| Eyebeam Art + Technology Center | |
|---|---|
| Established | 1997 |
| Location | 540 W. 21st Street, Manhattan, New York, USA |
| Website | www.eyebeam.org |
Eyebeam, is a not-for-profit arts and technology center in New York City. Their stated purpose is to promote the creative use of new technologies by funding artwork, education and exhibitions. The founders were John S. Johnson III, David S. Johnson (unrelated) and Roderic R. Richardson.
According 2002 New York Times coverage of Eyebeam: "A handful of institutions -- among them the Ars Electronic Center in Linz, Austria; the V2_ Institute for the Unstable Media in Rotterdam, the Netherlands; and the Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany -- explore aspects of new-media development. But one devoted to teaching, exhibiting and producing the newest of the new in media art does not exist in the United States. 'It's an historical opportunity,' said John S. Johnson, 35, co-founder of Eyebeam and an heir of the Johnson & Johnson family."[1]
In an article in Chelsea Now,[2] Kelly Kingman writes "Eyebeam is not your conventional gallery. In [the 2007 exhibition] “Source Code,” the first of three exhibits commemorating Eyebeam’s 10th anniversary on the frontier of the digital world. The work here represents artists, programmers, hackers, activists, youth — the kind of people Eyebeam welcomes into its creative laboratories, where innovators of all stripes come to come test their ideas. ... While Eyebeam definitely “celebrates the hack,” as its website states, the research groups that are constantly in progress go beyond culture jamming. “A lot of the work here is process-based, it’s work in progress.” says Amanda McDonald Crowley [Executive Director of Eyebeam since October 2005]. “We’re quite happy to show we’re not a neat gallery environment but a place where people are making work and there’s a lot of activity going on.”"
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According to a profile of Eyebeam in New York Magazine, John S. Johnson, a filmmaker and philanthropist who also founded the non-profit organizations the Filmmakers Collaborative, May68, and Screenwriters Colony, Eyebeam was inspired by his father, sculptor John Seward Johnson’s sculpture atelier: “The lightbulb went off when I was thinking about digital issues in film during the summer of ’96 and I realized that digital artists just don’t have the resources that traditional sculptors do.” [3]
While Eyebeam’s physical space has had many incarnations, including satellite offices in Soho and Dumbo, 540 W. 21st St. in Chelsea – its current location – was where the organization’s most successful ongoing educational program, “Digital Day Camp”, began in 1998. The program, the first of its kind, is free to the approximately 15-20 students accepted each year. The students, which include many from inner-city areas, go through a highly developed course of study focused on new media art training in classes taught and influenced by the residents and fellows in the building.[4]
Other early programming included the online conference RE:PLAY in 1999, co-sponsored by Parsons The New School for Design and Eyebeam.
In 2000, Eyebeam announced an architectural competition to construct a space in Chelsea devoted to the dialog between art and technology. In January 2001, 13 architectural firms were invited to submit proposals, which led to the exhibition “Open Source Architecture: Building Eyebeam.[5] In March 2002, Eyebeam named the design firm Diller + Scofidio’s “Olympic class” [6] blue and white ribbon design the winner of the competition.
In 2005, Eyebeam renovated its 18,000-square-foot (1,700 m2) facility in Chelsea, New York, making it the largest of its type in the United States, having ultimately shelved plans to build a new museum[7] in favor of focusing on supporting research & development, production, education and public programs for artists, hackers, designers, engineers, graffiti artists, creative technologists and the general public. Among its most popular recent projects are reBlog, a RSS feed aggregator and publisher, and the Graffiti Research Lab (or GRL). The GRL is a program devoted to equipping graffiti artists and activists with modern technology to continue their work. GRL is responsible for projects in a handful of cities around the world and are the creators of L.A.S.E.R. Tag, a projection graffiti system, and "LED Throwies" - magnetic light-emitting diodes which can adhere to metallic surfaces when thrown.
As of June 2011
The following people have also worked with or at Eyebeam in New York: