Rhizome | Blog Posts tagged "community"

A Compromise: Bring Us to $20,000 and We'll End the 2013 Fundraiser

Rhizome | Mon Jan 14th, 2013 9:53 a.m.

It's been a big year for worthy, interesting projects and causes for you all to support. With Hurricane Sandy relief efforts all along the east coast, many great projects on sites like Kickstarter, and the countless other ways our community gives, we understand if you're a little tapped out this year.

Arts organizations like ours survive year in, year out, on the support of the publics we serve. Since we became a non-profit, we've been running our campaign annually and thousands of people have donated over the years – we are thankful for the support we've received. Though we promote the fundraiser online, it's not crowd funding in the way most people have come to understand it today. It's not a one-time project, there's no end date or cut-off for the work we do. Rhizome's fundraiser is an annual ask, rooted in a tradition of public support for arts organizations they deem critical and necessary. Rhizome's mission – to examine, and sometimes challenge, the role that technology plays in culture, from the unique perspective of contemporary art – is one that our readers and audiences believe in.

We know you'd like to get back to regular programming at Rhizome. Let's compromise – take us just a bit farther, to $20,000, and we'll cap off the campaign knowing we've got to work harder than ever this year to make sure your investment goes as far as it can to reach our goals. We're willing, if you are.

Please, donate today.

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Tabor Robak for Rhizome's Community Fundraiser

Rhizome | Thu Jan 10th, 2013 1 p.m.

In the final week of Rhizome's Community Fundraising Campaign, we profile seven artists hand-picked by Rhizome to generously contribute artworks, ensuring you receive compelling thank you gifts at every donation level. Give now to receive one of these works.

Tabor Robak creates sci-fi and techno-utopian interactive virtual environments, websites, videos and images. His imagery exploits high-end commercial aesthetics and slick special effects found in design, video games, action and sci-fi fantasy films.

Vatican Vibes, Music video for Fatima Al Qadiri, HD video with sound, 5:16 min, 2011

Robak spoke about his exaltation of technology in his work in his Artist Profile, last year:

"I truly believe in the transformative potential of technology but I am also trying to be a realist. As eagerly as I await the singularity I also think it is ridiculous to hope for a techno-god to save us. There are 2 feelings I frequently find that reflected in my work that express this attitude. One is a complete, hopeful, teary-eyed love of the glittering special effects and commercial aesthetics. The other is a dark, almost comedic feeling of contentless emptiness."

Rocks (mirrored) (2012)

For Rhizome's Community Campaign, Robak has generously donated a limited edition digital print (20'' x 30'') from his Rocks series, Rocks (mirrored) (2012) available at the $125 level. Donors will also receive the limited edition tote bag by ReCode Project, the 56 + 10 Broken Kindle Screens (Kindle Edition) eBook, and one full year of Rhizome membership.

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Adam Harvey for Rhizome's Community Fundraiser

Rhizome | Wed Jan 9th, 2013 11:57 a.m.

In the final week of Rhizome's Community Fundraising Campaign, we profile seven artists hand-picked by Rhizome to generously contribute artworks, ensuring you receive compelling thank you gifts at every donation level. Give now to receive one of these works.

Concerned with the ever growing level of surveillance today, the work of Brooklyn-based artist Adam Harvey aims to provide a fashionable and functional means to combat it.

The Off Pocket is one in a series of projects where Harvey has thwarted the methods by which we are tracked in contemporary society — whether it be phone signal, or cameras, Harvey's work uncovers the surreptitious new enablers of surveillance societies. In an Artist Profile for Rhizome, Harvey explains:

"Smartphones infiltrate our senses. They cause anxiety, phantom vibrations, and keep us on alert. We expend energy maintaining an always-on connection. Smartphones should come with a switch to turn this off, but they don’t. Turning my iPhone off and back on takes 45 seconds. Using flight mode is also clumsy. I wanted a way to quickly and politely disconnect myself without relying on the phone’s software or hardware features. The Off Pocket circumvents this design flaw."

