A Series of Questions for Experimental Film and Video Programmers

Are you taking enough chances?

If you had to choose, which would you rather be: rigorous, or risky?

Would you characterize your taste as specific or diverse?

Do you pride yourself on challenging your audience?

How do you challenge your own boundaries and limitations?

How much of an obligation do you have to the audience?

Do you have an obligation to foster an audience?

Have you provided your audience with proper program notes?

Are you guilty of ArtSpeak?

Do you view yourself as an authority figure? Why or why not?

Are you more worried about your own career than you are about opening the door for emerging artists who show potential?

Do you have “good” taste?  What does this mean?

What is your obligation to canonized experimental film and video artists?

What is your obligation to your local experimental film and video community?

Do you consider yourself a member of your local experimental film and video community?

Do they consider you a member?

Do you feel you have any obligation to fostering a local scene?

Do you consider yourself a conservative programmer?

Does this promote a conservative experimental film and video scene?

Is this an oxymoron?

Has the avant-garde become conservative?

Is fun only reserved for after the screening has finished?

Do you reject “outstanding” work when it doesn’t fit your curatorial concept?

Do you attempt to find a place for this work?

Are the artists being paid?

Are you being paid?

3 comments for “A Series of Questions for Experimental Film and Video Programmers

  1. September 15, 2014 at 11:06 am

    our answers are below. this series of questions is so awesome and pertinent – especially today where it feels like there is a real separation across audiences of moving image. Thanks for making us think about all this!
    love,
    Nothing To See Here (in Denver)

    1. yes
    2. risky
    3. specifically diverse (i like a lot of shit)
    4. hell yes
    5. by constantly trying to one up ourselves. by trying to formulate something that we would want to see happen.
    6. not much
    7. yes. we’re trying to foster an audience that is open to new things. you’re either into it or you’re not. we want to be as honest as much as we can about what it is we’re trying to do and not compromise ourselves.
    8. always. in multiple formats (online, print)
    9. kind of but we don’t see a problem with that – we’re artists.
    10. absolutely not. we’re anti-authority and don’t assume that role.
    11. no. in fact we show things made by people that may not self-identify as artists at all.
    12. we think we have good taste but others might not. we show things we like and that reflect our interests. if that’s good then we have good taste. if its bad then we have bad taste. we just like what we like.
    13. zero.
    14. we’re trying – there sort of isn’t one here. that’s why we do what we do.
    15. yes.
    16. yes.
    17. obligation implies there being some sort of guilt attached. we want there to be local community.
    18. no
    19. it would.
    20. totally
    21. yes, probably, some of it. it depends on how you define it. the declaring of the “avant-garde” seems like an oxymoron.
    22. fuck no.
    23. we would hold it in mind until we could find the best fit to show it.
    24. yes.
    25. yes, as much as we can. we wish it was more
    26. no. we wish.

  2. Brian Kent Gotro
    September 15, 2014 at 1:30 pm

    Wonderful!

  3. Bernie
    April 6, 2016 at 12:40 pm

    Are you taking enough chances? That was the first question from Clint Enns. It is enough to stop here. What would be enough? And could we know whether we are taking enough? What would it mean to take a chance? The stakes of a chance, it would seem, can easily vary. What stakes are appropriate for arriving at the status of such a chance? I want to say, but we are never taking enough chances. And what would it mean to believe one has taken a chance? There would be fear, presumably. Perhaps it would be the fear of what could be thereby lost by this decision, perhaps the fear of failing in some way to accept the responsibilities one has in making such decisions. Could there be a successful chance-taking, or would taking such a chance really have to be a failure?

    Bernie

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