Digital Art Has A New Home With Adobe. Virtually.

No guards. Always open. And I assume you won't have any alarm surprises. Welcome to the latest frontier in arts meet technology: Adobe Museum of Digital Media, the world’s first virtual museum.

What is a virtual museum? This is not simply a museum website where you can view the collections by clicking an index. Nor is this a museum placed in a virtual world such as Second Life (which interestingly enough has a thriving art scene).

The mission of the AMDM is to “Showcase and preserve digital work and illustrate how digital media shapes and impacts society.”  Adobe "has changed the world...and we wanted to celebrate that,” says Rich Silverstein, Museum Director.

Keith Anderson, Creative Director, says the main question asked when developing the idea was, "how would this work in the real world?" Architects and designers were hired to create a museum that could theoretically be placed in any city in the world. There is an outside atrium, gallery space, and towers where the archives will be housed.

So how do you walk through this virtual space? There are no avatars. Instead, a sea-jelly-meets-futuristic floating machine eyeball is your guide to the space (complete with cute old-school-computer-takes-an-underwater-journey sound effects).

One of the greatest aspects of this new space is the freedom to create work that would be impossible to show in a traditional museum. Often, digital pieces are printed out on paper, or projected, and depending on the artist, a lot of the meaning behind the piece is lost (not to mention quality). It's like taking a Polaroid of The Birth of Venus. Sure, the photograph might turn out amazing and some people could like it better than the original because it has a neat 1960's quality to it... but I doubt that was the image Sandro Botticelli had in mind in 1486.

I’m excited and a bit hesitant at the prospect of this museum. Yes, I think a virtual museum will have enormous potential for artists who work in digital media. Images of many artists’ work do no justice to their pieces. However, I am someone who likes to be physically immersed in a museum. It is an escape from the real world into another universe: sometimes confusing, sometimes controversial, sometimes just beautiful, but always refreshing. It’s the same comfort as getting lost in a good book. I worry that, personally, I will not get the same satisfaction exploring the very cool looking structure from the 15-inch screen of my MacBook. But then again, I am also one of those people who refuse to use a Kindle because I like to physically hold a book. So who knows, it might be a heavenly solution to dealing with crowds and the hassle of checking your coat. And the fact that you never have to worry about hours or off days is pretty great.

What do you think? Is this where we are headed? Will virtual museums help create demand for the arts by allowing everyone to have access from the comfort of their homes?

The first show is entitled, "The Valley," and is curated by Tom Eccles. It will feature work by Tony Oursler, an amazing video artist who has already been pushing the boundaries of what digital media should look like and how it can be displayed (Did anyone catch his recent show at the Mattress Factory?).  Oursler tends to highlight the strangeness of humanity in his work, and the medium of the internet and how it reflects society will obviously play a role in this new show.

Other upcoming exhibits will feature John Maeda and Mariko Mori.

Membership is free and just takes an email address. I am curious to see where the Adobe Virtual Museum goes from here. Will there be any social aspect to the museum? Will they ever partner with real life spaces for exhibits? Will they try to place a version of the museum in Second Life?

Opening night is August 2, 2010! I expect to see all of your sea-jelly-machine-eyeballs there so we can crack open a bottle of cyber wine and toast to the latest in technology meets museums!

Guggenheim + YouTube = Awesome Biennial

Video may have killed the radio star, but it has done wonders in shifting the paradigm of visual art.

Since the 1960s, video art has been challenging preconceived notions about how art was supposed to look. At the time, these video artists had to fight to be recognized as worthy enough to be hanging in the same space as Monet or Picasso. And nowadays, you cannot walk into a contemporary art museum without some type of video art installation. Barriers were successfully broken down. Hooray!

Let’s take a quick look at the opposite end of the art world spectrum. A magical little land on the internet where hours (and probably days) at a time can be spent: YouTube.

With the dawn of YouTube, absolutely anyone can have his or her two minutes of fame.  There is everything from a rapping weatherman to the music of Windows XP, Daft Hands and the post-it Mona Lisa… and seriously? Can you even imagine life before this guy? I know I can’t.

So we have the art world, which is harder to crack than a walnut frozen inside a glacier, and then YouTube, which could not be easier.

What happens when these two worlds join forces? YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video

The premise is to receive video art submissions from around the globe by people who may or may NOT consider themselves artists.

New. Exciting. Different. Weird. Animated. Confusing. Anything.

