DOTMOV FESTIVAL 2010

Submission starts on June 15th. The deadline is September 10th, 2010.

Online magazine SHIFT presents DOTMOV Festival 2010, a digital film festival aiming to discover talented creators and provide them with an opportunity to show their works. Works submitted from all over the world will be screened throughout the world venues from November 2010 (screening schedule will be different depending on the venue). Last year's total submission was 264 works from 30 countries. The tour schedule will be announced on this page.

saji

'What you eat today is what you will be 10 years from now'.

A project called "saji" challenges new approaches to food in various ways in photography, magazines, and events. Since its start in 2004, saji expores its flexible idea in Japan and other areas of the world including Paris and New York, and offers good experience in both senses of vision and taste. SHIFT introduces saji, who created the cover work for the this month's issue.

Please introduce yourself.

OFFF 2010

Aim High, Keep Moving!

OFFF celebrated its tenth anniversary at La Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris by the end of June 2010. In the past ten years, the festival experienced 11 different editions, 10 in Europe and one in New York; plus two frustrated attempts in Mexico.

I have been lucky enough to have assisted to 9 of these 11 editions, only having missed the events in Valencia and New York. Additionally, I have been covering the event for Shift since 2005 and I had the pleasure to meet some of the people who make this event possible every year.

Taisuke Koyama

An artist who photographs entropy of the metabolizing city.

Taisuke Koyama makes photographic works by capturing a organic phenomenon from the continuously changing city as an inorganic being. Started his career as a photographer in 2003, Koyama has released several photo series such as “entropix” since 2006, looking on the urban city as an organism. In these days Koyama is known as one of the young photographer who gained high attention worldwide. With the SHIFT August cover, we introduce his past works and what’s in his mind for the current and future creation.

Please introduce yourself.

PSYCHOANALYSIS Exhibition

Gazes on Photo and Video Art from Austria.

Ursula Mayer "Goldflames Out In The Sky" 2002, Still from the DVD, color, sound, (3 min 30 sec), Courtesy of the artist

Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas advanced by Freud, an Austrian psychoanalyst, to formulate and understand the unconscious difficulties of patients by turning free association, the imagination and dreams into a language. The exhibition PSYCHOANALYSIS is being held at Tokyo Wonder Site Shibuya. The exhibit has videos and photos trying to show cities, individuals and bodies with a psychoanalytical approach. The seven groups of Austrian contemporary artists who were chosen this time created pieces with architectural, physical and individual themes.

Maria Hahnenkamp "Untitled. (from the series “Dress”)" 2010, 6 parts, Pigment-print on Hahnemuehle Baryta paper, 83 x 108 cm each, Courtesy of the artist and of Krobath, Vienna|Berlin

The Prints of Arinori Ichihara

The universe spreads from myriad of tiny daily events.

Works by a printmaking artist Arinori Ichihara, who is reaching 100 years old this year, features such unrealistic landscape. Born in 1910 and lives in Otaru Hokkaido, Arinori Ichihara's solo exhibition "Arinori Ichihara's print show" was held at Collection Gallery in the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art until June 20th.

«HMMA» (2001) , exhibition view of Arinori Ichihara's print show at Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art

By encountering haiku (a form of Japanese poetry) at his mid 10's, climbing at the beginning of his 20's, and printmaking at the end of his 40's, Ichihara has worked on the diverse creations. These various works were showcased at the exhibition where you could follow the track of his longstanding creative process.

SONAR 2010

17th International Festival of Advanced Music and Multimedia Art

This was the last Sonar edition underage, next year Sonar become 18 years old. The happy teenager left the youth with a A+ in school.

Difficult year in Spain, the crisis affected all the events but Sonar rise up and this year edition the festival got their record of assistance in their long history. More than 84.000 people attend the Festival and the Sonar by night was sold out.

Polixeni Papapetrou

"Between Worlds".

Polixeni Papapetrou is a photographer based in Melbourne, Australia. Her latest series of photographs "Between Worlds" were exhibited at LM D Gallery in Paris in May and June. Intrigued by magical essence that children holds, Papapetrou explores the ambiguities of various worlds by photographing children wearing animal head masks. SHIFT interviewed Papapetrou who revealed her thoughts about photography, children, and Melbourne.