Harvey has donated twenty of his Off Pockets (Off Pouch version) which prevent data leakage from your smart phone. Placing your phone inside of the Off Pocket will improve personal privacy for smart phone users concerned about phone hacking, tracking, or simply a break from the connected life.

Contributions of $300 will receive an Off Pocket as well as the limited edition tote bag by ReCode Project, the 56 + 10 Broken Kindle Screens (Kindle Edition) eBook, and one full year of Rhizome membership.

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Phillip Stearns for Rhizome's Community Fundraiser

Rhizome | Tue Jan 8th, 2013 11 a.m.

In the final week of Rhizome's Community Fundraising Campaign, we profile seven artists hand-picked by Rhizome to generously contribute artworks, ensuring you receive compelling thank you gifts at every donation level. Give now to receive one of these works.

2012 was the Year of the Glitch for Brooklyn-based artist Phillip Stearns. Devoted to exploring the manifestations of glitches produced by electronics, Stearns posted a new image, video or sound file to his Year of the Glitch tumblr every day throughout the year.

Glitch Textile (all images courtesy of the artist)

The images on Year of the Glitch are "not of broken things, but the unlocking of other worlds latent in the technologies with which we surround ourselves. Part of what this project is about is approaching the familiar with fresh senses, to turn it into something that is unfamiliar."

Through his glitch-a-day project, Stearns developed a collection of woven and knit textiles whose patterns were generated using images taken with short circuited digital cameras. Glitch Textiles converts cold, hard digital information in to warm, soft blankets, rugs or tapestries. Stearns's textiles exposes the technology that surrounds us, and transforms it into a cozy and inviting object to wrap yourself in.

Stearns has donated five Glitch Textiles to Rhizome's Community Fundraiser. Available at the $500 level, donors will receive a Knit Glitch Blanket (40" x 60") made from machine washable 100% cotton. Donors at this level will also receive the limited edition tote bag by ReCode Project, the 56 + 10 Broken Kindle Screens (Kindle Edition) eBook, and one full year of Rhizome membership.

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Matthew Plummer-Fernandez For Rhizome's Community Fundraiser

Rhizome | Mon Jan 7th, 2013 12:06 p.m.

In the final week of Rhizome's Community Fundraising Campaign, we profile seven artists hand-picked by Rhizome to generously contribute artworks, ensuring you receive compelling thank you gifts at every donation level. Give now to receive one of these works.

Matthew Plummer-Fernandez is a London-based artist who combines scanning, 3D printing, and computational approaches to make remixed art objects. His 3D printed works expose the limitations of the technology and the glitches that occur when translating real objects into digital ones.

In his Digital Natives series, Plummer-Fernandez samples everyday household items, remixes them using his own software, and then 3D prints them using a z-corp printer with a color resin, in order to blur the line between the real and the digital. Once functional objects are rendered useless, but beautiful, in their new algorithmically abstracted forms. Laura Davidson reviews Plummer-Fernandez's work for Rhizome, noting he takes: "...a more creative approach to engineering... His work proposes new ways in how we discuss the process of making a crafted object. Algorithms and their parameters become a tool to be mastered in the same way a lathe or a chisel would be... The results are almost alchemic and magical."

For Rhizome's Community Fundraiser, Plummer-Fernadez has donated two limited edition pieces from the Digital Natives series, available at the $1,000 level. The designs were based on a scan of a typical yellow ceramic jug and transformed using the artist's software. These unique table sculptures will be printed in the color of your choice.

Images courtesy of the artist

You will also become a member of the Rhizome Council, a leadership council for significant supporters that brings you closer to Rhizome. As a member, you will be invited to special Council-only events including intimate studio visits with entrepreneurs and artists in ...

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Less Than Two Weeks Left to Donate to Rhizome in 2013

Rhizome | Wed Jan 2nd, 2013 10:58 a.m.

