Foreword from the dean of School of Architecture and Design, KMUTT ● The School of Architecture and Design (SoA+D), King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT) is proud to host this unique international public event. FRESH is part of our school's attempt to capture the spirit of contemporary visual culture and bring it to life here in Bangkok. In this, the third edition of the festival, a triangulated collaboration between three leading curators from Great Britain, Korea and Switzerland will surely provide a phenomenal experience for students, local and international film-makers and the general public. Last but not least I would like to thank the festival director Mr. Jung-Chul Hur, his team and everybody at SoA+D who helped to make this event happen. I hope that this kind of cultural event will continue to grow and gain support from all parties in our society. ■ Michael Paripol Tangtrongchit

베니 네메로프스키 람세이 Benny NEMEROFSKY RAMSEY_알리사 코헨 Aleesa COHENE_같은 문제 still from The Same Problem_single channel video_00:04:47_2009

권아람 Ah Ram Kwon_공진화 Coevolution_single channel video_00:02:40_2009

Introduction from the festival director ● The School of Architecture and Design, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi supported by Research and Design Service Center KMUTT (REDEK) are pleased to host this international video art and short film festival from the 18th to the 20th December, 2009. This is the third edition of FRESH presenting a three-day programme of contemporary video art and short films freshly brought from around the globe. We are living in an era of cascading digital audiovisual representations flowing from advertising, mainstream films, online videos, moving images on mobile phones etc. On the other hand, more and more individual practitioners use this media as a tool for their creative expressions and examinations, experiments and play. FRESH will be a gateway to experimental ideas and technology and their application in art. The festival has invited Hanspeter Ammann, an award winning video artist and curator. In 2005 and 2007 – for our first and second FRESH – Hanspeter curated a series of inspiring international video art programmes. We are welcoming him back for the third time in this role, curating an international video art and short film programme. Most of Hanspeter's selections are winning awards around the globe. It will be a good opportunity for a Bangkok audience to experience works that examine new ideas and new perspectives and may offer new perspectives from which to view our world. The festival also introduces Shin Jin Sik, a respected Korean artist who has dedicated himself to a variety of media art practices over the past decades. In 2007 for our second FRESH, Jin Sik introduced notable Korean video art and short films. We are welcoming Jin Sik for the second time, curating a critical selection of challeging recent Korean video art and short films. Fresh has extended the programmes and invites our new guest curator Nigel Power, a Bangkok-based British artist, designer and academic who has dedicated himself to a variety of media and design practices over the decades. Nigel will focus on abstract videos and films, and will introduce historical and notable contemporary practices highlighting cinematic abstraction. FRESH, though small, is gradually growing and evolving and this edition will be the biggest and most ambitious yet. Out motivation, however, remains the same: we hope that our effort will enhance the cultural life of Bangkok and offer new perspectives and inspiration from every corner of the world to young generations and to the public. Through FRESH we invite our audiences to experience new ideas and encourage a broader perspective of the world. This festival is made possible through long lasting international friendships such as Switzerland, the UK, Korea, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Portugal and Thailand, to name a few. We hope more and more individuals, creative industries, and associations will find that FRESH plays perhaps a small but important roll for the country. We will appreciate support from any association that will ensure the continued influence and growth of FRESH. I would like to thank the hard working festival team, especially the great number of students and faculty members from the School of Architecture and Design of KMUTT who helped in motivating this great festival, and everyone else for their support, and finally all the participating international artists and audience for making this another edition of FRESH festival. ■ 허정철 Jung-Chul HUR

니콜라스 프로보스트 Nicolas PROVOST_그래버티 still from Gravity_single channel video_00:06:12_2007

BECOMING VISIBLE ● Curated by Hanspeter AMMANN ● Program: Part 1: SECRETS Part 2: MOVEMENTS Part 3: MEDIA ● Curatorial Statement: Many things, around and inside, preoccupy and guide us. Artists are supposed to find ways to make such things visible. After they have shaped them – given them form and Gestalt – these things become visible (on canvas or on screen in our case here). As a result we can look at them, compare and enjoy them. This program will show examples of such processes and thereby stimulate the creative potential in the audience. It will be divided into three sub programmes that will each illustrate the process of mak- ing things, interactions and contexts visible. Each such programme will have a duration of around 50 minutes consisting of 6 to 9 titles. I tried to choose genuine and successfull works that have the potential to inspire. Especially, I am very happy to present 9 Dance Videos in a programm called "Movements" for the first time in Thailand. Mr. Raymong Wong from the CCDC (City Contemporary Dance Company) in Hong Kong has helped to make this presenation possible. It is a great honor to be part of this exciting festival and I would like to extend my warmest thanks to the School of Architecture and Design, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi and all the people who made this stimulating event possible.

