INFERMENTAL
Encyclopedia
Infermental was the first international magazine published solely on videocassettes. The concept was conceived the Hungarian filmmaker Gábor Bódy
Gábor Bódy
Gábor Bódy was a Hungarian film director, screenwriter, theoretic, and occasional actor. A pioneer of experimental filmmaking and film language, Bódy is one of the most important figures of Hungarian cinema.- Biography :...

 in 1980. The name is a combination of the words international, ferment, and experimental.

The eleveen volumes of Infermental were published from 1980–1991, with an rotating series of editors from different countries. Each annual issue assembled from four to seven hours of the audio-visual work that represented the latest national trends of each country.

Infermentals ten issues (and one special) totaled approximately seventy hours of material from more than a thousand artists and thirty six countries. Among the numerous participating artists were Gary Hill
Gary Hill
Gary Hill is an American artist who lives and works in Seattle, Washington.One of the pioneers of video art, Gary Hill has exhibited his video and video installations worldwide . He is represented by Donald Young Gallery of Chicago.An anthology on the work of Gary Hill by Robert C...

, Rafael Montañez Ortiz, Jon Jost
Jon Jost
Jon Jost is an American independent filmmaker.Born in Chicago to a military family, he grew up in Georgia, Kansas, Japan, Italy, Germany and Virginia. He began making films in January 1963 after being expelled from college. In 1965 he was imprisoned by US authorities for 2 years 3 months for...

, Peter Weibel
Peter Weibel
Peter Weibel is an artist, curator and theoretician.Raised in Upper Austria he started to study French and cinematography in Paris...

, Heiko Daxl
Heiko Daxl
Heiko Daxl is a German media artist, exhibition curator and design / art collector. He lives and works in Berlin and Zagreb.- Life :...

, Marina Grzinic, Aina Smid, Joan Jonas
Joan Jonas
Born in 1936 in New York City, Joan Jonas is a pioneer of video and performance art and one of the most important female artists to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s.She began her career in New York City as a sculptor...

, Yello
Yello
Yello is a Swiss electronica band consisting of Dieter Meier and Boris Blank. They are probably best known for their singles "The Race" and "Oh Yeah", which feature a mix of electronic music and manipulated vocals, as does most of their music....

, Ulrike Rosenbach, Hiroshi Ito
Hiroshi Ito
is a seiyū born in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan on March 15, 1933. He is employed by the talent management firm 81 Produce.-TV:* Alice SOS * Armored Police Metal Jack * Babar the Elephant...

, Mona Hatoum
Mona Hatoum
Mona Hatoum is a video artist and installation artist of Palestinian origin, who lives in London.- Lebanon :...

, Paul Garrin
Paul Garrin
Paul Garrin, , is best known as a politically active video artist from the 1990s. His most famous work is Man with a Video Camera , 1989, in which he videotapes a riot in Tompkins Square Park in New York City's Lower East Side...

, and Steina and Woody Vasulka
Steina and Woody Vasulka
Steina Vasulka and Woody Vasulka are pioneers of video art, having practiced in the genre since its early days in the late 1960s....

.

In 1990, Veruschka Bódy, who co-ordinated the project after Gábor Bódy's death in 1985, stated, "The annual anthologies, published by local editors (artist groups from 12 cities), are in fact a rich find for semoticians, topologists and visual philosophers. With this now 65 hours long video archive, a vocabulary of the 1980’s has been made available to the public."

The Infermental collection is accessible to the public at the ZKM  .

Issues

  • Infermental 1

Berlin/West, Germany, 1982

37 contributions, 8 countries, 4 hours

Editors: Gábor Bódy
Gábor Bódy
Gábor Bódy was a Hungarian film director, screenwriter, theoretic, and occasional actor. A pioneer of experimental filmmaking and film language, Bódy is one of the most important figures of Hungarian cinema.- Biography :...

, Astrid Heibach

Supervisor: Gusztáv Hámos
  • Infermental 2

Hamburg, Germany, 1982/83

77 contributions, 15 countries, 6 hours

Editors: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Oliver Hirschbiegel
Oliver Hirschbiegel is a German film director. His works include Das Experiment and the Oscar nominated Der Untergang.- Career :...

