The first multi-day video program was organized by MedienOperative, founded in West Berlin in 1977 as a center for independent video work and video culture, as part of the 17th International Forum of New Cinema in 1987. On the initiative of Micky Kwella, the VideoFilmFest followed a year later and also took place in connection with the Berlinale. It wasn’t until 1990 that the VideoFest presented itself as an independent festival for video art and documentary video. Dates were kept close to those of the Berlinale. ever elusive reflects on the history of the festival through the re-release of video works from transmediale’s archive. By the same token, audio-visual abstraction runs through the selection of international historical and contemporary films as much as the documentary view of the material and animistic conditions of a reality that stands in opposition to the alleged dematerialization of the digital world.

The film and video program of ever elusive presents decidedly artistic approaches in the handling of analog and digital aesthetics. The conscious overloading of human perception in cinema, as well as references to processes that are far beyond perceptibility and control, identifies the autonomy of the machine as an essential aspect of past and future technological development. The films are split between utopian and dystopian scenarios in order to not least affirm resistance to the prevailing power relationships of global capitalism.