Can we expect a future where digital art hangs on the walls of everyone’s homes? Electric Objects, the startup that’s creating a home-computer display system for Internet-based art (called EO1) has been wildly successful. So far, they raised a whopping $787,612 on Kickstarter for these digital art screens—their original goal was $25,000. And now, adding to the start up’s momentum, they’re launching a “Net Artist in Residence” program with the New York Public Library (NYPL).
The “artist residency” is their second program to try and encourage artists to make artwork specifically for EO1. The first was an open-call for project proposals, with 10 artists selected (by a jury that includes AFC’s Paddy Johnson) to receive EO1 prototypes as well as a $500 stipend. That way, artists can both live with the screen while creating work specifically for view on EO1. In an interview, Zoë Salditch, the Director of Artist Relations for Electric Objects (and former Program Director of Rhizome), explained that “it’s vital that artists know what it’s like to live with EO1 in their homes so that they understand the experience of the rest of the community.”
The new partnership with NYPL specifically calls for artwork proposals that make use of the NYPL’s Maps division, whose holdings apparently include “imaginary maps, maps of empires now extinct, insurance maps, very old maps.” A jury will select one artist to receive a prototype kit, stipend, as well as a work space at NYPL. The deadline for the “Net Artist in Residence” program? August 20, 2014—get on this one, net artists!
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