Happy New Year from all at Rhizome. The new year starts with a new push encouraging you to donate to our annual fundraising campaign, and you'll be seeing things ramp up around here during its final two weeks. The amount we're raising is crucial to our programs in 2013, and will further Rhizome's mission to examine technology culture and its social, political and aesthetic implications, from the perspective of contemporary art. If you value Rhizome's work — if you read the site, share links to our articles, use it to find out about new artists, come to our exhibitions and events, or interact with the organization in any number of ways since 1996 — donate today.

Arts organizations like ours survive on the support of the publics they serve, and Rhizome has a particularly strong community around it. With under two weeks left, now is the time to express your support.

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Limited Edition Artwork Available During the Community Fundraiser

Rhizome | Wed Dec 19th, 2012 10:57 a.m.

When you make a contribution to Rhizome's Community Fundraiser this holiday season, you'll receive a fantastic limited edition art work as our way of saying thanks - think about it as an investment in a post-holiday pick me up. We are midway through the annual Community Fundraiser and with your support Rhizome can continue to bring great programming in 2013.

Every year, we reach out to our community for a vital portion of our operating budget. This year, our goal of $30,000 will help take Rhizome into 2013 and beyond.

There is a gift at every donation level:

Give $30and receive an exclusive eBook, 56+10 Broken Kindle Screens (2012) by Sebastian Schmieg and Silvio Lorusso plus one full year of Rhizome membership.

Give $50 and receive a limited edition tote bag featuring an image by ReCode Project plus the eBook and one full year of Rhizome membership.

Give $125 and receive a limited edition print of Tabor Robak's Rocks (mirrored) (2012) plus the tote bag, eBook and one full year of membership.

Give $300 and receive a limited edition artwork for your phone, Off Pocket by Adam Harvey, plus the tote bag, eBook, and one full year of Rhizome membership.

Give $500 and receive a cozy, limited edition glitch textile artwork, Knit Glitch Blanket (2012) by Phillip Stearns, plus the tote bag, eBook, and one full year of Rhizome membership.

Give $1,000 and receive a unique 3D printed sculpture, from Digital Natives by Matthew Plummer-Fernandez, plus the tote bag, eBook, and one full year of Rhizome membership at the Council level.

These gifts can be yours with a donation. And, with tax-time coming too, a reminder that your contribution is tax deductible to the extent of the law. Your support is essential to our mission ...

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Watch Rhizome's Nostalgic VHS History from 2001 — and Donate for 2013!

Zoë Salditch | Wed Dec 12th, 2012 12:54 p.m.

About Rhizome 2001 VHS

This informational video from 2001, recently unearthed in the archives, is a nostalgic reminder of Rhizome's roots. Though the VHS format is near obsolete, our history will never be, and we maintain the same international and community-driven spirit today as seen in this video.

Since 1996, Rhizome has evolved and refreshed many times over. From email list-serv to thriving non-profit, the organization always strives to bring together an international and diverse community. We hope to reinvigorate and re-engage the international community featured on our website by bringing our programs and events abroad. By hosting programs in other cities, Rhizome can promote artists and communities beyond New York City in more meaningful ways.

However, we must raise the necessary funds in order to realize our goals in 2013 and beyond. Every year we rely on our community to contribute to our operational budget in ways that grants and sponsorships cannot. Please consider contributing to the Community Fundraiser today. Your donation is a vote of confidence as we grow our programs in the next year.

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Community Fundraiser: Supporting Technology and the Arts

Rhizome | Wed Dec 5th, 2012 2:12 p.m.

Kitchen Table Coders Workshop, held at the New Museum

Rhizome occupies an unique place in the ecology of art and technology, often where these two worlds meet for the first time. Since 1996, Rhizome promoted the innovation and artistic output from the open-source and hacker communities across the world. In 2013, Rhizome plans to take our art and technology programs one step further. Please consider making a contribution to the Community Fundraiser, you will make a significant difference in the reach of Rhizome's programming in the technology world.

