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The history of film and art is fraught with misunderstanding - and missed opportunities. Many pioneer Modernists dreamed of film as the art of the future, but were often frustrated and rebuffed by an industry that increasingly aimed to sell itself as 'entertainment'. This history has become more relevant, as more contemporary artists take the moving image as their primary medium. But where does it leave 'cinema’? And hasn't digital made nonsense of many old debates and dilemmas? This presentation was made by Ian Christie on Tue 18 July at Watershed as part of the British Art Show 6 events in Bristol. Ian teaches in the School of Art History, Film and Visual Media at Birkbeck, and is Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge University.
From July - September 2006, visual arts venues across Bristol collaborated to host a major cultural event, the British Art Show 6. Occurring every five years, the show is the most ambitious survey of new and recent developments in art from the UK. A large selection of moving image work featured in the exhibition, and Watershed's contribution was to explore the evolving and sometimes fraught relationship such work has with its exhibition context. The space in which audiences view work impacts on their experience, and over time audiences have seen an ebb and flow of the moving image between the dark cinema auditorium, the white cube gallery and more recently online. Through screenings, discussion and presentation, Watershed invited audiences to explore the impact and influence of context on creative process, curatorial decision-making, critical analysis, and audience experience, posing the question ‘Is the gallery the new cinema, or is cinema the new art?'. Ian Christie's keynote presentation took place alongside screenings af artists' work including Breda Beban, Alia Syed, and Zineb Sidera, a Q&A with Breda Beban, and a panel discussion exploring some of the critical, curatorial, and creative issues that exist currently in the moving image.