The art-cinema debates of the last few years have fallen behind an artistic practice that has almost entirely abolished the exclusivity of the two poles. But to what degree have these changes marked existing institutions, or even made them superfluous? What new institutions have been formed from them? Or will the internet become the space in which the break up of the division can play out in its full radicalism? But this is not just a matter of the battle of media worlds. Video recorded on cell phones at Tahrir Square was already being archived and shown by activists during the Egyptian revolution. Not only the experimental engagement with this material, but also the utopia and experience of a revolution failing, as well as the question of where art and culture can be positioned in such a situation, have lead to new inventions of visual forms of expression as well as institutional structures. When does political content become aesthetic form? Where does institutionalization begin, or, what institutions are needed to shape this process? Who invents them and who bears them? The panel looked into the question of the power experimental formats have to affect the deconstruction, change, or new creation of institutions, and what these formats look like. Or do they only become experiments in retrospect, when they themselves have already been institutionalized?

Moderator:
Stefanie Schulte Strathaus (Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V., Berlin)
Panelists:
Khalid Abdalla (actor, Mosireen Collective, Kairo)
Azin Feizabadi (artist, filmmaker, Berlin)
Lioudmila Voropai (curator, media scholar, KHM Köln, UdK Berlin)
Mike Zryd (film scholar, York University, Toronto)