c i t y w i t h o u t w a l l s

CURATORS' STATEMENTS

Short Stories and Long Tales. The artists included in this exhibition have each contributed their one-minute-however polished or raw-to the immanent tidal wave of short-form video content. Short-form video art has seeped into the spotlight of not only the art world, but the greater public eye as well, thanks to websites such as YouTube, video-art community portals, and personal videoblogs. These new venues are establishing themselves alongside the institutional and commercial gallery system. With free distribution on the web and affordable new modes of production, artists have a newfound freedom to experiment with the short-form video medium. From simple, intensely personal meditations and short narratives to conceptual experiments and performative documentation, the 55 videos selected for 1800FRAMES|Take3 make up a vibrant spectrum of inventive and creative possibilities. For some, the short-form video is a sketch for future works, but these small notations are by no means throwaways. Like Old Master drawings, a brief video sketch can have as much beauty and relevance as the larger work that it may later become. For others, the brevity is a welcome challenge to boil ideas down to their essence. Many of these artists have developed entire abridged languages that pack as much emotion and information into one minute as feature-film auters need two hours to convey. The brevity also allows artists to take on ambitious techniques with animation and editing in ways that would be too time consuming or slow to produce at greater length. In the face of such technical constraints and possibilities, these videos represent a true cross section of the ways in which artists are reviving and redeveloping the very-short-form video with refreshing playfulness and inspired energy.