Woodstock Digital Media Festival Blog

Digital Vermont: Four App Developers Share Their Challenges and Successes

2012-06-18T22:02:00.001-07:00

Leaders in Vermont’s growing digital economy will be at the 2012 Woodstock Digital Media Festival this weekend, June 22-23, 2012. One reason is that the popular “Digital Vermont” session, held at last year’s Festival, will be returning this year at 3:30 PM on Saturday in the Woodstock Historical Society to cover some of the achievements and current issues facing the digital media sector in the state.

Cathy Resmer, associate publisher and online editor for Seven Days (www.sevendaysvt.com) has pulled together a panel of application developers in Vermont, who will demonstrate and talk about their apps. Resmer hopes to hear what it’s like to develop mobile apps here in Vermont, which “…is not Silicon Valley, where there are engineers all over the place.” Resmer would like the session to explore the challenges as well as the successes in developing cutting-edge applications in Vermont, and to hear from the panel’s digital entrepreneurs, “How and why do you work in Vermont?”

Tom Jaros, Empower Mobility

Tom Jaros is president and founder of Empower Mobility (www.empowermobility.com), which designs and develops applications for a variety of mobile platforms and clients. Jaros is also Vice President of the Vermont Technology Alliance, a nonprofit supporting Vermont's tech industry with projects such as the magazine, Tapping Tech, and the VT Tech Jam, a two day event showcasing Vermont technology firms and job offerings.

In the Digital Vermont session, Jaros will speak about his work with the University of Vermont Extension to produce a mobile app for Vermont farmers. The state requires farmers and companies that apply manure to follow regulations designed to protect the environment, including reporting on the amounts and types of manure used on their fields. Jaros’s new app, developed in partnership with an agronomist from the UVM Extension, enables farmers to record details on their manure usage right from their tractors using a mobile device, and then to upload that data directly to the state’s monitoring database.

Darren Clarke, Redaranj LLC

Darren Clarke is mobile application developer and native Vermonter. After building databases and web sites in New York and Boston, Clarke returned home to found Redaranj LLC. The company's first product is a music sharing application called Recollect, which integrates with Twitter to allow users to create, collect and share music recommendations. Billed on the company website (www.redaranj.com) as the “best way to recommend and discover new music on Twitter,” Recollect has been an Apple "staff favorite" and appears in the social networking and music discovery "essentials" sections of the iOS App Store.

Anna Palmer, WinWin Apps

Anna Palmer is Founder and CEO of WinWinApps, a software development and micro venture capital company. According to its website (blog.winwinapps.com), the company “studies behavior and seeks technological solutions to increase efficiency in what people are already doing,” whether in school systems, non-profit organizations, families or groups of friends. A popular WinWin app is “Marble Jar,” which helps families set goals, track progress and celebrate success. Marble Jar can be used on an iPhone, iPad or Android to devise and track simple goals, like getting out of the house in the morning, and even more complex concepts, like learning how to be a good friend. In the Digital Vermont session, Palmer will talk about WinWin’s newest app in development, “Shake It Up.”

David Tyler, Green Mountain Digital

As the director of strategic partnerships at Green Mountain Digital (www.greenmountaindigital.com), David Tyler is responsible for identifying and maintaining partnerships for the Woodstock-based developer of nature and wildlife apps. Tyler joined GMD after eight years with Apple’s consumer- and enterprise-facing businesses in San Diego. Tyler will present GardenMinder, GMD’s new application billed as a “personal gardening assistant” and developed in partnership with Burlington-based Gardener’s Supply.

Mapping for Accessibility with AXS Map at the Woodstock Digital Media Festival

2012-06-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

Join Jason DaSilva and Alice Cook of AXSMap.com and help map the accessibility of Woodstock, Saturday, June 23, part of the 2012 Woodstock Digital Media Festival.

In today’s digital world, finding a good restaurant or locating a new store is no problem. Use Google Maps or MapQuest to get directions to an unfamiliar address. Access Yelp on a smartphone for a review of a local restaurant, and then use the phone’s GPS to get there. It’s all easy and almost effortless.

