This year’s international festival for film, video and the new media, VIPER 99, gets underway in Lucerne Wednesday, highlighting the works of dozens of Swiss and international artists.

This year’s international festival for film, video and the new media, VIPER 99, gets underway in Lucerne Wednesday, highlighting the works of dozens of Swiss and international artists.

Organisers have selected 50 contributions from 700 entrants to compete in the SFr10,000 ($6,622) Viper International Award. The competition is a platform for experimental and innovative film and video productions by both established media artists and newcomers.

The festival’s former Swiss Video Workshop has been expanded to include experimental films and has now been transformed into a Swiss competition.

The main theme of VIPER 99, which lasts five days, is to trace the impact of computers on art and culture.

“Cut and Copy,” the word processing tool used almost daily by computer users, has been in use for many years now. A similar cut-and-paste approach has also existed for a long time in the art world – for instance collage in painting and montage in film making.

Many of the artists presenting their work at VIPER 99 therefore focus not only on film and video art, but also incorporate computer animation, the Internet and the cyberworld.

Organisers hope that this year’s competition will set new standards in this kind of artistic adaptation and experimental development of the new media.

From staff and wire reports.

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