Please introduce yourself including your background.

Nozomi Watanabe

An artist who approaches to space with imagination from materials.

Jet black in the Japanese letter uses 2 characters: one means black and the other means lacquer (urushi). Using lacquer as the material, Nozomi Watanabe is an urushi formative artist who creates the world of jet black. She utilizes glossy lacquer to mirror the surrounding world on the glassy surface, and blurs boundaries between inside and outside. SHIFT looks into inside world of her creation.

I heard you came back to Sapporo, your hometown 2 years ago.

Hokkaido Three-Dimensional Art Exhibition '10

Feel the power and strength of artists from the North.

Organized by Hokkaido-based artists, the 'Hokkaido Three-Dimensional Art Exhibition' is a collaborative effort by three of Sapporo's museums and specially chosen Hokkaido-based artists. Although the exhibition is titled a 'three-dimensional' exhibition, the event gathered not just sculptors alone, but also contemporary artists, glass-makers and showcased a myriad variety of works in a single hall. As 56 artists from Hokkaido were picked, this is an exhibition in which you can truly experience Hokkaido's art scene for yourself.

The exhibition first started in 2001 and was subsequently held four more times in 2003, 2006, 2008. This year marks the last time it will be held. As it will be the final exhibition, the artworks will be displayed at two additional places this year, the Hongo Shin Memorial Museum of Sculpture, Sapporo and Museum of Contemporary Art Sapporo, in addition to the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, which had always been the main venue for the exhibition up till now.

In a bid to celebrate their 10th anniversary and express their gratitude to art-lovers all these years, the three museums operated a joint free shuttle bus service for the 5th of June. I took the bus as I gathered information for this event. The bus route I took is as follows: I started off at the west gate of the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art at noon, and then travelled to the Hongo Shin Memorial Museum of Sculpture, Sapporo, before ending up at the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art. The bus had a seating capacity of about 38 passengers and departed in fine weather.

Mika Aoki Exhibition "fluctuation of life"

Like drawing with a pencil, she does esquisse with glass.

Walking down the hill in the South Aoyama district, you will find the gallery "PLSMIS", which seems like a cafe space where displays Karimoku chair in front of the gallery. From June 5th to 13th, an exhibition "fluctuation of life" was held at PLSMIS, showcasing glass works of "Life" by a glass artist Mika Aoki from glass.

Wang Ningde "Let There Be Light"

Light - It’s always there for us: over many generations, with many different things.

People, actually, never leave this world.
Perhaps, they are afraid of an answer.
Perhaps, love is running through the wind quietly.
People get separated and quickly returned feeling refreshed.
Then, sometimes, they wonder to themselves.

Dominic Wilcox

The territory of the everyday.

Dominic Wilcox is a London-based artist. His witty idea can be fully seen on his new work "Pre-Handshake Handshake Device", which was exhibited at the group exhibition Uncomfortable Conversations held during New York Design Week in May. His humorous creation is originated from "the territory of the everyday". SHIFT will introduce works and ideas created by Dominic.

How did you start your career as an artist?

Xin Dan Wei

The city is my office.

Xin Dan Wei (literally, “New Unit”) — a simple, normal, almost vernacular name. Yet, it miraculously adds a touch of refreshing artistic air to the creative workspace located in a factory building. Not only does it provide a place to work in, it also aims to provide an environment where creativity can flourish as well as a communal space for other cross disciplinary activities. As it satisfies the love of sharing that is a common trait of people in the creative industry, Xin Dan Wei goes beyond being a mere workspace to become a career as well as social network for professionals and entrepreneurs in the design, publishing, architecture and visual arts industries.

Cheng Ran

Beliefs and idols, we will see the true self.

Cheng Ran – Born in 1981 in Inner Mongolia, graduated from the department of oil painting in the Academy of Fine Arts in 2004. As an actor, He was involved in the shooting of the film "Bamboo Forest" and worked with artists Yang Fu-dong for five years, now he is an independent artist.

