When InterMedia debuted in January 2000 the festival's mission was to promote avant-garde culture and independent media. It was essentially contained in the Weston Art Gallery at the Aronoff Center for the Arts and dedicated to the memory of the gallery's founding director Salli Lovelarkin. The presenting artists were mostly local.

        This year, the avant-garde action — films, video, performance, even a walking tour — explodes beyond the gallery to the adjacent Fifth Third Bank Theater, nearby streets, the library — even a local multiplex.

        Most of last year's artists have returned with new projects. They'll be joined by feminist performance artist Linda Montano and book artist Sally Alatalo. InterMedia remains dedicated to Mrs. Lovelarkin.

IF YOU GO

What: InterMedia 2001: a weekend of artist films, video and live performances     When:     Today: Cremaster 2, video by Matthew Barney, 7:30 p.m., Showcase Cinemas Cincinnati     Friday: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and 3:30-9:30 p.m., various events, Weston Art Gallery, Aronoff Center; And the movement of hearts came at me like a storm, Saw Theater, 10 p.m., Fifth Third Bank Theater, $8. (Also midnight Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday).     Saturday: Events start at 11 a.m., Weston Art Gallery. Caution: Live Art panel discussion, 6 p.m., Fifth Third Bank Theater, $5 followed by a reception. Made in the 20th Century: New Video from the Wexner Center's Art and Technology Program, 9-11 p.m., Fifth Third Bank Theater, $5. I Slept with Linda Montano, workshop-based sleepover, 10:30 p.m., Weston Art Gallery, free.     Sunday: Ohio Arts Council Fellowship Video Screening, 3 p.m., Fifth Third Bank Theater, $5. Jungle Girl, a film by Richard Myers, 5:30 p.m., Fifth Third Bank Theater, $5.     Tickets: Series pass $35. Advance reservations suggested for all events. (513) 977-4165. Access detailed program information at www.cincinnatiarts.org/weston

        “There have been a lot of hit-and-run (alternative art) experiences occurring throughout the city,” Weston Art Gallery director Dennis Herrington explains. “The hope is that InterMedia gives the art and the artists a wider exposure and brings them a new, wider audience.

        “The perception of what art is can be fairly narrow,” he adds. “The festival is reflective of what artists are doing, including student film and video artists.”

        There are threads between these projects, explains Peter Huttinger of the Robert J. Shiffler Foundation and one InterMedia planner. “These are artists interested in bridging the gap between the audience, the artist, the gallery, the art world. InterMedia demonstrates that art is not an inanimate object.”

        InterMedia 2001 debuts tonight with the Cincinnati premiere of Cremaster 2, in which video artist Matthew Barney traces the rise and fall of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore. The video unreels at 7:30 p.m. at Showcase Cinemas Cincinnati.

        The work of Mr. Barney, Mr. Herrington says, “adds an international art star component to the festival.”

Holding a sleepover

        Things get under way Friday at the Weston Gallery with a full day of art experiences starting with art/life counseling by Ms. Montano. Ms. Montano explores the way artistic ritual, often staged as one-on-one interactions like the art/life counseling, can be used to alter and enhance a person's life.

        A session with her is free to anyone interested in performing with her in this context. You get two questions; it's suggested one be about money. Saturday night she'll host a workshop/sleepover at the gallery.

        At 5 p.m., the local CulturalMachineComplex and newsense enterprises from Cleveland will assign two-person teams, then dispatch them into downtown with a set of specific instructions to help them attempt to locate each other.

        The project is Interdrift, details were sketchy as organizers work out the hows and whats of this variation on the psycho-geographical experiments of the Situationists that began in the late '50s.

        The theory is that participants “drifting” through a city will experience it in a completely different way. CulturalMachineComplex's Matthew Distel says participants should have “strong legs, an adventurous spirit and an awareness of their surroundings.”

        Departure point is the Weston's upper gallery.

Arm wrestling and art


        Drift through the Weston gallery starting at 7 p.m. Friday and partake of a reception, an Arm Wrestling Challenge with the Liberty Amateur Stunt All Stars and a book signing by Sally Alatalo.

        What does arm wrestling have to do with art? “It's a sincere, real interaction with no predetermined outcome, and that outcome is directly impacted by the audience,” Mr. Distel offers.

        Ms. Alatalo creates the persona of a romance novelist (her nom de plume is Anita M-28) to “explore cultural stereotypes of women in the genre of pulp fiction.”

        In her new work Unforseen Alliances, she has fashioned the titles of existing romance novels onto the page to create short narratives or poems.

        She'll have short readings and book signings at 7 p.m. Friday at the gallery, 1 p.m. Saturday at the Atrium of the Main Library and 4 p.m. Saturday at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Norwood.

Panel discussion

        Saw Theater is offering a sneak preview of its work-in-progress And the movements of hearts.... As usual, collaborators Mark Fox and Anthony Luensman were not forthcoming on details. All Mr. Fox would say is that the action is triggered by “a life being changed by a small event” and that a walk-through installation will be part of the experience in the Fifth Third Bank Theater.

        The panel discussion “Caution: Live Art” will be moderated by Maria Troy, associate curator of media arts at the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University. Participants are Ms. Alatalo, Jacob Dyrenforth, Ms. Montano and Kristin Rogers.

        Film and video play a significant part in InterMedia. A Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Student Film and Video Festival showcasing 11 student works has been organized by Charles Woodman, assistant professor of electronic art at the University of Cincinnati; Andy Marko, media producer at Miami University who organized the Ohio Arts Council Fellowship video screening.

        A program of regional and national film and video artists has been put together for Discreet Channel: Independent Film and Video curated by J. Russell Johnson, associate professor of motion pictures at Wright State University.

"Jungle Girl'

        Mr. Herrington is delighted to have a partnership with the Wexner Center for Made in the 20th Century. The final screening of InterMedia is Richard Myers' Jungle Girl, which pays tribute to Frances Gifford, star of the Republic Pictures serial Jungle Girl during the 1940s.

        Last year, participants' hopes for InterMedia was that it would have a future. This year their hopes are expanding with the festival.

        Mr. Fox hopes that Cincinnati's largest arts institutions “will see there is an audience and bring things here regularly, rather than having Cincinnati always passed by for the Wexner Center.”

        Mr. Distel adds, “We need to incorporate what's happening locally and regionally in a national context and make it vital and relevant to the national scene.”

        Mr. Herrington has the last word. “It's important to build an annual event, and to build a demand in the city for work that deserves to be shown.

        “I think InterMedia could eventually grow to be citywide.”
       

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