Unless picking the restaurant with the best food, and finding it on smart phone, still means you can’t meet your friends and family there. Filmmaker Jason DaSilva faced that problem. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2005, DaSilva can no longer walk and travels by motorized scooter.

“As I adjusted to my new life, I was surprised to learn that anytime I wanted to get out of the house, there was no way for me to know whether the places I planned to visit were accessible,” DaSilva says. “Today, a set of six steps in the entryway might as well be a six story impenetrable wall.”

Building Tools for People with Disabilities

Jason DaSilva

DaSilva created the nonprofit AXS Lab to tell the stories and build tools for people with disabilities through new media, innovation and documentary film. In May, AXS Labs launched AXS Map (pronounced Access Map), a new website and tool that allows people to search and review the accessibility of buildings, shops, restaurants and all kinds of places.

Jason DaSilva and AXS Lab executive director, Alice Cook, will be in Woodstock on June 23 to present their new website as part of the Woodstock Digital Media Festival. Now in its second year, the Festival explores the latest in digital art and innovation through exhibits, panel discussions and a Saturday evening gala presentation.

Digital “explorations,” such as “Mapping the Accessibility of Woodstock with Jason DaSilva and Alice Cook,” are also a part of the Festival, and offer attendees the chance to learn about and use new digital tools from the people who have made them. The mapping exploration begins on the Woodstock Green at 12:30 pm on Saturday, June 23. Like most of the Festival’s activities, the exploration is free and the public are encouraged to attend. A complete schedule of the Festival is available at WoodstockDigital.com.

AXS Map is a web-based application that can be accessed through the web browser of a smart phone or other device. Mobile apps for the Android and iPhone also are in the works. Users join the AXS Map community at www.axsmap.com, and once registered in the application, can rate on a five-star scale the wheelchair accessibility, spaciousness and noise levels of local businesses and buildings. Numerous videos on the site explain and demonstrate AXS Map’s rating system.

Helping People Find Places That Accommodate Their Needs

AXS Map’s goal is to offer people with mobility disabilities the ability to share knowledge of their local communities, and to help people find the places that accommodate their needs. “AXS Map gives me and others the ability to know exactly which locations are accessible,” DaSilva says, “And the freedom to travel to new communities confident that we will be able to find places and bathrooms that are accessible.”

Alice Cook

AXS also provides communities with a way to begin to gather information that will help them understand what their accessibility looks like, says Alice Cook. “AXS Map is about sharing the user experience,” she says.

Recent discussions in Woodstock regarding the accessibility of the town’s businesses have raised interest in the AXS Map exploration at the Festival. Representative Alison Clarkson is part of a group trying to address accessibility in Woodstock, which is complicated by the desire to make Woodstock more accessible while maintaining the town’s historic integrity. Clarkson wants to make sure that people are aware that Woodstock is actively working to address these issues, and says the group plans to meet with DaSilva and Cook when they are in Woodstock for the Festival.

As a part of its recent website launch, AXS Map held a “bicoastal mapping event” in which volunteers mapped a neighborhood in New York and in San Francisco on the same day. “The best part is that the tool is powered by individuals and communities,” DaSilva says. “The more reviews that are shared, the better it gets.”

The Birding Obsession

2012-06-07T11:05:00.001-07:00

Join birding expert Kent McFarland of the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, and media savvy birder, James Currie, host of Birding Adventures TV, for a Digital Bird Walk on Saturday, June 23, part of the 2012 Woodstock Digital Media Festival.

“Once you get involved, birding can become an obsession,” McFarland says. His began after college, during a stint in the Peace Corps in Paraguay, where the bright birds attracted his attention. After a few months—and the purchase of a cheap pair of binoculars and a bird guide—McFarland was a fanatic.

Twenty years later, he is still studying birds through the Vermont Center for Ecostudies (VCE), an independent research group dedicated to the understanding and conservation of wildlife. VCE biologists also involve amateur “citizen scientists” in their efforts to inform scientists, policy makers and the public about sound conservation goals and practices.

