For Immediate Release	Contact: Carol O'Sullivan
July 5, 2006	412-681-5449 x205
Pittsburgh Filmmakers Announces Artist in Residence (PITTSBURGH, PA) — Media artist Jacob Ciocci is set to begin a 14-month artist-in-residence program with Pittsburgh Filmmakers on July 31. The partnership is made possible through the Heinz Endowments' Creative Heights initiative. Ciocci is one of this year's winners for his media-based project. The residency project, entitled Bootleg Babies, is comprised of two parts. A series of six public film/video screenings, with panelists in the field of media literacy, comprises the first component. The second component of the residency involves the creation of an original, 20-minute pilot for television. Geared for children, it will use narrative comedy to address contemporary issues in media literacy as they relate to child psychology. The finished pilot is scheduled to premiere at Pittsburgh Filmmakers in September 2007. Ciocci was awarded $40,000 by the Heinz Endowments' Creative Heights initiative for this project. Ciocci earned his BA from Oberlin College, and his MFA from Carnegie Mellon University. He is part of the "Paper Rad" artist collective, which synthesizes popular material from television, comics, video games, and advertising, allowing these materials to contextualize and cross-reference each other. Their videos and animations derive from the never-ending resource of pop culture. They have been reviewed in the New York Times, ArtReview and RES Magazine, and their work has been shown at the New Museum in New York, the Tate Britain, and the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. They have exhibited in Pittsburgh, New York, Philadelphia, Providence, Boston, as well as in Norway, Germany, Canada and England.