BONN, GERMANY.- The Videonale, an international media art festival, focuses on video art and has been a feature in Bonn since 1984. The next exhibition under the title Videonale 10 takes place in the spring of 2005 at the Kunstmuseum Bonn and will incorporate all the relevant electronic image media of our time. On the festival weekend a whole range of contributions will be presented in the auditorium: video tapes, lectures and artist presentations.

Open competition : At the closing date 4th of February 2005 about 600 video works had reached the Videonale, among others from China, Norway, Romania, the USA, Korea, Israel, Croatia, Iran, Australia and Russia. The jury of the competition, consisting of Katja Albers, video collection of the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein // Georg Elben, Videonale 10 // Peter Gorschlüter, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf // Stefan Gronert, Kunstmuseum Bonn // Christoph Schreier, Kunstmuseum Bonn // and Christina Végh, Bonner Kunstverein, chose 47 works that will be shown at the exhibition and in the tape programme of the Videonale 10 from 30th April to 16th May. The winner of the 5.000 Euros Videonale Award will be anounced at the opening soiree.

At the exhibition of the festival mainly single-channel works will be shown, as it was defined in the terms of competition. The concentration on one narrative string, on a linear narration of images was the formal criterion for the selection. There are only few exceptions with two or three synchronously projected pictures to be found in the exhibition. It is not one single theme but the great variety of works that determines this year’s Videonale.

Exhibition architecture - To find a modern solution for the presentation of video and media art, the Videonale arranged a competition for innovative exhibition architecture in cooperation with the departments of architecture of the RWTH Aachen and the Bergische University Wuppertal. They selected the draft of Jochen Specht, student of architecture at the RWTH Aachen, whose concept is based on a separate treatment of image level and sound level.

The temporary exhibition halls of the Kunstmuseum Bonn were designed for the presentation of painting, so its walls are used as projection surfaces; they remain the direct image carrier. The auditive part of the video works is represented by a felt band that runs through all rooms, the sound track. It covers ten 2.30-metre-high wooden constructions that have loudspeakers integrated in their ceilings. When entering these sound corridors, surrounding sounds are cut off to a large extent, and the visitor can concentrate on one single work without being disturbed. Thus he perceives the exhibition in its entirety as a flowing audio/video space that presents the individual videos not only as single works, but as parts of an amount of outstanding works of art – as parts of the Videonale.