Dirk Koy and Max Philip Schmid in Cairo Video Festival

For its 10th edition, Cairo Video Festival invited artists to reflect on the most recent global video art and experimental film productions, with a programme that captures the spirit of playfulness and experimentation the festival has always embraced.

To our delight, Pro Helvetia Cairo supported the participation of Swiss artists, Max Philipp Schmid and Dirk Koy and their artoworks “Membrane” and “Luftraum” and “Construction/deconstruction” respectively.

“Membrane” looks at our lives as flooded by media information and guidebook words of wisdom.

“Something has to happen! But nothing does – when will the catastrophe happen? Or has it already happened? Which act are we in?”.

“A membrane surrounds a cell. Its task is to let certain things in and repeal others. If the membrane becomes too tight, the cell dies.” –Max Philipp Schmid talked to us about his video art:

Dirk Koy is a Swiss visual artist, with a focus on image and motion.

In 2016, he founded the studio for motion design and experimental film «Dirk Koy Bild und Bewegung». In his work, he uses different technologies (drones / 2D and 3D animation / photogrammetry / AR / VR) to create moving digital images. He investigates the interface between reality and virtuality and is also looking for the painterly component in the digital context. The Experiment plays a central role. His work has been shown at the Art Center Nabi in Seoul, at the HeK (House of Electronic Arts) Basel, at the Supernova festival in Denver or at the FILE Festival in São Paulo. In 2019 Dirk Koy received the Basel Media Art Prize for the work «ground».

His artwork Luftraum was screened throughout the festival in Cairo’s Eish + Malh and Mall of Arabia.

This year’s CVF featured nine programs, installed and screened across the Cairo, and spanned genres that include music video, VR, glitch, performance, dance, animation, CGI, narrative, film essay, covid-eo art, and video poetry, invoking a commitment to working and experimenting in the field. One program looked at mental processes and perceptions of space and time in the digital world, while another investigated the hidden codes of city life. A third took viewers out of space and time altogether; a fourth explored ideas of doublethink, comfort and fear, memory and image. These programs were thought of as site-specific screen happenings, interventions, and collaborations, and hoped to offer exciting and alternative ways of navigating spaces around the city.