All of which make Kent McFarland a natural to lead the Digital Bird Walk on June 23rd. He expects to be able to easily spot 30 different species, but says that if the walk were earlier in spring and just before sunrise, participants easily could expect to hear 60 different species of birds.

“Once you get involved, birding can become an obsession.”

Kent McFarland, Vermont Center for Ecostudies

“Proficient birders do a lot by ear,” McFarland explains. Identifying bird songs is one of the areas where apps like Audubon Birds add to the experience, he adds. McFarland often will use an app when guiding because “showing a picture of the bird and playing its song helps people to be able to hear it, and then possibly see it, when they’re in the field.”

A Passion for Birding Data

McFarland’s passion for birding and data feeds his contributions to eBird, a giant database of bird observations from recreational and professional bird watchers. Launched in 2002 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, eBird’s goal is to maximize the collection and use of bird observations to create a huge biodiversity data resource for educators, land managers, ornithologists and conservation biologists.

Real-time data from eBird also can be accessed in the field by the Audubon Birds app, allowing users to find out what birds others have seen from anywhere they are standing.

In March 2012 alone, participants reported more than 3.1 million bird observations across North America to eBird, which collects the data through portals managed by local partner conservation organizations. The first localized portal was in Vermont, in large part due to McFarland’s urging, and today he still monitors the quality of data entered into eBird by Vermonters.

For McFarland, all the time and effort spent in the field and with the data is worth it. “Taking people’s fun and using it for conservation is priceless,” he says.

Digital Bird Walk, Saturday, June 23 at 8:00 AM

Join Kent McFarland and James Currie on a Digital Bird Walk with the Audubon Bird app from Green Mountain Digital. The walk leaves at 8:00 AM on Saturday, June 23, from the overflow parking lot on River Road across from Billings Farm and Museum. Interested participants can download the Audubon Birds app prior to the walk at http://bit.ly/AGbirds. However, everyone is encouraged to attend the Digital Bird Walk, even without the app or a device, to learn about birds and new digital technology.

Digital Bird Walk at the 2012 Woodstock Digital Media Festival

2012-06-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

Kent McFarland’s passion for birds and birding is unmistakable—and contagious. A co-founder of the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, McFarland is a conservation biologist, photographer, writer and naturalist with over 20 years of birding experience across the Americas.

In the course of our conversation early one morning in May, I was not the only one intrigued by what McFarland had to say. A woman sitting at a nearby table approached us half way through the interview to find out more, saying it was the most interesting conversation she had ever (over)heard.

You can catch Kent’s contagion—and pick up on some of his extensive knowledge—by joining him for a Digital Bird Walk on Saturday, June 23, at the Woodstock Digital Media Festival. The walk leaves from the Billings Farm and Museum at 8:00 AM, and will explore the Marsh Billings Rockefeller National Historic Park using the Audubon Birds mobile app from Green Mountain Digital.

Digital Bird Walk at the 2012 Woodstock Digital Media Festival

The Woodstock Digital Media Festival brings artists, entrepreneurs and academics together for two days in June to explore the latest in digital art and innovation. The Festival includes an art exhibition, panel discussions and presentations, and digital “explorations” like the bird walk, many of which are free and open to the public. A complete schedule is available at WoodstockDigital.com.

Birding with Kent McFarland

McFarland will be joined on the Digital Bird Walk by Justine Riegel and David Tyler of Green Mountain Digital, and by media savvy birder, James Currie, host of Birding Adventures TV. Currie also will give a talk and Audubon Birds app demo at 2:00 PM on the Woodstock Green.

Woodstock-based Green Mountain Digital has developed the best-selling series of National Audubon Society Field Guides into mobile applications for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Android, Kindle Fire, NOOK and HP Touchpads. Green Mountain Digital offers interactive field guide apps for wildlife and nature from birds, mammals, insects and amphibians to trees, flowers and mushrooms.

