Peter Lemmens, Karina Beumer
2020
book, soft cover, color
12 x 20 cm, 48 pages
UHF is a temporary artist-run initiative dedicated to video art and artists who question video in relevant ways. Located in the last video rental shop in Antwerp, UHF is dedicated to supporting, presenting and researching video art and the different ways through which it can be distributed. Through new devices moving images are more than ever omnipresent. UHF looks for art that formulates an attitude towards this. On an irregular basis, UHF takes on the task and responsibility to analyze video’s social, economic and technological developments with a multitude of perspectives. By placing itself outside of the cinema or exhibition space, it searches for a contextual experience and method that interferes with the works shown. In that sense, UHF has more in common with television than with cinema. Especially for Antwerp Art Weekend, UHF organizes the Straight-To-Video Film Fest. Also know as direct-to-video this term points out another distribution system. The usual theatrical release is deliberately bypassed, a peripheral audience is targeted while different conditions and relations are researched as markers for legitimacy. More than cinema, the terminology here points towards the carrier and home context. This genre defines itself through the way it is distributed and the wayward contexts in which it is seen. With this program UHF wants to support as well as question straight-to-video as an artistic position. “Life doesn’t imitate art, it imitates bad television.” — Woody Allen