“We’re looking for things we haven’t seen before,” says Nancy Spector, deputy director and chief curator of the Guggenheim Foundation.

No pressure.

So what happens after videos are submitted? A panel will review all of the videos and narrow it down to 200. From those 200, 20 will be selected to show in the first Biennial of Creative Video at the Guggenheim Museums. Yes, museums. The show will be simultaneously running at the Guggenheim in New York City, Berlin, Bilbao, and Venice. All 200 finalists will have their videos shown on the YouTube Play Channel.

Partnering with the Guggenheim and YouTube, is Hewlett-Packard, who will be providing all the equipment at the museums to display the videos, as well as online tutorials about video basics such as editing and lighting.

So even if you know absolutely nothing about videos or video art, your work could be shown in one of the most renowned museums in the world. Interesting. And exciting. I think.

What are your thoughts? Will this produce great art worthy of showing in Guggenheim museums around the world? Is that even the point?

Now there is a question worth exploring… In this rapidly changing world where absolutely anyone with a camera, phone, or computer can create “art,” how do you define what is museum worthy anymore?

I think there are two schools of thought on the matter. On the one hand there are the purists who think the art world should remain an elusive and elite club that few artists ever manage to penetrate. Unfortunately, these limitations of access are crippling to the sustainability of our field. Which is what the focus should be, according to the second group. Yes, the art world must educate, question, and preserve beautiful and interesting things, but if you can’t get people to walk through the doors then what is the point? Keeping today’s audience engaged with art, regardless of the means, has become a focus for both visual and performing arts organizations. Technology is a great entry point, because everyone understands it and uses it on a daily basis. The same holds true for artists. Almost every artist I am friends with uses technology in some fashion to produce their work. They are creating amazing things, but the likelihood of top curators and critics ever hearing about them is slim to none. Which is why YouTube Play is such a great concept.

Obviously, there will be no way of creating installation style pieces similar to Bill Viola’s piece for the 2007 Venice Biennale, Ocean Without a Shore. But in this case, that is ok. Unknown artists get to show their work, interesting pieces will be created, and the museum doors will be as convenient as your computer screen.

The other day, we talked about crossing into different genres of art than you are used to… well here is your chance! Everyone is an artist.

Interested? Absolutely anyone in the world can apply by uploading your video (less than 10 minutes and created in the last 2 years) to the YouTube Play Channel. The deadline is July 31, 2010, so start creating!

Emergency Preparedness for Artists, Part II: Is Your Organization ArtsReady?

Nobody ever wants to be in an emergency situation, but let’s face it, they happen. Hurricanes, floods, fires, terrorism, I.T. failures, and even epidemics are a real concern in today’s world.  Last week we talked about disaster planning for artists, but what about the organizations? Almost every for-profit organization in the country has some type of emergency preparedness plan and training for staff members. But for some reason (money, time, human resources), arts organizations are a little behind this vital curve. Which is where ArtsReady comes in! This initiative was developed several years ago by South Arts as a way to help organizations with emergency preparedness.  As you probably know at this point, developing strong management practices regarding emergencies is becoming a national conversation. (Read the Green Paper published earlier this year!)

ArtsReady Program Director, Hannah Leatherbury, explains that, “We want arts organizations to start thinking about a readiness plan like they think about a strategic plan.”  We conducted an interview with Hannah last September, and the podcast gives some great information about the history of the organization and importance of continuity planning.

There are three main components to ArtsReady:

(1) “Be ArtsReady” awareness campaign, which provides resources and guides for organizations to create “what if?” plans. Join the campaign!

(2) In-progress development of community source software, which will be a web-based tool to help arts organizations be more resilient after both minor disruptions or major crisis.  It will allow organizations to assess their risks, have a secure backed-up location for readiness documentations, and be connected to other arts organizations to share resources and stories. Check out the demo presentation for this online tool.

(3) Membership in the Coalition for Artists’ Emergency Preparedness, a voluntary task force which is committed to organizing a nationwide support system (resources, education, advocacy) for artists and arts organizations before, during, and after disasters. **Be sure to check out, "When Disaster Strikes, Are You Prepared?" a workshop they are conducting during the Americans for the Arts Half Century Summit on June 26th at 4:00pm.

What experience have you had with emergency preparedness? Does your organization have a plan in place? We love to hear what you all are doing !

Bravo! Hats Off to Innovative Technology!