The walk will utilize the company’s flagship Audubon Birds app to track and record the group’s observations. Interested participants can download it prior to the walk at http://bit.ly/AGbirds. However, everyone is encouraged to attend the Digital Bird Walk, even without the app or a device, to learn about birds and the new digital technology.

Next: An Obsession with Birding

Issues in Digital Media Art

2012-05-26T07:13:00.002-07:00

Woodstock Digital Media Festival, June 22 and 23, includes a panel discussion with critics and curators on issues in digital media art.

Vermont is the place to explore the latest in digital media art at the Woodstock Digital Media Festival, June 22 and 23, and influential artists, critics and curators from New York to California are making the trip to participate.

This year’s Festival includes a panel discussion on current issues in digital media art and panelists include Barbara London, curator of the MOMA Visual Media Center, and Paddy Johnson, founding editor of the blog, Art Fag City.

Johnson says that one of the most important issues for discussion at the Festival is that “many digital artists are not making money and that’s a problem.” To illustrate her point, she says that a survey of the New York gallery scene in Chelsea today would turn up well over 500 galleries, only about three of which show digital art.

She looks forward to discussing other related topics, such as the uneasy acceptance in the traditional art world of new media art and artists. “While there has been more acceptance in the last few years,” Johnson says, “It is still a topic of discussion and concern among many digital media artists.”

"Ultimately, art is a result of community. Digital media forms communities online, but those bonds are much more significant when you meet in person."

Paddy Johnson, Founding Editor, ArtFagCity.com

Paddy Johnson looks forward to the Festival in Woodstock, and says that its beautiful location offers a connectivity of a different sort. “Woodstock is a beautiful place—remote, wooded, connected to nature,” she explains. “Ultimately, art is a result of community. Digital media forms communities online, but those bonds are much more significant when you meet in person. Having a ‘healthy Internet life’ means connecting with the outside world, and bringing the networked and the outside world together as much as possible,” Johnson says.

Johnson found last summer’s Festival to be a great opportunity to meet other people in the field. She is looking forward to seeing Ursula Endlicher, who she met at last year’s event and who will be participating in the Micro exhibit at this year’s Festival.

Ursula Endlicher, whose work combines Internet art, performance, and multi-media installation, is participating in the Micro exhibit at the Festival. Her current work includes “Light and Dark Networks, which are part of a series of Internet art projects that the Whitney Museum commissioned specifically for its website to mark sunset and sunrise in New York City every day.

Going Digital in Rural Vermont

2012-05-15T16:01:00.002-07:00

Exploring digital art in Vermont at the 2012 Woodstock Digital Media Festival

Vermont is the place to see and discuss the latest in digital art this summer at the Woodstock Digital Media Festival, June 22 and 23. Now in its second year, the Festival brings leading digital media innovators from the arts, business, education, and non-profits together to explore some of the important and influential work being done in new media today.

Joe McKay is the Festival’s curator and an Assistant Professor of New Media at Purchase College in New York. McKay believes that Woodstock is a great environment to explore issues around new media. “Particularly for the art world, where historically the sense has been that if you are not in New York, you are not relevant, holding a digital media art exhibition in Vermont is both provocative and predictive of the possibilities inherent in new media and digital media art,” McKay says.

A panel discussion on “Issues in Digital Media Art” will bring artists, curators and commentators together on Saturday, June 23, from 10-11AM at the Norman Williams Public Library. Panelists include Barbara London, curator of the MOMA Visual Media Center and Paddy Johnson, founding editor of the New York-based art blog, Art Fag City.

Whether on the screen or in an environment, new media art can take many different forms, even when created by the same artist. Johnson cites the work of programmer and artist, Aaron Koblin, which ranges from TheSheepMarket.com, an online collection of 10,000 tiny drawings made by workers paid two cents each to "draw a sheep facing to the left" to “Flight Patterns,” a video representation that gives color and form to the paths of air traffic over North America.