Rhizome is not only embraced by artists but also cutting-edge technologists who look to Rhizome for inspiration. Through our programs like New Silent Series and Seven on Seven, we actively bring great minds from these fields together. We believe that the arts have a vital role in the development of technology and, through support from our community, Rhizome will continue to grow, diversify and help shape this field, now and in the future.

Rhizome has always recognized the importance of a free and open internet for creative online communities. In the last few years, threats of government regulations have threatened to limit the freedom of information online. We protested SOPA by blacking out our site for a day in solidarity with other sites like Wikipedia. Most recently, Rhizome joined major sites such as Reddit, Techdirt, Cheesburger and Github by creating a microsite dedicated to examining and expanding the Declaration of Internet Freedom as it applies to the artistic practices on the web. Whenever there are threats to internet freedom, Rhizome is there to lend its organizational voice as a leader in the art and tech world in support of a free and open internet.

By making a contribution to the annual Community Fundraiser, you'll keep Rhizome at the forefront of these important issues that effect both artistic and technology communities.

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Help Fund Rhizome's Preservation Program

Ben Fino-Radin | Wed Nov 28th, 2012 11:09 a.m.

Rhizome has always placed an emphasis on, and played a leading role in the preservation of born-digital works of art and culture. Since 2001, our archive, the ArtBase has grown to become one of the most comprehensive collections of its kind, and our preservation practices have inspired an emerging generation of archivists. Here at the end of 2012 however, we find ourselves on the precipice of a new moment. Our ambitions have grown, or mission expanded, and we need your help in order to accomplish our goals in 2013. Please consider making a donation to our Annual Community Fundraiser to help us realize our preservation efforts.

Recently, we were generously donated two machines (seen above) from 1993, that functioned as servers for a NYC based electronic bulletin board system (BBS) that many readers will be familiar with: The Thing. This BBS was one of the earliest online communities of artists, curators, and critics, and grew to become a forum for international discourse – all of this pre-dating the emergence of the World Wide Web. In 1994, when The Thing migrated to the web, much of the BBS material was left behind. As well – the material nature of the experience of using The Thing was forever changed – transitioning from a text-based or crude graphical interface, to the new interactive affordances of the web.

Rhizome is on a mission to rescue data from these machines, and others, that contains the sole remaining complete record of The Thing as a BBS. Our goal is to restore access to this data through a virtualization that will allow the public to interact with The Thing BBS. In order to accomplish this task, there are very real costs. This is Rhizome’s first forray into a project involving digital forensics, and with your support we can secure the crucial hardware required for this work.

In 2012, the scale of our web archiving efforts grew exponentially. In the past, works that were preserved in the ArtBase tended to be of relatively small scale – solitary works or projects. We are now archiving sites that are much larger in scope, including the legendary website of prominent collective, Paper Rad. In order to make large scale web archiving efforts a larger part of our everyday operations, we need the community's support in order to grow the Rhizome team.

The past year was a boon for expanding the ArtBase collection. This past summer, the prolific Rafael Rozendaal donated the entirety of his finished works produced to-date – consisting of 75 websites in all. In addition to this sizeable donation, we preserved over seventy works, just a few highlights of which including:

Takeshi Murata • Paper Rad • Kari Altman • Dragan Espensheid • Old Boys Network • Hugo Arcier • Justin Kemp • Michael Manning • Paint FX • Brian Khek • Timur Si-Qin • Digital Crafts • Brenna Murphy • Tabor Robak • Sebastian Schmieg • Rosa Menkman • V5mt • Johannes P Osterhoff • Christine Love

While our preservation efforts and accomplishments in 2012 have been no small feat, our goals for 2013 are ambitious to the extent that we can’t realize them without a bit of help. I hope that you will consider a donation today, so that Rhizome may continue to ensure the longevity of these important slices of history.

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