Eyebeam (organization)

Eyebeam, originally called Eyebeam Atelier, was first conceived as a collaboration between David S. Johnson, a digital artist, and John Seward Johnson III, a filmmaker and philanthropist. The two were introduced by Roderic R. Richardson, a mutual friend who recognized their shared interests and helped establish the new venture in its early stages. The inspiration to name the project Eyebeam Atelier came partly from the sculpture atelier of John Johnson's father, John Seward Johnson II and the Experiments in Art and Technology collective, although David Johnson had also used the name Eyebeam Simulations for a start-up location-based VR entertainment concept before meeting Roderic or John Johnson. After observing new media as a growing genre, the co-founders were motivated to create a similar studio. They recognized a need to provide artists and digital film artists access to new technology and a shared workspace.^[2]

In addition to offering resources for new media artists, Johnson saw a need to provide middle and high school students with educational and artistic opportunities.^[3] Digital Day Camp, the first youth program which catered to new media education, was founded in 1998; in the pilot program, New York-based high school students learned web development and design.^[4] Future sessions included project-based learning around themes of bioart, urban interventionism, game design, and wearable technology.

Eyebeam's first forum, "Interaction", took place online in the summer of 1998 and was curated by UCSD professor Jordan Crandall. The forum, an email list called , was hosted by Brian Holmes, Olu Oguibe, and Gregory Ulmer, and included Lev Manovich, N. Katherine Hayles, Saskia Sassen, Matthew Slotover, Ken Goldberg, Geert Lovink, Knowbotic Research, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger, Mark Tribe, and Critical Art Ensemble among the participating artists, educators, new media and internet theorists, and technologists (cite). The discussions spurred by were compiled into a book titled Interaction: Artistic Practice on the Network and published in 2001.^[5]

In addition to funding artistic research, Johnson hoped to develop Eyebeam as a space that would also function as a museum devoted to new media works.^[6] In 2000, Eyebeam announced an international architectural competition to construct a space devoted to the dialog between art and technology, with the design firm Diller + Scofidio's "Olympic class" design named the winner of the competition.^[7]

Eyebeam held its first open studios for artists in residence and fellows in 2002. Alexander R. Galloway, G. H. Hovagimyan, Tony Martin, Yael Kanarek, MTAA, John Klima, Jem Cohen, Cory Arcangel, and Michael Bell-Smith were among the inaugural exhibitors. Among the projects on display was Galloway's Carnivore,^[8] a Processing library that allowed for the creative misuse of data surveillance created in tandem with other members of Radical Software Group.^[9][10] Carnivore takes its name and function from DCS1000, a surveillance system used by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. Carnivore was awarded the Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica the same year.

Residents Yury Gitman and Carlos Gomez de Llarena's Noderunner,^[11] a scavenger hunt based on Wi-Fi sharing, received the 2003 Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica. Fundrace.org, a site which allows visitors to track campaign contributions through geocoding, was developed by Jonah Peretti, then-director of Research and Development at Eyebeam, and later adapted into a permanent feature on the Huffington Post.^[12] Peretti, together with Alexander Galloway, collaborated on ReBlog,^[13] one of the first blogging platform which allows users to filter and publish content from many RSS feeds. Beginning in 2005, the Eyebeam ReBlog began to feature the Eyebeam Journal,^[14] a series of in-depth writings and interviews with resident artists, research fellows, and guest contributors. During their R&D Fellowships, Theo Watson and Zachary Lieberman continued to develop openFrameworks, a C/C++ library originally created at Parsons. Together with Processing, openFrameworks became one of the most popular platforms for creative coding.^[15]

The Eyebeam OpenLab served as the birthplace of the Graffiti Research Lab. Founded by James Powderly and Evan Roth during their OpenLab fellowships in 2005, the GRL was envisioned as a nonprofit design studio for creating experimental technologies with street art applications.^[16] While at Eyebeam, Powderly and Roth developed a method for creating graffiti messages in individual LED lights and a system for projecting shapes drawn with a handheld laser in real time.^[17] Powderly and Roth later founded the F.A.T. (Free Art and Technology) Lab, a collective dedicated to the merging of open source technology and popular culture, with Theo Watson, Chris Sugrue, and others.^[18]

Eyebeam expanded its programmatic lineup of exhibitions and workshops with MIXER, a series dedicated to showcasing leading performance artists in the field of live video and audio, in late 2007.^[19] The inaugural event, "Brother Islands (Places to Lose People)", was focused around an immersive experimental documentary of North Brother Island and Wards Island by media artist Benton C Bainbridge. MIXER events were organized around themes as disparate as the World's Fair, the 2010 Winter Olympics, and New York City's underground and featured interactive installations alongside performances by musicians and performance artists including DāM-FunK, Extreme Animals, CHERYL, and D-Fuse AV. That same year, fellows and resident artists began organizing mobile workshops and talks. In 2011, several Eyebeam residents, fellows, and alumni participated in Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Eyebeam Fellow Ayah Bdeir's littleBits, a DIY kit of open source pre-assembled circuits, was among the projects displayed and was acquired by the MoMA as part of their permanent collection.^[20]

In February 2014 the first ever Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon was hosted at Eyebeam and co-organized by fellow Laurel Ptak in conjunction with more than 30 satellite edit-a-thons internationally across the United States, Canada, Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

Since November 2017 Eyebeam has been located at 199 Cook Street in Brooklyn. This coincides with their 20th anniversary^[21] as an organization which was celebrated in Spring 2018.

