EUROPEAN MEDIA ART FESTIVAL OSNABRUECK 2011 - Emaf

WORD OF WELCOME BY FIRST MINISTER DAVID MCALLISTER
For the 24th time, the European Media Art Festival will attract media artists from around
the world to Osnabrück. For a few days, current tendencies in film, performance
and multimedia productions on DVD and the web will take centre stage for many people
in the city. Which is why I was delighted to assume the patronage of this festival.
Moving Stories form the main part of the exhibition “Planet M”, which can be seen in the Dominican church until
the end of May, long after the festival is over. It was created in collaboration with five European art institutions.
Media installations by artists from Belgium, Austria and Italy will be presented, each of whom explore
new forms of narration involving moving images. In addition, the programme includes the Media Campus – a
contact and project exchange – a congress and a “Media Art Garden”.
To mark the occasion of the 150-year existence of German-Japanese friendship, the festival focuses on diverse
Media Art from Japan, under the title “Japanese Media Art Now”. The organisers have maintained intensive contacts
to Japanese artists for years. I consider precisely this intercultural dialogue to be very important in the
difficult times Japan is currently experiencing.
As the First Minister of Lower Saxony, I am proud that the European Media Art Festival – one of the most ambitious
German cultural events in the media context – is held in this federal state. For this reason, the state
government has continued to support the festival for years, via nordmedia Fonds GmbH. The festival additionally
benefits from European funding, which Lower Saxony was successful in acquiring for the film and media industry.
With well over 2000 submitted projects, it must no doubt have been a difficult task to compile the festival programme.
The diversity of its experimental contributions will enable a whole new perspective to be gained of
people from all kinds of countries and their stories. It is also with baited breath that we wait for the jury’s decisions
on which projects will be awarded the prestigious prizes at the festival.
Delve into the world of Media Art, seeing life through the eyes of the artists – that is what I hope all visitors to
the festival will experience.
Hannover, April 2011
First Minister of Lower Saxony
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