I think we might hear this every few years, because of course adults by nature are out of touch with youth culture.  But this is quite different; this report is from a study on how our next generation interacts and learns within a digital information context.

I can spoil the results a bit – it concludes that all of the hanging out web sites – social networking, etc are essential to more structured and important tasks of direct learning online.

I believe this report is an essential read to anyone working in an arts organization that is struggling to find an online presence or to understand how they can take their art to a more digital medium.  Unlike many opinions and reports on such things, this one is direct and somber in its results.  Too many times, you hear or see a report and it’s nothing more then a thin veil to pseudo-science.  This is a good hard look at how our culture is changing.

By no means is this a step-by-step guide or easy answer.  It’s just the base, the floor to work up from.  I believe if you want to create an experience that your patrons can become a part of, you need to start understanding how more non-structured actions change when things are placed online.

In online book form: Book – Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out: Living and Learning with New Media

Never underestimate the power of your dreams, or the power of printed words that can transform them into their own realities.

The 2010 Self-Portrait Cover Contest is open to all Art Calendar readers. Art Calendar will only accept electronic submissions made through www.ArtCalendar.com/CoverContest2010. No photographs, slides or CDs sent by mail to Art Calendar will be eligible. Limit of one entry per person.

Format instructions for the 2010 Self-Portrait Cover Contest:

• Images must be no larger than 2MB in size.
• Images should be submitted at 72 ppi, but winners will be required to provide the images at 300 ppi.
• The suggested image dimensions are approximately 600 x 480 pixels (height x width). Artwork outside these dimensions may be cropped to accommodate cover proportions.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: The closing date for submitting an entry will be 23:59 on December 11, 2009, Eastern Standard Time. A panel comprised of Art Calendar staff and contributing writers will jury the contest. The winner will be notified by December 15, 2009.

Additional Rules & Information:

• All submitted work must be original.
• All submissions must be self-portraits, though not necessarily literal representations (i.e. collage, digital collage, abstract works also accepted).
• All 2-D and 3-D mediums accepted (e.g. drawings, paintings, photographs, sculpture, digital).
• The quality of the image in its entirety will be taken into account. Please make sure the work is well lit and the image is not distorted in any way.
• Please no images containing nudity, violence, sex, guns or skulls. Issues spend a month on the shelves of newsstands and bookstores within sight of children.
• Art Calendar reserves the right to reject any work for any reason.

We tend to stay away from most contests in the arts as many are veiled attempts at something else or have hidden fees or expectations.  Art Calendar is completely legit.  But please, before you enter ANY contest read all of the fine print.

First the application itself  -

Artnear is an iPhone application that lets your browse galleries around the world.  At the moment they are saying they have over 2,600 galleries in their system and works from 12,000 artists available to browse.  The information is added by the galleries hosting shows, so there is a very clear user mandate to help keep the information current (ie, it’s using crowd sourcing, rather then a centralized and edited list to keep itself relevant).

For galleries:  Head over to this link to apply as a gallery.  From everything we are told, it’s free to do so.  From there you can upload profiles of the artists you manage, put shows in the calendar and potentially reach a global audience of art lovers and buyers.

For the art lover (and who isn’t?):  There are two versions – the free application that is ad-supported and the paid ‘pro‘ version, which costs $4.99 from the iTunes store.  The pro version gives a few more controls, like being able to see upcoming shows (I believe it’s three weeks forward) and also to bookmark the things you like. You can bookmark an artist you like and follow when they are showing and where and if the gallery is good at keeping information updated, you can see some of the work as well.

In both cases, you can browse a world of galleries and artists that are involved in current shows.  You can keep up with art in New York, Paris, Beijing and everywhere in between (we’re hoping this post encourages Hudson Valley artists to get involved so we can keep updated with them).  Even without having ‘everything’ in it, it still opens an entire world of art to you that you have no other way of seeing.

You can also find out about art near you, hence the name.  If you are spending the day in Chelsea, you can load up the application and find out which galleries are showing work, get a preview of that work, and get directions to the show.  And if you are the traveling sort, what better way to see local work in Philadelphia, LA, London, Ottawa, Denver… you get the point!… what a better way to connect to local art while you’re on the road.  You’ll never find that information at a rest stop.

But also, you really do not need to go anywhere.  You can browse a library of art right on your phone, be inspired by the work of others, uncover some new talent and who knows, maybe connect with the artist themself.  The art world needs more ways like this of connecting together – don’t you think?

Forbes online rated it ‘best iPhone application for finding artistic inspiration.  We agree.

Certainly there is a lack of gallery space in Orange County and outlets to present art in general.  Maybe the next time you see a for rent sign in a commercial space you should see about using it for a temporary artist space.  Contact us, we might be able to help -

This was done for the Fame Festival in Grottaglie, Italy.  It took 10 days to film and produce.

MIT’s personas is a fun and fantastic example of interactive, web based art.  Type in your name, or any name, and a dizzily display runs through the web and creates a graphical keyword display.  It’s beautiful in its process, and somewhat addictive.  But it makes me wonder.  Does the display of an internet browser create such a dis-ambiguity with design that is turns most attempts at a stand-alone art piece as something meaningless?

We’re very curious if you are working on an art project that uses the internet browser as a blank canvas, or if you only see the internet as a place to promote your more traditional work.  Although video and photography can be displayed online, neither are interactive as the internet naturally is.  We’d love to hear your thoughts.

The application is called Open Studio.

There, you can add galleries, search galleries and if you look at one of the images of artwork, there is a puchase option below each image.  You set your own price, etc.

This is super new with few people using it yet, but it’s an interesting new feature I thought I’d pass along. Links will most likely not work if you are not a Facebook user.

OK there are also a few things that need to be discussed about Facebook and most sites you upload images it.  You might be giving them some rights to those images you aren’t expecting to.  This is a must read for anyone before they upload images to another web site.

Now that being said, Open Studio’s terms of Service give you sole ownership: “Ownership. Artist at all times retains all right, title and interest in and to the Artist Material(s) provided by Artist hereunder (including, without limitation, the copyrights in and to the Artist Material(s)), subject to the non-exclusive rights in the licenses granted to Epicsaurus under this Agreement. Artist is free to grant similar rights to others during and after the Term of this Agreement.”

Facebook is definately a great place to network and keep admirers updated on your work.  If it’s a place for buyers, well…  we’ll see.  But I think that it’s a fantastic application for the right people, so give it a try.

The Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art has created a fantastic web site on street art.  Over a few days through Paris, Evan Roth photographed over 2,400 graffiti tags in all of Paris’ 20 districts for an installation on graffiti taxonomy at the Fondation Cartier.  As an addition to the installation, they also created a fanastic web site that stips the tags into typographic symbols, showing the variety of styles in each work.

Each column highlights a different letter in the tag, clicking on the tag you’re taken to a more detailed row of typographic styles of that letter

Then clicking on that specific letter brings up the original images where that symbol was found.

It’s a fantastic study of graffiti and street art in Paris.  For more information on Evan Roth and his project, check out his personal site for a full rundown on how he put this together.  Evan teaches at Parsons in the city, and is also known for his controversal work creating art out of NYC subway posters.