Flight Patterns by Aaron Koblin

Digital art takes advantage of that inherent variability to engage the viewer, Johnson says. “Viewing conditions are more easily controlled by the viewer in digital mediums. For example, the viewer can turn the screen lighting down or up, or the digital art is in physical space and may include an interactive element. With other visual arts, the lighting is fixed, the display is fixed, and the artist may expect the art to just flow over you.”

Johnson mentions Very Nervous System by David Rokeby as a good example of that interactivity. In Very Nervous System, motion sensors around the room connect to a computer program that responds to movements in the space and plays music. (See a video of David Rokeby interacting with Very Nervous System in 1991here.)

Next: Issues in digital art

A Natural Place to Explore Digital Media Art

2012-05-11T18:00:00.000-07:00

A conversation with Paddy Johnson of ArtFagCity.com about Digital Art and the Woodstock Digital Media Festival

Vermont evokes many images. Wooded hills, small farms, family holidays and ski vacations are just a few. Now imagine Vermont as the place to see and discuss the latest in digital media art. The Woodstock Digital Media Festival, June 22 and 23 in Woodstock, Vermont, is doing just that, and influential artists, critics and curators are making the trip, even out of New York, to participate.

This summer, the Festival is building on the success of its 2011 inaugural event, which brought together more than 150 artists, entrepreneurs, academics and the public to explore the art, the apps and the ideas shaping new media and its influence on how we interact, work and play in a digitally connected world. The 2012 Festival includes an exhibit where new media artists will explore a “Micro” theme; panel discussions with nationally recognized artists, journalists, and entrepreneurs; and participatory digital “explorations” that take advantage of Woodstock’s intimate and beautiful setting.

A Saturday morning panel discussion will bring artists, curators and commentators together to discuss “Issues in Digital Media Art.” Panelists include Barbara London, curator of the MOMA Visual Media Center and Paddy Johnson, founding editor of the New York-based art blog, Art Fag City. On Art Fag City, Johnson provides exposure to emerging contemporary art and under-known artists and engages in critical debate that helps to shape the art world, working from the basic belief that creative production of all forms is essential.

Johnson says that digital and new media art, like all art, can help us to learn something about the world and about ourselves that we don’t already know. She believes that digital media art is important, not just in the art world but for everyone. "Digital mediums surround us, and since artists are often responding to the world around them in some way, it makes sense that there are many more artists working with digital media. The work of the artist is to help provide a better understanding of our world in some way," Johnson says.

Digital art—using computers or digital technology as a central part of the creative or presentation process—has been called by many names since it began appearing around 1970. Digital art is now even placed under the larger umbrella of new media art, a genre that encompasses artworks created with new media technologies from computer graphics and animation to Internet art and computer robotics, and with practices that include conceptual art, performance and installation pieces.

Continued in the next blog: Differences and similarities in digital media art...

Join leading digital media innovators from the arts, business, education, and non-profits and explore some of the most important and influential work being done in new media today at the 2012 Woodstock Digital Media Festival, June 22-23, in Woodstock, Vermont.

Comics Journalism Breaks New Ground With Digital Media

2012-04-23T10:40:00.002-07:00

WOODSTOCK, VT - The written word. Photography. Audio. Video footage. These are the tools we commonly associate with news journalism. But with today’s explosion in digital news media, a unique and surprising method of conveying stories is taking hold:

Comics.

A new breed of artist-journalists are finding their voices in comics journalism, moving beyond the single-panel editorial cartoon to use drawn comics as a way to delve more deeply into stories. With their rich, hand-crafted feel and depth, comics provide a way to compete for shrinking attention spans, and to cut through the information overload that comes with trying to stay current in a complex world.

One such voice belongs to Dan Archer of Archcomix.com. Archer will be speaking at the upcoming Woodstock Digital Media Festival on June 22 and 23 in Woodstock, Vermont.

A graduate of the Center for Cartoon Studies, Archer creates non-fictional, journalistic comics that present a new perspective on a range of human rights and social justice issues, giving voice to stories that wouldn’t otherwise be heard. He’ll participate in the Festival’s panel on “Telling [True] Stories,” to be held Saturday, June 23, from 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. at the Woodstock Inn.

