Open Air Media Festival
Open Air Media Festival is an outdoor media arts program hosted at PS1 in Iowa City. Our annual festival invites the public to experience video, performance, installation, sound, and other media arts in communal, accessible locations.
Film & Video Screening
Friday May 31 | 8:30pm
at FilmScene’s Chauncey Swan Park screen
405 E. Washington St.
Installations
& Performances
Saturday June 1st | 8:30-11pm
outdoor art projects,
performances, and installations
at PS1 Close House
538 S. Gilbert St.
All events are free and open to the public.
If you need any accommodations in order participate in this event, contact gallery@publicspaceone.com.
The 2024 festival is generously supported by Public Space One, The National Endowment for the Arts, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts, the City of Iowa City Public Art Program and festival partners, FilmScene and KRUI.FM
2024 Artist-in-Residence
This year’s inaugural artist-in-residence is Katina Bitsicas. Katina Bitsicas is a Greek-American new media artist who utilizes video, installation, AR, and performance in her artworks to explore grief, loss, trauma and memory.
Her project "Linseed and Gardens" is an archive-based projection mapping project that illuminates the front of the Close House in Iowa City, IA. Through history and landscape, this project tells the story of the historic Close House. This includes the past through present day archives it houses and the land the home inhabits by accentuating the features of its exterior through projected window vignettes and colorful landscapes.
Katina received her BA from Kalamazoo College, Post-Baccalaureate from SACI in Florence, Italy, and MFA from the University of South Florida. She is an Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Digital Storytelling at the University of Missouri, where she also conducts research with the MU School of Medicine on utilizing digital storytelling as a meaning-making intervention for bereaved family members. This collaborative research has been published in Death Studies, OMEGA: Journal of Death and Dying, and the Journal of Social Work in End-Of-Life & Palliative Care. She has exhibited worldwide, including The Armory Show, PULSE Art Fair, Satellite Art Fair, Superchief Gallery NFT, Plexus Projects, the Wheaton Biennial curated by Legacy Russell, CADAF: Digital Art Month Paris, Torrance Art Museum, Westbeth Gallery, New York, Eye’s Walk Festival, Syros, Greece, 57th Dimitria Festival, Thessaloniki, Greece, HereArt in New York, Art in Odd Places in Orlando, Digital Graffiti Festival, and the St. Louis International Film Festival. In 2022, her artist book Luci: The Girl with Four Hearts was published with Flower Press.
"Beyond the Fields" Toby Kaufman-Buhler, video screening, 2023 Open Air Media Festival
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festival organizers:
Exploded Frame (unbound artist book, WIP) digital prints on clear film, magnets. 9.5’ x 12’, 2021. Creative Consultant: Candida Pagan
Zen Cohen, director, founder, and co-curator
Zen is Assistant Professor of Art and Visual Studies at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, IA. Her practice as an intermedia artist explores the sculptural possibilities of the moving image through making objects, multi-channel video installations, and digital imaging. She received an MFA in Art Studio at the University of California at Davis. Her work has been exhibited throughout the San Francisco Bay Area at the deYoung Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SFMOMA, SOMarts, The Lab, The Montalvo Center, and nationally at ARTSpace New Haven in CT, Vanity Projects in NY, Public Space One in Iowa City, and internationally at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City and Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno in the Canary Islands. Her photographs have been published in Hyperallergic, Art Practical, Routledge and Southern Illinois University Press.
zencohenprojects.com
“Microdata: Figure 11.5”, 24” x 30”, Screenprint on Yupo