The Alchemy Room: Media Scientists, Artists, and Filmmakers Cross-Pollinate at New Frontier on Main
Descend into New Frontier on Main, the Festival's subterranean gallery-lounge-salon.
"We see in this year’s lineup something impressive … technology custom-made for the work, serving the storytelling in powerful ways."
- Shari Frilot, senior programmer for the Festival
Not so far from the red carpets and lines of Festivalgoers waiting to enter screenings on Main Street in Park City resides another, stranger kind of Sundance Film Festival, one where avant-garde artists bathe in the spotlight – imagine that! – and where the traditional movie-going experience is regarded as a thing of the past.- Shari Frilot, senior programmer for the Festival
Actually, this alt-universe Festival is right underneath Main Street’s red carpets. New Frontier on Main can be found at 333 Main Street, in an underground exhibition space that offers an eclectic sampling of installation art, experimental cinema, and the latest in new media technology. Think of it as a gallery-lounge-salon dedicated to brainstorming the future of the movies.
This year's showcase features works by 15 artists and technologists from around the world. Lest you think the offerings might be too pie-in-the-sky theoretical to have much real-world relevance, rest assured that the works on display are accessible and designed to interface with the imaginations of your average movie enthusiast.
"We see in this year’s lineup something impressive… technology custom-made for the work, serving the storytelling in powerful ways," says Shari Frilot, senior programmer for the Festival and the curator for New Frontier.
Frilot says the overarching theme in this year's line-up is the reinvention of the way we watch movies.
"It speaks to how the hardware of cinema is being redesigned so that is coheres with the body," she says. "You’re moving through this cinematic journey, instead of sitting in a theater for two hours."
Among the highly anticipated installations is Tamper, designed by scientist John Underkoffler and a team at Oblong Industries, which imagines an editing room of the future where visitors use special gloves to digitally manipulate scenes and swap footage from different movies.
Nasty Nets, an international group of online artists, will host an evening to demonstrate their various forms of Internet culture jamming – hacking YouTube, reappropriating new media – and other forms of artistic mischief.
This year represents a more global selection of artists. International names who will present work at this year's line-up include Omer Fast, the Israeli-born, Berlin-based video artist whose installation The Casting was featured at the Whitney Biennial. This ambitious project depicts a U.S. army sergeant recounting two important events in his life, one of which is related to the war in Iraq.
The London-based artist Maria Marshall will also present a series of disturbing video installations, featuring herself and family members, using various kinds of digital technology.
New Frontier (which should not be confused with the Festival's Frontier section of experimental films) will unfold this year in a newly remodeled space that Frilot says is intended to emphasize the "young sexy vibe" that was key to past shows. The Festival has hired a design manager to add two new galleries to the space and create a lounge-y vibe to the interior.
Equally important to Frilot is the ability to foster a laboratory environment where art isn't merely on static display.
"The experiment is not just to display work," says the curator. "It’s about putting it in a social environment, so you get media scientists, artists, and filmmakers in the same room sharing and cross-pollinating."
Click here to read more about Nasty Nets.
Visit Michael Portnoy's website.
Click here to catch Omer Fast's installation at the Whitney Biennial.
Read a Sneak Peek of Sundance's New Frontier Line-up.
