离群的焦点 | 四季影展 2019 国际交流季主题公布

2019年冬，四季影展第一次开始了国际合作，我们与日本老牌实验影像机构Image Forum进行了项目交换，并策划了本次展览"离群的焦点”，主题旨在提出主流影像环境下，私人化的真诚作品的重要性。然而，受到疫情的波及，我们不得不将展览延期至今，部分活动也只好改为在线形式。有意思的是，经历过2020年1月-3月的种种之后，这一主题在此刻似乎更能展现其价值。相较于那些太恢宏积极的、趋同简化的影像，许多个人的记录、表达和思考让我们看到更多现实的肌理。

离群的焦点：

VCD x Image Forum特别联动企划

此刻我们浸没在一个信息爆炸的时代中，这句话在短短几年间已经变成老生常谈。在汹涌澎湃的影像浪潮里，不仅有登上流媒体平台对会员全面开放的电影、电视剧、动画、综艺，也有占据着人们等待时间的广告、在平台算法的推荐下自动播放的vlog和短视频、动图表情包……每个人一天之中观看影像的有限时长可以非常轻易被填满，一个人的双眼成为兵家必争之地。

然而这是一个影像狂欢的时代吗？我们需要存疑。尽管有着客观的数量的增长和种类的丰富、影像生产的专业/商业化，近十年间主流影像在题材、风格多元与批判性上的发展却很有限。反而，当下的动态图像生产的趋同让人警惕：千军万马过筛后有了统一的价值形状；顶级流量的影视与千人一面的群星相互成就，携手塑造出侵略式、垄断式的审美；博主们在镜头前讲解测评着同样的产品并衍生出同一套口头和肢体语言。我们究竟看到了更多，还是看到了更少？我们在“了解”了更多的同时，是否反而思考、关注得更浅？

于此同时，“那些私人化的、实验性的、'艺术'的影像的未来会是怎样的？” 这是有着超过三十年历史的东京影像机构，Image Forum在去年的Image Forum Festival(IFF)前言中所提出的疑问。诚然，世界分配给这些非主流影像的资源原本就有限，后者无法在如今的注意力抢夺中占任何优势。艺术影院的缺失、资金支持的减少、内容层面的筛选机制等等，都使得这些影像从人们的视野中逐渐淡出。

可是恰恰也是这些游离在主流之外的私人化作品，值得在影像的场景里应走到更为重要的位置。“大众消费主义对我们生活的支配越来越强势，与之相伴的还有反智、排他主义、偏见言论的回升。在这样的时代中，我们可以预见‘个体视角’带来的影像体验将会比过去更重要。这些作品往往毫无商业气质，有着不遵循消费主义逻辑的纯粹性。然而恰恰是它们才能通过那不加修饰的质地和难以进入主流媒体的政治见地，去用其内含的潜力创造新的对话、新的表达形式。”我们的场景需要这些个人化的、实验性的、艺术的影像，这有益于促进我们的思辨锐度和开放性。相应的，它们也需要我们付出完整的时间和感官的专注、需要观众的有机支持和深度的赏析来保持生命力。

所以紧接着的许多问题就是：有哪些机构性的实践能促进更好的影像未来？如何创造主流之外的机会？当下的影像机构需要怎样的运作模式？我们也希望其他机构的经验带给我们的一些参照。本季四季影展将会是VCD与东京的实验影像机构Image Forum联动的特别企划，通过讨论和呈现他们的实验影像片目来开启一次机构间的对话。

四季影展之“离群的焦点”特别季度一共包括三个部分：首先是IFF 2019 东亚实验影像奖的六部获奖作品 ，其中，包括《夜马》、《鲸鱼浴场》、《水花》、《美丽暧昧的日本，以及我们自己》、《金太与银次》的五部都将在实验影像中心平台特别呈现，而《去年火车经过的时候》将与本季度其他部分共同在线下陆续与大家相见；2019年IFF正式启动的 实验全景单元 当中选取的两部作品，汇聚了影史数百部电影中浩瀚星空的《★》，以及需要“点菜”选择的《垃圾桶小孩的故事》；此外，本季影展还将特别从Image Forum的长期收藏中带来 影人聚焦单元：寺山修司 ，与大家一同领略这位影、戏、诗等多领域巨匠在70年代集合一众艺术家创作的数部异色之作。