세미컨덕터 Semiconductor_마그네틱 무비 still from Magnetic Movie_single channel video_00:04:43_2007

Part 1: SECRETS Inside and around us are myriad secrets which we can either try to hide away or share! While ALICIA FRAMIS guides us behind the walls of a Dutch company in Secret Strike Rabonbank, SEMICONDUCTOR revels secrets of our planets surface in Earth Moves. NEIL BELOUFA introduces us to African secrets with Kempinski and JULIKA RUDELIUS takes us to a meeting of a secretive society in her work Adrift. SEBASTIAN DIAZ MORALES takes us with Oracle on tour of small secrets to Argentina. COHENE + NEMEROFSKY try to explain an unexplainable fact in The Same Problem. ● Part 2: MOVEMENTS Human movements can express feelings in the most astonishing and convincing ways. If such expressive movement are choreographed, recorded and edited in a challenging artistic way, we may speak of Dance Videos. The eight titles of this programme are award-winning examples of this unique category of artistic expression. We proudly present a unique Selection of the Jumping Frames Dance Video Festival organized by the City Contemporary Dance Company Hong Kong. ● Part 3: MEDIA All 8 titles in this program seem to take a closer look at Media related issues. MEDIA SHED raise questions of surveillance in The Duellists while EDDIE D gives us his view on politicians talks in Pas de Deux. NICOLAS PREVOST examines the representation of the kiss in Hollywood movies in Gravity. BRUNO MIGUEL visualises his concept of the editing process in his short piece Clepsidra. ELODIE PONG investigates in After the Empire icons of American Pop culture. SEOUNGHO CHO proves in Buoy and MARTIJN VAN BOVEN shows in Interfield how peotic media research can be. ■ 한스피터 아만 Hanspeter Ammann

젠-구앙 장 Jen-Kuang CHANG_옴 still from OM_single channel video_00:05:35_2008

ABSTRACTIONS ● 큐레이터 나이젤 파워 Curated by Nigel POWER ● Curatorial Statement: "The people who call my work 'abstract' are imbeciles... what they call abstract is in fact the purest realism, the reality of which is not represented by external form but by the idea behind it, the essence of the work." Constantin Brancusi "What's that then?" "It's a self portrait" "Who of?" Irene Handl and Tony Hancock in The Rebel (1961) At first sight, abstract cinema seems to be a contradiction in terms; the acme of oxymorons. After all, photographic media appear existentially tied to the real, their semiotic status indexical, their mission– which they cannot but choose to accept – to accurately register the appearance of concrete things. Yet despite this – or perhaps because of it – abstraction has remained a small yet persistent and potent aesthetic undercurrent within the lens media arts. In each decade, it seems, a new generation of artists and filmmakers rediscovers and embraces abstraction; enriches, extends and interrogates the abstract in the light of shifting social, cultural and technological realities. In these screenings I aim to simultaneously celebrate and question cinematic abstraction. I want to make its richness, difficulty and contradictions present in a way that will engage audiences who are new to the genre, whilst – at the same time – drawing our critical attention to its claims and its realities. Whilst this is a novel approach in South East Asia, it is less so in the Western world, where a growing interest in the subject has sparked numerous exhibitions and festivals devoted to abstract cinema and video. Notable amongst these is the annual Abstracta Film Festival whose curator Massimo Pistone has kindly suggested contemporary examples of the genre drawn from his own festival. The shape of the program is relatively straightforward. Screening one – "THEN AND NOW" –brings together important – but rarely seen – works from history of abstract and experimental film with carefully selected contemporary works that extend or challenge the language of abstract cinema. Amongst the themes at play here it is perhaps worth noting that of technological affordance or, to put it simply, the range of formal possibilities opened up by particular media and technological configurations. The relation between the analog and the digital, between artists who scratch or paint onto the filmic substrate, combine material and immaterial processes and those who program their work with and for powerful electronic tools, might suggest fruitful questions for viewers to ponder. Hopefully, this selection will enable viewers to take a more critical stance in relation to the second program, "NOW". In this, a number of works selected from an open call, will set out to provide a snapshot of the range, scope and interests of contemporary practitioners of abstract cinema.

