Turbulence.org Announces It Will No Longer Shutter. Moves to Canada.

by Paddy Johnson on December 6, 2016 Newswire

A Turbulence.org commission.

A Turbulence.org commission.

Good news: Turbulence.org will stay online! Last March, the non-profit commissioning net art from the US and abroad announced it would shutter December 1st. Co-founder Helen Thorington cited the long standing issue amongst non-profits—program grants that don’t cover operational costs, and the increased costs associated with web hosting. Web hosting costs run at about $1000 per month. It was unclear whether they would be able to preserve the website.

Since they made their announcement in March, though, Electronic Literature Organization (ELO), and Electronic Textual Cultures Lab (ETCL) at the University of Victoria, Canada have agreed to host the website, Turbulence.org and archive.turbulence.org into the foreseeable future.  ELO was founded in 1999 to foster and promote reading, writing, teaching, and e-lit. ETCL engages in disciplinary study of the past, present and future of text-based communication. Turbulence co-directors Helen Thorington and Jo-Anne Green have sat on the board of each organization.

In particular, Green and Thorington single out ELO’s board President, Dene Grigar, for swiftly acting to create this lifesaving partnership. However, it is important to note that the org has taken on responsibility for the archives only. Turbulence.org will not commission new works in the future, and all access to the Turbulence archive will be limited because the co-directors will no longer have access to the site. Thus, any artists who would like to update their work, need to contact the organization as soon as possible.

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