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Locations

The Exhibition Square  (Messeplatz) in Basel, with its exhibition halls and the cone of light designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the "Eye to the Sky", is a very special place: both a hub for Basel traffic and for people from near and far, for cultures, products, innovations and ideas. It is a "place of lively exchange, presentation, experimentation, observation, learning and knowledge transfer. It is a dynamic place. Here new things can be tested, decisions are made that sometimes even show their relevance worldwide in the future". (Jonas Scharf, Managing Director Congress Center Basel). Coming from the Badischer Bahnhof station, the route leads via the Messeplatz to the city centre.

The Market Square  (Marktplatz) is located in the heart of the old town centre. The majority of Basel's trams and bus lines stop here. The everyday paths of the Baselers cross with those of the tourists on Sight Seeing Tour.  The market stalls and the surrounding shops cover a wide range of everyday needs, from eating to buying household goods or luxury items.  Its structure was shaped in the Middle Ages and the Market Square is widely appreciated for its historically preserved townscape. The GLOBUS Basel department store is just a few houses away from the town hall.

The eBoard of the Congress Center at the Messeplatz and the video in the shop window of the GLOBUS Basel had a special position in previous years in the context of videocity.bs. The former was a widely visible marker, the latter a magical attraction for passers-by with the display of an entire shop window. Both places are frequented by many people. In addition, there are bus and tram stops directly in front of both locations and thus numerous people are in front of them.  

The light-flooded room of the Mediathek of the Academy of Art and Design in the uppermost, the 8th upper floor of the high-rise building of the FHNW at the Dreispitz, whose windows reach all the way to the ground, offers a magnificent view of the city and the surrounding area. Here the videos can be seen in the usual way, with seating in front of a large monitor and, if sound is available, with headphones. This way of presentation offers the possibility of comparing conventional reception with the videocity.bs experiment in urban space.

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What they all have in common is to encourage exchange, inspiration and new encounters. With the simultaneous presentation in part of the same videos, GLOBUS Basel, the Congress Center Basel and the FHNW Mediathek open up different points of reference and spatial contexts and thus allow the videos to be experienced differently in each case. A visual bridge between the Exhibition Square and the Market Square will be built with the joint presentation. The aim is to motivate the Art Basel public to discover the special features of the city centre and the citizens of Basel to discover the new products within the trade fair grounds.

videocity.bs

Since 2013 videocity.bs has opened up new ways for culture and business to live together. Basel shops and cultural institutions open their shop windows, their halls or make their billboards available to the video artists. For several weeks, videocity.bs will become an immaterial part of Basel and inspire unexpected encounters. The videos allow everyday life to appear in a new light and everyday life to appear vice versa in the videos. Since then, 70 video works by around 70 artists – Pipilotti Rist was there three times and Ursula Palla twice – have been shown during the nine issues, which have lasted up until now for a duration of about 7-10 weeks.

In 2013, 2014 and 2015, videocity.bs formed a multi stage parcours between Messeplatz, Marktplatz, the SBB railway station and the St. Jakobs Stadium. Since 2016 videocity.bs focuses on the big locations: the eBoards of the Congress Center Basel and the videocity.bs shop window at GLOBUS Basel department store. Since 2017 the Mediathek also joined, after the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst moved into its new building,  the FHNW tower block situated in the Dreispitz area. Because videocity.bs shows the videos without sound at the locations in the public space and experiments with the influence of city sounds and surroundings on perception, and because curators and artists include this situation in their compositions, a comparison with the traditional presentation in the media library is exciting.

Each year since 2017, one artist has been offered the unique opportunity to create a site-specific work especially for the media facades of the City Lounge, North Hall and South Hall at the Messeplatz in Basel with its unique architecture conceived by Herzog & de Meuron, in the so-called "Eye to the Sky".  The work of art exists only temporarily at this exceptional location.

videocity.bs is a format for the wider public, professionals, art lovers and amateurs, moreover for beyond protected museum walls. It was developed by the Basel-based cultural manager and curator Dr. Andrea Domesle especially for the city and its cultural scene and launched together with Mathias F. Böhm, the managing director of Pro Innerstadt Basel.

Congress Center Basel

The Congress Center Basel - the largest congress centre in Switzerland in terms of space - hosts over 200 events each year with around 200,000 visitors. The Congress Center Basel is directly connected to the Herzog & de Meuron exhibition hall via a passerelle. Only a few other locations in Europe have a congress centre with a direct link to a trade fair site, so that the combined events, which are increasingly in demand, here find their optimal conditions. Thanks to its modern infrastructure, Congress Center Basel is able to hold its own in the international arena.

GLOBUS Basel

Since 1892 GLOBUS has offered unique worlds of inspiration with exclusive products, sensual shopping experiences and excellent service. With its typical puristic-elegant style, its attention to detail and its uncompromising quality standards, GLOBUS fascinates its customers again and again. GLOBUS has been in Basel since 1907. The stylish Art Nouveau façade bears witness to these historic beginnings as one of the first department stores in Basel.

Mediathek of the FHNW Academy of Art and Design

This offers a relaxed, concentrated, stylishly designed study atmosphere, accessible to students and interested members of the public. There is literature on the artists on display on the topic offered here, and video art, and thanks to its special keywording, is also integrated into subject areas that make comparative research possible. The media library collection of literature and media (including important collections on the subject of video) embodies the ideal embedding of the project in a scientific, artistic and research environment.

Pro Innerstadt Basel

Pro Innerstadt Basel maintains and promotes Basler City altogether as the region's most attractive and largest shopping, trade and service centre. Pro Innerstadt Basel is an association of retailers, gastronomers and hoteliers, cultural and leisure businesses, homeowners, service providers and all those who share our goal of preserving and developing Basel City as a place of experience, enjoyment and shopping.

Initiatorin, Projektmanagerin und Kuratorin

Dr. Andrea Domesle, MAS, has been renowned as a specialist in international and Swiss modern and contemporary art since the publication of her doctorate on "Leucht-Schrift-Kunst" by Reimer Verlag, in Berlin 1998). As a cultural manager, she specializes in the development and positioning of art projects. She lives in Basel and works as a curator, author and lecturer on art history, museum & curatorial studies, creative writing at universities in Switzerland and abroad. She has organized over 120 exhibitions, including 19 tours with 500 artists in Switzerland, Europe, Asia and the USA on socially relevant topics alone or with co-curators. 

© concept and name of videocity.bs by Andrea Domesle, layout & design: BureauDillier

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