As a comic journalist, Archer embraces the seeming contradiction between the subjective nature of drawing and the objectivity required in journalism. “Journalistic comics explicitly acknowledge the fact that news reporting can never be completely objective. By embracing the author’s style, as well as his or her artistic and editorial choices, these comics expose the lack of objectivity in all news reporting.”

Archer says that journalistic comics have the ability to convey more information, as well as to better highlight the “dissonances” that exist within any given topic, and our exploration of that topic.

“A comics news story acts as a window into a subject. It does more than scratch the surface of a topic. Instead of falling back on rhetoric, these comics actually aim to inform—dare I say educate—the reader.”

Archer says he’s excited to return to the Upper Valley, to reconnect with friends and colleagues at the Center for Cartoon Studies (cartoonstudies.org) in White River Junction. Beyond that, he says, the Woodstock Digital Media Festival offers a special opportunity. “Cartoonists, journalists and people in technology tend to stay somewhat isolated in their spheres. I see this a chance for people with common interests—sharing news stories in unique, attention-getting ways—to come together and talk about commonalities.”

The Woodstock Digital Media Festival opens to the public on Friday evening, June 22, with a free Exhibition Opening from 8:30-10:30 p.m. at the Artistree Gallery in Woodstock. On Saturday, June 23, outdoor digital “explorations” and informational sessions like Archer’s “Telling TRUE Stories,” are free and open to the public. Saturday evening’s reception and presentation is a ticketed event from 8:00-11:00 p.m. at the Billings Farm and Museum.

For more information on the Festival and to register, visit WoodstockDigital.com.

Find Dan Archer on Facebook, Twitter, or check out his monthly newsletter.

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The Woodstock Digital Media Festival is a forum and exhibition held each summer in Woodstock, Vermont, where leading digital artists, businesses and educators present their work and interact with their peers as well as with the general public. The Festival combines a beautiful, natural setting with a completely wired town center to create a fantastic “digital campus” offering lively talks, unique outdoor explorations, and ongoing exhibitions of digital art and innovations. For more information on the Festival and to register, visit WoodstockDigital.com.

Cowbird Helps Storytellers and Photographers Spread Their Wings

2012-04-12T14:43:00.004-07:00

WOODSTOCK, VT - Storytellers and photographers around the world are finding a digital home – a place to tell stories and share photography documenting their lives and the lives of others who aren’t normally heard from, especially in digital media. That home is Cowbird, and its Community Manager, Annie Correal, will be one of the presenters at the Woodstock Digital Media Festival to be held June 22 and 23 in Woodstock, Vermont.

“Cowbird.com is a constantly evolving library of human experience, completely created by the authors,” says Correal. “It’s a tool for people to create records of their experiences.”

Cowbird’s 11,000-plus participants, from 150 different countries to date, use the site to document stories and photographs in a way that was once reserved for photojournalists and anthropologists. Cowbird was founded and created by Jonathan Harris, who was raised partly in Shelburne and considers Vermont his home state.

"Meteorological" by Jonathan Harris

As of this interview, 55 Vermonters have contributed 290 stories – numbers that will certainly continue to grow. One Vermonter putting Cowbird to frequent use is Geoffrey Gevalt, an educator who takes advantage of Cowbird’s digital format to publish text, audio and photos. Gevalt has created pieces documenting the reminiscences of elders, his work with young Vermont writers, and even a series on the process of making maple syrup.

At the Woodstock Digital Media Festival, Correal will showcase the work of Gevault and other storytellers on Cowbird. She encourages all who have an interest in sharing or collaborating on storytelling to attend her panel, “Telling [True] Stories,” Saturday, June 23, from 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. at the Woodstock Inn.

“Cowbird wants to foster an experience that’s not just about sitting behind your computer all day, but provides an impetus to go out and create stories that interest people,” says Correal. “The site provides a way to connect with your immediate community, to find others who are interested in the same types of things you are. Online relationships can turn into relationships in the real world.”