关于Image Forum

来自东京涩谷的Image Forum(IF)前身是1971年开始的“地下电影中心”，致力于实验/独立/另类电影与视频的放映和发行。1977年，IF正式成立。1987年Image Forum Festival启动，成为日本最大、最重要的前卫、实验影像节，直到今年已是第33届。IF拥有一个可容纳35个座位的放映室并运作着自己的实验影像电影院，主要呈现国内外独立影视作品，包括实验短片/长片、纪录片、动画等。此外，IF还开办了Image Forum影像学院，提供为期一年的课程和暑期工作坊，培养年轻的电影导演和影像艺术家。IF收藏了1000余部电影和视频（大部分作品在电影院放映），并在全国各地发行给各个研究所、博物馆和电影俱乐部。这些藏品也向国际学者、艺术节和电影节开放。

Focus on the Off:

VCD x Image Forum Special Season

We find ourselves immersed in an era of information explosion. This has been such a repeated statement in the last few years. Within the turbulent oceanic body of moving images, composes not only films, tv series, animations, shows - all now available for bingeing with streaming-platform memberships, but also advertisements inserted into every slit of on-/offline waiting time, vlogs & short videos recommended based on big data, and even gifs... The limited moving-image attention span per person per day can be so easily filled up that it even become a hot battlefield between too many forces.

But are we in a carnival era for moving images already? Let's remain some doubt. Regardless of the significant increase in the number and device types, or professionalization and commercialization of film/video production, on the dimensions of subject-matter, diversity of stylization, or criticality, we have not witnessed such growth. In contrast, the assimilation happening in moving image productions should alert us: countless works go under the same cookie cutter to finally share identical value silluettes; top-hit tv series and stars from assembly-lines make contribution to each others' mutual statistics interest, and co-create one invasive, dominating aesthetics; vloggers unbox/review the same products, developing the same oral and body languages... Is there more, or actually less to be seen? While we seemingly learned more, do we in fact think and care less? 

In such context, “[w]hat is the future of personal and experimental films, or ‘art’ films?” This question was asked in the preface of Image Forum Festival 2019 by its organizer, Image Forum(IF), the Tokyo-based moving-image institution with over 30 years of history. Indeed, the contemporary societies only assign rather short resources to non-mainstream moving images at the first place, consequently the latter had little chance to compete in the battle of attention-winning from the start. Absence of art cinema in China, cut of financial support and filtering mechanism for contents all lead to the fading out of such moving-image works from our sight.

Yet, it is also exactly such drifting personal works that worths to be invited to the more significant position in the scene. As YAMASHITA Koyo (Artistic Director) and KADOWAKI Kenji (Director) wrote in the IFF 2019 Preface, "[m]ass consumerism increasingly rules our lives, and at the same time there has been a rise in anti-intellectual exclusionism and discrimination. In such an era, experiencing films made from an ‘individual perspective’ will presumably become even more important. These works are without any commercial character, and possess an originality that is not subject to the logic of consumerism. It is precisely because they have a texture that is far from refined and a political nature that could never be put forward in the mass media that they have the potential to create new discussions and forms of expression." Our scene needs these personal, experimental, artistic moving images, to foster the enhancement of intellectual keenness and openness. Correspondingly, the vigor of these works need us to pay solid time and sensory concentration, as well as needs organic audience support and depth in the reading.

Thus, here come many followup questions: What are some institutional practice to prepare a better future for moving images? How to create opportunities outside the mainstream? What kind of operation mode does a moving-image institution need today? We hope that other peer institution's experience may be reference for our practice. This season of Lumen Quarterly will be a special collaboration between VCD and Image Forum from Tokyo, opening an institutional dialog through discussing and showcasing selected works from IF's experimental programs.