Congratulations to the 2010 winners of the 21^st annual MUSE Awards! We all know that without a collection or traveling exhibits, a museum would not exist. Period. But how long can that museum, despite an amazing collection, exist without connecting to the public in new and exciting ways? It is impossible. Especially in this ever-changing digital age, museums have to get creative! (Slightly ironic, since they are housing creativity to begin with...)

Which is why, every year, the American Association of Museums’ Media & Technology Committee celebrates innovation and creativity of digital media in the museum sector with the prestigious MUSE Awards.

Over 200 entries from museums around the world were reviewed by an international jury of museum professionals and media experts, and the results were presented at the AAM annual conference in Los Angeles.

For full descriptions of all the winners, click the category! But in the meantime, check out some highlights and favorites.

Audio and Visual Tours

Imagining Lincoln and Juarez; Chicago History Museum and Ed Herrman

The Chicago History Museum has developed pre-programmed iPods and accompanying worksheets, to immerse students in the exhibition with sounds that created the mood and engage them with the collection.

Community

O Say Can You Sing? National Anthem Singing Contest; National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution and Night Kitchen

The National Museum of American History held a singing contest to engage the American people with the story of the flag and national anthem.  Over 800 eligible entries were submitted via YouTube, and thousands of people rated and commented on their favorites.  The winner was invited to perform at both the museum and the Baltimore Orioles game on June 14, 2009 (Flag Day)!

Games

t.a.g. Open Museum

The Association Game (t.a.g.) is a non-verbal educational game for grownups where an image is chosen at random from the Open Museum collection, participants respond with an image that is somehow associated with or reminiscent of the original image, everyone votes on what they think is the best successor, and then the winning image becomes a starting point for the next round. There are three rounds a week with an average of 15 images submitted for each round. **One of my personal favorites because anyone can sign up for free and play the game now!**

Interactive Kiosks

UMMA's DialogTable; University of Michigan Museum of Art and Kinecity & Night Kitchen Interactive

The UMMA DialogTable is a dynamic new interactive storytelling and social learning tool located in the Vertical Gallery of the University of Michigan Museum of Art's new Maxine and Stuart Frankel and the Frankel Family Wing. The DialogTable engages audiences with art and ideas, prompting new conversations and creative connections. Since the Table is located in the extended-hours zone of the Museum, visitors can engage with the collection even after the galleries are closed!

Interpretive Interactive Installations

Worldwide Animal Viewers; Museum Victoria and Megafun Pty Ltd

Melbourne Museum in Victoria, Australia recently opened a new biodiversity exhibition, “Wild: amazing animals in a changing world,” which has 770 mammal and bird mounts from all over the globe. Designed for a broad audience, the interactive interpretive device needed to be developed for all types of guests to use.  Museum Victoria worked with Megafun Pty Ltd to create the PANORAMIC NAVIGATORS, in this case referred to as "Worldwide Animal Viewers," a surprisingly easy and fun system which accesses additional information about every specimen in the exhibit.

Multimedia Installations

Beyond All Boundaries; National World War II Museum and The Hettema Group

Beyond All Boundaries, the signature 4-D cinematic experience at The National World War II Museum was designed to attract both new and existing audiences to the Museum, and to bring World War II to life in an entirely new way.  The words and stories of actual WWII participants are brought to life by many of today's leading actors, and viewers experience the war in first person through state-of-the-art special effects where they feel the vibrations of B-17 bombers and see snow falling inside the theater during the Battle of the Bulge.

Online Presence

We Choose the Moon; John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum and Domani Studios & The Martin Agency

We Choose the Moon is an amazingly integrated website which recreates Apollo 11's lunar mission, minute by minute, with an interactive experience that let visitors experience the mission as it happened, using archival audio, video, photos and "real-time" transmissions on the site and via Twitter.

Podcasts

Audio on demand program; National Museum of Australia and Icelab Pty Ltd

The National Museum of Australia's Audio on Demand program is an evolving collection of recordings of lectures, forums and symposiums held at the Museum's building in Canberra.  There is a wide range of topics relating to social history, and especially the Indigenous peoples of Australia since the museum has such a strong collection.

Public Relations and Development

Raising Spirits; Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and The Arts Lounge

Raising Spirits is a comprehensive public relations package designed to promote a traveling, multimedia art history presentation showcasing the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco's permanent collection. The package takes the world-renowned collection "on the road" via a plasma screen into private dining rooms of our patrons, while host Kirsten Shilakes tells tightly woven stories about art, food and wine, taking guests on a multi-sensory aesthetic and culinary journey.