헨리 귀아자 Henry GWIADZA, 산재한 still from Scattered ...... Wide_single channel video_00:05:38_2005

● Part 1: THEN AND NOW "THEN AND NOW" brings together important – but rarely seen – works from history of abstract and experimental film with carefully selected contemporary works that extend or challenge the language of abstract cinema. Amongst the themes at play here it is perhaps worth noting that of technological affordance or, to put it simply, the range of formal possibilities opened up by particular media and technological configurations. The relation between the analog and the digital, between artists who scratch or paint onto the filmic substrate, combine material and immaterial processes and those who program their work with and for powerful electronic tools, might suggest fruitful questions for viewers to ponder. Hopefully, this selection will enable viewers to take a more critical stance in relation to the second program, "NOW". ● Part 2: NOW In this, a number of works selected from an open call, will set out to provide a snapshot of the range, scope and interests of contemporary practitioners of abstract cinema. ■ 나이젤 파워 Nigel Power

최정희 Jung Hee CHOI_쌀 still from Rice (abstract version)_single channel video_00:01:40_2009

Imminent Visual Language ● 큐레이터 신진식 Curated by SHIN Jin Sik ● Program: Part 1: INDETERMINATE CONSCIOUSNESS Part 2: PANIC /PICNIC Part 3: DRAWN MAYA Part 4: K-POP GIRL GROUPS ● Curatorial Statement: Each culture is committed to certain types of perceptions. Undoubtedly our culture emphasizes visual perception as a primary model of self-identification and communication. As chemistry creates spontaneous reaction and mutual understanding of individuals toward each other, the advancement and wide distribution of digital technology have made visual language a most effective and instantaneous means of communication today. However, abstract visual languages that are not based on established concepts are often under-recognized. FRESH 2009 Korea Session will present four themes exploring phenomena of cutting-edge visual languages in Korea.

소녀시대 Girls' Generation_소원을 말해봐 still from Genie_single channel video_00:04:01_2009

강유란 KANG You Ran_부활 still from Rebirth_single channel video_00:03:53_2009

● Part 1: INDETERMINATE CONSCIOUSNESS From the beginning of film history, we have been habitually labeling abstract expressions that are not based on generally accepted filmic principles and structures as 'experimental'. By the same logic, are images are not appearently 'abstract' such as fish tanks and clouds appropriately labeled as 'experimental'? INDETERMINATE CONSCIOUSNESS examines works with a focus on internal structure and form. ● Part 2: PANIC / PICNIC In most cases, panic and picnic, these similar-vocal words, do not share the same characteristics. However, PANIC/PICNIC will show how these conflicting ideas meet at the height of emotional intensity. ● Part 3: DRAWN MAYA In Hinduism, Maya refers to the concepts of "illusion", which is the phenomenal universe. In film production, it is important to pay critical attention to the continuity of screen direction by following the '180-degree rule' and shooting from the proper axis to create and maintain the sense of "reality". Both reality and illusion are CREATED on screen in a quest to determine what they really are. DRAWN MAYA will present works focusing on the perpetual interplay of illusion and reality. ● Part 4: K-POP GIRL GROUPS The most prominent key word in Korean Pop culture today is 'Girl Groups'. Ever-worshiped and fetishized, Girl Groups have created a socio-cultural phenomenon beyond trend and have widely influenced Korean culture. On the other hand, sexism in popular culture contributed to the collective unconscious of Koreans to create a context of male violence toward teen-age girls. Culture is ideology. There are ideologies that are designed to serve the interests of specific groups. K-POP GIRL GROUPS will consider the images and interpretations of Korean Girl Groups. ■ 신진식 SHIN Jin Sik

Vol.20091229e | FRESH 2009 : 3rd a Festival of Iinternational Video Art and Short Film 2009展