Dorkbot

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Dorkbot refers to a group of affiliated organizations worldwide that sponsor meetings of artists, engineers, and designers working in the medium of electronic art.

Started by Douglas Repetto at the Columbia University Computer Music Center in 2000, dorkbot has spread around the world, with over twenty chapters holding monthly meetings as of 2004. In addition to the original New York City-based dorkbot (dorkbot-nyc), current and planned groups exist in London, Ghent, San Francisco, Linz, Melbourne, Mumbai, Seattle, Rotterdam, Lisbon, Sofia, Chicago, Southern California, Barcelona, Switzerland, Orlando, Madrid, Detroit, Mexico City, Philadelphia, Bahia, Eindhoven, Toronto, Tokyo, Vienna, Washington, DC, and Atlanta, GA (at Georgia Tech).

The purpose of dorkbot meetings is to nurture a local electronic arts community (in the broadest sense of the term) and to encourage emerging, and established, artists to present new works for informal peer review. While many of the dorkbot groups hold their meetings at universities and students are encouraged to attend, dorkbot meetings are not restricted in any way to the academic community. Dorkbot groups encourage the free exchange of ideas on the electronic arts, and regular attendees of one dorkbot will often visit another when they are travelling, serving as informal ambassadors between groups.

The motto for the group is people doing strange things with electricity.