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VIDEOFORMES is an association and an internationally renowned event on the contemporary video art and digital culture scene.
VIDEOFORMES offers a programme specifically designed for young audiences and is committed to promoting education in the visual arts and video art through two calls for collective projects: the Une Minute creation and the Créations Hybrides & Numériques projects.
Digital technologies are now part of the everyday practice of many artists, architects and creators working at the intersection of the arts. They are not only communication technologies, but also convey a new relationship with the material and the immaterial, the relational and the social. They raise new ethical questions and generate new behaviours and new artistic approaches. Arts education aims to develop students’ creative and sensitive potential, educating their eye and artistic culture through the works and approaches of the past and present. Based on experimentation and practice, it provides the means to understand the artistic elements that can be identified in creations of all kinds. It is therefore natural that students’ general education should take into account today’s tools and approaches, namely digital technology. Digital technology complements the range of traditional tools. The artistic appropriation of digital technology raises new questions, renews or puts into perspective the fundamental codes of image creation. Arts education should enable pupils to explore this medium, integrate it into their practice and adopt a detached perspective towards it (Curriculum for visual arts and music education – BO spécial n°6 of 8 August 2008). Students must be able to distinguish between digital images for cultural consumption (which they are inundated with) and images with artistic value. To do this, exposure to digital artworks is essential (http://eduscol.education.fr/arts-plastiques/enseigner/ressources-par-niveau-et-programmes/mise-en-oeuvre-des-programmes/la-part-des-technologies-numeriques-dans-les-nouveaux-programmes-du-college.html).
Video, with its cross-disciplinary nature, is above all an encounter. It brings together technical skills as numerous as there are videographers. It brings together form in space (the device that allows it to be perceived, and even experienced) and content (the referent in the image). It brings together art history and popular culture. Through its multitude of forms, it is accessible to all.
Visits to VIDEOFORMES exhibitions are part of the History of Art curriculum and cover the contemporary historical period. They fall within the artistic domain of ‘visual arts’ while also serving as ‘meeting points’ between different art forms. They offer all students, of all ages, opportunities for sensitive and thoughtful encounters with works from different artistic fields, […] and help them to spontaneously walk through the doors of a museum, gallery, […] or any other place where local artistic heritage is preserved, created and disseminated (Decree of 11 July 2008 establishing the organisation of art history teaching in primary, middle and secondary schools).
Visits to exhibitions can be part of the Artistic and Cultural Education Programme because they enable young people, through hands-on experience, encounters with works of art and artists, and research, to develop a personal artistic culture, learn about different artistic languages, and diversify and develop their means of expression (Circular No. 2013-073 of 3 May 2013. ‘The Artistic and Cultural Education Programme’).
