After five years and 60 episodes featuring work from 55 artists, Acid Rain Production came to a close in July 2013.
“We did what we can do on broadcast TV, so now I’m looking at other mediums,” said Jerstin Crosby, creator of Acid Rain Production.
Starting in July 2008, Crosby produced Acid Rain, a series on cable access channels in North Carolina and New York that distributed new media from artists through pre-existing media. Each month, Crosby received footage from an artist, which could vary in length from two to 30 minutes, added an intro and outro segment, would put the clip on loop as needed, exported the DVD and mailed it out to the stations.
“(I wanted) an affordable way to do a project that showed my work, my friends’ work and work from other artists without the brick and mortar gallery which cost a lot of money,” Crosby said.
Despite its end on the small screen, Acid Rain will still live on. Crosby is now taking the series on tour and is making a stop in Athens on Tuesday at The Athena Cinema, 20 S. Court Street, Crosby will screen several episodes and hold a Q & A afterwards.
Crosby called the episodes “experimental video and film art,” one of which was created by David Colagiovanni who works on web development and design for the College of Fine Arts.
Colagiovanni went to graduate school with Crosby and has helped him with the series by assisting with formatting video, burning the DVDs and putting content online. Once Crosby went on tour with Acid Rain, Colagiovanni said he knew he wanted him to visit Ohio University.
“It’s a really amazing list of (artists) and the works he’s included by them are diverse and far-reaching,” Colagiovanni said in an email. “I think students will be inspired by not only the works that he will show, but what he’s done to bring them all together.”
And the learning won’t just be from videos. After ending the broadcast element of Acid Rain, Crosby began publishing e-books. 12 Step and Seti were published in August and September, respectively, and are available on the production’s website.
“It’s more inclusive to more types of artists,” Crosby said. “We’re still continuing the concept of distributing new media through mass media. E-books are a new platform that can have video, audio and text.”
mg986611@ohiou.edu
@buzzlightmeryl
