Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement 2018: The Sound of Screens Imploding

About

One of the first events of its kind, the Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement was founded in 1985 in Geneva and was reinvented in 2014 as a platform for producing new works.

For this 2018 edition, it will be transformed by an innovative project. At its center—alongside an extraordinary series of films, performances, and concerts—is an exhibition designed to form a single, vast, immersive environment. The concept for this show, which covers over 2,000 square meters, revolves around a fundamental principle: that moving images now live outside the screen, lingering on in a fascinating kaleidoscope where vision can be shaped even by sound.

Inevitably, this edition of the Biennale explores the status of the moving image and its exhibition format, building on the idea that the era of projection on screens is coming to an end, and will give way to environments that reverberate with the radiant echo of their implosion.

Emphasizing the innovative potential of new languages connected to the moving image, the 2018 Biennale forges a series of dialogues with a generation of artists from a wide range of countries and backgrounds.

The artists featured in the exhibition are Meriem Bennani, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Fatima Al Qadiri & Khalid Al Gharaballi, Korakrit Arunanondchai & Alex Gvojic, Ian Cheng, Tamara Henderson, and Kahlil Joseph, each with a work commissioned and produced by the Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement. Andreas Angelidakis has been entrusted with tying all of these installations together into a single, cohesive project.Ligia Lewis will offer a preview of her new choreography—the final part of a trilogy—co-produced by the Biennale with the HAU Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin; musician Elysia Crampton will present a new live work, and artist Pan Daijing will premiere a performance piece.

Nine films and single-channel videos, made for theatrical screening, have been commissioned from Sarah Abu Abdallah, Neïl Beloufa, Irene Dionisio, James N. Kienitz Wilkins, Tobias Madison, Florent Meng, Bahar Noorizadeh, Eduardo Williams (with Mariano Blatt) and Leslie Thornton & James Richards. These films and videos, like all of the installations in the exhibition, have been commissioned and produced by the Biennale; together, they form an extraordinary series of new works that will be premiering at the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève and in other venues around Geneva during the opening week, from November 8 to 10, 2018.

The Biennale will be accompanied by a series of special events featuring the participation of Nkisi, John T. Gast, Abyss X, Crystallmess, and Angela Dimayuga.

The Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement 2018 is curated by Andrea Lissoni, Senior Curator, International Art (Film) at Tate Modern, and Andrea Bellini, Director of the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève.