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 onedotzero10
 to access audio and video on collective you need real player.It's motion graphics, but is it "art". Digital film festival of choice, onedotzero10, may be taking place at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts this week, but thank goodness none of the eclectic shorts on show try to pass themselves off as “art films”. Some people define an “art film” as a film made to be shown exclusively in a gallery and not a cinema. But surely all films are moving images shown on a two-dimensional screen, and a movie is still a movie whether shown in a gallery or on my DVD player. Come to think of it, “art film” shouldn’t really even be a term of reference - aren’t all films art? And for those who argue that Hollywood doesn’t count should take time to remember that the films of Alfred Hitchcock and Nicholas Ray were, on their release, not considered art. Even the daddy of the modern-day blockbuster, Steven Spielberg, is an artist.  Japanese Balls. No, my definition of an “art film” – and it’s taken years of gallery gazing for me to arrive at this point - is a movie so boring that no one would actually want to watch it for more than a few seconds. Recently there’s been a trend for art prizes to give their top awards to video artists. Thirty-three-year-old Matt Stokes won Beck’s Futures at the ICA for his short film, Long After Tonight. And a lot of artists have short films in their repertoire - Steve McQueen, Douglas Gordon, Sam Taylor-Wood and Isaac Julien all immediately spring to mind. Yet none of their films have ever made me reappraise my view of film per se, or art in general. They have, though, sent me to sleep with their dull cinematography and weak ideas. (Contrast modern-day “art films” with, say, the work of Man Ray who genuinely wanted to break boundaries and change our perceptions of the moving image.)  Eternal Double Happiness. In fact, the only reason I can think of that any of these films win prizes is because the standards for “art films” are so much less exacting than those of the commercial world. And yet it’s not simply because these films are not commercial that they’re dull. Short films have a limited commercial worth, yet often manage to be innovative and unique in their approach to the moving image. In fact, film shorts are more likely to be exactly the type of inimitable work that “art films” purport to be.  Box. In recent years, film shorts have proven that they can no longer be bracketed as simply the first-time work/showreel of wannabe feature filmmakers, but important works in themselves - as Jane Campion demonstrated with her short, The Water Diary, shown at Cannes this year. Shorts work because they subvert the conventions of cinema, unlike the vast majority of “art films” which somehow manage to get away with pretending that the history of cinema, along with thousands of its artists, have never existed.
Kaleem Aftab
onedotzero10 is at the ICA, London, from 02 June - 11 June 06. For details of the UK/international tour visit www.onedotzero.com.
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see also
 onedotzero9feature  onedotzero08festival preview  onedotzero08discussions  onedotzero07videos onedotzero07festival  select dvd1onedotzero  select dvd2onedotzero  select dvd3onedotzero  beck's futures 06gallery tour  steve mcqueenreview  when the sun...douglas gordon  sam taylor-woodinterview
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