Lenny's Documentary, Ian Bourn, 1978

Dates: 9 September – 7 November | Location: Raven Row, London

Polytechnic is an exhibition of video, installation and tape/slide works made between the mid seventies and early eighties by a number of artists in the UK who were developing new relationships between ‘experimental’ media and ideas of narrative. The complex and hybrid works in the exhibition talk about autobiography, television, diaries, lost histories, sexuality, the communist bloc, popular culture, fictions, soap operas and murder.

Polytechnic has a particular emphasis on video work. As well as the emergence of the domestic video recorder, the period covered by the exhibition saw artists gaining increasing access to video cameras and recording decks. This engagement with technology was encouraged through the development of media departments in Art Schools and Polytechnics, where many of the artists studied and taught.

The artists featured are John Adams, Ian Bourn, Ian Breakwell, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, David Critchley, Catherine Elwes, Roberta Graham, Susan Hiller, Stuart Marshall, Cordelia Swann and Graham Young. Polytechnic is curated by Richard Grayson, an artist curator and writer based in London.

Amnesia, Cordelia Swann

A total of 145 works from 40 countries will vie for awards worth 40,500 euros at the 56th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. Five competitions will be held this year: the International Competition, German Competition, NRW Competition, Children’s and Youth Film Competition and the MuVi Award for best German music video. Open to all themes and genres, and for film as well as video formats, Oberhausen’s competitions attract entries covering the full spectrum of the short form today. The nominees have been chosen from over 5,400 submissions received from 86 countries.

British entries in the International Competition include:

Amnesia, Cordelia Swann, 2009, 7’30”
Den mörka ön,  Jöns Mellgren, 2009, 9’30”
Electric Light Wonderland, Susanna Wallin, 2009, 12
Flag Mountain, John Smith, 2010, 8’30”
Fly in the Sky, Vera Neubauer, 2010, 5′
Monolog, Laure Prouvost, 2009, 9′
The Shutdown, Adam Stafford, 2009, 10′
Transmission for Year 0,  Emily McMehen / Geoffrey Sautner, 2009, 12′

A complete list of all films selected for the competitions can be found at www.kurzfilmtage.de