Infermental

INFERMENTAL - International - Fermentum - Mental, initiated by the Hungarian filmmakers Gábor Bódy and Vera Bódy in 1980, was the first international videocassette magazine that published video artworks in part or whole, trailers, and reports (lasting 1-20 minutes) from around the world. Appearing annually with a total running time between four and six hours, each issue was compiled and edited in a different location. From the first issue (Berlin, 1982), which was published on an electronic billboard during the Berlin Film Festival and co-edited by Astrid Heibach and Gábor Bódy, who in 1980 initiated the ‘international recorded imagery project), to the last issue (Skopje and Osnabrück, 1991), a total of 660 works were gathered. Infermental was conceived neither as festival nor gallery, but as a ‘running information memory' (Oliver Hirschbiegel) that bundled together excerpts, documents and events according to thematic and intellectual context.

Following the death of Gábor Bódy, his wife Vera Bódy was responsible for co-ordinating the project. The complete magazine archive, including 10 issues + 1 special issue (altogether about 70 hours and more than 1500 artists from 36 countries, has been on permanent loan to the collection of the ZKM Karlsruhe since 1992 - and are publicly available via its Jukebox-System.

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  Videography Infermental 1-3, 1984

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  Infermental Editions 1981-1991

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  Exhibition poster Infermental 1980-1986, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, Apr. 10 - Apr. 13, 1986

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  Infermental, Kassel, 1987. Top: Eric Metcalf, Vera Bódy, Hank Bull. Bottom: Gérard Couty, Rotraut Pape, Mike Hentz.

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  Poster Infermental 1980-1988

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  Infermental 1980-1988: Description of each edition

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  Projektbeschreibung / Sketch of the project (German)

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  Infermental, Berlin, 1989. Top: Mike Hentz, Christoph Dreher, Egon Bunne, Oliver Hirschbiegel. Middle: Peter Callas, Gustav Hamos, Vera Bódy, Ilse Gassinger. Bottom: Chris Hill, Gérard Couty, Rotraut Pape.

Editions

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Infermental 1

Berlin/West, Germany, 1982
37 contributions, 8 countries, 4 hours
Editors: Gábor Bódy, Astrid Heibach
Supervisor: Gusztáv Hámos

Infermental 2

Hamburg, Germany, 1982/83
77 contributions, 15 countries, 6 hours
Editors: Oliver Hirschbiegel, Rotraut Pape
Supervisor: Vera Bódy

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Infermental 3

Budapest, Hungary, 1983/84
99 contributions, 18 countries, 6 hours
Editors: Péter Forgács, László Beke
Co-editors: Malgorzata Potocka, Peter Hutton, Egon Bunne
Supervisor: Rotraut Pape
Production secretary: Zoltán Bonta

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Special Issue NRW

Wuppertal, Germany, 1984/85
This edition presents a selection of works mainly from Germany's state North Rhine-Westphalia from 1984. The editors couldn’t find philosophical-visual trend directions from the submitted works. Nevertheless this issue excels in the high quality of individual works (Joan Jonas, Marcel Odenbach, Birgit Antoni). (Vera Bódy)

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Infermental 4

Lyon, France, 1985
102 contributions, 14 countries, 7 hours
Editors: FRIGO (Gérard Couty, Mike Hentz, Christian Vanderborght)
Supervisor: Astrid Heibach

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Infermental 5

Rotterdam, Netherlands, 1986
39 contributions, 13 countries, 5 hours
Editors: Leonie Bodeving, Rob Perrée, Lydia Schouten
Supervisor: Egon Bunne

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Infermental 6

Vancouver, Canada, 1987
59 contributions, 25 countries, 6 hours
Editors: Vera Bódy, Hank Bull
Supervisor: Gérard Couty

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Infermental 7

Buffalo, USA, 1988
58 contributions, 17 countries, 5 hours
Editors: Tony Conrad, Chris Hill, Peter Weibel
Supervisor: Rotraut Pape

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Infermental 8

Tokyo, Japan, 1988
73 contributions, 15 countries, 5 hours
Editors: Keiko Sei, Alfred Birnbaum
Supervisor: Mike Hentz, Hank Bull

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Infermental 9

Wien, Austria, 1989
45 contributions, 15 countries, 5 hours
Editors: Ilse Gassinger, Graf + ZYX
Supervisor: Chris Hill

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Infermental 10

Osnabrück / Skopje, Germany / Yugoslavia, 1991
51 contributions, 16 countries, 6 hours
Editors: Heiko Daxl, Evgenija Dimitrieva
Supervisor: Keiko Sei

Print

• Infermental 1980 - 1986 ; the first international magazine on videocassettes / [coord. Veruschka Bódy]. - Cologne, 1986. - 162 p. - ISBN 3-7701-2099-X

• Infermental 1-3: Edition I, Berlin, 1982; Edition II, Hamburg, 1982/83; Edition III, Budapest, 1984 / Veruschka Bódy. - 11 p.

