Editor

VIPER Basel 2003, the international film and new media
festival, will run from 21 to 25 November. The city on the Rhine will again
be a lively meeting-place for examining the latest trends in film, art and
the new media.

VIPER is both a catalyst and an impulse generator for innovations, a
meeting-place for authors and producers, the art business and the mass
media, culture and industry. The principal programme items in VIPER Basel
2003 are the international film, video and new media competition and the
theme, a different on each year, to which VIPER devoted itself with
screenings, project presentations and installations, talks and workshops.

VIPER competition has new categories IMAGINATION, PROCESSING and
TRANSPOSITION
144 of the most interesting and innovative works, of which 28 were from Switzerland, were chosen from over 1,300 entries from all over the world and put forward for the renowned competition.
The premières have a fixed place in the weekend programme during the festival and the international jury's decision on who will receive the three main prizes and the Swiss Award is awaited with some excitement.


VIPER Basel 2003 | ready made custom made
As an experimental forum and platform for innovation, VIPER Basel is focusing on questions of cultural and media economics this year. It will be presenting projects and initiatives that open up new scope for expression and action in the artistic treatment of new media and technologies, given the increasingly
technological feel of everyday matters. With an eye to the tendency towards world-wide standardization of available commodities and promoted life-styles, VIPER Basel 2003 is thus examining "ready made" fields for action and "custom made" options, and enquiring into the new view that consumers, authors,
artists and the public take of themselves.

MetaWorx
As an integral component of VIPER Basel 2003, the première of the MetaWorx/Young Swiss Interactive project will be presented in spectacular exhibition architecture in Theaterplatz.