Digit finds niche in emerging media arts

By CHARLIE BUTERBAUGH

With the Internet and other emerging technologies, artists are finding new ways of distributing their music recordings, written stories or films, and a growing digital media festival based in the rural hamlet of Narrowsburg, NY is securing its role as the arts community enters this new era.

As curious visitors climbed the stairs to the Loft Gallery at the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance last weekend, they were greeted by the glow of monitors and large screens, each presenting a series of films created independently by artists from as far away as Middlesex, England and as near as Cochecton, NY. Pat Carullo, organizer of the 2005 Digit Exposition, arranged the display, which had been open throughout the previous week.

One of the large screens, shown at right, was running right off an iPod. Carullo had stored a collection of five short films on the pocket-sized hard drive, including Theodore Usher’s “The Shirt Machine” and Allan Rubin’s “Silence of the Moon.”

Playing on one of the monitors was Carullo’s own 14-minute film “Waves,” which contrasts scenes of Carullo paddling and swimming in the Delaware River at Colang Rapids—a place that is inaccessible by car—with people he filmed at Penn Station and inside a PATH subway car, locations where the use of cameras has recently been outlawed.

At the Tusten Theatre late in the afternoon on Friday, April 29, Amanda Matles and Mike Cataldi, graduates of Parson’s New York Studio Program and filmmakers who now live in Brooklyn, were testing recordings of the festival’s winning films, which would be screened the following night.

As Matles was watching “Resisting Paradise,” the 80-minute visual opus in which filmmaker Barbara Hammer contrasts the relatively isolated experiences of Henri Matisse and other artists during World War II with the French Resistance movement, Matles observed the advance Digit has made in just one year.

She said the collection of five winning films selected by Digit’s judges had surpassed the quality of last year’s winners.

Carullo responded, saying the festival, which just completed its second year, is “on track.”

“If it was the same, if the quality of material did not improve, I wouldn’t want to push the envelope,” he said. “But it does improve, on its own.”

“Ryan,” an official submission by the National Film Board of Canada, won Digit’s Best Documentary award. The animated film by Chris Landreth portrays a frail Ryan Larkin, an animator himself who, in the 1970s, secured his fame by winning an Oscar for his own groundbreaking work.

Armand Agresti’s project, “Years,” presented six decades of home movies, compressed and accelerated to 3,000 frames per second. Agresti, a self-taught filmmaker who lives in Damascus, PA, is proof that the Digit festival is providing a new platform for artists to be seen.

During one of the panel discussions held on Saturday, Agresti talked about his use of new technology to bring back the past in a way that resonates with viewers, including members of his own family.

Panelist Chris Andreola, founder and creative director of ADC Studio in Livingston Manor, NY, discussed how new technology is returning the power of ownership back to artists.

“The Beatles don’t own their own songs,” he said, pointing out that artists used to and still often trade rights to their creations in order to fund their future work. “But the power is switching back to the artists. I think it’s a very exciting change,” Andreola said.

In the past technology has been faulted, even condemned for degrading human contact by isolating people. Frightening images of sun-deprived slaves to machines who spend their days and nights in front of radiant screens have beckoned our attention since the early 20th century.

But what if the opposite were true? What if technology could allow artists to create with more freedom, and perhaps even advance their representation of human experience?

At several points during Saturday’s panel discussions, the question of whether technology ultimately trumps artistic quality was raised.

DeJay Branch, a music-recording artist who is creating a new studio in Lackawaxen. PA, said, “Digital media can be a great tool, but there’s a standard people should try to live up to.”

But, referring to the recorded music on the iPod in his hand, Branch said, “The tools have made it easier to get this here.”

Natella Kataev, whose animated film, “The Little Pilgrim,” won Digit’s Best Animation award, said the emergence of 3D animation through such films as “Finding Nemo” has generated great excitement about visual effects. But often with popular animated films, she said, “The stories are just not there.”

John Tomlinson, who lives in the Upper Delaware Valley and directs the Parson’s New York Studio Program, stressed that artists can “be tied to the traditions of the past and make something for the future.”

Tomlinson said Digit is playing its part in the “democratizing trend” of digital media arts.

“We’re doing this because we can,” Carullo said. “We have a real chance with the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance to create a legitimate art movement.”

“We do it because we can and because we might have an impact by giving the artists a new voice.”

Addressing the audience before a series of films were screened on Friday evening, DVAA Executive Director Elaine Giguere said movies used to be premiered in rural places like Narrowsburg before they went on to Hollywood.

“We’re doing it again I guess,” she said. “And we’re talking about next year’s festival already.”

The exhibit of short films will be on display at the Delaware Arts Center through this Saturday. For more information call 845/252-7576.