• Infermental 4: Edition 4, 1985, Frigo - Lyon / Vera Bódy. - 10 p.

• Infermental 5: The Image of Fiction : International Videoart. - Con Rumaore, Rotterdam / Ed.: Leonie Bodeving, Rob Perée, Lydia Schouten. - 1986. - 52 p.

• Infermental 6: New World Edition. - Vancouver / ed. by Hank Bull and Veruschka Bódy. - 1987. - 18 p.

• Infermental 7: A Travelling Exhibition of World video. Buffalo, New York Edition / Ed.: Chris Hill, Tony Conrad, Peter Weibel. - 1988. - 28 p. - ISBN 0-936739-11-8

• Infermental 8: In the Afterglow of TV Land ; the Tokyo Edition / Ed.: Keiko Sei and Alfred Birnbaum. - 1988. - 41+43 p.

• Infermental 9: Herz von Europa = Heart of Europe / Ed.: Ilse Gassinger and Graf + ZYX. - Vienna, 1989. - 120 p.

• Infermental 10: da - zwischen - hier = there - between - here / Ed.: Heiko Daxl and Evgenija Dimitrieva. - Osnabrück, Skopje, 1991. - 72 p.

On Infermental

• "Infermental", OMNIBUS 6, 1982. (German)

• "Infermental - Innovationen der visuellen Sprache: Experimental-Video-Projekt von Gábor Bódy", Zitty 13, 1982, p 66. Interview with Gábor Bódy about Infermental 1. (German)

• Don Ranvaud, "Infermental", Framework: A Film Journal 19, 1982, p 52. Announcement of Infermental 1.

• Dietrich Kuhlbrodt, "Infermentalisch", Frankfurter Rundschau, 16 Feb 1983. (German)

• Oliver Hirschbiegel, "Über Infermental", 1984. [1] (German)

• Emmanuel Stein, "Boxhandschuhe über der Theke", Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, 10 Apr 1986. About the exhibition Infermental 1980-1986 in Cologne at Kölner Kunstverein. (German)

• "Auf der elektronischen Bühne Europas - Infermental", Stadt Revue 11:5, 1986, pp 110-111. (German)

• Maurice Nio, "Infermental 5. The Image of Fiction", Mediamatic 1:2, 1986. (English)

• Dieter Daniels, "4. Edition von INFERMENTAL: Frigo, Lyon, Frankreich", 1986. [2] (German)

• "Infermental - Das elektronische Network der achtziger Jahre", in Ars Electronica 1987, Linz, 1987.

• Vera Bódy, "Infermental IX - Edition Wien", in EMAF 1989, 1989. (German)

• Rotraut Pape, "Infermental. Wie ein unabhängiges Netzwerk entsteht", in Dagegen-Dabei-Katalog, Hamburg, June 1998. [3] (German)

• Gábor Bódy, Astrid Heibach, Georg Pinter, Jozef Robakowski, "Infermental. Ein internationales Bildperiodikum auf Videocassette" / "Infermental: an International Cinematographical Periodical on Video Cassettes", in Medien Kunst Interaktion: die 80er und 90er Jahre in Deutschland / Media Art Interaction: The 1980s and 1990s in Germany, eds. Rudolf Frieling and Dieter Daniels, Springer, 2000, pp 67-70, 69-73. (German)/(English)

• Barbara Göhner, Informationsarchitektur im World Wide Web: theoretische Grundlagen und praktsiche Umsetzung anhand der Website Infermental für das ZKM Karlsruhe, 2003, 103 pp. Thesis. (German)

• A Detour Around Infermental, eds. George Clark, Dan Kidner and James Richards, Southend-on-Sea: Focal Point Gallery, 2012, 136 pp. Exhibition. Exh. review: Melissa Gronlund (Frieze). Book launch.

• Tomasz Załuski, "Infermental. Pierwszy międzynarodowy magazyn na kasetach wideo (1981-1991)", in Wideo w sztukach wizualnych, eds. Ryszard W. Kluszczyński and Tomasz Załuski, Łódź: Wydawnictwo UŁ, and Lubin: Galeria Labirynt, 2018, pp 205-246. (Polish)
  • "Infermental. The First International Magazine on Videocassettes (1981–1991)", 2023. (English)

See also

Hungary#Video_art

Links

• Infermental website by ZKM

• AXIS, eds. Veruschka Bódy and Gábor Bódy, 1986, 117 min. A video anthology based on the Infermental video magazine.

• Infermental: The Video Vocabulary of the 1980s, exhibition, ZKM Karlsruhe, 2006.

• 10 Years of Infermental, exhibition of 10 editions, part of Dagegen-dabei, Hamburger Kunstverein, 1995.

• Video Digest Magazine, a magazine and exhibition taking up impulses from historical video magazines such as Infermental, Video Congress and Zapp Magazine, 2023.

• Infermental on MediaArtNet

• ZKM

• Wikipedia

• Wikidata: Editions, Contributors, Organisations.