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AIFF-related art exhibition is a DYI approach "Medusa Smack," a 2012 work by Vanessa Renwick, is on loan to the Schneider Art Museum from the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Eugene. The immersive video installation was inspired by Renwick's reading about the rising number of dead zones off the Oregon coast, where jellyfish were the only proliferating beings. The work was acquired with the assistance of The Ford Family Foundation through a special grant program managed by the Oregon Arts Commission. [Coutesy image] Tuesday Apr 4, 2017 at 4:24 PM Apr 4, 2017 at 5:27 PM John Darling for the Mail Tribune Downtown Ashland will be buzzing this week as hundreds of people line up for the Ashland Independent Film Festival, offering 100 films, music and art installations Thursday through Monday at several venues. But there’s one affiliated event that is neither a film nor a piece of art. It’s called “Convergence: Digital Media and Technology.” Scott Malbaurn, director of the Schneider Museum of Art, says it's “an exhibition of artists using digital media, a DIY approach, along with others who can use technically sophisticated tools ranging from video to installation pieces, using video mapping, within the context of fine art and video art." “Audiences will find themselves watching video on TV or lying under a sculpture with a soundtrack that transforms the space," he explains. "It has two video projections on a sculpture, and they are video-mapped to adhere to a third curvilinear form. The programs have to be used to manipulate the projection so it fits the sculptural form. There’s also a soundtrack to that piece, so it creates an all-immersive sense to the viewer.” The project is a joint creation of the Ashland Independent Film Festival and Schneider Museum of Art, in whose space it will occur. Some of the components are coming from the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Eugene, where AIFF Director of Programming Richard Herskowitz is also curator of media arts. “These are multimedia interactive video installations,” says Herskowitz. “They are cinematic experiences, that are not experienced in movie theaters. In a gallery environment, they are more sculptural and physical and interactive. They are images moving in sculptural ways.” Featured in the show is Nina Katchadourian’s “Acca Dacca Diptych,” described in the program as “part of a larger project, 'Seat Assignment,' created during the artist’s travels by plane. Using only a camera phone and a hat and collars created from airplane seat and lavatory materials, Katchadourian evokes the subjects of Flemish portraiture, lip-synching to AC/DC music.” Another is Peter Sarkisian’s “Book 2," a "commentary on the loss of writing as a form of communication in contemporary society.” He was named a “Master Video Artist” by the National Endowment for the Arts. The mesmerizing projections of jellyfish, videotaped at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, can be viewed while lying on pillows beneath a jellyfish dome, or from outside the dome. — John Darling is an Ashland freelance writer. Reach him at [email protected].