In the summer of 2009, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing had a recommend exhibition of young artists entitled "silent and away from" organized by the well-known artists, Yang Fu-dong. Since I was working in the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, I came to know one of the participating artists – Cheng, and we became good friends. Cheng’s work for the most part is about device and image. Youth time and partial image of life are his works main source of material. In the shadow of the flow of plot, visual surrounding, in the perception of life and years, we also gradually experience the artist's understanding and thinking. We have a slight age difference, but we share pretty similar experiences and memories. Those appeared in light and shadow, also present in the depth of my memories.

First of all, talk about your recent art and exhibitions.

Roxy Paine "Machinations"

Roxy Paine, his first solo exhibition in China.

Roxy Paine, PMU No.36, 2009 / Acrylic on linen / 106.68 x 151.13 x 11.43 cm

Nature has been repeating her creation and propagation for thousands of years. She has become a living space for human beings and watched and seen daily slight events including a birth of human being and a growth of vegetation as she has been creating grand and colorful scenery. The creations of human beings originally reap the benefits of these nature's creations. However, those two creations are totally different kinds in human history.

I had chance to have a dialogue with a certain sculptor about the relationship between nature and art before. People very easily fall into misinterpretation that "nature and art are the same kind". That is because we can only have understanding of one fragment of the truth. An American artist, Roxy Paine, kicked off his solo exhibit "Machinations" at James Cohen Gallery in Shanghai on April 24th 2010. His quite symbolic metaphor is on view through diverse artificial/natural medias.

VIENNAFAIR 2010

VIENNAFAIR is considered as the most important art fair for contemporary art in Austria.

Hanna Nitsch, Aaron-Block (2009)

The sixth edition of VIENNAFAIR (May 6-9, 2010) was aiming to strengthen Vienna's position as a destination for international contemporary art, as Edek Bartz, executive director of VIENNAFAIR, declared. The number of 114 galleries, which presented their artists' work was made up by 33 galleries based in the CEE region (two among them from Turkey), 43 galleries from Austria, 33 from Western Europe -Israel, Mexico, USA and the United Arab Emirates represented by one gallery each. There´s a perpetual, regional focus is on Southeast Europe, that's accompanied by a changing thematic focus on this year's topic of Film and Art.

Ján Vasilko, Gallery Space, Slovakia

Airan Kang "The Bookshelf Enlightened"

A glow of wisdom guiding into the appreciation room.

"Airan Kang - The Bookshelf Enlightened" is held at the Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum in Clematis no Oka (Nagaizumi-cho, Shizuoka) from Feb. 20th until May 9th. Airan Kang, who also recently took part in "Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial 2009", was born and grew up in Korea while communing with Kant's Western ideas. Since 1999, she has started "Digital Book Project" groping her way to her identity. She added 200 book titles inspired by her visit the museum for this show.

Photo: Sotaro Yamamoto © Airan Kang, Courtesy of Yumiko Chiba Associates

APLACE

From ODD and (+46) to Aplace.

Many capitals in Europe chase an everyday challenge of being in a state-of-the-art-condition. Scandinavia and Sweden in particular counts with a hectic up & coming undertow throughout different segments of culture, which actually feeds such an initial challenge. Obviously only a few are the ones who get the motor to run. '+46', besides being the international telephone code for Sweden, has been a multi-functional platform activist in Stockholm for fashion since 2007. Well, actually the name that embraces all that they do is 'ODD projects' . They have made different fashion publications, PR events, fashion awards, etc. They are a brilliant contribution to the fashion pulse in Sweden who for few years were running a prestigious award within Scandinavian progressive fashion '+46 Fashion Award'.

Hussein Chalayan

From fashion and Back.

Photo: Chris Moore

Since his first collection in 1994, Cyprus born fashion designer, Hussein Chalayan is internationally known for his innovative use of materials, progressive attitudes to new technology and social criticism. Fully established at the forefront of contemporary fashion design, his creation has been appreciated.

Motivated by ideas drawn from disciplines not readily associated with fashion, Chalayan’s pioneering work crosses between architecture, design, philosophy, anthropology, science and technology. Hussein Chalayan has also presented film works and installations in art exhibitions. In 2001, he represented at Istanbul Biennale and in 2005, represented in Turkey at the 51st Venice Biennale. I interviewed with Hussein Chalayan who has his exhibition at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.

I have heard that you wanted to become a pilot or an architect. Why did you decide to do fashion as medium to express your idea?