'New media' joins First Friday offerings

On the first Friday of every month Cape Girardeau's art crowd has plenty of viewing options, but those options are mostly in traditional visual arts genres like painting, ceramics and photography.

Tonight the art crowd has a different option. Four laptops and four projector screens will be employed to show artistic expression through video, a genre commonly called "new media," at Broadway Books and Roasting.

Southeast Missouri State University art instructor Seann Brackin is running the show, which will come from videos stored on or linked to the Freewaves Web site, freewaves.org.

Freewaves is a not-for-profit arts group that seeks to promote the new media genre. Artists around the world submit their videos, and the Freewaves board, based in Los Angeles, selects the pieces that will make up Freewaves from those. Another submission period is taking place this winter.

The pieces are moving visual statements about politics, morality, sexuality and a variety of subjects. Some push the boundaries and challenge beliefs. Some just want to show something beautiful in the eyes of the artist.

Anne Bray, the Los Angeles artist who founded Freewaves and is its executive director, said exposing the public to media art is at the heart of Freewaves.

"Our name implies access for all folks, and that's incorporated in how we display the work," Bray said of the organization that was formed in 1989. "It's viewed often in public facilities and on the Internet, and TV is the medium that we used to use."

Any user can view the videos at freewaves.org.

Brackin has no real affiliation with Freewaves, he's just a fan. "It's just really fun to project them large," Brackin said of the videos.

Two screens will project video inside, while another two will be outside, one visible from the street.

Brackin has a passion for the new media genre and knows it's something that isn't seen often in Cape Girardeau. That could change, though, as Southeast is making new media, they call it "new genre," art a bigger part of its art department.

Department chairwoman Pat Reagan said young artists today seem to have a real aptitude and interest in the genre, probably driven by the technology and communications boom and phenomena like YouTube.

"Anybody younger than me is tuned in to so much more digital communication stuff," she said. "The crossover is natural and easy that it becomes an art vehicle, as well."

The art department is looking to hire a specialist in the video aspect of "new genre" (which also includes non-video art forms) for the next school year, cementing new genre's status in the program, Reagan said.

"We're not going to leave the other stuff behind, but certainly we're going to serve that facet of digital communication well by this new hire," Reagan said.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182