by Dragan Zivancevic
selection committee member

There are certain points which can be positively determined as most crucial in every history, let alone history of the new media, more precisely - history of artistic video. Video art as an form of artistic expression begins it's life during early sixties of previous century, in circumstances which are not only marked with social turmoils, student mass movements, increasing dissatisfaction with order of things, but a very fast technological development in a field of television also. Quick spreadout of this media throughout the world has not failed to catch the attention of the artists, which acted pragmatically and contextually in the best manner of Duchamp and Fluxus and accepted and investigated the possibilities of the new media.

In its early beginnings, there were video sculptures, fascinations with TV sets as an objects, with total denial of their proper function and their reverse to a new purpose, thus emitting the message that clearly drew the line between fetish/indoctrination and humanistic teachings. Video art is later being developed throughout numerous forms of expression: Video works, performances, installations, interactive works and the ones that carry new forms of narration. Thanks to the accessibility of the technique, the very idea of the video, being an autonomous form that quickly spreads the message and communicates in the way of modern man - was accepted in the broadest sense, so one inevitably tends to make a parallel with naive (primitive), folk or margin art (outsider art). Namely, documenting and recording is not only a thing that artists do: recognized as influential and efficient way of communication, Video becomes a mighty weapon in the hands of the activists, political non conformists, disprivileged groups or simply the ones that fight for rights of consumers. And this is exactly where the sincere, vital strength of this media lies and therefore proves that successful work of art can be rendered somewhere elsewhere of elitistic circles. And the struggle against television served narrow-mindedness may commence.
At the same moment, facile observers regard Video as something of the derived nature, some side-product of movie industry, and that is far fetched from the actual truth - because, even if they are acting in similar fashion and are both addressing to the broad audience, they're not actually using the same language. In short, one can say that the Video is everything that movie can't be! In one domestic movie of the recent origin, there is one question posed - what would Dziga Vertov do if he were, by some miracle, in the possession of today's small digital camcorders. Personally, I think that would not be a big, hyper-jump for the great artist such as Dziga Vertov is; I think that the right question would be to ask how many more glorious names would be on the pages of modern history of the film (video)? The end of monopoly on the technology does not always bring to the flourish of the geniuses - because they ran scarce in every epoch (lesson from history), but it bring to an general democratisation of society and - why not - hope that the miracles are possible.
But, let me return to the one of those most crucial points from the history of the Video, a romanced urban legend, which says that Nam June Paik, in the distant year of 1965, forty years ago, dropped by a 580 Fifth Ave., New York, 10036 N.Y. and decided, rightfully, to invest his money into the revolutionary Sony Portapak system. But let us be most precised: Sony VCK-2000 Video Camera Kit (Optional Accessories: Telephoto lens, New Angle lens, Camera Cables).

It is not known who purchased this popular model in those days, directed at the broadest segment of TV equipment market - common man, but it seems to be certain that Nam June Paik made a best deal of it among them all; his first shooting, and we know for sure that he couldn't have had too much of the experience in handling portable camcorder, must have been a video performance of its own. If we, thus, speak of the motive which has compelled him to make that shot in that long gone year, then it's worth making a parallel: on Paik footage is Pope Paul VI on his visit to New York; that same evening, in a cosy atmosphere of Cafe A Go Go, Nam June Paik excitedly shows his friends the takes that he took throughout the windows of the yellow cab ... Pope on the Fifth avenue!!! Who else, beside official TV crews, recorded this event? Rome, April 2005. Exactly four decades later, through our TV screens we watch the funeral of Pope John Paul II and, while united representatives of the humanity say they last farewells to this great man, CNN (live) speaker says that the most of the 3 million spectators on the square are recording this event with their cameras, creating thus the most covered media event of all times. Footages, regardless how much they are made in the fashion of home videos, they, in their essence, represent the context of the time and space in which they were made, and that is something that can be easily transferred and sowed as something positive for the spirit of some future generations. Media is message - with a vital interest for modern man (for good or for bad), and let us ask ourselves for a moment, let us project into that point which awaits, us or our kids, in, say, forty years. Question is which degree of insight do we have on the information (footage) which have abruptly passed from one way (served with bias) into the two way (second opinion) street and then, all of a sudden, turned into a super highway where there are the rules of complete interaction and in which people, places, ideas and technology meet again and recycle.
Ninth festival represent a mean to incantate that vitality of spirit which will bring us through that next forty years.