Discover more about History related topics

John Seward Johnson II

John Seward Johnson II

John Seward Johnson II, also known as J. Seward Johnson Jr. and Seward Johnson, was an American artist known for trompe-l'œil painted bronze statues. He was a grandson of Robert Wood Johnson I, the co-founder of Johnson & Johnson, and of Colonel Thomas Melville Dill of Bermuda.

Experiments in Art and Technology

Experiments in Art and Technology

Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), a non-profit and tax-exempt organization, was established in 1967 to develop collaborations between artists and engineers. The group operated by facilitating person-to-person contacts between artists and engineers, rather than defining a formal process for cooperation. E.A.T. initiated and carried out projects that expanded the role of the artist in contemporary society and helped explore the separation of the individual from technological change.

Media literacy

Media literacy

Media literacy is an expanded conceptualization of literacy that includes the ability to access and analyze media messages as well as create, reflect and take action, using the power of information and communication to make a difference in the world. Media literacy is not restricted to one medium and is understood as a set of competencies that are essential for work, life, and citizenship. Media literacy education is the process used to advance media literacy competencies, and it is intended to promote awareness of media influence and create an active stance towards both consuming and creating media. Media literacy education is part of the curriculum in the United States and some European Union countries, and an interdisciplinary global community of media scholars and educators engages in knowledge and scholarly and professional journals and national membership associations.

Game design

Game design

Game design is the process of creating and shaping the mechanics, systems, and rules of a game. Games can be created for entertainment, education, exercise, or experimental purposes. Increasingly, elements and principles of game design are also applied to other interactions, in the form of gamification. Game designer and developer Robert Zubek defines game design by breaking it down into its elements, which he says are the following:Gameplay, which is the interaction between the player and the mechanics and systems Mechanics and systems, which are the rules and objects in the game Player experience, which is how users feel when they're playing the game

Brian Holmes

Brian Holmes

Brian Holmes is a professor of philosophy at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where he teaches an intensive summer seminar. He has worked with the French graphics collective Ne Pas Plier from 1999 to 2001 and the French cartography collective Bureau d'Études.

Gregory Ulmer

Gregory Ulmer

Gregory Leland Ulmer is a professor in the Department of English at the University of Florida (Gainesville) and a professor of Electronic Languages and Cybermedia at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.

Lev Manovich

Lev Manovich

Lev Manovich is an author of books on digital culture and new media, and professor of Computer Science at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Manovich's current research and teaching focuses on digital humanities, social computing, new media art and theory, and software studies.

N. Katherine Hayles

N. Katherine Hayles

Nancy Katherine Hayles is an American postmodern literary critic, most notable for her contribution to the fields of literature and science, electronic literature, and American literature. She is the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emerita of Literature, Literature, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences at Duke University.

Matthew Slotover

Matthew Slotover

Matthew Slotover is an English publisher and entrepreneur. He is co-founder of Frieze, a media and events company, which now includes the Frieze Art Fair, frieze and Frieze Academy.

Ken Goldberg

Ken Goldberg

Kenneth Yigael Goldberg is an American artist, writer, inventor, and researcher in the field of robotics and automation. He is professor and chair of the industrial engineering and operations research department at the University of California, Berkeley, and holds the William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair in Engineering at Berkeley, with joint appointments in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), Art Practice, and the School of Information. Goldberg also holds an appointment in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco.

Geert Lovink

Geert Lovink

Geert Lovink is the founding director of the Institute of Network Cultures, whose goals are to explore, document and feed the potential for socio-economical change of the new media field through events, publications and open dialogue. As theorist, activist and net critic, Lovink has made an effort in helping to shape the development of the web.

Knowbotic Research

Knowbotic Research

Knowbotic Research is a German-Swiss electronic art group, established in 1991. Its members are Yvonne Wilhelm, Christian Hübler and Alexander Tuchacek. They hold a professorship for Art and Media at the University of the Arts in Zurich.

• John Seward Johnson III: 1997–2004
• Steven Tremble: 2004–2005
• Amanda McDonald Crowley: 2005–2011
• Patricia C. Jones: 2011–2015
• Roddy Schrock: 2015–present