The Woodstock Digital Media Festival opens to the public on Friday evening, June 22, with a free Exhibition Opening from 8:30-10:30 p.m. at the Artistree Gallery in Woodstock. On Saturday, June 23, outdoor digital “explorations” and informational sessions like Correal’s “Telling TRUE Stories,” are all free and open to the public. Saturday evening’s reception and presentation is a ticketed event from 8:00-11:00 p.m. at the Billings Farm and Museum.

Storytellers can request invites to Cowbird in advance of the Festival here: http://www.cowbird.com/request-invite/.

For more information on the Festival and to register, visit WoodstockDigital.com.

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Join Leading Digital Media Innovators at the 2012 Woodstock Digital Media Festival, June 22-23, in Woodstock, Vermont

2012-03-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

Join leading digital media innovators from the arts, business, education, and non-profits and explore some of the most important and influential work being done in new media today at the 2012 Woodstock Digital Media Festival, June 22-23, in Woodstock, Vermont.

WOODSTOCK, VT – Long known as a destination for fall foliage and winter skiing, Vermont will be the place to go for all things digital this summer, when the leading innovators in new media gather on June 22 and 23 in Woodstock for the 2012 Woodstock Digital Media Festival. This year’s Festival builds on the success of the 2011 inaugural event, which brought together more than 150 artists, entrepreneurs, non-profits, academics and the public to explore the art, the apps and the ideas shaping new media and its influence on how we interact, work and play in a digitally connected world.

The Woodstock Digital Media Festival is a forum and exhibition that offers digital artists, businesses and educators the opportunity to present their work and interact with their peers as well as with the general public. The Woodstock Digital Media Festival includes:

Panel discussions with nationally recognized digital artists, journalists, academics and entrepreneurs.
Participatory “explorations” with digital media innovators that take advantage of Woodstock’s intimate and beautiful setting to demonstrate how new media and apps are changing people’s everyday lives.
An exhibition of the latest in digital media art, this year exploring the theme MICRO, and the range of impressions and emotions around technology in our lives.
The Festival’s gala event on Saturday evening, presenting the work of digital media visionaries from around the country.

BRINGING TOGETHER ART, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY IN RURAL VERMONT

“We wanted to bring people from the different worlds of digital media together in a new way and in a unique environment,” says Woodstock Digital Media Festival organizer, David McGowan. The Festival showcases the most interesting and important work being done by today’s leading digital media artists, entrepreneurs, and researchers, McGowan says. “Woodstock offers not only a beautiful, natural setting but a wired town center where we can create a fantastic digital campus for the weekend,” he adds.

“We wanted to bring people from the different worlds of digital media together in a new way and in a unique environment. Woodstock offers not only a beautiful, natural setting but a wired town center where we can create a fantastic digital campus for the weekend.” Festival Chairman, David McGowan

Joe McKay is the Festival’s curator and an Assistant Professor of New Media at Purchase College in New York. “New media artists and storytellers are concerned about how we steer ourselves through the maze of digital media that surround us,” McKay says.

McKay believes that Woodstock is a great environment to explore issues around new media. “On the one hand, Vermont can be seen as an oasis away from a technological and fast-paced world,” he says. “Yet that very same technology has allowed Woodstock to remain both rural and connected. So it’s a great place to have the conversation about the effects of digital culture and new media on our lives,” McKay says.

“Particularly for the art world, where historically the sense has been that if you are not in New York, you are not relevant, holding a digital media art exhibition in Vermont is both provocative and predictive of the possibilities inherent in new media and digital media art,” McKay says.

