Art shaped from moving images

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Video art � an art which relies on moving images � has opened up the poetic possibilities of the medium of video, short filmmaker Renu Savant said here on Monday. She was participating in a �Meet-the-Press organised at the Thiruvananthapuram Press Club in connection with the ongoing International Documentary and Short Film Festival in the capital city.

Art curator M.L. Johnny pointed out that there need not be any narrative�linear or otherwise � in video art. He cited the example of a work of video art which captures the Empire State Building in the United States for a length of time. The only way to make out that it is not a still picture is when there is a minor change of lighting in the film.

Even as video art renders technology invisible, it is also breaking the barriers between different genres of films, said Ms. Savant, a student of FTII, Pune, and maker of the short film �Dark Room which journeys through the history of the film image and records at the same time the development of the urban-industrial nature of Mumbai. The stages in the development of the city are paralleled by the changes in the image of the film through the decades.