by Alberto Barbera

Defined by Andr� Bazin as an "impure" art, cinema is the example of a perfectly syncretic form of expression, given its ability to absorb techniques and languages that belonged to the arts that preceded it (theatre, literature, music, dance, painting, etc.). And by exercising this ability to absorb, cinema has, in the very few years since its first appearance, managed to establish itself as the dominant form of visual expression in our age.

However, cinema has not not limited itself to appropriating the techniques developed by others, it has also developed its own specific techniques (different types of shot, editing, super-imposed images, flashbacks, slow-motion, split-screen, etc.) – and these have then been taken up and recycled by other disciplines. In producing its own array of instruments, visual effects and techniques, cinema has become the century’s "tool box", from which writers, playwrights, painters, musicians and advertisers have all unreservedly taken what they needed.

This double history of appropriation and, undoubtedly generous, restitution, has gone so far that it is no longer possible to establish the exact point at which a debt owing becomes a debt owed; and the last few Biennales have provided ample proof of the fruitful and deep relationship between cinema and the other arts – the visual arts in particular.

This is why there is nothing unusual about this year’s collaboration between the Visual Arts Biennale and the Venice Film Festival. In effect, all we are doing is explicitly recognising a relationship that already exists, even if it was not part of some plan or programme.

This collaboration will take the form of six projects by contemporary film-makers, which will be supplemented by other projects in which visual artists such as Stan Doulgas and Gary Hill will use the medium of cinema, or – to be more precise – video.