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Community Impact Now entering its fifth season, Cosmic Rays’ profile has grown along <br />with its audience, from 100 attendees and three v isiting artists in <br />2018 to some 500 attendees from across the Triangle and more than <br />two dozen v isiting artists, liv e-cinema performers, and digital media <br />artists from North Carolina and beyond in 2022. In addition to the two <br />days of liv e festiv al screenings and ev ents, our Cosmic Rays Digital <br />programming initiativ e extends the life of the festiv al to an exhibition <br />installed at Peel Gallery in Carrboro for the month preceding the film <br />festiv al. This gallery exhibition further increases the festiv al’s local <br />impact and profile, facilitates access to media art, and expands our <br />reach to new audiences. <br />In the context of the Triangle's burgeoning tech economy, our film <br />festiv al offers an alternativ e v ision of media grounded in the artistic <br />application of technology. Our digital programming initiativ e in <br />particular is conceiv ed as a way to introduce audiences to forms of <br />new media beyond their conv entional and commercial application. <br />This is especially important in a region where technology workers are <br />often constrained in their ability to explore the artistic application of <br />the technologies with which they work; and where technological <br />resources are inequitably distributed and leav e some communities, <br />especially communities of color and communities that face financial <br />need, underserv ed both by new media technologies and v enues <br />where these technologies can be artistically explored. For all these <br />audiences, Cosmic Rays prov ides a resource that is otherwise <br />unav ailable in our region. <br />Cosmic Rays firmly believ es in the role regional art exhibition can <br />play in supporting and cultiv ating an artistic community outside of <br />the handful of major urban centers which enjoy an outsize share of <br />cultural resources. W e are cognizant of the ways access to artwork <br />can be limited by geographical distance, limited financial resources, <br />physical disability, and a range of other factors. W e are therefore <br />committed to keeping submission fees to the festiv al as low as <br />possible and to pay exhibiting filmmakers a screening fee in order to <br />support and promote artistic equity. <br />DocuSign Envelope ID: C2B0CB1A-DEDF-4677-9369-F9B0BF35007B