EXHIBITION DETAILS:

Films will be shown beginning at dusk, once weekly during the month of October 2010 for a four-week run. A 2500 lumen LCD projector and laptop computer will be hooked up to a power inverter which is fed to a car battery. This makes the project mobile, cost-effective, efficient, safe, quiet and as green as possible. Films are to be approximately two minutes in length, silent, with content that conforms to the public nature of the event. The films will run on a continuous loop for 1 1/2 hours each week. Films will be selected by an open-call on artist websites as well as by invitation by the curators and exhibition staff. The film selections shall be juried by the curators, curatorial assistant and technology consultants. The open call will solicit submissions world-wide. An open call will be sent beginning in March 2010.

Public relations materials will be distributed via direct mail, social networking sites, press releases to local and regional media, and website calendars. The direct mailing list consists of approximately 3,000 names. Facebook has the potential to reach to almost 1,000 people directly via the curators' contacts. The event shall be publicized publicly on Facebook so that participants can invite their friends, expanding the potential to reach out to an infinite number of viewers. The remainders of the public relations outlets offer approximately 80 more opportunities for publicity in print, on the web and broadcast media. Public relations materials will be distributed directly by the exhibition staff.

The films will be shown in the cities of Newark and Jersey City, NJ, USA and the surrounding communities. These locations were chosen for their diverse, dense populations. Proximity to New York City is another basis for site selection. The number of trains, cars and busses traveling in and out of Manhattan and through these cities plays into the plan to reach incidental viewers. The cities of Newark and Jersey City also have thriving art communities and screening locations will be attended by art patrons and artists. In sending the open-call to a world-wide community of artists, the potential for a wide-range of issues and outlooks will be maximized, and yet again, bring awareness of this event to the maximum number of people. The exhibition crew will begin scouting locations suitable for this event in late March to early April as the weather warms. A new location will be chosen for each of the four weeks.

CURATORIAL AND TECHNICAL PARTICIPANTS:

Jeanne Brasile, Curator

Jeanne is the Gallery Director at Seton Hall University's Walsh Gallery in South Orange, New Jersey. She also curates independently throughout the New York Metropolitan Area. A fan of digital art, she likes to exploit the medium's familiarity to reach non-traditional audiences. Brasile has almost 20 years experience working in non-profit museums and galleries. She is also a working artist.

Hiroshi Kumagai, Curator

Kumagai is an artist-curator who is based in both Newark and Jersey City, New Jersey. His most recent awards include a residency at The Lower East Side Print Shop ('08) and Gallery Aferro ('09). He is active in organizing exhibitions and events to promote Northern New Jersey as a thriving art community. He also mentors high school students in Newark to help unlock their potential.

Jade Lien, Curatorial Assistant

Lien is a graduate of Drew University, having majored in Arts Administration and Art History. She has most recently worked at the New Jersey Center for Visual Arts and The Ocean City Arts Center. Her most recent curatorial endeavor, "Repurposed, Re-thought" highlights artists using non-traditional materials to expand upon accepted vocabularies and expectations of what art is supposed to be.

Polina Zaitseva, Technical Assistant

is an artist-teacher. She has produced numerous digital video projects and is a skilled editor, photographer and producer. Her senior thesis at New Jersey City State University consisted of a 5 minute loop that presented her childhood experiences growing up in Russia with her present-day reality as an immigrant to the United States. Zaitseva's work addresses her life between two worlds, juxtaposed against a backdrop of fairy-tale imagery. She currently teaches drawing to undergraduate students at New Jersey's School of Architecture in Newark, N.J.

William Coronado, Technical Assistant

Coronado is a painter, video-artist and teaches art to students at East Orange's Cicely Tyson School for the Performing and Visual Arts. He actively shows his work in New York City and New Jersey where he has lived since his childhood. With deep roots in the community and a strong commitment to social issues, Coronado addresses the human condition in his paintings and video projects.

JEANNE BRASILE STATEMENT:

As an independent curator, one of my foremost interests is presenting exhibition content that stimulates dialogue. I am also interesting in pushing the borders of the gallery beyond its physical limitations. The realm of digital art presents possibilities to gratify these interests concomitantly. I propose to produce a mobile-outdoor film festival consisting of short films of 2 minutes of less, shown on a continuous loop. The films will be projected onto vacant buildings, idle billboards, crumbling structures such as stanchions, bridges, piers, etc. Selected screening sites shall be chosen for their proximity and line of sight to highways, rail lines and areas with heavy foot traffic. The selected films will address issues faced by urban communities in America. The purpose of this strategy is multi-faceted.

Firstly, the decision to screen these films in outdoor locations in heavily-populated urban areas will facilitate viewing by the maximum number of non-traditional art audiences. The unexpected surprise of a film screening to incidental viewers will assure notice by those not aware of the screenings. For the local community that may be informed of the screenings through public relations efforts, there will be the anticipation factor. Gatherings in the screening locations will be encouraged, as would attendance at any traditional art opening. Like The Gates, Christo and Jeanne-Claude's artistic intervention in Central Park, it is anticipated that viewers may re-consider their surroundings with new eyes due to the film content as well as the act of transformation of decrepit structures into an impromptu, outdoor gallery.

The second part of this strategy to project films at outdoor locations is to screen films that address urban issues. The selection process aims to include the broadest number of interpretations on the theme. Films that highlight both the challenges and joys of urban life will be shown. In doing so, a balanced portrait of city life will highlight difficulties, and advantages of urban living and the host cities' inhabitants. This is something that perhaps those passing by on highways and railways may have never paused to contemplate.