Curatorview [Alfredo Cramerotti]

29 Mar 2010
CPS Chamber of Public Secrets, Co-curated by Khaled Ramadan and Alfredo Cramerotti

Chamber of Public Secrets works as a network of artists, curators and thinkers who have been collaborating since 2004 on the organization, production and circulation of film and video festivals, exhibitions, TV and radio programs, political fictions and documentaries.  CPS members have also established forums for debate and published books and articles on issues like media representation, migration, mobility, colonialism, gender and difference.  CPS helps to debate the position of artistic and media narratives and the function and responsibility of both in relation to society.

The CPS Archive was established in Copenhagen 2007 as an independent, non-profit art project focusing on the latest developments in visual art culture. The archive collects, preserves, and provides photographs, video films and documentaries about a variety of issues, thereby exploring, exposing and exemplifying the way contemporary art interacts with society through the use of new media.

The archive functions as an information and research centre and is open to the public. It consists of an electronic image, video and film database, which forms the basis for exhibitions, debates, symposiums, artist presentations, performances and screenings. The CPS Archive is open for cooperation with individuals and institutions that share the interest in exploring, examining and informing the contemporary artistic usage of visual elements – with the aim of enhancing communication between people of different societies.

For this screening, Alfredo Cramerotti will be presenting recent works from the archive by artists including Mounira Al Solh, Dalia Alkoury and Raed Yaseen that will serve as an introduction to a curatorial project he and Khaled Ramadan have worked on for Manifesta 8 called The Rest Is History?

Through operating as a roving Biennial, Manifesta must each time address and negotiate a different context with specific geographical, historical, aesthetical and political structures.  In this way, its curators are offered the opportunity, and the challenge, to engage with local, global and networked communities using a variety of platforms and methodologies.

In the vision of CPS, Manifesta 8 is a series of ‘transmissions’ that critically use artistic, relational and media(ted) strategies to explore ideas of what Spain / Europe is today and focus on its boundaries and relationship with Northern Africa, encouraging viewers to ask questions.

CPS’s approach to curating encompasses (mass) media platforms such as television, internet, radio and newspapers, alongside other exhibition formats. Broadcast airtime, online streaming, printed matter, human relations and physical venues are all ‘channels’ in which we present different types of constructions. These media(ted) channels are an extremely interesting place to situate a series of projects for Manifesta 8. By challenging artists and contributors to explore new terrains beyond their usual practice, we question what is the media’s relationship to the construction of a local reality, how does it relate to ideas of truth, fact and history, and what are its possibilities for engaging with new audiences? And why do we need to expand the existing boundaries of art by introducing the notion of media?”

Khaled Ramadan is an artist and curator currently based in Helsinki. His fields of specialty include the culture and history of broadcast aesthetics, with interests in the fields of aesthetic journalism and documentary film research. He has produced several documentary films, theoretical texts and books on broadcast aesthetics, journalism and documentary filmmaking.  Ramadan also has extensive experience curating video exhibitions and film festivals. He is the founder of the MidEast Cut festival, the Made in Video festival, the Coding-Decoding documentary festival, the video festival Not on Satellite, and the Video File.  He is member of the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art, IKT and is currently co-curator of Manifesta 8.

Alfredo Cramerotti is a writer, curator and artist. His work explores the relationship between reality and representation across a variety of media. He is co-curator of the forthcoming Manifesta 8, a European biennial of contemporary art in Murcia and Cartagena, Spain, and curator of QUAD, an art, film and media centre in Derby, UK. He co-runs the collective art and media projects Annual General Meeting and Chamber of Public Secrets. Recent publications include Aesthetic Journalism: How to Inform without Informing (2009).