Off the MAP: RESFEST Screening - A Local Gathering and a Global Collection
posted: January 26, 2005
As RESFEST prepares to take its 9th festival on the road to 33 cities in 13 countries on six continents, The Best of RESFEST will be showing in Asheville. The collection consists of the 11 best short films culled from the archives of the largest festival of its kind. The screening, part of the monthly Off the MAP series, will take place at the Fine Arts Theatre, 36 Biltmore Avenue, on Wednesday, January 26th at 9:30 p.m.
The BBC reported that RESFEST’s short film program featured, “small but perfectly formed films.” The effect of the festival, however, has been anything but small or contained. The Australian Center for Moving Image stated that RESFEST has “pushed significant boundaries in the understanding of digital screen forms.” The festival showcases emerging artists and genres, including digital, design, and animated films.
Among the 11 films, “Home Road Movies,” composed of photographs and actors inserted into 3-D spaces, tells the story of a father’s desire to be a good parent, as expressed through his maintenance of the family car. Perhaps because the story is true, a remembrance of director Robert Bradbrook’s own father, it communicates a complete and compelling narrative rare in the limited parameters of short films. So too does “Terminal Bar,” Grand Jury Prize winner at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, a documentary director Stefan Nadelman based around the 2,500 photographs his father took of customers during ten years of working at Manhattan’s “toughest bar.”
In “Japanese Tradition (Sushi),” director Junji Kojima takes a more scathing look at his background. During this instructional film on Japanese culture, Kojima uses comedy to cut through the characteristic polite façade. “The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal,” also a mockumentary, coolly observes the artistic shapes created by efforts to paint over graffiti. Though Matt McCormick's film is humorous, the beauty of the many images collected in it is striking, and almost deservedly compared to paintings by the likes of Mark Rothko.
Geoff Adam’s “Birdbeat (Fugue)” is an exciting work of pure visuals and rhythm, in which “birds of many feathers peck and flap in syncopation” with jazz. Meanwhile, Tim Hope's remote "Jubilee Line" entrances viewers in with a beautiful soundtrack and a 3-D landscape of grids through which seemingly 2-D human figures pace. Whether acute and personal like “Home Road Movies” or purposefully abstract like “Jubilee Line,” the diverse selections in the third volume of The Best of RESFEST are all carefully made and tastefully chosen.
In addition to showing a vision of the innovative ways arts and technology can work together, RESFEST strives to build a global network of creators and audiences. The Media Arts Project, the nonprofit organization responsible for Off the MAP, selected the collection, in part, for this reason. The MAP seeks to engage western North Carolinians in regional and global media arts, providing participants with both local events and international information such as how to submit to RESFEST. (For a RESFEST 2005 entry form, go to http://www.resfest.com/submissions/. To get involved with Off the MAP or other programs, contact rosem@themap.org.)
Off the MAP is a joint effort by The MAP and the Fine Arts Theatre. Admission is $5.00 with proceeds going to the nonprofit organization.
The Media Arts Project (MAP):
News about the 48 Hour Film Project
We have added two new screenings! Tuesday and Wednesday will have 4pm screenings. Be sure to buy your screening tickets from Asheville Pizza and Brewing Company (APBC) right away.They are selling fast.
The screenings will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday and can only be purchased in person at APBC. There will also be a Thursday evening screening of the winners.
The Media Arts Project (MAP) had a great success with the workshop for the 48 Hour Film Project at the University of North Carolina Asheville and in cooperation with AB Tech and local media professionals. A special thank you to Paul Bonesteel, Steve Agnew, Kurt Mann, Jonothan Ross, Hal Marienthal, Amanda Edwards and Don Diefenbach.
Register for the Media Arts Directory
posted: January 4, 2005
Western North Carolina’s new online Media Arts Directory is now available at http://www.themap.org/directory/. Register for this free service, and encourage your colleagues to do so. In addition to media artists and professionals, businesses that use multimedia services, production crew members, equipment suppliers, venues that show media art, traditional artists seeking to incorporate media art into their work, and others who are interested are welcome to register.
The directory was programmed and designed by Top Floor Studio and funded by the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce. Tiyo Hallock, president of Top Floor Studio, says of the importance of professional organizations like The MAP, “I submitted a media piece to [an online exhibit,] my first interaction with the MAP. Shortly after, it landed me a job as a instructor…After getting at least three major clients directly from my connections through The MAP's network, I got another amazing lead--office space in the heart of the media art center in Pack Square for the most affordable prices I had found…Once you get involved with the MAP, there’s a whole new work world waiting.” Hallock donated many hours of his time to the project because he believes that, with the directory, “The MAP, an effective group now, will only become more influential.”
Sharon Willen, Director of Business and Industry services at the Chamber, views the directory as “a virtual economic development infrastructure.” She sees similarities between it and the Craft Registry created by Handmade in America, the nonprofit organization that has come to be recognized as a model for creative economic solutions. Like the registry, the online Media Arts Directory has the potential to bring business from customers outside the region to WNC artisans.
As much as the directory fosters an industry network, it should also contribute to the arts and the community in general. Curt Cloninger, a media artist, author, and Multimedia Arts and Sciences instructor at UNCA, commented about The MAP’s event series, “[At Off the MAP], I've met with several artists, musicians, and educators with whom I may never have come in contact otherwise. We've been able to use our shared reference of the event as a starting point for creative dialogue and collaboration. All of this has been extremely beneficial to me as an artist and educator, and none of it would have been possible without The MAP.” It is this sort of connection that the directory is meant to increasingly cultivate. Cloninger, who lives in a rural area of Canton, NC, plans to use the directory to locate other like-minded artists.
Expect to see other improvements to this website in 2005, including a new newsletter and forums. If you’d like to volunteer to work on the redesign, contact info@themap.org.
Western North Carolina’s new online Media Arts Directory is now available at 