Teaching and Outreach

Teaching and Outreach Videos; Art Institute of Chicago and Angle Park, Inc.

Collectively directed towards educators, parents, and caregivers, the Art Institute of Chicago's teaching and outreach videos demonstrate meaningful and effective strategies to engage young audiences on their visit to the art museum. Dynamically accessible in the museum and online with both English and Spanish subtitles, this group of videos created by the Art Institute of Chicago and film company Angle Park, Inc., helps teacher-student and parent-child audiences make the most of their museum visit.

Video

Buck Ramsey's Grass: Anthem; Nevada Museum of Art and FLF Films Inc & UeBersee Inc.

The Nevada Museum of Art has created a moving piece which effectively transports the viewer into a land where the enduring tradition of cowboy poetry is a rich and vital form of cultural expression in the American West. This film was created and produced for the 2009 exhibition Between Grass & Sky: Rhythms of a Cowboy Poem, and is inspired by the Texas poet Buck Ramsey widely-celebrated poem Grass.

Honeysett & Din Student Award (new this year!)

Concept Design: Touch the Unreachable—Looking for Finnish identity; Virva Emilia Auvinen, Aalto University School of Art & Design-MediaLab Helsinki, Finland

"Touch the Unreachable" is a concept design on how to use interactive storytelling techniques, video, 3D animation and graphic visualization for art education purposes. The "Touch the Unreachable" concept is an application designed for a museum environment and aims to promote knowledge of Finnish cultural heritage.

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What are your favorites? How can these remarkable projects help you and your organization integrate more technology in innovative ways? We would love to hear what YOU are doing!

Which Vendor? Simplifying Online Grant Applications

Does anyone actually enjoy the grant writing process (aka the most frustrating, time consuming, and essential activity virtually every arts organization must go through at least once a year)? To those of you who enjoy all the paperwork, I salute you. For everyone else, I’m sure you will agree that the development of online grant systems have been a tremendous asset over the past several years.  Unfortunately, they do not always simplify the process. Passwords are forgotten, the grantee cannot preview the full application, every year the same information must be reentered, supplemental files are unable to attach, and heaven forbid there are not enough opportunities to save work.  Grantmakers, on the other hand, have to deal with potential duplicates in the database, an inability to format or customize applications, interim reports that are not integrated with the original application, and hundreds of applications from organizations and individuals who are not even eligible for their funding.

With all of these potential hassles and multiple vendors to choose from, how can grant makers possibly ensure they select the online grant application system that will work best for them?

Thanks to another informative report from Idealware, vendor selection does no longer have to be such a completely overwhelming process. 

“Streamlining Online Grant Applications: A Review of Vendors” is a collaborative effort between Idealware, Project Streamline and the Grants Managers Network to assist grant makers in comparing various systems against the same criteria.

Vendors reviewed in the report include:

• EasyGrant by Altum
• eGrant* by Bromelkamp
• WebGrants by Dulles Technology Partners
• Grant Lifecycle Manager by Foundant Technologies
• IGAM by MicroEdge
• Common Grant Application by Ocean Peak
• PhilanTrack by PhilanTech

It is important to note that the review’s main focus was not every specific functionality of each vendor, but rather those features which best reduced the administrative burden, such as:

• Getting Started: Ease for Applicant
• Getting Started: Reuse of Information
• Overall Ease of Use
• Good Form Design: Self Service
• Flexibility of Forms
• Support for Multiple Stages
• Information Sharing: Collaboration
• Information Sharing: Data Export/ Access
• Product Background

I would not recommend making a decision based on just the paragraph summaries of each system, which did not always compare the same criteria.  Instead, take the time to look through the complete report wherein each system is evaluated in the above categories through various “essential standards” and “gold standards.”   These include elements as simple as required fields and word counter to things as complex as branch logic and extranet capabilities. Additionally, further information is included in the full report, such as costs, technical setup, technical support, current number of clients, and product history.

Although the systems reviewed in this report are not the only tools available, this report is a great starting point and resource for all grantmakers looking to simplify their grant application process.

For more detailed information, download the full report from Idealware for free!

*eGrant began as a product of the Center for Arts Management and Technology, home of this blog