EXPLORING INNOVATION IN NEW AND DIGITAL MEDIA

The 2012 Woodstock Digital Media Festival sessions include:

A panel discussion on current issues and innovations in digital media art with leading curators and critics including Barbara London, curator of the MOMA Visual Media Center; and Paddy Johnson, founding editor of the blog, ArtFagCity.com.
"Telling [TRUE] Stories,” with innovators in non-fiction narrative forms including Dan Archer of archcomix.com, who creates non-fiction, journalistic comics on human rights and social justice issues, and Annie Correal, a New York-based journalist who manages the online storytelling platform, Cowbird.com, which is pioneering a new form of participatory journalism.
“Play for Life,” with pioneers of the ‘serious game’ movement including the Emergent Media Center at Champlain College and the Tiltfactor game research lab at Dartmouth College demonstrating and discussing how they are tackling social issues through digital gaming.
The popular “Digital Vermont” session, held at last year’s Festival, returns again this year to focus on the achievements and current issues facing the digital media sector in the state.

During the day on Saturday, interactive “explorations” will use a hands-on approach to showcase new possibilities created by digital media, such as:

A “Digital Bird Walk” in the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Park with Kent McFarland of the Vermont Center for Eco-Studies and Charlie Rattigan of Green Mountain Digital, publisher of Audubon Guides and other nature and wildlife mobile apps.
“Mapping the Accessibility of Woodstock” with Jason DaSilva of AXS Map, using an innovative app to create crowd-sourced, real-world accessibility information on a building-by-building basis.

Festival exhibitions will showcase new art and innovations, such as:

The MICRO Exhibit at Artistree Gallery.
Saturday evening’s performance and reception at the Billings Farm and Museum featuring digital media innovators from across the country. Presenters include Scott Kraus of the New England Aquarium in Boston, who will demonstrate the Aquarium’s app, FishBlue, which uses digitally crowd-sourced data from marine fishermen in maintaining sustainable fisheries in the Atlantic.
“Under the Tent” on the Woodstock Green the traditional farmers’ market takes on a new form with digital media producers and app developers offering demos, screenings and art happenings of their work and products.

The Festival opens to the public on Friday evening, June 22, with a free MICRO Exhibition Opening from 8:30-10:30 p.m. at the Artistree Gallery in Woodstock. On Saturday, June 23, informational sessions at the Norman Williams Public Library and the Woodstock Historical Society, as well as outdoor Explorations in and around Woodstock, are all free and open to the public. Saturday evening’s reception and presentation is a ticketed event from 8:00-11:00 p.m. at the Billings Farm and Museum.

ORGANIZED BY LEADERS IN NEW AND DIGITAL MEDIA

In addition to the Festival’s chairman, David McGowan, and curator, Joe McKay, the 2012 Woodstock Digital Media Festival is organized by a diverse and accomplished group of advisors drawn from different worlds of digital media:

Townsend Belisle is Executive Producer at Haystack Needle LLC, and a strategic producer of creative media specializing in digital marketing and communications strategy. He is also a leader of Wireless Woodstock.

Emily Bell is Director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism and a Professor of Professional Practice at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Bell is a leading media commentator in the U.K., writing about broadcasting and media policy issues.

Mary Flanagan is a Professor of Film and Media Studies and the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities at Dartmouth College. Flanagan is the founding director of Tiltfactor Laboratory, and recognized for her theories on playculture, activist design and critical play.

Kristin Lucas is an Assistant Professor of Studio Arts at Bard College, and a digital media artist addressing the complexity of our relationship to the digital realm. Her artwork is represented by Postmasters Gallery and her videos are distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix in New York.

Roger Neal is the Executive Director of NYC Media Lab, a public-private partnership launched by the City (NYCEDC), NYU-Poly, and Columbia University, and encompassing all the universities of NYC. NYC Media Lab tackles the big questions facing the media industry today by generating research, knowledge transfer, talent development, R&D, and new business models.

Marcin Ramocki is a new media artist and documentary filmmaker whose recent projects have been exhibited in MoMa NYC, Whitney Museum, Wexner Center, ArtMoving Projects and Pacific Film Archives. Ramocki teaches Digital Media at New Jersey City University, and is a founder and curator of vertexList art space in Brooklyn.

For more information and updates on presenters/sessions, and to purchase tickets, visit WoodstockDigital.com. Find Woodstock Digital Media Festival on Facebook and follow @WDMFestival on Twitter.

Visit our Woodstock Digital Media Festival press page to download a copy of this release.