Curatorial group of VIDEOLOGIA is calling for entries for the official selection program of the III International festival of audio-visual arts that will take place in Volgograd, Russia, in November of 2006. Artists and directors working with short films, video art, animation, documentary films, net art and various visual experiments are welcome to participate! All selected titles will be screened in the cinema halls and art galleries and evaluated by the independent jury and local audience.

I. Festival VIDEOLOGIA: brief introduction.

The festival debuted in 2004. The competition selection and hors concourse programs of international & Russian festivals & curators were demonstrated for four days. Along with screenings VIDEOLOGIA 2004 included video gallery, theoretical forums, concerts and performative actions in clubs. Works taking part in the selection program were subdivided into two nominations according to the main conceptual lines of the festival: 1) Intersection of video with other arts (poetry, painting, photography, dance); 2) (V)ideological statement of an artist.

The II festival VIDEOLOGIA 2005 received more than 600 video and cinema works from 42 countries. Three screening days of its selection program included films based on three conceptual nominations:

1) Retrospection (works about displaced traumatic images of the past);
2) Current Moment (films about the present and its fixation by the audio-visual means);
3) Infanteria Futura (video and cinema about the future embodied in the childhood images).

Independent jury of VIDEOLOGIA 2005 consisted of artists, directors, curators, theoreticians of contemporary art and musicians, who also played concerts, held master classes and public lectures. Among the award winners of the festival were Gerars Kairaschi (France), ⌠AES (Russia), Mehmet Bahadir Er (Turkey), Dmitry Bulnygin (Russia), Patrick Rebisz (Poland √ USA), Pierre Daudelin (Canada). The unique innovation of the VIDEOLOGIA 2005 became the internet conferences with the artists who could not arrive to Russia but had a chance to present their work to the local audience, answer their questions and watch the screening programs on-line.

Foreign partners of VIDEOLOGIA 2005 in hors concourse programs were International festival of cinema and video ⌠Visionaria (Italy), International festival of experimental film ⌠Carbunari (Romania) and Inter American Videoart Biennale (works of authors from South and Central America).

II. VIDEOLOGIA 2006: Thematic pattern

The key conceptual lines of VIDEOLOGIA 2006 will be articulated with the special attention to the art works arriving to the festival. These lines will become the result of synthesis of curatorial intentions and ideas of the festival participants. Nevertheless, according to traditions of VIDEOLOGIA curators formulate a thematic orienting point for artists and directors. It will enable the festival selection program to become an integral, but not homogenous, composition of conceptual series consisting of diverse artistic approaches.

Such orienting point of VIDEOLOGIA 2006 is the theme: ⌠THE ART OF TRANSITION: STASIS √ EX-STATICS √ KINESIS.
It is evident that there is no absolute stasis in audio-visual imagery; even a silent and still representation possesses a rhythm, attuning spectators’ perception and sense to a certain tempo. However one can make a gradation of art works targeting at creating a dynamic effect to a lesser or higher extent. For instance, a single shot video installation made from one camera angle without editing and aimed for a gallery exhibition will look less kinetic in a movie theatre than a short cinema work filmed from different perspectives and edited to create a high tempo of narration. VIDEOLOGIA festival is very much interested in both types of works. The festival concentrates on comparison of stasis and kinesis in audio-visual arts, it is on the quest for ecstatic artistic impulses, which mark transition from one state to another and are inherent in both of them.

Ecstatic impulse is understood here as a rapture, as coming out of one’s experience, which seems to be essential for making an unpredictable work of art. Such condition of being outside oneself because of grief or intellectual exertion, fury or joy is characteristic of any sphere of human activity, from religion and politics to theory and love.

If you diagnose and explore political transitions from social disintegration to centralized hierarchies; if your work is dedicated to unpredictable motions of human mind and heart; if you experiment with the form of audio-visual art; if you are fascinated by the rhythm itself of passage from despondency to ardour, from art to politics, from thought to love, you might be very much interested in taking part in the III International Festival of Audio-visual Arts VIDEOLOGIA 2006. Welcome!
Shoot motion pictures, participate in the festival, carry on polemics with audience, and modify ideas of curators!

III. Regulations of the III International Festival of Audio-visual arts VIDOLOGIA 2006

1. Participation in the festival is free of charge.

2. The following formats are acceptable for selection program:
∙ DVD, Mini DV (pal);
∙ 35 mm, 16 mm, 8 mm films.

3. Only works produced not earlier than January 1st 2004 are applicable.

4. Duration of works should not exceed 30 minutes (exceptions may apply).

5. The panel of coordinators of the festival will assemble the selection program based on criteria of inventiveness, quality and correspondence to the thematic pattern of VIDEOLOGIA 2006.

6. The entry form should accompany the work sent to the festival.

7. Deadline for submissions is November 1st 2006.

8. All deliveries from international participants should be marked: "no commercial value - for cultural purposes only".

9. All entrants will be notified November 5th 2006.

10. The entry implies full acceptance of the regulations.

Entry forms can be found in the attached files. For any information mail to [volgafest@yandex.ru->volgafest@yandex.ru

Send your works to:

Yaroslav V. Khokhlov
Do vostrebovaniya
Volgograd 400066
Russia