VCD is honored to introduce the Special Season: Focus on the Off, in three parts. First, the 6 award winning works from IFF 2019 East Asia Experimental Film Competition - among which 5 works including Night Horse(2019), Bath House of Whales(2019), Splash(2019), Kinta and Ginji(2019), Japan, the Beautiful or Ambiguous, and Ourselves(2019) will be showcased on the platform of Centre of Experimental Film, and Last Year When the Train Passed by(2018), will later join the other works at the offline events. Secondly, 2 selected films from IFF's brand new Experimental Panorama program - ★(2017), an album of starry nights collected from hundreds of films throughout film history, and the film that requires audience to order from its menu, Stories of the Dumpster Kid(1971). Finally, Filmmaker in Focus: Terayama Shuji , with a series of 1970s short films from IF's collection, co-made by this legendary author and his artist assembly in film, theatre and poetry.

Author/translator: WANG Zhuxin

About Image Forum

Image Forum established itself in the current form in February 1977.  However its original activity started in 1971 under the name of "Underground Film Center" to screen and distribute experimental/independent/alternative films and videos. Image Forum organizes an experimental film and video annual festival named Image Forum Festival.  Image Forum Festival, initiated in 1987, has celebrated 30th in 2016, Japan's biggest and most significant showcase of avant-garde, experimental films and videos all over the world. Image Forum owns a screening room with a capacity of 35 seats and produces cinematheque programs.  The programs consist mainly of new works of independent film and video, both domestic and international.  The works shown here vary from short/feature-length experimental film/video, documentary film/video to animation.  Image Forum runs Image Forum Institute of Moving Images and offers one-year courses and summer workshops to grow young film and video artists. Image Forum has a film and video collection of about 1000 titles (most of the works were shown at cinematheque programs) and circulates them throughout the country to various institutes, museum and cine-clubs. The collection is open to international scholars and festival directors. Many of the collected films and videos have been presented at international festival and cinematheque programs.

▽点击查看四季影展往期片单▽

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▽点击查看四季影展精彩内容▽四季影展 2019秋“语言的转码”片单
2019夏：“水边的纳西索斯”片单 2019春：“流动的顿悟“片单
2018春：“南方季风”片单万玛才旦专访  |  郝蕾谈戈达尔  |  采访阮纯诗蔡明亮专访  |  《黑眼圈》现场全纪录杨·史云梅耶 | 谷口晓彦访谈 |  德里克·贾曼的蓝碧浪达，是裁缝的挽歌 | 对话黄惠侦
《亨利-乔治·克鲁佐的地狱》导演专访
国际影像文化促进会

World Organization Of Video Culture Development

国际影像文化促进会（以下简称：VCD 影促会）于 2017 年夏天在北京正式成立。作为一个非营利机构，它致力于搭建一个观影、学习和交流的平台，向公众普及和推广艺术影像。一方面，VCD 影促会以举办影像资料展、文献展、讲座和学术研讨会等方式为更多人提供影像艺术教育；另一方面，它也通过自身平台挖掘更多优秀的影像艺术作品，在为其提供放映机会的同时助力青年影像艺术家持续创作。

四季影展

Lumen Quarterly

四季影展是VCD影促会的主要落地项目之一，它立足于长期稳定地为观众展映高质量的艺术影像作品，并通过主题论坛，讲座，文献梳理等方式优化观众的观影体验。此影展更加看重个人经验在文化有机体中的作用，并试图由此出发，以最开放的态度，将艺术电影、实验影片、短片、动画、影像艺术等多种类的影像作品有机的结合在一起。为此，影展以我们所熟悉的春、夏、秋、冬为时间轴展开，每三个月邀请一位艺术家或文化人担任策展，按主题挑选影片，长期不间断地进行展映。通过这种穿插，比照式的放映方式，VCD影促会希望能够开放性地引起话题，使观众从更丰富的层面和更平易近人的角度对影片以及动态影像本身产生更多的认识。

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