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Jurors
for the 2007 DIFVF
Morgan
Schwartz is
a visual artist who creates video installations, single-channel
videos, urban actions and interactive media projects. He works
collaboratively on projects in response to specific sites
or cultural systems. Morgan teaches courses in new media and
interactive digital media. He earned a BSE in Chemical Engineering
from Princeton University in 1996 and his MFA from the School
of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University in 2002. Previous
to joining Marymount Manhattan College, Morgan was Visiting
Faculty in New Media at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts
University in Boston, MA.
From
Our Guest Juror. . .
Spending
the weekend in Cleveland to jury this year’s Delta
International Film and Video Festival, I was fortunate to
have some free time to explore the area. We spent part of
one afternoon searching for fossils on a large sandbar in
the middle of the Mississippi River. Wading through the
mud and wandering around this oddly Martian landscape was
pleasantly relaxing. My hectic life faded, at least temporarily,
to the background. As I walked slowly across the terrain
with my eyes glued to the ground, looking for a treasure
poking out of the mud I suddenly realized what an apt metaphor
the riverbed was for a film festival. The river, after hundreds
of miles of travel, deposits trash and gems, old tools and
even older bones. Similarly, an International Film and Video
festival solicits an equally rich range in visual production.
On the riverbed we found a mattress-size piece of styrofoam,
an old tape measure, cool rocks, and a fossilized vertebrate
the size of my fist. In the process of jurying this festival
we also unearthed a dizzying array of material.
In
both scenarios, the problem is intractable. In the efforts
to leave no stone unturned, you could probably spend a lifetime
excavating any 10 square yards of the riverbed. On the other
hand there is the desire to cover vast tracts of land -
the next big find is always "just a little bit further".
A similar dilemma challenged us as we juried this year’s
submission - we had limited time to explore a huge amount
of work. Some pieces immediately caught our attention -
glimmering gems sitting on the surface and easily spotted.
Other pieces required us to dig a little deeper. In any
case, the work is rich and funny and sad and beautiful.
I hope you will enjoy what the river gave us.
-Morgan
Schwartz
Robyn
Moore, Director of the DIFVF, is an Assistant Professor
of Photography and Video at Delta State University. She is
an award-winning experimental filmmaker and photographer whose
work has been screened widely, including at the San Francisco
International Film Festival (Official Selection in the New
Visions Category), the Humboldt International Film Festival
(Best Documentary), Ann Arbor International Film Festival,
the Virginia Film Festival, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,
Harvard University, Hunter College (Winner of the Maurice
Kanbar Award for Excellence in Experimental Film/Video), the
New England Film and Video Festival (Best Student Experimental
Film), the James River Film Festival, Coolidge Corner Theatre,
and the Vinegar Hill Film Festival. She earned a BA in Art
History from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University,
a MA in Photography from Western Carolina University, and
a MFA in Filmmaking and Photography from The School of the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Tufts University. |
