Syndicate: San Francisco Museum Creates $50,000 Internet Art Award

["Joseph Nechvatal" <jnech@hotmail.com>]

   January 20, 2000  New York Times

                          By MATTHEW MIRAPAUL

                          San Francisco Museum Creates $50,000
                          Internet Art Award


                                 In the hope that it will serve as a 
generous incentive for contemporary artists to
                                 forsake the canvas for the computer 
keyboard, the San Francisco Museum of
                                 Modern Art is establishing a $50,000 annual 
competition for Internet art, part of
                          the museum's ambitious plans for stimulating 
interest in the emerging genre.
                          The SFMOMA Webby Prize for Excellence in Online 
Art will go to as many as three
                          digital artists for their overall work, not for 
specific projects. The cash prize,
                          financed by an anonymous donor, will be divided 
among the winners. The first
                          recipients will be announced on May 11 in San 
Francisco at the annual ceremony for
                          the Webby Awards, which are billed as the 
Internet's version of the Oscars
                          In a telephone interview, David A. Ross,
                          SFMOMA's director, said the new award was
                          designed to call attention to the Internet as a
                          medium for creative expression and to
                          encourage artists to explore its aesthetic
                          potential. The prize, he said, was also meant to
                          "spur additional thinking about what kind of
                          activity takes place on the Web in an artistic
                          framework."

                          "It's not like awarding the best movie of the
                          year," Ross said. "It's a broader prize for
                          artistic vision."

                          Even though the number of commissions and
                          foundation grants for online-art projects is
                          gradually increasing, competitions are still rare.
                          To date, the most prestigious has been the ".net"
                          category of the Prix Ars Electronica, hosted
                          annually by the Ars Electronica Center in Linz, 
Austria. The top prize for 1999, about
                          $8,600, went to the operating system Linux. The 
SFMOMA award is closer in value to
                          the 20,000 pounds (about $33,000) attached to the 
Turner Prize, given each year by
                          London's Tate Gallery to a British artist under 50 
working in any medium.
                          The competition is only one element in SFMOMA's 
broad agenda for the digital arts.
                          To fill its slot for a curator of media arts, the 
museum has hired Benjamin Weil, the
                          co-founder of ada'web, a seminal Internet-art site 
that from 1994 to 1998 induced
                          such well-known artists as Doug Aitken and Jenny 
Holzer to experiment with the
                          Internet.

                          In mid-February, SFMOMA will launch a redesigned 
and expanded Web site with a
                          strong educational focus and an online gallery for 
Internet art. And at midnight on
                          January 1, 2001, the Internet version of the 
museum's exhibit "010101: Art in
                          Technological Times" will open. It is expected to 
feature a number of newly
                          commissioned Internet-based works.

                          Ross said the museum's commitment to media art in 
general, and digital art in
                          particular, was no different than the embrace of 
photography and video art by cultural
                          institutions over the past decades. "It would be 
rather more odd not to have such a
                          program in a contemporary art museum today," he 
said.
                                                                                                             
But in addition to suiting Ross's own
                                                                                                             
cutting-edge curatorial sensibilities --
                                                                                                             
in a lecture last year, he tried to
                                                                                                             
identify the 21 distinctive qualities of
                                                                                                             
Net art -- the museum's focus on
                                                                                                             
high-tech art also represents a savvy
                                                                                                             
fundraising strategy. Ross joined the
                                                                                                             
museum in June 1998 after a
                                                                                                             
seven-year stint as director of the
                                                                                                             
Whitney Museum of American Art in
                                                                                                             
New York. Although SFMOMA has
                                                                                                             
made a raft of important acquisitions
                                                                                                             
since then, Ross acknowledged he
                                                                                                             
has made limited progress in
                          attracting financial support from the wealthy 
entrepreneurs of nearby Silicon Valley.
                          What better way to draw dollars than to appeal to 
the future philanthropists in their
                          own language?

                          And there are plenty of opportunities. While 
American museums are using the Web
                          for marketing and educational purposes, most have 
been slow to consider the Internet
                          as a platform for presenting art. Noteworthy 
exceptions are the Walker Art Center in
                          Minneapolis and the Dia Center for the Arts in 
Manhattan, which regularly
                          commission and display works created expressly for 
the digital medium.
                          Ross disputed the notion that museums have been, 
at best, inching toward the
                          Internet. Administrators who want their 
institutions to be involved in media art, he
                          said, "have recognized that to be serious about it 
means substantial changes in the
                          structure of the museum."

                          At SFMOMA, that means the online gallery, dubbed 
"e.space," will be devoted to
                          Internet-based work instead of tiny reproductions 
of paintings. The first exhibit will
                          be a selection of five Web sites from the museum's 
design collection. It will be
                          followed in April by "Locomotion: Moving without 
Moving," which will be assembled
                          by Aaron Betsky, SFMOMA's highly regarded curator 
of architecture and design, and
                          will look at how dance and other forms of movement 
are transformed into data.
                          Weil said one of his goals would be to position 
Internet
                          art in relation to the museum's extensive 
collection of
                          video art. He also intends to invite technical 
experts to
                          speak at the museum on topics like streaming 
media, as
                          he did while at London's Institute of Contemporary 
Arts,
                          encouraging them to feel welcome in a cultural
                          environment. And he would like to build an 
international
                          network of regional online-art resources. "As much 
as
                          we talk about the Net being global," he remarked, 
"it's
                          still very hard to find out what's happening 
locally."
                          Ross said the SFMOMA Webby Prize was conceived in 
the summer of 1997 while he
                          and friend, a New York philanthropist who wishes 
to remain anonymous, were
                          walking on a beach in Martha's Vineyard. They 
agreed that the genre had not yet
                          progressed enough to justify a prize, but his 
friend's offer to provide the money for it
                          remained open. Last year, while Ross was serving 
on the jury for the Webby Awards
                          art category, he was sufficiently impressed with 
the diversity of the entries to
                          contact his friend. Tiffany Shlain, founder of the 
International Academy of Digital
                          Arts and Sciences, which holds the Webby event, 
agreed to administer the
                          competition.

                          The SFMOMA Webby Prize will be selected by a jury 
composed of four SFMOMA
                          curators and three outside experts. An 
international call for entries will be issued
                          Feb. 21. On May 12, the day after the awards 
ceremony, SFMOMA will hold a
                          symposium about online art, with the winning 
artists invited to participate in
                          discussions of the genre. "One of the reasons 
we're doing the award program is to
                          generate some critical response," Ross said.


Matthew Mirapaul at mirapaul@nytimes.com
welcomes your comments and
                          suggestions.






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