new media format is "a risky experiment not only in domestic, but also in the international exhibition context".
- Russia Today TV report
04 Mar, 2010
Each work in Encounters with the (Un)familiar is meant to bring the viewer directly into the world captured by the artist, creating cross-cultural discourse. The substance of the documentary materials is often jarring, but the exhibition should serve its purpose in enlightening the audience.
- Emma Cafferty, Element
- Emma Cafferty, Element
