Digging DIGit

Video slam, conceptual concert to highlight fourth annual media exposition

NARROWSBURG, NY — For four years now, DIGit Media Exposition has brought together local and international talent in an annual explosion of cutting-edge media creativity. Like the previous events, this year’s exposition, to run from Friday, September 14 through Sunday, September 15, will include continuous screenings and performance art. There will also be audio and video installations in and around Narrowsburg at locations including the Delaware River, the Delaware Arts Center, the Tusten Theatre and various storefronts.

New this year is an innovation that will give the audience a chance to jump right in and participate with the artists: a “video slam.” In this “Visions of Narrowsburg” event, a 21st-century version of the poetry slam, all and sundry are invited to create three-minute videos using events recorded during the exposition as their raw material. The resulting work will be shared at the “slam,” a screening at the Tusten Theater at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday, September 16. A panel of judges will choose the winner of a $500 cash award. An audience favorite will also be chosen.

The festival will kick off on Friday from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. with an opening reception and screenings at the Delaware Arts Center at 37 Main Street. Screenings will continue throughout the weekend. Looped screenings at the Delaware Arts Center will feature digital works by artists from all over the globe, including animation by Mike Fisher from San Antonio, TX and the documentary “Controversy on the Delaware” by Milford, PA’s Ryan Balton. In addition to Kun-I Chang’s “FISSION” and Jason Harrington’s “The Tree with the Lights in It,” shown in the accompanying photos, finalists to be screened at the Tusten Theatre will include Ellen Lake’s “Trina’s Collections” and Alexia De Ville’s “Astral Chorus.” “Trina’s Collections” is an experimental documentary examining the line between eccentricity and normalcy, documentary and fantasy. “Astral Chorus”

is an experimental narrative that incorporates established forms, including photography and drawing, to reveal the inner lives of three women of very different ages.

On Saturday, September 15 at 2:00 p.m., the Upper Delaware Writers Collective will present “Grounds for Poetry” at Narrowsburg Roasters at 25 Main Street. The event will include a video of poems on life in a small town. At 6:45 p.m., conceptual composer Tom Holmes will present “Percussive Echoes, River’s Edge... Music from the Center of the Narrowsburg Bridge,” a one-hour interactive percussion, trombone, and voice piece. Drums will be placed at stations on either end of the bridge, and sounds from nature, the sound of traffic over the bridge, and moments of silence will all be interwoven into the composition. Finally, at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday night, the $1,000 Best in Show prize will be awarded during a screening of the finalists at the Tusten Theatre at 210 Bridge Street.

DIGit is sponsored by the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance and funded in part by a grant from the Electronic Media Program of the New York State Council on the Arts. DIGit encourages creative and technical excellence and experimentation among individual artists and small groups working with digital tools.

For more information visit ArtsAllianceSite.org or call 845/252-7576.

To be part of the slam

…create a video that meets the following criteria:

• All final pieces must be three minutes or less Videos must have been created entirely during the DIGit festival (September 14–16)

• Videos must have been shot in the hamlet of Narrowsburg

• Finished work must be submitted on DVD by 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, September 16.