The festival's program director, John Cooper, proudly opened up the New Frontier on Main venue to VIPs Thursday afternoon. The location, downstairs in the Main Street Mall, is a showcase for avant-garde video installations - as well as a cafe and a demo ground for new gizmos.

In one area, video plays on two TV monitors still attached to their old bus-station chairs. In the cafe, video images are beamed onto the tabletops - everything from a couple in bed to a pan of frying bacon.

One of the coolest exhibits is R. Luke DuBois' "Academy," in which every Best Picture Oscar winner is compressed into one minute each, a mega-fast-forward with occasional freeze-frames so viewers can identify the films. In six minutes, one could watch "Gone With the Wind," "Rebecca," "How Green Was My Valley," "Mrs. Miniver," "Casablanca" and "Going My Way" - and still maintain a semblance of each movie's plot and style.