, Rotraut Pape

Supervisor: Vera Bódy
  • Infermental 3

Budapest, Hungary, 1983/84

99 contributions, 18 countries, 6 hours

Editors: Peter Forgacs
Peter Forgacs
Péter Forgács is a media artist and independent filmmaker based in Budapest, Hungary. He is best known for his "Private Hungary" series of award winning films based on home movies from the 1930s and 1960s, which document ordinary lives that were soon to be ruptured by an extraordinary historical...

, László Beke

Co-editors: Malgorzata Potocka, Peter Hutton
Peter Hutton
Peter Hutton is an experimental filmmaker, known primarily for his silent cinematic portraits of cities and landscapes around the world. He has also worked as a professional cinematographer, most notably for his former student Ken Burns. Hutton studied painting, sculpture and film at the San...

, Egon Bunne

Supervisor: Rotraut Pape

Production secretary: Zoltán Bonta
Zoltán Bonta
Zoltán Bonta is a Hungarian filmmaker, videographer, indoman. From 1985 to 1987, he was member of Directory in Béla Balázs Studio . Since 1979 assistant to Gábor Bódy among other filmdirectors, az Ferenc András, Ferenc Kardos, Sándor Simó, Lajos Koltay, Pál Sándor, János Dömölky, Tamás Sas, Fabio...


  • Infermental 4

Lyon, France, 1985

102 contributions, 14 countries, 7 hours

Editors: FRIGO (Gérard Couty, Mike Hentz, Christian Vanderborght)

Supervisor: Astrid Heibach
  • Infermental 5

Rotterdam, Netherlands, 1986

39 contributions, 13 countries, 5 hours

Editors: Leonie Bodeving]], Rob Perrée, Lydia Schouten

Supervisor: Egon Bunne
  • Infermental 6

Vancouver, Canada, 1987

59 contributions, 25 countries, 6 hours

Editors: Vera Bódy, Hank Bull

Supervisor: Gérard Couty
  • Infermental 7

Buffalo, USA, 1988

58 contributions, 17 countries, 5 hours

Editors: Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...

, Chris Hill
Chris Hill
Chris Hill is a British disc jockey. He worked at the club Lacy Lady in Ilford, as well as at the Goldmine Canvey Island. He was the head of the 'Soul Mafia' in London and the South East of England into the early 1980s. In 1975 he released a "break-in" novelty record, in the style of Dickie...

, Peter Weibel
Peter Weibel
Peter Weibel is an artist, curator and theoretician.Raised in Upper Austria he started to study French and cinematography in Paris...



Supervisor: Rotraut Pape
  • Infermental 8

Tokyo, Japan, 1988

73 contributions, 15 countries, 5 hours

Editors: Keiko Sei, Alfred Birnbaum
Alfred Birnbaum
Alfred Birnbaum is an American translator.Alfred Birnbaum was born in the United States and raised in Japan from age five. He studied at Waseda University, Tokyo, under a Japanese Ministry of Education scholarship, and has been a freelance literary and cultural translator since 1980.From March...



Supervisor: Mike Hentz, Hank Bull
  • Infermental 9

Wien, Austria, 1989

45 contributions, 15 countries, 5 hours

Editors: Ilse Gassinger, Graf + ZYX

Supervisor: Chris Hill
Chris Hill
Chris Hill is a British disc jockey. He worked at the club Lacy Lady in Ilford, as well as at the Goldmine Canvey Island. He was the head of the 'Soul Mafia' in London and the South East of England into the early 1980s. In 1975 he released a "break-in" novelty record, in the style of Dickie...


  • Infermental 10

Osnabrück / Skopje, Germany / Yugoslavia, 1991

51 contributions, 16 countries, 6 hours

Editors: Heiko Daxl
Heiko Daxl
Heiko Daxl is a German media artist, exhibition curator and design / art collector. He lives and works in Berlin and Zagreb.- Life :...

, Evgenija Dimitrieva

Supervisor: Keiko Sei
  • NRW (Special Issue)

Wuppertal, Germany, 1984/85

This edition presents a selection of works mainly from 1984 from the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. This volume included works from Joan Jonas
Joan Jonas
Born in 1936 in New York City, Joan Jonas is a pioneer of video and performance art and one of the most important female artists to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s.She began her career in New York City as a sculptor...

, Marcel Odenbach
Marcel Odenbach
Marcel Odenbach, with Ulrike Rosenbach and Klaus vom Bruch, is one of the most well-established and internationally known German video artists. In the 1970s, they formed the producer group ATV...

, Birgit Antoni, and Vera Bódy.

External links

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